Going into the NHRA season ending Auto Club NHRA Finals at Auto Club Dragway at Pomona this weekend, Frank Aragona Jr. has locked up his second NHRA Lucas Oil Drag Racing Series Comp Eliminator World Championship. The Freehold, NJ, racer racked up 613 points including four wins in six final rounds and cannot be caught.

A number of racers were chasing Aragona going into last weekend’s divisional event in Las Vegas with most dropping out of contention including 2017 champion David Rampy. The championship was officially locked up when Clint Neff elected not to enter this weekend’s event.

A second-generation driver, Aragona came out strong with a pair of wins and a runner-up finish in his first five events. He won national events in Gainesville, Fla., and in Charlotte, N.C., and advanced to the final round at Speed World Dragway in Orlando, Fla. He then added a win in Reading, Pa., a runner up in Rockingham and a win in West Lebanon, N.Y., to cap off his points total.  (Steve Gruenwald photo)  [11/07/18]

Class winners, kneeling: Matt Woodard, SC; Brian Hyerstay, Comp; Chris Marshall, TAFC; Kahea Woods, Motorcycle. Standing, L to R: Ryan Herem, SST; Pete Peery, SS; Chris Cannon, SG; Ed Olpin, TD; Joe Sorensen, Stock; Jeff Gillette, TS. Kim Parker (TAD) not pictured.  (Bob Johnson photo)

In addition to five LODRS champions clinching their titles, there was plenty of good racing at the Las Vegas Divisional. See all the action at here.   [11/07/18]

Just when can Bobby Cottrell start defending his NHRA Hot Rod Heritage Funny Car championship?  (Tim Marshall file photo)

Usually the NHRA Heritage Series announces its schedule of Hot Rod Heritage events at the SEMA Show in Las Vegas but there was no release then and still no announcement. Also without an announced 2019 schedule is the West Coast-based UNFC nostalgia funny car series. It’s hard for teams and racers to plan for a 2019 season without any schedule, folks.   [11/07/18]

Robert Hight and J.R. Todd met in the final round at Dallas, where Hight took the win. (Ron Lewis photo)

In a tough Funny Car battle that has seen two of the top teams slug it out like heavyweights, Robert Hight will need to land a knockout blow against J.R. Todd, who took over the points lead at Las Vegas when Hight’s Funny Car dropped a cylinder in the first round and knocked him out of a chance to rack up more points.

The 45-time Funny Car event winner needs to cut into a 74-point lead during the two days of qualifying at the historic Auto Club Finals and the NHRA’s points and half program for the final will give the crewman turned world champion a definite assist. The chance to make history is not lost on Hight.

“No one has won back-to-back championships since John Force back in the 2000s,” said Hight. “This would be big. It really shows how competitive this Funny Car class is. We are behind but we are going to go in there very aggressive and try to gobble up every point we can get. All we can do is what we can do. We can’t control what J.R. Todd does unless we race him. We’ve already won both AAA races this year and we need to win the third. That’s going to give us the best possible chance to win two championships in a row.”

Todd, who advanced to four final rounds in the first five Countdown races and won two of them, hopes to continue his strong run.

“I said earlier this year if we could win four Countdown races we would have a shot at the championship,” Todd said. “We haven't won four, but we've gone to four finals and that's what it takes along with getting some help. We were 50 back going into Charlotte and we were thinking we need some help now to make up some ground and we got some. Then to cap it off in Vegas with a win, it was nice to get all the points we could and take that into Pomona. Points and a half will make it interesting. We just need to maintain what we've been doing and go to the later rounds.”   [11/07/18]

Front: Steve Matusek, Aeeromotive’s founder and president. Left to right rear: Formula D announcer Jarod DeAnda, Kyle Fickler, Shawn Dill, Johnson Barrick, Amanda Matusek, Jackson Lueg, Matt Brewer, Jon Pestinger, Jeff Stacy, Darr Hawthorne, and off-road racer and industry personality Jessi Combs.   (Aeromotive photo)

Aeromotive, a market leader in high performance fuel systems, was honored last week at the SEMA Show Industry Awards Banquet when the company was announced as the 2018 SEMA Show Manufacturer of the Year.

With over 2,900 SEMA manufacturers able to compete, three candidates made the slate for the final candidacy prior to the show: Aeromotive Inc., Edelbrock Inc., and Hunter Engineering Company. The award honors individuals and companies that have made a significant impact on the specialty-equipment market during the past 12 months of SEMA’s fiscal year July 1, 2017 through June 30, 2018.   [11/07/18]

Holley EFI Pro Dashes feature a huge 12.3-inch viewing area and a full-color low-glare/high-brightness/high-contrast capacitive touchscreen for easy viewing even in broad daylight. Completely customizable for use in countless motorsports applications, they offer plug-and-play functionality with all Holley EFI systems and real-time ECU tuning that makes it easy to make quick tune-up adjustment without the hassle of hooking up a laptop. Capable of monitoring up to 238 real-time values such as RPM, TPS, and boost, the Pro Dash's huge assortment of inputs and outputs greatly expands the functionality of Holley EFI systems, including a 34-pin connector with 13 multi-configurable inputs for Holley EFI sensors such as pressure and temperature. (The inputs are totally configurable, so it's just as simple to use non-Holley sensor scaling calibrations.) Two dedicated speed inputs are available for RPM, driveshaft speed, or any other Hall Effect input, and four ground-switched outputs can be used with the switch-panel feature to quickly turn on auxiliary accessories such as a master nitrous switch or an electric water pump. Measures 13.44 inches wide, 5.81 inches tall and only 1.25 inches deep.   [11/07/18]