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.......