4 Publications Ignite2X Managing Editor Jeff Birchfield Photography BME Photography Contributing Writers Rob Goodman, Michael Dunn, Skooter Peaco Advertising Sales Dana Landry Art/Creative Ignite2X, Ashley Partenza TM Chief Financial Officer Lou Partenza President Michael Dunn Vice President Skooter Peaco Director of New Business & Industry Relations Dana Landry Director of Public Relations Jeff Birchfield Digital Marketing & Strategy Manager Ashley Partenza Director of Creative Marketing Manfred Eissner Membership Coordinator Bobby Carville Senior Director of Competition and Racing Operations Mike Baker Divisional Directors Josh Peake, Jon O’Neal & Frank Kohutek Special Advisor For Track Development Phil Gingerich The International Hot Rod Association (IHRA) is owned and operated by IRG Sports + Entertainment™, a TPG Specialty Lending company. The IHRA promotes professional and sportsman racing for drivers of all levels. The IHRA sanctions nearly 100 motorsport facilities in the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Bahama’s and welcomes 80,000 racers annually to their IHRA- sanctioned facilities. The IHRA oversees multiple sportsman racing programs including the Summit Sportsman National Championship and the Summit Racing Equipment SuperSeries. June, 2017 — Is it just me or is this year flying by? Hard to believe it’s June, but here we are. By the end of the month, we’ll about halfway through the races that make up the first IHRA Summit Sportsman National Championship – despite some rainouts, this deal’s off to a great start. Thanks to Summit Racing Equipment for supporting this great program. We’ve seen some great racing in several different states, and we’re coming into the heart of the Summit Sportsman National Championship schedule. We’ve also seen a lot of rain, unfortunately. Our races at Maryland International Raceway in early May and State Capital Dragway near Baton Rouge, La., in early June were both postponed because of rain and flooding. A busy month of June with four race weekends was reduced to three because of flooding in Louisiana, but we still have races at Farmington Dragway in Mocksville, N.C. and US 131 Motorsports Park in Martin, Mich., followed by Piedmont Dragway in Julian, N.C. to close out June. In July, we visit Keystone Raceway Park outside of Pittsburgh and Maryland International Raceway for our make-up race. It will be really interesting to watch the rest of the season unfold until we settle everything at Dragway 42 in West Salem, Ohio Sept. 22-24. I can’t wait to award some $15,000 championships, some coveted Ironman Trophies and find out which two champions win a vacation on the island of Aruba! A quick look at the Summit Sportsman National Championship point standings in early June (available here: www.ihra.com/stats/ssnc-national- standings) shows tight points races in most categories. The exception is Super Stock where Jerry Hatch holds a 91-point lead over Jeff Adkinson, but other than that class, the point races are all within about 50 points. There are some really tight point battles, too. Johnny Tolisano leads Tracy Cochran by two points in Top Dragster, Randall Langley leads Darrell Pittman by six points in Quick Rod, Rusty Cook leads James Perry, Jr. by six points in Super Rod and Nick Ferraro leads Gage Burch by 13 in Junior Dragster. Congratulations to all of our drivers for putting on a great show this season. Our ESPN3 race broadcasts are going really well. We’re refining our process to make things even better. Thanks to our partners at ESPN and Mark Walter and his team at J-Angel Productions for their work on our streaming broadcasts. And I’d like to congratulate Fabian Brown, our ESPN3 track announcer, for doing such a nice job so far this season. He’s learned a lot in a short period of time, and we’re excited about working with Fabian for the rest of this season and in the future. We are still working on our plans for the 2018. We have some exciting things in the works for next season, and I hope we’ll be able to talk about everything soon. It’s all still a work in progress, but rest assured, we’re working as hard as we can to get things buttoned up for the future. As soon as we have details confirmed, you’ll be the first to know! That’s all for now – see you at the track! MIKE DUNN IHRA President AT THE STARTING LINE with IHRA President Mike Dunn