Well good morning Gabbers, gawkers and others. Welcome to my NASCAR update and just talking about things that go fast. I have more on Almendinger, a dragster profile, Dodge is packing up their wagon, The Danica and some fast chicks that win. So lets do this.

SHIRLEY MULDOWNEY

This woman is my hero. She kicked serious bootie back in the day. Men feared her when she showed up with her pink dragster because she was a threat to win. And win she did. I really had to do some serious cutting of her mile stone accomplishments or I wouldn't finish my blog till next week. HOW'D SHE DO ALL THAT???????

1965 - First woman to be licensed by NHRA to drive a gasoline burning dragster.

1971 - Won the IHRA ( International Hot Rod Association) Southern Nationals in Rockingham, NC in the Nitro Funny Car Class.

1972 - Runner up in the NHRA Southern Nationals in Rockingham, NC in Nitro Funny Car Class.

1975 - Runner up in NHRA Spring Nationals in Columbus, Ohio. Fist woman to advance to the finals of an NHRA event.

            August 24th - Broke the 6 second barrier with a 5.98. First woman to do that.

1976 - Named Drag News Top Fuel Driver of the Year

            Won Spring Nationals in Columbus, Ohio in June qualifying number one with 6.02 @ 249.30 mph

            Won NHRA Winston World Nationals in October qualifying number one with 5.77 @ 249.30 mph

1977 - Won the 1977 Winston World points Championship becoming the first woman to get a dragster title.

            On her way to winning the title she became the first driver and woman to post 3 NHRA National event back to back wins

1979 - Voted into the 250 Mile Per Hour Club. She was one of 4 members. Shirley posted a 250 mph pass 5 times. The

            others ........just once each.

1980 - Won the 1980 Winston World points Championship becoming the first driver to win 2 championships.

             Placed 2nd in the American Hot Rod Association World Championship.

1981 - Won the 1981 AHRA World Championship Championship becoming the first woman to win that title.

1982 - Won the 1982 Winston World points Championship becoming the first driver and woman to get 3 dragster titles.

1983 - Finished 4th in the NHRA points

1984 - In June Shirley wrecked her dragster while doing a qualifying run in Montreal, Canada. One of the front tires failed and  she wrecked at 250 mph breaking both her legs. Months of surgeries and rehab were needed to get back in the dragster.

 1986 - Her come back year and an award to welcome her back.

1989 - Gets the 8th position on the CRAGAR 4 - Second Club with a pass of 4.97 @ 284.00 mph.

1993 - Set a track record at Fiji International Speedway in Fuji, Japan with a pass of 5.30 @ 285 mph

1996 - Set a new IHRA speed record of 294.98 mph

             Placed 2nd in IHRA National Championship points

1997 - Set a new IHRA speed record of 303.71 mph

             Placed 3rd in IHRA National Championship points

2001 - Named 5th on the list of NHRA top 50 drivers

             Ran a career best of 4.64 @ 320.20 mph

2003 - Last year in racing. Went on a Last Pass Tour

             Shirley was always setting and then breaking records. This went on through out her career. Sponsorship issues was the reason she got out of racing. John Force has been lucky to have Castrol with him as long as he has. Sponsorship money is the life blood of a race team. At 60 I think Shirley could still do it.

UPDATE ON NHRA CHICKS

      Well last week on 8-5-12 at the 25th O,Reilly Auto Part Nothwest Nationals in Seattle, Washington, Courtney Force and Erica Enders won their divisions making this the first time in NHRA history that 2 woman won at the same event. Both got Wally's. That's the trophy for a win in NHRA. Very coveted because it's such a hard trophy to get.

       This is Courtney's rookie season and she beat dad twice now and finally an event win too.This chick is serious. She's not holding back for nobody. Not even dad.

       Courtney says, 'To have both me and Erica in the winners circle is awesome. We're not just out here to race the boys, we're here to beat the boys and today just proves that."

       So I would say that Courtney is on her way and we'll be hearing about more wins and records from her and Erica. Look out Danica. These racing chicks are about to steal your thunder. Buzz is building already.

THE DANICA

       Well, speaking of Danica. She was another race this week and started in the 23rd position. Bad qualifying position. The Zippo 200 at Watkins Glen. Nice road course but bad qualifying position. HHHhhhhmmmmmm I said that twice.  She made it a total of 2 laps. Ryan Truex lost control of his car and veered off course, collected himself, got back on course and was too slow getting back up to speed because Danica drove right into the back of his car. Now in Danica's defense, she had no where to go and I think he should've left every one go by and then get back onto the course. She got a crunched in fender, broken radiator and a 43rd place finish. It was the beginning of the race. For Pete sake. Like Mark Martin said a long time ago about Nationwide races....They'll let any one drive. So I guess we wait till next week to see if Danica will win.

DODGE IS LEAVING NASCAR

       That's right folks. Dodge is packing up their little Red Flyer wagon and leaving NASCAR at the end of this season. Penske Racing has the only 2 Dodge cars in NASCAR and decided they were moving over to Ford because they felt they weren't able to get enough information to win a championship because there's no other team to discuss things with. Dodge was talking to Richard Petty Motorsports and Furniture Row Racing but felt that they wanted higher profile teams. They don't just want to show up at the track, they want to win. They sited the fact that it took Penske Racing several years to get to the level he is now.

       Ralph Gilles ( with the really huge Dodge title....) CEO and president of Street and Racing Technology Brand and Motorsports had to say," In the past we had dealers literally providing a portion of every car sales to the sponsorship of the team. That was a pretty exotic set up. We did think about that and some dealers offered that up. But the issue wasn't that. It's really how do you compress time and set up a team from scratch, basically at the highest level of racing in less than seven months."

       So Dodge is leaving. Do you think Honda should step in? Fiat? Somebody else? Don't know? Don't care? It's alright. I don't either. Just fire up what you have and lets get to racing.

AJ ALLMENDINGER TALKS

       So AJ finally decided to talk this week. He says he didn't have answers so that's why no interviews till now. AJ's story goes something like this....The Wednesday before the Kentucky Quaker State 400 Cup race, he and his best buddy decided to go out on the town. AJ was very tired from all his sponsorship dutites and trying to win races. A friend of his best buddy happened to be there and offered him a work out supplement.  AJ said he took this pill not thinking anything of it because his trainer hands him pills all the time during work outs. He says he didn't get a buzz or any thing and felt fine. Then 2 days later NASCAR calls his number in the random drug test and he goes. The following week NASCAR tells him he's tested positive for a stimulant and he swears he has no idea what that is. So he searches his memory to think back to what his best buds friend gave him and finds out it's an Adderall.

       Adderall's are on the banned substance list. Especially if you don't have a script for it. If you have the hyper active A.D.D. than you won't get a speed type rush from it but if you aren't it's as good as taking a speeder. So I'm told. So any way he goes on to say that he'll be a better person and the Road to Recovery program will help him find himself. He wasn't having fun in racing any more and this whole thing has made him realize he really does want to race and who his real friends are. 

       BS????? You tell me. I personally think he just needed time to think up a story and practice telling it to the mirror till he sounded believable. How do you test well above the threshold if you only took 1 pill and it was 3 days before you get drug tested. Something doesn't add up.

       Now there is a team owner ( Micheal Shank) in the NASCAR Grand AM Rolex Sports Car Series that would like to hire AJ after he gets the green light from NASCAR. He wants to test a new Grand AM proto type for Daytona and since AJ won with his car in January. He feels AJ could do it again. No word yet from any NASCAR Cup team though.

MONKEY SHINES

       Seems there's a cute new monkey on TV. I just saw a promo for a new show on the peacock channel called Animal Practice. It stars a capuchin monkey as a medical assistant in an animal hospital. Her name is Crystal but she plays a male on the show. Supposedly she gets $12,000 per episode. Mad money for her and Johnny Monkey when they run off to the Bahama's? She is a cutie pie. Thought I saw a glimpse of Johnny in one of the scenes. Nah. Just my imagination.

WATKIN'S GLEN

       This week it's off to a road course for our Cup guys. The rain storm ended last weeks race at Pocono with 98 laps to go giving Gordon the win and I'm still #1 in my Yahoo but I'm thinking every ones picks got foiled by the rain. Jimmie spun out on the last restart and ended up 14th. Ruined my Streak pick too. Jimmie didn't get a top 10 so no points for me there.

       So this week I went out on a limb. I chose Keselowski, Ambrose, Kurt B and Vickers. You Dale Jr fans should be happy. He's still #1 in the points. Followed by Kenseth - Biffle - Johnson - Truex - Stewart - Keselowski - Hamlin - Harvick - Bowyer with Kahne as wild card #1 and Gordon with wild card #2. That Pocono win was just what the doctor ordered to get Gordon in the Chase. He needs to step it up to keep that wild card. 

So hope you enjoyed your update and you're all keeping as cool as possible. Hoping the humidity backs it off a tad or 2 this week. Breathing water sucks. Take care all and drink your fluids of choice. Got to stay hydrated.

Thank you and see you next week.......

Howdy and good morning Gabbers, gawkers and others. Welcome to your NASCAR update and other fast stuff.

CHRISSY WALLACE

This girl comes from a racing family . Uncle Rusty Wallace drove the Blue Deuce. He was the 1989 NASCAR Winston Cup Champion. Mike Wallace is her dad and Kenny Wallace is also an Uncle. Mike and Kenny still race when they can get sponsor money and Rusty now works for ESPN behind the desk for the pre race show. So Chrissy has much to live up to.

Born May 15, 1988 in St Louis, MO but now resides in Concord, NC. 

-Raced in Bandelero's, Legends, Thunder Roadsters, go-karts, Arena Cars, Late Models

-Won the 2005 Winter Heat Championship in Thunder Roadsters.

-Over 50 feature wins in Legend Cars.

-In 2011 won the ASA Super Late Model Class track title at l - 44 Speedway in Lebanon, Missouri becoming the first female to clinch an ASA Championship.

- Drove in 7 Truck Series events between '08 and '09. Drove 2 Nationwide events in 2010.

- April 24, 2010 she raced at Taladega Nationwide race with her dad Mike. This was the first father-daughter duo to race in NASCAR.

Chrissy has hit a snag in her career. Sponsorship is just not there. This seems to be a recurring theme in racing these days. She hasn't given up yet. She's another of those chicks that could give Danica a run for her money if she only had a good ride.

MELANIE TROXEL

Born August 31, 1972 in Littleton, Colorado. Daughter of Mike Troxel a veteran dragster and 1988 Top Alcohol World Champion. Mom was an air plane mechanic. So mom and dad put the racing bug in their daughter.

At 16 years old Melanie raced in a car with a motor she built in a school project.

Attended Frank Hawley's Drag Racing School in Florida. In 1997 she had both her Funny Car and Dragster licenses becoming the first female to get both.

Competed in Federal Mogal Dragsters for a few years before switching to Top Fual to race for Don Shumacher in 2000. Lack of sponsorship forced her out of competition in 2003 and 2004. In 2005 she drove some. In 2006 and 2007 she won 2 events each.

In 2008 she joined R2B2 Racing team to drive a Funny Car. May of 2008 at the O'Reilly NHRA Thunder Nationals in Bristol, Tennessee she earned her first win in Funny Car just 2 months after Ashley Force became the first female to do it. 

In 2009 she drove Pro Modifieds for Roger Burgess.

2011 was her last season in racing driving the In-N-Out Burger Funny Car for R2B2 Racing Team. Due to sponsorship woes the Funny Car team was folded. To this date she doesn't have a ride for anything in 2012. Too bad for this fan favorite.

MORE BABIES

Right after the New Hampshire race Ryan Newman's wife, Krissie had their second little girl on July 16th @ 12:20 pm. Her name is Ashlyn Olivia. Big sister Brooklyn could not be reached for comment.

COURTNEY FORCE

John's baby girl almost had herself a big win on July 22nd in Denver at the Mile High NHRA Nationals. The final heat of the day was between Courtney and Jack Beckman. Courtney lost by 9 thousandths of a second but moved up to 6th in the points. YEAH!!! You go girl.

CREW CHIEF SWAPS

Regan Smith who drives the #78 Hendrick powered Chevy for Furniture Row is getting a new crew chief. Todd Berrier is coming on board. He's experienced and I expect he'll help get Regan back on track.

David Hyder will be coming on board to crew chief for Bobby Labonte. Don't know who he is but we'll see if he can make a difference for Bobby.

ESPN BACK

Now it's ESPN's turn to broadcast the races. They've got a new camera to use. The Ultra Slo-Mo RF handheld camera. It shoots 1000 frames per second compared to a regular camera's 60 frames per second. It will be used primarily as a pit road camera. Since analysts like to talk about races being won or lost on pit road they can now pick apart a pit stop and show you where a crew did good or bad during their stop.

There will be 74 other HD cameras in use. This includes the return of the Bat camera which runs on a cable over pit road and running along the front stretch.It can move at more than 80 mph.

ESPN also promises split screen non stop coverage for the 10 Chase races. 

I hope this means they'll be better than TNT was.

INDY GRAND AM ROAD RACE

Juan Montoya and Jamie McMurray are scheduled to run the Grand AM road race at Indianapolis Speedway this weekend. These guys drive for Chip Gnassi. It's a road course so it won't help for the Brickyard 400 on Sunday but it will help for practice for the Watkins Glen road course coming up in August.

POSSIBLE QUALIFYING CHANGE FOR 2013

NASCAR VP of competition announced that he was talking to race teams to see how they feel about changing qualifying for next year.They want to eliminate the top 35 rule where the top 35 are guaranteed a spot every race. They want to qualify the top 38 drivers on time and then have 4 provisionals and 1 past champions provisional. He sights that the fans want to see qualifying go back to speed getting you in the event.

Hell yeah. I've been bitching about this for years. Only I was just asking for a top 25 rule but this would be better. The sponsors might not like this because their car might not be in the show.

BRICKYARD 400

So it's the Brickyard 400 today. It's a 2.5 mile square oval with a very abrasive diamond ground surface meant to keep the lighter Indy cars on the track. In 2008 Goodyear didn't bring the right tire to the track and mandatory pit stops every ten laps made for a very boring race. Jimmie Johnson won that year. Last year was a long green runs and fuel mileage affair. I see no difference this year. There are 7 races to the Chase and the drivers will be cautious.

My Yahoo picks are Gordon, Kahne, Martin and Hornish. My NASCAR Streak pick is Kahne. I'm still #1 in Yahoo. 

JUST MIND BLOWING

Blanket on : too hot. Blanket off : too cold. 1 leg out : perfect until the demon from Paranormal Activity grabs it & drags you down the hall.

OK. That concludes my writing. I've got a nasty head ache and need a shower, tylenol and my bed. So thanks for stopping by and enjoy......

Whoa hey howdy and good morning Gabbers, gawkers and others. Lets see here...Hhhhmmmm...I got chicks in racing, a crew chief swap, a vote, and other fast stuff.

CHICKS THAT GO FAST

       COURTNEY FORCE

Yup. She's John's youngest daughter. You know John. He's that 15 time NHRA Funny Car Champ.This is her rookie year in NHRA Funny Cars. She's already making a name for herself. At 24 years old Courtney jumped into the seat Ashley vacated when she decided it was time to have a baby. The sponsor is Traxxas. These guys are responsible for developing the technology that produced the XO-1. This is a radio controlled badass hobby car that is capable of speeds of 100 mph in 4.92 seconds. So you can race your neighbors mini van down to the stop sign at the corner with this car. 

John told Courtney she had to have a college education before she could drive the car full time. So she graduated from Cal State - Fullerton with a degree in communications. He feels she's the closest to himself and expects much from her. He pulled Ashley's funny car around the streets of their town behind a pick up truck with Courtney steering the car. She says she learnt a lot from that. 

"This is what I've always dreamed of and to have my sister Ashley and my dad teach me makes it that much better. I also have great teammates in Robert and Mike to lean on and get insight from. I'm just going to learn all I can and see where it takes me."

Courtney started driving Top Alcohol Dragsters in 2008. While driving one of Jerry Darien's cars, she got the 2009 Northwest Nationals title. 

She won her first run by beating Bob Tasca lll at the O'Reilly Auto Parts  NHRA Winternationals this year with a time of 4.204 and 309.27 mph. That was in 1000 feet. They don't do the quarter mile any more. 

Her career best time is 4.143 and 313.27 mph. Oooooo Baby....

She sits 9th in the points right now. John isn't doing so hot this year. He's in 10th and Courtney beat him in their first head to head competition together. Is this a glimpse of things to come? Every one thinks so.

       JOHANNA LONG

This young lady is from Pensacola, Florida and she's 20 years old. Started out in Go karts at age 8 and went to Legends and then to Late Models by 12 years old. In 2009 she began driving ASA Late Model Series to Pro Late Models and then ARCA to prepare for her NASCAR debut. In 38 events she had 27 top 10's, 17 top 5's and 5 wins.

In 2010 she raced 7 truck races in the NASCAR Camping World Series in her family owned #20 Toyota truck. She also became the 2nd female to win the Snowball Derby in Pensacola at the Five Flag Speedway holding off Landon Cassill for that win. Tammy Jo Kirk was the first in 1994.

In 2011 she competed in the truck series again but had to drive a partial schedule due to sponsorship woes. Her best finish was 11th at Texas Motor Speedway.

Her Nationwide Series debut this year was at the Daytona 500 with the ML Motorsports team driving the #70 Chevy Impala. They plan to run 21 races of the 33 race schedule. She came in 21st but the second Daytona race she came in 12th. A reversal for sure.

I really feel this chick will give Danica a run for her money if she ever got the sponsorship and equipment issues worked out.

       AMBER AND ANGELA COPE

The fraternal twin daughters of Derrike Cope. Their dad raced in NASCAR for a bit. Won one Daytona 500. The twins made NASCAR history by being the first set of twins to compete in a NASCAR event. They were in the Camping World Truck Series race at Martinsville, Va on October 23, 2010. Amber came in 26th and Angela came in 30th.

The girls grand father got into racing and passed it down to the twins by getting them involved in Go-Karts at the age of 9. They did have success with winning poles and races. By the age of 15 they were up to Late Models.

Recently Amber has become famous for making Kevin Harvick lose the Nationwide race to Keselowski. She was many laps down when Harvick came up on her and she appeared to drift down on him and Keselowski made a bold move on the top of the track while Harvick got slowed down by Amber. This pissed him off and he had choice words after the race for Amber as well as a tap on the bumper during the cool down lap. 

Harvick said," The 24 every time you'd come up to her, she didn't know whether she was going high or low. It looked like she went up so I committed to the bottom and she came down. It's not one of those deals. It's somebody who shouldn't be on the race track and has no clue what they're doing in a race car. She wants to be Danica Patrick but she can't hold her helmet."

These chicks are Paris Hilton look alikes. They're right up Beeze's alley. Look them up. Lots of modeling pictures. Amber has started a fund raising effort. If she gets $100,000 she'll race again and have a fan vote. If the fans say she didn't earn the money with her driving she'll quit racing. Yeah...right.

CREW CHIEF SWAP

Our last years Cup Championship runner up is struggling mightily this year. He's now 11th in points and NO WINS. So it came as no great surprise that they announced on Tuesday that Bob Osborne would be stepping down as crew chief for Carl Edwards due to health issues. People are questioning the health issues but I believe it. He's probably suffering from exhaustion. Bob's replacement is Chad Norris. No relationship to Chuck.

Chad has worked as crew chief in the Nationwide Series for Roush on Matt Kenseth's car and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. He also crew chiefed for Trevor Bayne in the Daytona 500 Cup race.

Edwards says he can't say enough good things about Bob and he's thankful for all that he's done and says he's one of the smartest guys in the garage. 

Bob says he's worked with Carl for 9 years and is proud of their 18 wins and the 2 second place finishes in Cup. 

If Edwards gets a win he has the 1st wild card. He has 567 points over Kasey Kahne in 12th with one win and 547 points & Kyle Busch in 13th with one win and 545 points. So with 7 races to the Chase Edwards and his new CC Norris have some ass kicking to do. Good luck.

MILITARY SPONSORSHIP UPDATE

 The vote is in. With a vote of 216 to 202 the military is still allowed to sponsor race teams. So Tony Shumacher will still have sponsorship to race his top fuel dragster. Good thing too. He's 2nd in the points. Dale Jr will still retain his Army National Guard sponsorship as well. I'm really torn on this one. Being a budget minded individual I have to say that racing sponsorship must end.

AJ ALLMENDINGERS DELEMMA

Well, the saga keeps going. AJ has chosen to have a lawyer present along with a toxicologist of his choosing on July 24th to have the "B" sample tested. Other than saying it was a stimulant nobody knows just what it was. I'd rather a driver be taking stimulants than something like Ambien in the car. If the "B" sample comes up hot AJ has 2 choices. 1. walk or 2. go through the road to recovery program. Depending on what it was and how much it could be a week or weeks of rehab.

It doesn't look good for AJ getting back in the car this season any more. Sam Hornish Jr is already scheduled for the July 29th Brickyard 400 in Indianapolis. In fact Sam has made it known that even though he's full time in Nationwide he'll make the schedule work to be in that #22 in the Cup schedule. Personally if I were Captain Penske I'd be calling Brian Vickers and ask him if he'd like a ride. He's been very professional and vague about how he really feels about this mess. 

I'm really bummed for AJ because he is such a nice guy. No muss. No fuss. Nice to the fans and a sponsor pleaser. All that you could ask for in a driver. Good luck on Tuesday buddy.

TOUR DE SPORTSMANSHIP

Wow. Who knew these guys could have a sportsmanship attach. Apparently some DB decided to throw out tacks onto the course during the race. Some 30 riders got caught up in the flat tires that came in one big wave. This included last years winner Cadel Evans. The Sky Team leader Bradley Wiggens heard of the fracas and ordered every one to slow their pace. He didn't feel that they should capitalize on this misfortune. They slowed down just enough that Cadel wouldn't suffer major a point loss. Way to go Sky Team. Sportsmanship lives.

NEW HAMPSHIRE UPDATE

Was quite the race. Denny Hamlin thought he was running away with another win but Kasey Kahne had other plans. On the last pit stop there was a miscommunication between Hamlin and his crew chief Grubb. Hamlin said he needed just tires. It had been 75 laps since only the right side tires had been changed so Grubb thought Hamlin had used up the left sides and had 4 tires put on instead of the 2 he wanted to put on. This put Hamlin in 13th for the restart and Kahne out front. Hamlin could only get to 2nd by the end of the race. Betcha next time he'll give his crew chief better feed back.

3 of my Yahoo picks were in the top 10 with Vickers in 15th. Was enough to keep me in 1st place. WOO HOOOOOO!!!!!

There's no Cup race this week. So I'll be watching some NHRA of something fast. Love that fast stuff ya know. Hope every one got some relief from the heat this week or rain if you needed it. Thanks for stopping by and have a great week.....