HIGHT EXTENDS FUNNY CAR POINTS LEAD (By: Anthony Vestal)

Robert Hight raced to his third victory of the season Sunday at the NHRA Las Vegas Nationals and is on the verge of winning his first Funny Car world championship crown.

Spencer Massey, Larry Morgan and Andrew Hines also were winners of the NHRA Full Throttle Drag Racing Series event at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. The race is the fifth of six events in the Countdown to 1, NHRA’s championship playoffs.

Hight beat second place driver and teammate Ashley Force Hood in the first round of eliminations and then pulled out a very close final round victory over Jack Beckman to take a 105-point lead in the standings.

“It’s amazing what a win can do and get that confidence back,” said Hight, who powered his Auto Club Ford Mustang to a performance of 4.125 seconds at 304.46 to edge Beckman’s Valvoline/MTS Dodge Charger at the finish line, which trailed with a 4.154 at 303.16. It was Hight's 14th career victory and his second at this track.

“That was a close race in the final,” Hight continued. “All the runs this weekend the car was on its performance. The championship isn’t over yet, but to have a 105-point lead gives you a lot of confidence.”

In Top Fuel, Auto Club Road to the Future nominee Spencer Massey earned his second victory of the season, beating team owner Don “The Snake” Prudomme’s former driver, Larry Dixon, in the final round.

Massey, who outran Shawn Langdon, Steve Torrence and Brandon Bernstein to reach the final, powered his U.S. Smokeless dragster to a 3.827 at 314.53 in the final to beat Dixon, whose Al-Anabi Racing Dragster lost traction at the start and posted a 5.503 at 174.87.

“It’s unbelievable just being able to get to the final round,” said Massey, who replaced Dixon in the cockpit of the Prudhomme-owned dragster in the off-season. Dixon drove Prudhomme’s car for 14 seasons before joining Alan Johnson’s team this season.

Massey is among four rookies eligible for the Auto Club Road to the Future award, including this weekend’s Funny Car top qualifier Matt Hagan and fellow Top Fuel driver Langdon and Pro Stock Motorcycle racer Doug Horne. Massey says picking the winner this year will be a tough chore for the more than 135 members of the media who will vote to decide it.

With the runner-up finish, Dixon now trails series leader and six-time champ Tony Schumacher by one point. Veteran driver Cory McClenathan, who defeated Schumacher in the second round, is in third in the title hunt, 48 points back.

Top Fuel racing at Las Vegas contained some much enhanced and welcomed international participation as the class welcomed no less then four European-based drivers. Three qualified, Thomas Nataas (Norway), Urs Erbacher (Switzerland) and Stig Neergaard (Denmark) while Lex Joon (from the Netherlands) missed the cut. As a result the Top Fuel racing field at Las Vegas was the biggest of the ’09 season with 26 cars making qualifying attempts.

In Pro Stock Larry Morgan scored his first win since 2002 and 10th of his career, outrunning first-time finalist Rickie Jones in the final round. Morgan posted a 6.720 at 205.69 in his Lucas Oil Dodge Stratus to hold off Jones’ Elite Motorsports Stratus, which trailed with a 6.794 at 203.16.

“I threw a hundred dollars in a slot machine and won $1,200, and I thought I might be pretty lucky here,” said Morgan, who beat Jason Line, Mike Edwards and Greg Stanfield in earlier rounds. “I felt relaxed all day and everything was going our way. We put ourselves in a position to win and I guess I drove well enough to beat the bad guys out here.”

Edwards now holds a 139-point lead over second place Greg Anderson. Edwards needs only to qualify at the season finale to clinch the series title.

Hines took his third win of the season and 18th of his career in Pro Stock Motorcycle when series leader Hector Arana fouled at the start in the final round on his Lucas Oil Buell.

“In the final, Hector must have been rattled. He did a neutral burnout. He didn’t put the bike in gear, and that’s never a good thing. When I heard that, I had a feeling that I was going to get the win light.

With the runner-up finish Arana increased his series lead to 54 over defending champ Eddie Krawiec. Arana defeated Krawiec in a titan semifinal match with a holeshot start.

The 2009 NHRA Full Throttle Drag Racing Series season concludes Nov. 12-15 at the Auto Club NHRA Finals in Pomona, Calif.

Get Screened America PM Wrap-up (By Matthew Brammer)

A spectacular season of racing in the Get Screened America Pro Mod Challenge presented by ProCare RX ended Sunday with Jay Payne winning the final event of the 2009 season at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. The event, the 10th of 10 on the 2009 NHRA Pro Mod calendar, put the finishing touches on a record-setting season that saw the all-time Pro Mod record book undergo a complete re-write.

Payne ended the season, the ninth year of NHRA Pro Mod competition, with a final-round win over Brad Personett, who red-lighted after a lengthy burn-down. It was Payne's second straight win in the series, coming three weeks after his victory at the super-quick Richmond event.

The Pro Mod Challenge's 2009 season championship was also determined at the NHRA Las Vegas Nationals, with Burton Auxier, driving one of the Al-Anabi nitrous-oxide-boosted entries, holding off R2B2 Racing's Roger Burgess for the title. With both drivers losing in successive pairs in the quarterfinals, Auxier was able to make his incoming points lead hold up, eventually finishing with a 662-631 points advantage. With his successive event wins, Payne shot all the way up to third place in the final standings, finishing with 626 points.

Payne qualified No. 2 in Las Vegas with a 5.971 best, then opened Sunday's eliminations with a win over Tim Tindle, who red-lighted. He followed up with a 6.08 to 6.04 holeshot win over Chip King in the quarterfinals, and then outran Dennis Radford in the semifinals, 6.04 to 6.14, to set up the final-round showdown against Personett.

Saturday’s GSA Pro Mod racing schedule included the lucrative Pro Mod Clash which featured a $25,000 win for New York’s Mike Castellana, who is the teammate to Burton Auxier. In that all nitrous-injected final round pairing both drivers had tire shake problems but it was Castellana who recovered best to take the win at 6.261 secs 230.21 mph.