Johnny Sauter talks about his Truck Series Win

by Phil Burgess, National DRAGSTER Editor
Tony Schumacher, Robert Hight, Greg Anderson, and Hector Arana scored huge playoffs victories at the 24th annual O'Reilly Super Start Batteries NHRA Fall Nationals presented by Castrol Syntec at Texas Motorplex, wins with huge points implications for all.

Schumacher and Hight used their wins at Texas Motorplex in Top Fuel and Funny Car, respectively, to springboard into the Full Throttle Drag Racing Series points lead as the Countdown to 1 playoffs hit the one-third mark with race two of six. Arana's win in Pro Stock Motorcycle kept him ahead of the two-wheeled pack, while former world champ Anderson moved from sixth up to third with his victory in Pro Stock.

The Top Fuel final was a continuation of the ongoing power struggle between the decade's only two world champs and a rematch of their Mac Tools U.S. Nationals final. The result turned out the same, with Schumacher leading Larry Dixon across the stripe, which was most unexpected here as no Top Fuel driver before Schumacher had won in the right lane all day. Schumacher got the win, the 60th of his career, 3.944, 312.86 to 4.23, 225.18.

By Tim Tuttle
LAS VEGAS -- Johnny Sauter drove to his first victory Saturday in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series and ThorSport Racing teammate Matt Crafton was second in the Las Vegas 350 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

Sauter, a rookie in the trucks who has three wins in the NASCAR Nationwide Series, passed Crafton for the lead on the outside exiting Turn 2 on the 130th of 146-laps on the 1.5-mile track and steadily pulled away to win by 2.47 seconds.

"It's unbelievable, man," Sauter said. "This is a big deal for me. Last year at this time, all I was doing was start-and-parks in the Nationwide Series. We've had speed all year, but we haven't been able to close the deal. Our truck has been phenomenal for the last two months."

Sauter, driving a Chevrolet, became the first rookie to win in the truck series since Scott Speed on May 30, 2008, at Dover International Speedway.

by Candida Benson, National DRAGSTER Associate Editor
Cory McClenathan (Top Fuel), Mike Edwards (Pro Stock), and Hector Arana (Pro Stock Motorcycle) jumped to the points lead in their respective classes with victories at the NHRA Carolinas Nationals at zMax Dragway. Robert Hight also made a big points move, vaulting from 10th to third when he won in Funny Car.

Spring Valley, MN— September 19, 2009— Joey Saldana came out on the short end of a late race battle just a few days ago at Clay County Fair Speedway losing the lead on the final lap to Jason Meyers and he made up for that on Saturday night in the Sprint for a Cure Summer Clash at Deer Creek Speedway in Minnesota, winning a late race duel with three-time and defending series champion Donny Schaz to pick up his series leading 18th A-Feature win of the season in the series inaugural visit to the immaculate 3/8-mile before a standing room only crowd in an event which was postponed by rain last month.

Spring Valley, MN—September 18, 2009—The World of Outlaws will visit Deer Creek Speedway in Spring Valley, Minnesota on Saturday, September 19 for an even which was postponed by rain last month. The event will mark the first visit to the state-of-the-art 3/8-mile in the 31-plus year history of the series.

Deer Creek Speedway will be the sixth track that the World of Outlaws will have visited in the state of Minnesota dating back to 1979. Steve Kinser was victorious in the first ever series event 30 years ago in the Gopher State. Nine drivers have won A-Feature events with the World of Outlaws in Minnesota, with Donny Schatz taking the most recent checkered flag last season.

The event at Deer Creek Speedway will be the 19th overall A-Feature event contested by the World of Outlaws in the state of Minnesota. Drivers currently competing full-time with the series that have won in the state in addition to Kinser and Schatz include Minnesota native Craig Dollansky and Kraig Kinser, Steve's son who was victorious in the series debut at North Central Speedway last year.

Matt Kenseth talks about missing the Chase

RICHMOND, VA. – The Chase is on.
Twenty-six races into the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series season, there are now 12 drivers with a chance to win the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup.

The suspense of who would make that field culminated Saturday night at Richmond International Raceway.

Local native Denny Hamlin from Chesapeake finally won a NASCAR Sprint Cup race at his home track after coming "oh, so close" so many times before. He also did it in convincing style, battling door-to-door with Jeff Gordon along the way. It was Hamlin's second win of the season in his FedEx Toyota. He won earlier this year at Pocono.

Hamlin is one of the 12 Chase participants but his Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Kyle Busch didn't make it. Hamlin had locked in a spot before the race but Kyle needed to finish well ahead of Brian Vickers to make it. Kyle finished fifth but Vickers was seventh and wound up grabbing the 12th spot by eight points over Busch.

Kurt Busch finished second and made the Chase. Jeff Gordon was third and in The Chase.

Everybody's favorite, Mark Martin, was fourth and secured a Chase spot and there wasn't a happier man in Virginia on Saturday night when this race ended.

Matt Kenseth

By: Kevin Ramsell
DAYTONA BEACH, FL (Thursday, September 10, 2009) – Jeremy Miller will have to wait and see what happens. The Rockton, IL driver secured the 2009 Madison (WI) International Speedway track championship last Friday night with a feature win and a fifth place finish in their double feature events and is back on top of the Joe Gibbs Driven Racing Oil American Speed Association Member Track National Championship.

Miller and Madison International Speedway have done their part to be in this position. Miller did his part by winning the track championship, a requirement in order to be in the running for the National Championship. MIS completed their task of submitting the 14 events needed to give Miller an accurate point average. (A reminder to the tracks, the formula needs to have 14 events in order to give a driver an accurate average for the National Championship.)

Miller now has an average of 4.2166 and now has to wait and see if that average will hold for him to win the ASA Member Track National Championship along with a tryout with Joe Gibbs Racing.