NHRA - National Hot Rod Association

Winning an NHRA world championship in the NHRA Lucas Oil Drag Racing Series Sportsman classes requires drivers to be successful not just at the national event level, but also on the divisional schedule, and making them both happen in the same season has been the end of many a championship dream. 

You don’t have to tell that to Cody Lane, who had won six divisional championships — four in Comp and two in Super Stock — and also watched his father, Jeff, one of the Northwest’s all-time great drivers, also consistently fall just a few rounds short of a world championship on one end or the other. 

But 2024 will be the year that the Lanes and longtime partner Jerry Hancock finally get to add the coveted No. 1 to the side of their E/SMA Cavalier after Cody put together strong seasons on both the national and divisional level, kick-starting the season with a runner-up at the Lucas Oil NHRA Winternationals (completed in Las Vegas) and a win at the NHRA 4-Wide Nationals (also in Las Vegas), both times with Ryan Priddy in the other lane and the latter by the razor-thin margin of just .0007-second. 

“When you start the year off with the runner-up and the win, you’re like, ‘OK, now it feels like this is the right platform to really build off of those successes,’ because national events is where we have struggled to build the momentum on the points total,” said Lane. “So, it felt like a great launching point to really dig our feet in and say, ‘This is going to be the year we really give it our all.’  

“The goal every year is to try to win a world championship, but I had some great mentors coach me throughout the season. I’ve been working with Jerry Emmons on certain mindsets when it comes to preparing from a reaction time standpoint. The last few years, given our performance and where we thought the car was and how I’ve been driving, the goal was to have an opportunity to be in contention.” 

A transbrake malfunction at the divisional race that followed the Las Vegas event slowed that momentum, and after another early exit at the Division 6 event in Boise, Idaho, Lane struck hard at the next Northwest Division event at Yellowstone Dragstrip in Montana, where he won both ends of the doubleheader. After beating Bruce Schmiedel to win the first race, Lane faced a familiar — and persistent — foe in fellow second-generation driver and Division 6 racer Ryan Warter, who would be in the championship fight with Lane to the end. 

“We had a couple of disappointing finishes there, and Ryan was starting to win, but the [Yellowstone] race is where I started to turn around,” said Lane. “We had our Bantam [roadster] there, and my dad was driving that and was able to take some people out or use them up on index, and our car was just flying. We actually changed engines in between qualifying and first round because they ran it eighth-mile, but we got it figured out, and that engine basically became our horse all year.” 

Warter got his revenge a few weeks later at their mutual hometown event, the NHRA Northwest Nationals, where Lane, trying to preserve index, lifted too soon, allowing Warter around for the win in the semifinals. 

“You’re talking about a historic race team; Jim Warter, Ryan’s dad, is one of the most decorated Division 6 Comp racers of all time, so you know that they understand what they’re doing. Ryan’s been doing an awesome job driving, and it starts to feel like it’s kind of a two-horse race at that point, and the Seattle national event haunted me throughout this entire year, one that could make or break the championship, because I misjudged how fast our car was and I didn’t want to hit in the index, and it ended up being a 42-point swing.” 

Lane added a pair of runner-up finishes at the Division 6 doubleheader in Seattle — losing to Warter in race two — then fouled in the final of the Division 7 event in Bakersfield as he continued to look for a third win to include in his five-race divisional allotment. 

Although he knew what he needed to do, Lane swears he never actually looked at the points standings, preferring to just keep his head down and do the work. 

“I’d have people tell me, ‘Hey, you’re leading the world,’ or, in the last few races, ‘Hey, you have to go x rounds to then take the lead back,’ so I knew where things were kind of falling, but I never actually looked myself,” he said. 

Lane finally got that long-awaited third divisional win and accomplished it at the last divisional of the year, back in Las Vegas, where he won the event on Rodger Brogdon’s final-round foul to take the points lead to the season finale in Pomona. 

“I knew it was going to be close with Ryan and I because I had done the math in my head, and then to have a final round against Rodger Brogdon, who’s had a phenomenal year, was really something. I knew I still had a chance to better [my points] at Pomona, but I knew if I won that round, I would leapfrog to the lead and be in a really good position.” 

Lane led the points going into the In-N-Out Burger NHRA Finals with Brogdon second and Don Thomas and Warter right behind, but Brogdon decided to not attend, and when Thomas and Warter both lost in round one ahead of Lane, the race was over. 

“Don Thomas was against a good driver and a fast car in Tom Mettler, and Ryan had Ryan Priddy, who was second in Division 7 points and had beaten me before, so I felt good about that. I had all of these scenarios played out in my head for the last week or so, and I hadn’t really slept much, just dreaming about the world championship. I was back in the lanes when all that happened ahead of me, and then all of a sudden, I hear my dad just going crazy on the radio, and I can’t hear what he’s saying, I just [hear] ‘blip-blip-champion’ because he’s just going wild. I’m like, ‘Did we win?’ and then Wyatt Wagner [is] flying around the corner, running to my car, giving me fist bumps and a hug inside the car, and I’m starting to cry because that’s when I realized, ‘Oh my gosh, we did it.’ 

“For the last 15 years, when I’d look up at the stars like I had, like, a couple wishes, one of those wishes was for my dad and I to win a world championship. It’s been like a boyhood dream because he’s one of the best Sportsman drivers in the history of the sport to not win a world championship, and that kind of has resonated with me, to want to win this for him and Jerry Hancock. My name may be on this championship, but it’s really Jeff Lane, Jerry Hancock, and Cody Lane, and everybody who put their time and effort to help get us there.” 

Lane extended thanks to the many people who helped the team reach this pinnacle, including Jeff and Diane; Jerry Hancock; Jess, Callahan, Carter; Aubrey, Matt, Lawson, and Pace; Grump and Dar; Ken and Joanne Lantz; Paul Sanders; Rob Gillett; Gordy Burrell; Brian Guse; Steve Schwab; Bill Eyman; Paul and Lynn Martin; Mike Abbott; Ed, Erik, and Jason Mola; the Emmons brothers; Wyatt Wagner; Jeffrey Miller; Jason Bingaman; Rob Estes; Michael Scott; AnaLee Rodriquez; and Mike and Cynthia Judson. 

From the partnership side, Lane thanked Right Trailers, Action Machine, A Street Automotive, Chinook Land Management, Denso Spark Plugs, Fury Site Works, High Performance Lubricants, California Car Covers, Mickey Thompson Tires, and Utilities Service. 

Read more 2024 NHRA world champion profiles