We were happy to skip over the pond to take in the AutoSport International Racing Car Show in Birmingham, England. Racepak had the rally racers and track day enthusiasts checking out the G2X and new IQ3 Data/Dash systems while we had inquiries on our Ignition Controls, Coils and spark plug leads (plug wires). This show is huge and similar to the PRI or Sema show here in the states. It was a great experience to learn about a variety of different engines, racing and the European gearheads. Special thanks to our European Reps, Charlie, Alain and Chris as well as Demon-Tweeks, GPR, Raceparts, Real Steel and Graham Goode.

The Performance Racing Industry Trade Show takes place December 13-15 in Orlando, Florida and MSD will be there (along with Racepak and thousands of other race companies!). We're set up right in the front in booth 3901 so be sure to come by and check out our new products and plans for the '08 season.

Click here for 2006 archives

MSD would like to congratulate the 2007 NHRA Champs and thank them all for choosing MSD Ignition to fire their race winning engines!

MSD Ignition was named the Company of the Year by the Performance Warehouse Association! And to put the icing on that cake, our CEO, Dan Gresham, was named Person of the Year by PWA as well. MSD would like to thank the PWA group and is excited to be recognized with such an honor.

All dealers who wish to continue to carry MSD Ignition products must sign up to the new Authorized Dealer Program by April 2. Don't miss this opportunity to become an official dealer of MSD's lines of valued brands. Go to www.MSDmvp.com to sign up today!

The countdown to the championship ended dramatically with Tony Schumacher defeating “Hot Rod” Fuller on the final pass of the season to steal away the title. Tony Pedregon sweated it out until the semi finals before securing his championship crown. Jeg Coughlin wrapped up the Pro Stock Championship while Matt Smith took the Pro Stock Motorcycle championship. Congratulations to all the champions!

That's right - our '55 Chevy is going on the block! We've used the car for several years on Power Tour, SEMA and a variety of other events, but it's time to move on and build something new. If you're interested in owning a beautiful pro street, big block, EFI'd shoebox, click here for more photos and info.

The 2007 SEMA show is in full swing! Day one was packed with dealers, reps, race shops, racers, auto heros and aftermarket industry buzz everywhere. The MSD 2008 new products were rolled out and introduced including our new 6AL-2, Hemi Controller and Coil Packs, Mod Motor 2-Steps and much more! Racepak is on hand in the MSD both with their new line of IQ3 dash/data recorders, Superchips is here with the all new Cortex and Edge Products has a full booth with their new diesel and gas components. What a week ahead!

Doug Kalitta over Melanie Troxel in the Top Fuel final at Virginia Motorsports Park. Gary Scelzi takes the win over his teammate Ron Capps in Funny Car and Dave Connolly makes it his 5th win in a row in Pro Stock. All are fired by MSD Ignition!

The Countdown to Four is now set:

Top Fuel	Funny Car	Pro Stock
Larry Dixon	Tony Pedregon	Dave Connolly
Rod Fuller	Gary Scelzi	Greg Anderson
Tony Schumacher	Robert Hight	Jeg Coughlin
Brandon Bernstein	Ron Capps	Allen Johnson

MSD sends congrats to Tony Bischoff of BES Engines for back-to-back wins at the Engine Master's Challenge! This year the BES team ran a 400 Chevy - after three years of Ford power! Looks like they built quite a beast as they were able to take the win! According to our mole calling in with early reports, BES just edged out two time champ Jon Kasse by a few points! For more info, check out the Popular Hot Rodding website.

Melanie Troxel takes the win at Memphis Mid-South Nationals in Top Fuel over Doug Herbert. Gary Scelzi takes the win over Jack Beckman in Funny Car and Dave Connolly makes it his 3rd in a row in Pro Stock. All are fired by MSD Ignition!

Hot Rod's Drag Week is on day three - there's been breakage in the way of driveshafts, headgaskets and shredded radiators along with several 7-second passes and a bunch of 8-second cars! Follow the action at hotrod.com or 1320video!

Well over 100 cars have made their way to Cordova Dragway on the border of Illinois and Iowa to take part in the third running of Hot Rod's Drag Week! Sunday was simply tech-in with a few people deciding on a little test and tune. One Unlimited car reportedly roared to a high-7 second pass. If you like spice in your cars, this is the place to be. Trucks, diesel power, E-85, nitrous, blowers and turbos and more! Tune in for DW updates at www.hotrod.com and read Hot Rod Magazine's Editor-in-Chief David Freiburgers blog here.

The U.S. Nationals were held this weekend with Tony Schumacher winning in top fuel category over Larry Dixon. In funny car, Mike Ashley took top honors by beating Robert Hight. The Pro Stock final was a repeat from last year with Dave Connolly facing last years reigning champ Greg Anderson. Dave Connolly drove a perfect race and took home the wally upsetting Andersons’ 4 win streak at Indy.

Getting into the 200-Club at Bonneville is a feat for anyone to reach - but the team with the Hot Rod Magazine Special Camaro just set five 200-Club records in one week! The team qualified on Sunday, then backed up the record pass on Monday. Later that afternoon, the car was tweaked and reclassified and qualified for a record again. This schedule went through each day of Speed Week to claim five new 200-club records! Congratualtions to the drivers; Keith Turk, Tonya Turk, David Freiburger and Steve Atwell. The Hot Rod Magazine Special is fired with an MSD 7AL-2 Plus Ignition system.

For all of the record setting information from Speed Week 2007, check out www.scta-bni.org

Congratulations to defending Knoxville Nationals champion Donny Schatz who made it two in a row at the 47th Annual Knoxville Nationals. The happy winner celebrated with family and friends in victory lane. Donny runs a Pro Mag 12 System!

If you like Street Rods, then Louisville was the place to be as the NSRA welcomed over 11,300 plus street rods to the Kentucky Fairgrounds. The weather was hot and humid but otherwise was a great show and we saw thousands of cool rods and met a lot of terrific street rodders. Here are a few photos for you to enjoy.

Greg Anderson netted his 50th win of his career over the the weekend at Infineon Raceway! It was an all Summit final round with Anderson beating out teammate Jason Line in a close, 6.65 to 6.68 race. John Force pulled out a second win for the '07 season over Del Worham and Tony Schumacher edged out Bob Vandergriff for the win with a 4.53 to a close but no cigar 4.597.

It was NASCAR on the Brickyard and Tony Stewart made it two out of three wins at his 'home' track. Stewart was able to get back by Kevin Harvick with five to go and never looked back. The #20 car is fired by an MSD 6-HVC Ignition Control! Congrats to Tony and the Joe Gibbs race team.

Congrats to Paul Ferrucci for his MSD True Street win at the NMCA Super Bowl in Joliet last weekend! After driving the mandated 30 mile loop, Paul ran a string of 8-second passes to an average of 8.64 to take the crown over the 70+ cars in the field! Check out www.nmcadigital.com for more racing results and info on the next MSD True Street race.

MSD Ignition and Racepak would like to congratulate Detroit Speed and Engineering! DSE’s latest project, a second-gen Camaro for Dale Earnhardt Jr. made it to Goodguy’s Top Five Street Machines of the year! The Camaro features an MSD 6LS-2 Controller to fire the LS2 powerplant while Jr. keeps tabs on the engine and speed through Racepak’s UDX Dash. Check out the car here.

Also, we send kudos to Stacy Tucker of DSE for winning Goodguy’s Woman of the Year! Way to go Stacy!

Drag racing took to the mountains with Colorado's drag racing fans packing the stands at Mile High Dragway. The altitude and heat put a challenge to the normally aspirated teams and in Pro Stock it was Allen Johnson coming out on top over Ron Krisher who broke at the holeshot. Jack Beckman got a well earned win from Ron Caps in Funny Car and Rod Fuller pulled off a close Top Fuel race over Ron Capps. What do all these winners have in common? MSD fires 'em all!

Tony Stewart won his first race of 2007 at Chicagoland Speedway Sunday with Matt Kenseth and Carl Edwards fighing for second place a couple seconds behind. Kevin Harvick and Casey Mears round out the top five. Stewart's car and the entire Joe Gibbs team rely on the MSD 6 HVC-L Ignition system to fire their Chevys.

Joliet NHRA was a great race with some new faces in the winner's circle including Jeg Coughlin in Pro Stock (with a .002 light to score the win over Jason Line!), Larry Dixon landed a win over Hot Rod Fuller and Gary Scelzi zipped by Ron Capps in th lights to win his second of the season by just a few feet.

Day four of the Power Tour finally brought sun to match the fun! Our Racer Support Semi was able to cruise in to the Springfield stop and take up a lot of space and show-off the whole MSD line. Special thanks to Terry and Linda for getting the truck to the show (Ed and JD were happy that they didn't have to set up the EZ-Up today!) See you in Evansville!

The MSD Racer Support Trailer Team is always ready to help out! Here's Terry Brock, our Rep Rich Butler, Pro Mag Tech Carlos Vaquez and Joe Lapille at Topeka.
	Ron from Racepak in the H-D pits.

Heartland Park was the place to be for NHRA fans this past weekend! Brandon Bernstein pulled out a Top Fuel victory over JR Todd in a great side-by-side race while Mike Ashley scored his first Funny Car victory! In Pro Stock, the familiar face of Greg Anderson showed up over a red lighting Dave Connolly.

It's time to hit the road for Power Tour! Like every year, MSD will be at every stop along the way - this year rolling again in our comfy 500+ horsepower CTS-V. Be sure to stop by our booth every night to pick up your official MSD Power Tour magnet and say "Hi" to PT veterans Ed and the two newbies, JD and Jason. For info on when we're rolling into your area, check out www.hotrod.com. See you there!

MSD was on hand (along with a lot of racers) at the IHRA Race in Tulsa last weekend, but the finals ended up getting rained out. Be sure to check the IHRA website for info on the make up or next race! Even though the weather didn't agree, our team was on their toes and stayed busy helping out race teams.

MSD Employess dusted off their rides for MSD's third annual car show April 18th. There were lots of cool cars, technical information and fun!
2007 MSD Car show picture

An emotional victory for John Force Racing came as Funny Car driver Robert Hight beat Ron Capps at the NHRA Nationals in Las Vegas Sunday. Top Fuel winner, Brandon Bernstein got his 13th win, and Pro Stock winner, Greg Anderson, won a record fifth trophy at Las Vegas. After the race, Hight stated that he might have had some extra help from his late teammate, Eric Medlen, who was killed in a testing accident March 23.

Hendrick Motorsports’ four-week winning streak came to an end Sunday, as Jeff Burton completed a last-lap pass to take the win at the Samsung 500. After battling with Matt Kenseth for the final several laps, Burton finally got around the #17 Roush car to become the first repeat winner at Texas. It was Burton’s 19th career win, and his first since last year at Dover. Kenseth finished second, having won Saturday’s Busch Series race.

Speed Channel is featuring a new show called SETUP. It is a reality show that takes 10 race teams, puts them in identical Pontiacs, and then they race, with the loser going home while the other 9 get ready for the next race.  Each Solstice has a DashHawk installed and our very own Ken Mosher spent some time on camera explaining how it works.  The show is set to debut April 18th at 8 and 11 PM ET/PT on Speed Channel. Here are some sneak previews of the up and coming show:
Promo 1
Promo 2

MSD sends our prayers and wishes to the teammates, family and friends of Eric Medlen. Eric succumbed to his injuries on Friday afternoon. Eric started driving for John Force Racing just over three years ago and was the top Funny Car rookie that year. Check with www.nhra.com for updates.

Jimmie Johnson scored his second win in a row at Atlanta Motor Speedway Sunday. But, it wasn't without another contentious finish. This time, Johnson pinched Tony Stewart into the wall for a pass with just three laps to go. Johnson admitted he had not given enough room for Stewart but stated that it was not intentional. Despite his two early wins this season, Johnson sits fourth in the Nextel Cup Standings.

Top Fuel winner Tony Schumacher picked up his 36th career victory in his win over Larry Dixon at the AC Delco Gatornationals in Gainesville while teammate Ron Capps repeated his Gatornationals Funny Car title from 2006. Funny car contestant Ashley Force finally picked up her first professional win by defeating Jeff Arend in Round 1, but lost in Round 2 after hitting the retaining wall. Greg Anderson won the Pro Stock and set a new elapsed-time record. Pro Stock Motorcycle winner Karen Stoffer won from the No. 16 qualifying spot with an upset over No. 1 qualifier Angelle Sampey in the first round.

UPDATE: MSD's prayers are with John Force Racing driver Eric Medlen who remained in critical condition Tuesday after he was seriously injured in a NHRA Funny Car testing accident at Gainesville Monday.

The El Paso Sun Bowl welcomed the Monster Trucks and after they were done putting on a show for the sold out crowd, several of the trucks stopped by MSD. The teams that set up and displayed at MSD included the Tazmanian Devil, El Toro Loco, Team Suzuki and The Air Force Afterburner. All of the trucks are powered with MSD equipped blown, injected 540-ci engines that make nearly 1,500 horsepower! Thanks to the teams of Live Nation Motorsports for taking the time to stop by MSD!

The Phoenix Arizona weather was just about perfect for the 23rd annual CSK NHRA Nationals. The great weather allowed for some record-setting times! Tony Pedregon set a national elapsed time record with a 4.659 second qualifying run! He went all the way to the finals beating out Robert Hight in funny car. Rod Fuller beat out Melanie Troxel in top fuel while Kurt Johnson took out reigning pro stock champ Jason Line on a holeshot!

Two weeks into the 2007 NASCAR season, an interesting trend is developing. Last week at Daytona, Kevin Harvick swept both the Busch and Nextel Cup races, and this week at Fontana, Matt Kenseth duplicated the feat. Still working without the benefit of crew chief Robbie Reiser, who was suspended for four races after a rules infraction during Daytona qualifying, Kenseth was openly emotional in victory lane. “That was special one,” Kenseth said. "This team was built by Robbie Reiser. It's cool to do this two years in a row and get some of our [50] points back from the Daytona penalty.”

Speedweeks at Daytona concluded just how it began: in controversy. Kevin Harvick was the recipient of a monster bump draft in the back stretch of the last lap, pushing him ahead of Mark Martin. Meanwhile, mayhem reigned behind the leaders coming out of turn four and into the tri-oval. The multi-car pileup never did bring out the caution flag, creating a debate that is sure to last for weeks. The green flag finish allowed Harvick to pip Martin at the line by just .02 seconds. This was Harvick’s first 500 win, and second win as a driver at Daytona, having won Saturday’s Busch race.

NEWS FLASH: All 43 starters at the Daytona 500 were MSD equipped! MSD would like to congratulate all of the Nextel Cup teams on their performance!

Tony Stewart and Jeff Gordon won the Gatorade Duel 150’s at Daytona on Thursday –both with fire power from their MSD Ignition systems! Controversy flared again in post-race inspection, as Gordon’s car was found to be approximately an inch lower than spec, possibly due to a broken shock mount. Gordon thus forfeits his second-row starting position and will start the 500 at the back of the pack on Sunday.

Rookie David Gilliland and his teammate Ricky Rudd make up the all-Yates front row. Yates Racing relies on MSD’s HVC-L Ignitions to fire their Ford Fusions.

NHRA kicked off their 2007 season at Pomona, California! Four days of racing came to a close Sunday evening with some familiar faces on the winners' podium such as in Pro Stock where Greg Anderson topped Greg Stanfield for the win (three years in a row!) while in Funny Car Gary Scelzi was awarded the Wally as Robert Hight took out a cone and danced over the centerline. And in Top Fuel it was J.R. Todd getting the lights over Brandon Bernstein. Also, for the record, everyone one of the winners and runner-ups in the pro categories are fired by MSD!

Tony Stewart won Saturday night’s Budweiser Shootout in Daytona Beach, after nudging erstwhile leader Kyle Busch up track and out of the way. Rookie David Gilliland showed his stripes by finishing second.
Sunday qualifying for the 500 found Gilliland in the news again, claiming his first pole at Daytona. Teammate Ricky Rudd, fresh off a year away from racing, qualified second making the front row an all-Yates affair.
The remainder of the field will be set on Thursday, at the Duel 150’s.

MSD is ready for the first NHRA race of the year at Pomona. The MSD tech support trailer is on-site with Racepak data acquisition support as well. See you at the races!

A ribbon cutting ceremony was held at the new MSD Ignition building on Thursday. Employees celebrated and toured the new building before the move-in begins Friday.

Rick Saenz passed away on February 4th. Rick had been with MSD for over 25 years and worked in a variety of areas including coil production and spark plug wires as well as handling a variety of special projects. Rick was the pitcher of the MSD Blasters softball team and had coached little league for several years.

Cesar Chavarria had been with MSD for seven years. He started in our Transformers Deprtment then was transferred to the Stockroom Area. Cesar was a very outgoing individual and his co-workers loved his friendliness and great sense of humor. He will be greatly missed. Cesar passed away on January 26.

MSD Ignition introduces a New Authorized Dealer Program. Go to www.MSDmvp.com to learn more.

Robby Gordon won Thursday’s sixth stage of the Dakar Rally. This is a huge accomplishment for both Hummer/Team USA and MSD Ignition! Although our name isn’t on the vehicle, our MSD MEFI4 controller is! The truck is a Hummer H3 powered by a GM Racing prepared LS7. The race has been going on for the last 6 days, and there hasn’t been a single engine controls or data related issue!
Overall,  Robby is lagging behind due to a couple of racing "incidents", but the race continues for another 9 days, so he has time to make up a lot of ground! If you would like to follow the race, goto www.dakar.com or www.robbygordon.com.  

Dave McClelland, the voice of drag racing, chats about MSD’s exciting new products for the 2007 racing season.

Welcome to 2007! In just in a month or so we'll start hearing the thunder of top fuel engines and the roar of cars on the circle tracks. There is plenty in store for the '07 racing and cruising season. We got bunch of new products so be sure and check them out.

For Motorcycle and powersports enthusiasts, 2007 will be an exciting year with new products coming out of the woodworks. Keep an eye out for new performance products coming out for more applications!

There's a lot in store for MSD, Racepak, Edge Products and Superchips in 2007 - we'll keep you posted and see you at the races!

MSD Ignition is very excited to present our best New Products for 2007. And while these latest products are the hottest things going, they are just the beginning of what we have in store for the next year. With the brain trust of MSD, Racepak, Superchips and Edge, there are going to be exciting new products being introduced all the time. Keep up with our most current developments here at www.msdignition.com all year long!

Check out the media coverage our new products received at the SEMA Show!
Truck World TV
Power TV
SEMA Show Photos