[coverattach=1] WESTBURY, NEW YORK – It would be hard to argue with anyone who says the American Drag Racing League’s Pro Nitrous division is rapidly becoming one of the most followed and competitive categories in all of heads up drag racing. A quick look back at the history of the ADRL shows that a racer who finds oneself in the winner’s circle following a Pro Nitrous shootout has outlasted the best in the business, and those who’ve done it more than once are in small numbers. Only seven racers have managed to win more than one ADRL Pro Nitrous event and AWESOME Al Anabi Motorsports own Mike Castellana and Shannon “Iceman” Jenkins are two of them.
Most recently, Castellana showed his prowess on the concrete eighth-mile of the world-famous Texas Motorplex outside of Dallas; marching through talented drivers like Doug Reisterer, Harold Martin and Jim Halsey to earn his second career ADRL victory in the Lone Star State.
After qualifying No. 9 with a 4.02-second, 183.77mph blast, Castellana got his only lucky break of the weekend when Tim Savell broke on the starting line sending the Westbury, New York native on a single run.
“Sometimes all it takes is a little bit of luck and we got all we needed in the first round,” said Castellana. “With this new Speedtech Nitrous/Reher-Morrison horsepower, it can be a bit of a struggle to get it all to the ground, but after that first round this team really came together and good things started happening.”
With the tuning expertise of Shannon Jenkins, Brandon Switzer and Rickie Smith behind him, Castellana laid out a stunning string of performances under the lights in Dallas; the first of which being a 3.96/187.86mph lap against Reisterer, then a 3.94/188.46mph against Harold Martin and a 3.922-second, 190.57mph blast in the final to begin encroaching on the world record for both speed and elapsed time.
“There really isn’t any other way to end a season than with a win here in Texas,” said a very excited Mike Castellana. “Between Shannon, Brandon, Rickie Smith and everyone else involved with this race team, I couldn’t be more proud of what we’ve accomplished. As much as we like to win, our goal is always to perform well and this weekend we showed the potential of Speedtech Nitrous and Reher-Morrison Racing Engines and we put an AWESOME Al Anabi car in the winner’s circle. We couldn’t be any happier.”
[coverattach=2]Fortunately for the AWESOME Al Anabi Motorsports team, the success in Texas wasn’t the only success they’ve seen in 2008. The “Iceman” earned his first ADRL Pro Nitrous victory since his legendary domination of the 2006 ADRL Dragstock III event this year at the 2nd annual Ohio Drags behind the wheel of his new “Black Ice” ’68 Camaro.
Despite the intense summer heat that is seemingly mandatory in Ohio throughout the month of August, Jenkins laid out a string of 3.9-second runs to sew up his fifth ADRL Pro Nitrous victory with a world record-setting 192.91mph, 3.93-second pass in the final round against Billy Harper.
“There’s no denying it’s been a bumpy road this year,” said Jenkins, who is the winningest driver in the history of the ADRL Pro Nitrous division. “We knew where we were going, though, and we knew what this team was capable of achieving. It took us a little while to adapt to everything that we’ve changed in our program, but now that we have – things are looking really good for 2009.”
While the American Drag Racing League was an obvious focus for AWESOME Al Anabi this season, Mike Castellana also earned a hard-fought Runner-Up finish in the 2008 IHRA Pro Modified World Championship series by means of five final rounds and a win at the prestigious IHRA President’s Cup Nationals in Budd’s Creek, Maryland. During a special appearance at the Mac Tools NHRA U.S. Nationals in Indianapolis, Castellana also earned a victory in the JEGS ProMod Challenge and then became the first nitrous-assisted NHRA Pro Mod to break into the five-second zone at the NHRA Virginia Nationals in Richmond.
The AWESOME Al Anabi Motorsports brand was also well represented in the title sponsorship of the 6th annual Shakedown at E-Town, a heads-up shootout held at Old Bridge Township Raceway Park in Englishtown, New Jersey. Marking the team’s first foray into event sponsorship, the early October showdown turned out to be a great success with the newest addition to AWESOME Al Anabi, the tag-team of Howard Moon and Von Smith, taking the win in the unlimited Pro Blower category while the “Iceman” recorded a career-best 6.01-second elapsed time in the Pro Nitrous division.
“Again, I’m very happy with what we’ve accomplished this season,” said Castellana. “Obviously, there are a few things that we would have liked to have seen shake out differently – mainly the IHRA Pro Mod World Championship – but we really can’t be very disappointed with our performance on the quarter-mile venue this year. It was only a year ago that the nitrous combination was seen as a lost cause, but this year we recorded three number-one qualifying efforts in the IHRA alone. One of the primary goals of our partnership with Al Anabi Racing was to further develop the nitrous-injected engine program and I think we’ve made a lot of positive progress – and brought a little newfound excitement back to Pro Modified racing by making the nitrous cars competitive again.”
[coverattach=3]Although the racing season has come to a close in the United States, the action is just getting underway in Dubai and Qatar – the Middle Eastern home of AWESOME Al Anabi. Castellana will be handling the driving duties of the team’s Pro Nitrous cars abroad alongside Moon/Smith in the team’s Pro Extreme entry, with the first leg of the Emirates Auto Club Drag Racing Series being their first objective.
ABOUT AL-ANABI/QATAR
A result of drag racing’s continually increasing popularity abroad, Al-Anabi Racing is based out of the country of Qatar. Qatar is widely-known for working with the United States military forces to build one of the premier U.S. air bases in the Gulf at Al-Udeid. The Qatari philosophy was to obtain the best defense by providing the best facilities for U.S. and coalition forces. The Al-Udeid Air Base was built at a cost of more than a billion dollars and can house nearly a hundred aircraft.
ABOUT AWESOME MOTORSPORTS
Created by world champion racers Mike Castellana and Shannon Jenkins, AWESOME Motorsports has a long running reputation of re-writing record books with the performance of their nitrous-assisted Pro Modified cars. With a combined seven world championships under their belt, the future looks bright for two of the most dominant racers in the history of the sport.
Most recently, Castellana showed his prowess on the concrete eighth-mile of the world-famous Texas Motorplex outside of Dallas; marching through talented drivers like Doug Reisterer, Harold Martin and Jim Halsey to earn his second career ADRL victory in the Lone Star State.
After qualifying No. 9 with a 4.02-second, 183.77mph blast, Castellana got his only lucky break of the weekend when Tim Savell broke on the starting line sending the Westbury, New York native on a single run.
“Sometimes all it takes is a little bit of luck and we got all we needed in the first round,” said Castellana. “With this new Speedtech Nitrous/Reher-Morrison horsepower, it can be a bit of a struggle to get it all to the ground, but after that first round this team really came together and good things started happening.”
With the tuning expertise of Shannon Jenkins, Brandon Switzer and Rickie Smith behind him, Castellana laid out a stunning string of performances under the lights in Dallas; the first of which being a 3.96/187.86mph lap against Reisterer, then a 3.94/188.46mph against Harold Martin and a 3.922-second, 190.57mph blast in the final to begin encroaching on the world record for both speed and elapsed time.
“There really isn’t any other way to end a season than with a win here in Texas,” said a very excited Mike Castellana. “Between Shannon, Brandon, Rickie Smith and everyone else involved with this race team, I couldn’t be more proud of what we’ve accomplished. As much as we like to win, our goal is always to perform well and this weekend we showed the potential of Speedtech Nitrous and Reher-Morrison Racing Engines and we put an AWESOME Al Anabi car in the winner’s circle. We couldn’t be any happier.”
[coverattach=2]Fortunately for the AWESOME Al Anabi Motorsports team, the success in Texas wasn’t the only success they’ve seen in 2008. The “Iceman” earned his first ADRL Pro Nitrous victory since his legendary domination of the 2006 ADRL Dragstock III event this year at the 2nd annual Ohio Drags behind the wheel of his new “Black Ice” ’68 Camaro.
Despite the intense summer heat that is seemingly mandatory in Ohio throughout the month of August, Jenkins laid out a string of 3.9-second runs to sew up his fifth ADRL Pro Nitrous victory with a world record-setting 192.91mph, 3.93-second pass in the final round against Billy Harper.
“There’s no denying it’s been a bumpy road this year,” said Jenkins, who is the winningest driver in the history of the ADRL Pro Nitrous division. “We knew where we were going, though, and we knew what this team was capable of achieving. It took us a little while to adapt to everything that we’ve changed in our program, but now that we have – things are looking really good for 2009.”
While the American Drag Racing League was an obvious focus for AWESOME Al Anabi this season, Mike Castellana also earned a hard-fought Runner-Up finish in the 2008 IHRA Pro Modified World Championship series by means of five final rounds and a win at the prestigious IHRA President’s Cup Nationals in Budd’s Creek, Maryland. During a special appearance at the Mac Tools NHRA U.S. Nationals in Indianapolis, Castellana also earned a victory in the JEGS ProMod Challenge and then became the first nitrous-assisted NHRA Pro Mod to break into the five-second zone at the NHRA Virginia Nationals in Richmond.
The AWESOME Al Anabi Motorsports brand was also well represented in the title sponsorship of the 6th annual Shakedown at E-Town, a heads-up shootout held at Old Bridge Township Raceway Park in Englishtown, New Jersey. Marking the team’s first foray into event sponsorship, the early October showdown turned out to be a great success with the newest addition to AWESOME Al Anabi, the tag-team of Howard Moon and Von Smith, taking the win in the unlimited Pro Blower category while the “Iceman” recorded a career-best 6.01-second elapsed time in the Pro Nitrous division.
“Again, I’m very happy with what we’ve accomplished this season,” said Castellana. “Obviously, there are a few things that we would have liked to have seen shake out differently – mainly the IHRA Pro Mod World Championship – but we really can’t be very disappointed with our performance on the quarter-mile venue this year. It was only a year ago that the nitrous combination was seen as a lost cause, but this year we recorded three number-one qualifying efforts in the IHRA alone. One of the primary goals of our partnership with Al Anabi Racing was to further develop the nitrous-injected engine program and I think we’ve made a lot of positive progress – and brought a little newfound excitement back to Pro Modified racing by making the nitrous cars competitive again.”
[coverattach=3]Although the racing season has come to a close in the United States, the action is just getting underway in Dubai and Qatar – the Middle Eastern home of AWESOME Al Anabi. Castellana will be handling the driving duties of the team’s Pro Nitrous cars abroad alongside Moon/Smith in the team’s Pro Extreme entry, with the first leg of the Emirates Auto Club Drag Racing Series being their first objective.
ABOUT AL-ANABI/QATAR
A result of drag racing’s continually increasing popularity abroad, Al-Anabi Racing is based out of the country of Qatar. Qatar is widely-known for working with the United States military forces to build one of the premier U.S. air bases in the Gulf at Al-Udeid. The Qatari philosophy was to obtain the best defense by providing the best facilities for U.S. and coalition forces. The Al-Udeid Air Base was built at a cost of more than a billion dollars and can house nearly a hundred aircraft.
ABOUT AWESOME MOTORSPORTS
Created by world champion racers Mike Castellana and Shannon Jenkins, AWESOME Motorsports has a long running reputation of re-writing record books with the performance of their nitrous-assisted Pro Modified cars. With a combined seven world championships under their belt, the future looks bright for two of the most dominant racers in the history of the sport.
