Richard Tharp is officially out as driver of the Candies and Hughes Top Fuel dragster. After months of speculation and rumor, Mark Oswald, the talented young driver from Cincinnati, Ohio, is apparently in.

Conflicts with crew chief Leonard Hughes were certainly one of the contributing factors. Another was no doubt the team's failure to win an NHRA national event the last four years after winning both the U.S. Nationals and the Winston World Championship in 1976.

Tharp, meanwhile, says he'd like to play around with his sprint car driving for awhile before getting back into big-time drag racing.

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