Gienger and his Buick Regal stock car continued to rule International Motor Contest of America (IMCA) action as he won both his preliminary event and later the feature Friday at Marshalltown (IA) Speedway.

The twin victories boosted the Des Moines, IA driver to a 21-point lead in the season championship standings at the track.

“When you win, the points take care of themselves,” stated Gienger. “The second-place guy in the points finished ninth tonight, sot that’s another eitght- point swing in our favor and we now lead by 21 points with six nights of racing remaining.”

Gienger’s Buick, cooled by an EMP Stewart Components Stage 4 Water Pump, is typical of thousands of ‘Saturday Night’ race cars being campaigned on weekly short tracks across the nation. On this night, Gienger was the class of the field taking the lead in his preliminary event after just two laps and cruising to a seventh heat race win of the season.

In the main event, Gienger started 12th and rolled to the runner-up spot by the midway point of the race. Gienger then powered into the lead on a restart and never looked back in scoring his second main event victory of the season at the Marshalltown clay oval.

”I got a good run going into Turn 1 and got alongside the leader off of Turn 2,” said Gienger. “We drag raced down the backstretch and I took the lead coming off of Turn 4. Tonight was our night to take the win.”

Gienger will be looking to pad his IMCA division championship lead even more when this week’s events at Marshalltown on Friday, July 28 take the green flag at 7 P.M. Central Time.

Harvick, meanwhile, was padding his own point lead as he won the NASCAR Busch Series Goody’s 250 at Martinsville, VA Saturday.

Harvick held off his Richard Childress Racing teammate Clint Bowyer over the final stages of the event – the first Busch Series race at the track since 1994. Both cars were equipped with RCR engines cooled by the EMP Stewart Components GM Pro Series Water Pump.

Harvick led a whopping 149 laps in the event that was slowed a record 19 times for 85 of the 250 circuits. Denny Hamlin finished third followed by Reed Sorenson and Johnny Sauter.

Carl Edwards was sixth with John Andretti, Jason Leffler, J.J. Yelley and Jay Sauter completing the Top-10 finishers.

The win was Harvick's fourth Busch Series triumph this season and gave him 21 career division victories – tied for seventh all-time with Dale Earnhardt Sr., Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Harry Gant.

The NASCAR Busch Series will stay busy with a Saturday, July 29 event at Gateway International Speedway near St. Louis, MO. The event will take the green flag at 8 p.m. Eastern Time and will be telecast live on TNT, 8 p.m. MRN and XM Satellite Radio will also carry the event live.

Johnson ended a 34-race dry spell by downing surprise finalist Tom Martino in the Pro Stock finals of the National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) Schuck’s Auto Supply NHRA Nationals in Seattle, WA Sunday.

Martino appeared to have the edge on Johnson’s Dodge Stratus (right) in the Pro Stock final pairing only to have his Pontiac GTO get out of the groove halfway through the quarter-mile pass. By the time he corrected, Johnson was on his way to his first victory since winning at Phoenix early last season.

Johnson’s EMP Stewart Components Electric Water Pump was more than up to the task in the 6.767-second. 204.63 miles per hour winning run.

"We've had the best car for the last four races -- Englishtown, St. Louis, Denver, and here -- so this isn't a big surprise to me," Johnson said of the win. "We've struggled a little with our race day tune-up and we especially stubbed our toe in Denver in the first round but that mistake really taught us what we needed to know to get down these hot, gummy racetracks. If we hadn't done that there we probably wouldn't have learned enough to do well here.”

Also at Seattle Sunday, reigning NHRA Top Fuel champion Tony Schumacher won for the second time in three events while Whit Bazemore took the Funny Car title.

The NHRA ground pounders will stay busy heading to Pomona, CA and the NHRA Fram Autolite Nationals Saturday-Sunday, July 29-30. Television coverage of the final rounds will be shown Sunday at 8 p.m. Eastern Time on ESPN2.

In other racing action this weekend, Denny Hamlin dominated the NASCAR Nextel Cup Pennsylvania 500 at Pocono Raceway Sunday. Hamlin, who won the Cup race at the 2.5-mile raceway one month ago, dominated Sunday leading 151 of 200 laps to complete the season sweep at the track.

Kurt Busch (right), driving a Penske Racing Dodge featuring an EMP Stewart Components/MERE Dodge Pro Series Water Pump was second, followed by Jeff Gordon. Brian Vickers, in an EMP associate sponsored Chevy fielded by Hendrick Motorsports was fourth, with Kevin Harvick’s EMP Stewart Components cooled RCR Chevy fifth.

The event featured a pair of rough driving penalties as Tony Stewart and Carl Edwards were each flagged by NASCAR for aggressive moves on the track.

Stewart, angered by close quarters, non-contact racing with Clint Bowyer, first shook his fist at Bowyer and then intentionally wrecked him as the pair raced on the home stretch early in the race. Edwards, on the inside of Bowyer, was also caught up in the melee.

NASCAR penalized Stewart one lap for aggressive driving, the same penalty assessed to Edwards later in the event when he intentionally spun Stewart as they entered pit road.

"I pulled up beside him and waved my hand like, 'What was that about?'" Edwards (right) said of Stewart. "He gives me the finger. I mean, what a jerk. I don't even know what to say. There are a lot of things you can't control and I guess we just have to chalk the driver of that 20 car up as one of them. If it weren't for the respect of the sport and the people watching and his team, he'd be out there (on pit road) bleeding right now. How can a person make it this far in life being such a jerk?"

Despite the problems, Stewart was able to fight his way back to a seventh-place finish and move back to 10th in the Nextel Cup championship standings.

Edwards, meanwhile, saw the crash all but end his hopes for making the final 10-race chase finishing 39th, He is now 235 points out of the top 10 with just six races left to make the Top-10 in the standings.

Jimmie Johnson, sixth at Pocono Sunday, now holds a 103-point lead over Matt Kenseth in the championship standings. Jeff Burton is 318 markers behind Johnson in third followed by Kyle Busch (-357), Kevin Harvick (-376), Mark Martin (-382), Kasey Kahne (-424), Hamlin (-425), Gordon (-426) and Stewart (-462).

The Cup crowd will now take a weekend off before return to action on Sunday, August 6, for the Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. The race will be televised live on NBC beginning at 2:30 p.m. Eastern Time. MRN and XM Satellite Radio will also carry the event live.

EMP short-track pavement racer Mike Gardner had a busy weekend competing in a pair of super late model events at Wisconsin International Raceway.

On Thursday, Gardner warmed up for the weekend Wisconsin State Championship Red, White and Blue Series events at the Kaukauna half-mile oval with a second-place finish in the weekly Fox Valley Racing Club feature event.

Saturday’s action saw Gardner enter the state championship series as the point’s leader. Gardner’s EMP Stewart Components cooled Ford Taurus racer was up to the task qualifying third and finishing in the Top-5 in each of the twin 50-lap main events.

“We had a very good night,” said Garnder. “We qualified third, finished fifth in the first 50-lapper and third in the second. We tied for second-place overall in the individual White Race standings and we are still first overall in the Red, White and Blue Series championship standings.”

Gardner, second in the WIR regular season point standings, returns to Fox Valley Racing Club action this Thursday, July 27. The Gladstone, MI driver will try to close the door on the Red, White and Blue championship at Kaukauna on Saturday, August 8. Racing gets underway at both events at 7 p.m. Central Time.

EMP Stewart Components racer Mike Beauchamp steered his Formula Continental around the famed Road America (Elkhart Lake, WI) Sunday scoring a seventh-place finish in a Sports Car Club of America event.

The Green Bay, WI driver turned in a time of 2:16.936 on the tricky 14-turn, four-mile RA layout. In the day’s main event, Beauchamp averted disaster in the opening laps and closed with a flourish to notch the solid finish.

“At the green flag I got pinched to the pit wall and had to back out of it,” said Beauchamp. “A couple cars got by. Then, as I pressured the car in front of me, he lost it in Turn 5 and tagged the outside wall.

“On the last lap, I was able to run one more car down. I got a good run out of the last turn and got by him as we approached the checkered flag. I finished 10th here last year so I'm pleased with the improved result. We also got the car sorted on the new tires and are now set for the pro race in September.”

Beauchamp will make his professional series debut on Sunday, September 23, when he returns to the venerable Elkhart Lake facility, a staple of American road racing since opening in 1955.

Also coming up on the EMP Stewart Components road racing calender is a Grand American Road Racing event this weekend at Barber Motorsports Park.

Sunday’s Rolex 250 Daytona Prototype race, featuring the defending series champion EMP Stewart Components cooled No. 10 Suntrust Pontiac Riley, is the headline event in a weekend that will also see Rolex GT, Grand Am Cup and World Karting Association racers take to the Birmingham, AL track.

Sunday’s Rolex 250 will be televised on Sunday, July 30 at 3 p.m. Eastern Time on The SPEED Network.

Make sure you log on to www.stewartcomponents.com every Monday morning throughout the 2006 racing series to read about all the highlights from the previous weekend and get a leg up on what’s happening in the weekend ahead.