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NHRA: Jr. racers from east coast gather at Maple Grove

1 July 2000

READING, Pa. - If you're aged between 8 and 17, and own a Jr. Dragster,
there is only one place to be this July 4 holiday weekend: Maple Grove
Raceway in Reading, Pa., home of the inaugural NHRA Castrol GTX Jr. Drag
Racing League Eastern Conference Finals.

More than 550 children representing 66 NHRA member tracks have convened at
the picturesque Pennsylvania facility to challenge for honors in eight age
groups: 8-9 years old, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, and 16-17.  The individual
category winners will each receive $5,000 savings bonds, runners-up will
each earn $2,500, semifinalists will each get $1,000, and quarterfinalists
$500 each.

"This truly is a great event," said Lori Anne Gola, Castrol North America
Motorsports Coordinator.  "There's lots of racing to keep the children
entertained, and when they're done racing there's lots of fun activities to
do away from the track."

Explaining Castrol's support of the Jr. Drag Racing League, Gola added,
"We're trying to target the grass-roots racer, and what better place to
start than with children who are making their start in motorsports?"
For the past two days the racers have been getting to grips with the Maple
Grove Raceway, with Thursday being a test-n-tune session while Friday was
strictly for time-trial runs.  While a rainstorm interrupted Thursday's
activities in the afternoon, Friday's time trials were held under blue
skies and concluded a short time before 6:00 p.m.

When the racers finished making their time-trial runs any extra energy
could be burned off at the activity area, and empty stomachs could be
filled at the racer barbecue, both staged by Maple Grove Raceway's George
Case.
        The inaugural NHRA Castrol GTX Jr. Drag Racing League Eastern
Conference Finals resume 8:30 a.m. Saturday with the first round of
eliminations.