Who’ll fill our need for speed?

Full Throttle, an "energy drink", is the sponsor of the National Hot Rod Association, and a more perfect combination of product and sport could not be found.

Everything about the NHRA is full throttle. There is no following another driver for a couple of laps, or a couple of hundred laps, before making a move.

In the NHRA -- Top Fuel, Funny Car, Pro Stock or Pro Stock Motorcycles -- the idea is to blast off, reach full speed as quickly as possible, maintain it and hope the parachute opens at the end of the quarter-mile track.

The NHRA makes its stop at Virginia Motorsports Park this weekend, and this is not just any stop in Dinwiddie.

It is the last stop, at least for now.

The NHRA and VMP could not reach a deal on a contract extension.

In 2010, this weekend of racing will be occupied by the Reading, Pa., track. The opening in the 24-race schedule goes to a second event in Charlotte.

The International Hot Rod Association will return to VMP in 2010.

With the NHRA's departure, VMP has accelerated its plans to develop a 2.5-mile road course to attract the Vintage Series Circuit, club racing days and pro team testing.

Any way you look at it, this is another step down for sports in the region.

Triple A baseball leaves, and Double A arrives. The Indy Racing League and minor league hockey simply leave.

We are "blessed" with two indoor football teams, but that is more along the lines of a "be careful what you wish for" situation than reason for celebration.

No one should be happy about the departure of the NHRA. Certainly the folks at VMP are not.

"This is like losing your first girlfriend," said Bryan Pierce, general manager at VMP.

"The NHRA helped the initial owners develop the track. For them to leave a second time has been very disappointing and unexpected."

VMP had five years of NHRA racing from 1996 through 2000. Then the NHRA left, and the IHRL came in. The NHRA returned in 2006.

Whether this pattern will repeat remains to be seen.

"We'll always welcome them back," Pierce said.

"We never say never on anything," said Jerry Archambeault, the NHRA's vice president of communications. "Right now, we're confident and happy with our 2010 schedule."

Charlotte figures into the NHRA's confidence and happiness. A second race there has the potential to be more lucrative than a single race in Dinwiddie.

"Given the [economic] world around us, we couldn't expand," Archambeault said.

To some, drag racing is drag racing. But the NHRA is the top of the line in this motorsport.

It has the most recognizable drivers -- Cory McClenathan, Antron Brown, Tony Schumacher, John Force, Ashley Force Hood, the Pedregon brothers.

If the weather conditions are favorable this weekend, world records could be set.

Imagine that. A world record in our little Dinwiddie County.

It has to happen now because there is no tomorrow for the NHRA at Virginia Motorsport Park.

Whether you care for drag racing or not, that's a loss for the region.
Contact Paul Woody at (804) 649-6444 or . Follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/World_of_Woody