NHRA - National Hot Rod Association

Popular NHRA nitro Funny Car racer Alex Miladinovich and his M2/Hot For Teacher Racing team will be back in action at the NHRA Sonoma Nationals and the Lucas Oil NHRA Winternationals presented by ProtectTheHarvest.com, the final two legs of the annual Western Swing.

Miladinovich, whose last outing resulted in a disappointing and uncharacteristic DNQ at the Denso Spark Plugs NHRA Four-Wide Nationals, will again enjoy support from Nevada-based Aggretek Construction and Mining as his Kevin Poynter-tuned Toyota returns to battle.

The team will kick off its summer with a fan party on July 21 at J.J.’s Sports Bar in Sparks, Nev. The fan-friendly affair starts at noon, and the team will fire their car at 6 p.m., before heading to Northern California for the Sonoma event and then south to Miladinovich’s hometrack, Auto Club Raceway at Pomona, for the long-awaited Winternationals. The team hopes they can correct some clutch-related issues that have slowed their progress in their last two outings.

“We’ve been fighting a problem with the engine putting cylinders out,” he reported. "We got a DSR clutch in the car, and their lever package didn't really work the way we thought with our chassis. It actually started last year after Indy. We got the clutch, and it was the cat's meow. It was the bitchen, latest and greatest Schumacher clutch, but the levers that they use didn’t work in our car, and we didn't catch on to it. We were chasing ignition and a whole bunch of other things. In 10 runs, we haven't been down the track without putting out a cylinder, so Kevin's going to put this other lever package in there that worked pretty successful in the past, and so, hopefully, we can just get this thing back on track.”

Miladinovich and fellow Funny Car racer Tim Wilkerson will both benefit in Pomona with sponsorship from Glendora-based California pest management, owned by longtime fan Jim Harmon, who usually sponsors Peter Russo’s Funny Car efforts, but the Russos are stuck in their native Australia.

“It’s not a big-money deal, but we appreciate the support of people like Jim,” said Miladinovich. “He just saw some of the things we’ve been doing and hit me up. Every time we go out to the track, we get something more to get us to that next one. We're still fishing for more money to keep us in the game, and have people like Aggretek and RedShirtFriday.com helping us along the way. We're just gonna keep chugging along.”

Miladinovich is also looking forward to a strong showing by his fellow West Coast nostalgia series friends like Jason Rupert, Steven Densham, and Chris Morel who also will be in competition.

“We’re all just friends from racing in the nostalgia series together. You know, just kind of like when Willie Nelson and Johnny Cash and all those guys used to hang out [the Highwaymen group], so I'm excited for that. Everyone in the California area is just dying for racing, and I’m especially excited to go to Pomona and do some night racing. They’re having nighttime qualifying Friday and Saturday, and I’ve never done that in my big-show car, so that’s going to be exciting for all of us.

“I'm still a huge race fan,” he admitted. “Tim Wilkerson stopped by my pit just to say, ‘Hey.' I'm just still soaking it up. I'll get starstruck, so I just keep my mouth shut and sit there and listen to what they have to say.”

After the two California events, Miladinovich and his backers are contemplating a trip back east for the Dodge//SRT NHRA U.S. Nationals, but that’s not firm yet. Regardless, the team will finish out their season with the last two races of the year, in Las Vegas and back in Pomona again for the Auto Club NHRA Finals.

“After Sonoma and then Pomona, we'll recuperate from that and see how it goes,” he said. “Regardless of what we do, we’re just excited to be racing and again and feel blessed by all of the fan and sponsor support we’ve had.”

Get your tickets now!

Sonoma July 23-25) | Pomona July 30-Aug. 1