Caught the 4th day of the NHRA Winternationals Drag Race at Pomona that included the finals for the Pro Stock, Funny Car and Top Fuel classes. It was a beautiful setting…clear, crisp weather with snow-capped mountains in the background. Don “The Snake” Prudhomme was honored as part of the NHRA 60th Anniversary Season celebration. Congrats to Jason Line, Robert Hight and Morgan Lucas for their class wins. A few random images are attached. -bt

If you’ve never been to a big-time NHRA drag race, throw it on your “bucket list”. Nothing like 8,000 hp top fuel dragsters and funny cars running side-by-side at 300 mph! Even way up in the stands you can feel the heat as they pass by. The sound is unbelievable…you’ve got to hear it to believe it. We cruised up to Pomona for the last event in the National Hot Rod Association’s 2010 season. Saturday isn’t as crowded and you get to see some runs after dark. One of the best races of the weekend was the last Funny Car race on Saturday…John Force defeated Matt Hagan in a really close showdown between number 2 (Force) and number 1 (Hagan) in season points. On Sunday, John Force won the season championship in Funny Car and then the event itself. Force was joined in the winner’s circle at Auto Club Raceway at Pomona by Antron Brown (Top Fuel), Shane Gray (Pro Stock), and Eddie Krawiec (Pro Stock Motorcycle). Larry Dixon, Greg Anderson and TE Tonglet clinched the season championships in Top Fuel, Pro Stock and Pro Stock Motorcycle respectively. Check out the pictures for a look around in the pits, staging lanes and grand stands. And thank you Carl for the additional pix. -bt

On Wednesday afternoon June 23rd JBA co-sponsored Dragster Nite at the Steakhouse Stake Out at Pinnacle Peak Steakhouse on Mission Gorge Road. Somehow we found a way to get out of moving our shop for a few hours to hang out with a bunch of drag racers. We brought down Fenn’s Vega drag car and Tucker’s old split window. The special guest was Don Prudhomme and he was as friendly as can be. He made a point of walking around the whole show and talking with folks, posing for pictures and signing autographs. Even though he’s earned superstar status in drag racing, at this show he was just another gearhead checking out the cars. One of the funny things he said about his driving career was “I’ve been on fire from here to New York .” See the attached pictures for more of the story. -bt

Just a quick thank you to the members of the Bonneville 200 MPH Club that put together the Annual Summer Party held at the NHRA Motorsports Museum on June 5th, 2010. I cruised up to Pomona with my son for the drinks, food, music, bench racing, raffle and all around fun. BBQ by Dan catered the event and the food was killer…especially the pork ribs. Lot’s of land speed racing celebrities too. Got our picture taken with a cigar-chomping Ed Iskendarian who was nice as can be. The raffle had great prizes like a framed picture of Thrust SSC breaking the sound barrier at Black Rock signed by the pilot…I mean…the driver Andy Green. The only reason the raffle sucked was that we didn’t win anything! Couldn’t ask for a better location than the NHRA Motorsports Museum (unless they moved the museum to San Diego). If you’ve never been to the museum, make it a priority. For more info, go to www.museum.nhra.com. Thanks again to the “two club” volunteers and club sponsors for a great event. -bt