Editor's Extra

Here are some photos of the newest addition to Atchison Racing. 

Congratulations to Rob and Julie on the birth of their new son May 6th  -- Wyatt Robert -- and also to proud grandparents Bob and Maxine. 

Wyatt, Robbie & Julie

Wyatt Robert - 1 day old!

The newest crew member rolled over the scales 8 lbs. 3 oz!  

Al Hines PM Vette (2)

Al Hinds PM Vette

We will be doing an feature on DragRaceCanada Hotzone shortly -- but here is a sneak preview of a photo shoot we did of Al Hinds absolutely awesome new Corvette Pro Mod.   Sponsored by Q-HorsePower and Jiffy Lube -- the car (based from Waterloo ON) will run select PMRA and IHRA events this season.

Bruce Biegler Photos

Toronto's Raymond Commisso was the quickest and fastest Pro Mod car once again during the Jegs Pro Mod Challenge event at NHRA Atlanta last weekend.  Driving his new Vanishing Point-built, Al Billes powered '68 Firebird, Ray set both low ET and top speed of the meet while qualifying #1 at 5.957 secs at 244.87 mph.

Ray won his first round match over Rick Stivers but then had the car shake hard while losing to his teamate Roger Burgess in the 2nd round.

(Bruce Biegler Photo)

PM Pole at NHRA Atlanta!

Ontario's Konigshofer Brothers debuted their all new Jerry Haas built Mustang (right out of the box) at IHRA Rockingham last weekend.   The cars very first "hit" was the first qualifier on Friday.  Despite extreme new car blues -- they did manage a very respectable 6.483 secs at 215.13 mph on Saturday -- but hurt the motor doing it. 

(Bruce Biegler Photos)

Johnny K's new ride!

Claude Lavoie -- driver of Canada's fastest front-motored dragster -- won the A/Fuel dragster eliminator during round #2 of NHRA's all new Hot Rod Heritage Series -- held at Fontana CA last weekend.

Claude Lavoie - A/FD

Claude qualified 6th and beat Jeremy Sullivan and Darrell Waters to make the final round.  In the final he beat Nick Norton with his best run of the weekend -- 6.386 secs at 220.01 mph.

Lavoie is from Sherwood Park, AB.   (Bruce Biegler Photo)

New Veale A/FD

Here is a sneak preview of Jeff Veale's new A/FD.

The Ontario based team have completed their switch from a B/AD to the nitro-burning, fuel injected dragster, and will debut their brand new A/Fuel Dragster at the Division 3 opener at O'Reilly Raceway Park in Indianapolis. Veale, a resident of Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, will contend at all of the Division 3 events slated for 2008, and will also compete at several National events during the racing season, including Joliet, Norwalk, and Indy.

Photo courtesy of: David Ostaszewski

New Eaton Corvette

Carl "Big Dog" Spiering made his competition debut with his all new Eaton-sponsored '63 Corvette during NHRA's ACDelco Gatornationals.  Carl qualified the new machine with a 6.223 secs (14th) for the Jegs Pro Mod Challenge event only to have the car fail to fire in round one.

(Bruce Biegler Photo)

NHRA's 50th Anniversary March Meet at Bakersfield California featured a number of Canadian runners not the least of which were Western Canada's Mike Grekul and Andy Beauchemin who were both entered in the Nostalgia Funny Car eliminator.

Grekul drove the awesome new Pleuger & Gyger '72 Mustang replica owned by Steve Pleuger and run in conjunction with Bucky Austin.  Beauchemin was behind the wheel of Tim Stevenson's "Tachman" Mustang a car that was formally raced by Ontario's Frank Jonkman.

DragRaceCanada will have a feature story on the Grekul effort -- coming soon to Hotzone.

(Bruce Biegler Photos)

Mike Grekul

Andy Beauchemin

The entire drag racing community was glad to see John Force back in competition during the season-opening NHRA Winternationals at Pomona!  That's DragRaceCanada's own Bruce Biegler helping to welcome back the legendary racer.

BB with JF!

Dave Turner & Barrie Poole

During Sunday's Can-Am Stock/Super Stock Series championship brunch held near Cayuga Ontario -- Dave Turner, the Manager of Retail Operations for giant Ontario chain Performance Improvements, made a classy move.  Dave was the highest bidder for a very rare and historic item.  He donated $500.00 to help the Series cause and with that got himself a limited edition poster commerating the first ever NHRA national event win by a Canadian -- Barrie Poole at the 1970 Winternationals!  Barrie Poole himself was on hand to offer Dave congratulations.

(Bruce Biegler Photo)

Shawn's Wild Ride - 2

Shawn's Wild Ride - 3

Shawn's Wild Ride - 1

Burnaby's Shawn Cowie made a rather remarkable "save" during round one of Top Alcohol Dragster competition during the NHRA AAA Auto Club Finals at Pomona.  Cowie, who has had a very notable rookie season in the category experienced a high-speed front wing failure while racing Kate Harker in round one.  Despite the car making a number of violent moves which resulted in a centerline DQ, Shawn kept control and brought his machine to a safe stop.  Cowie's first ever race at fabled Pomona Raceway resulted in a quick 5.395 secs run which qualified him #12.

(Bruce Biegler Photos)

Kenny Lang = 6.016 secs

Mark Nielsen = 6.104 secs

A strong Canadian Pro Mod presence during last weekends season ending IHRA event at Rockingham included some career best times for a couple of racers.   Manitoba's Kenny Lang sped to a career quick 6.016 secs while qualifying 4th using his Al Billes motor program and Mark Nielsen (from Brantford ON) drove his spectacular new ERD-motivated '68 Camaro to a 6.104 secs to place 12th.

As fate would have it the two Canadian drivers faced one another in round one on Sunday with Lang winning 6.049 secs to 6.163 secs.   Lang (who is from Grande Pointe MB) went on to a runner-up finish driving his '53 Corvette.

(Photos by Bruce Biegler)

Barrie Ontario's Tim Martin made history today during round one of Top Dragster eliminator for the IHRA World Finals at Rockingham NC.   Driving his supercharged 23T and using an Al Billes Hemi engine program, Martin ran an historic 5.945 secs at 233.00 mph during the first round.  With that run Martin became only the 2nd Top Dragster class racer in history to run in the "fives" but was is the first Canadian driver and the first TD-legal Altered to do it.

Congratulations to everyone at Tim Martin Racing!

(Bruce Biegler Photo)

Kenny Lang

Kenny Lang's remarkable 2007 racing season saw him add another feather to his cap during last weekend's IHRA Suzuki Motor City Nationals near Detroit.  The Grande Pointe MB-based driver qualified #1 in Pro Mod with his '53 Corvette hitting a track record 6.031 secs.  It was the 2nd time in his career that he has qualified on the pole in PM in IHRA national event competition.

Lang backed up the effort with a strong semi-final round finish which puts him currently 6th in IHRA season championship points with two events remaining.

(Bruce Biegler Photo)

Colin Wigle Mustang

Colin Wigle's very cool GT/EA Ford Mustang continues to impress.  The Amherstburg, Ontario based driver qualified on the pole in Super Stock during the IHRA Canadian Nationals at TMP.  Colin ran a 9.774 secs (which is 1.176 under his index) to pace the 35 car field.   The effort mirrored his recent effort during the IHRA Northern Nationals in Michigan during August.  He qualified #1 at that event too -- (a 9.765 secs ET which is -1.185). 

(Bruce Biegler Photo)