VIDEO: "Big Daddy" Don Garlits, Kenny Youngblood Sign TJ Zizzo's Car Before Launch

Zizzo Racing’s Kenny Youngblood Paint Scheme to Honor Karamesines, Garlits

TJ Zizzo and his PEAK Motor Oil/Herculiner NHRA Full Throttle Series Top Fuel Dragster team’s season-long tribute to legendary drag racing artist Kenny Youngblood will make this weekend’s O’Reilly Auto Parts NHRA Route 66 Nationals at Route 66 Raceway here the team’s third outing on its 2011 schedule. For this race, the Youngblood artwork on the rail will honor “Big Daddy” Don Garlits and Chicago native Chris “The Greek” Karamesines.

“Chicago is our home town, so we really want to make a statement this weekend, both with performance and appearance,” Zizzo said. “We qualified well at both Pomona and Houston, but just didn’t put it together in eliminations; we’re out to change that this weekend.”

“When you think about it, this makes TJ’s car the world’s only 300 mph art gallery!” said Youngblood, 65. “On top of which, both ‘The Greek’ and ‘The Old Man’ have agreed to autograph their respective vignettes -- Garlits’ ‘Nightwing II’ and ‘Greek Goes 204.’”

Fans are invited to stop by the Zizzo Racing Peak Motor Oil pit area to meet Zizzo and Youngblood and check out Blood’s artwork.

Fans of TJ Zizzo and Zizzo Racing can find updates and photos of the PEAK/Herculiner Top Fuel team by checking out ZizzoRacing.com, Twitter.com/ZizzoRacing, and Facebook.com/ZizzoRacing. Videos of TJ and Zizzo Racing can be found at YouTube.com/TJZizzo.

Zizzo will race his PEAK/Herculiner rail in the 14^th Annual O’Reilly Auto Parts NHRA Route 66 Nationals at Route 66 Raceway in Joliet. The stars of the NHRA will race under the stars this weekend, with the first round of qualifying starting at 5 p.m. local time and the second scheduled to run at 8 with Saturday’s two rounds of nitro qualifying set to run at the same times. Eliminations start at 11 a.m. Sunday. For ticket information, call Route 66 Raceway at 888-629-RACE or visit them on the Web at Route66Raceway.com.

A New Era for Zizzo Racing

Zizzo Racing Unveils New Kenny Youngblood Paint Scheme for ‘11

(Zizzo Racing unveiled their new Kenny Youngblood-designed paint scheme for their PEAK Motor Oil/Herculiner NHRA Full Throttle Series Top Fuel dragster. That's me, second from the left. I'm awesome. Zizzo Racing photo)

Kenny Youngblood has been in drag racing 45 years and is celebrating with a new paint scheme on the PEAK Motor Oil/Herculiner dragster of TJ Zizzo. Youngblood said the new paint job was good for an extra .01 seconds and he may have been right as Zizzo rocketed down the track at Pomona at 312 mph for an ET of 3.870. The time was good enough for seventh on the provisional charts. Given the weather forecast for the remainder of the weekend, Thursday may be the only qualifying session for the 51st Annual Winternationals.

For the full story on the unveiling, click HERE.