NHRA - National Hot Rod Association

National Dragster's Lane Evans captured this unforgettable image of the flying Hawaiian. There are no subsequent shots from him because it was the last exposure on his roll of film (but we have more angles below). Last week’s…

Clare Sanders, then and now By 1969, the Funny Car class was in full bloom and contested at three NHRA national events. After its debut at the 1966 World Finals, the…

We began this whole odyssey into the early days of Funny Car with the announcement a few weeks ago that NHRA would be saluting 50 years of Funny Cars this season, with the starting point for the celebration being the 1966 season, when NHRA…

The history of the Funny Car class that we’re celebrating this year suffered a significant loss earlier this week with the passing of Jess Tyree, one of the drivers who was in on the ground floor of the class in 1966. Tyree died Monday of cancer…

Jim Johnson and Jimmy Nix suited up; the firesuits were mostly for show. Jack Chrisman's Comet was a race car, shown here running in B/FD in Pomona. Well…

As one Insider reader tweeted to me last week after my column about working to create a list of the top 20 Funny Cars, “Can open, worms everywhere.” Yes, indeed, we did open a whole can of worms with the notion that I – or anyone…

  As I noted here last Friday and as was announced earlier this week on NHRA.com, NHRA will be celebrating the Funny Car class throughout the 2016 season. Using the 1966…

Well, the new year is only a week old, and already it has been packed with a lot of newness, not the least of which is the new NHRA.com format that launched Thursday. The new design allows NHRA fans easier access to the wealth of stories available…

No real new column today – even the Insider deserves a week off to celebrate the holidays – but just a chance to once again express my thanks to the loyal visitors to this little cyber pit space. It seems impossible that since I rolled out this…

Seems like it’s all the rage these days, especially among sports stars and rock 'n' rollers – of which I am neither – to offer up a little something called “Letter to My Younger Self,” in which one shares the wisdom of a lifetime with one’s…

While I was researching my last couple of columns about Ontario Motor Speedway and the Supernationals and World Finals, I used my typical National Dragster and magazine article resources but also got sucked into…

We continue our look back at the great facility that was Ontario Motor Speedway this week with a recap of the seven editions of the World Finals held at the Southern California race facility, beginning with the 1974 event. NHRA’s sudden decision…

The 1970 season was, by many accounts, one of the most important in NHRA history. It marked the first season for a new class, Pro Stock, and the first time that a season champion would be crowned in a fledgling class known…

Last week’s column about Funny Car elapsed times and the number of class-best passes that were recorded on the quarter-mile at Ontario Motor Speedway, along with what we have learned over the years about the track’s ability…

If you are a fan of the Funny Car class – and hey, who isn’t? – the 2015 season was a spectacular one, not just for its dramatic finish on the final day of the schedule last Sunday in Pomona, but also for…

Don Prudhomme, left, and National Dragster's Leslie Lovett, two-wheelin' it Fred Mooneyham’s brief mention last week about dirt-bike riding with his nitro peers in the 1970s and motocross…

Teenage Fred Mooneyham with his father, Gene, and crewmember Larry Faust. (Above) Mooneyham cut his teeth in a front-engine Top Fueler in Louisiana. (Below) Mooneyham and brother Gene…

As I teased in last week’s column, Billy Meyer’s road to Funny Car fame was not without some painful bumps, a trio of which I will share with you this week. As you read in the previous column, the impressive start of Meyer’s Funny Car career came…

Of the Teen Terrors of the ‘70s that I’ve profiled the last few months, there’s no disputing that Billy Meyer enjoyed the longest and most successful career of all of them. He won national events in NHRA (12) and IHRA (eight…

By the time you read this, I’ll be in Dallas for my annual trip to the AAA Texas NHRA FallNationals at Billy Meyer’s Texas Motorplex, which is celebrating its 30th anniversary this season. I won’t say I’ve been to every NHRA…

Another hole was torn in the fabric of our racing family last weekend with the passing of Dave Beebe, whose surname was one of the more famous in our sport thanks to the accomplishments of he and brother Tim in the Top Fuel…

Randy and Gary Allison, circa 1972. Imagine, if you can, two young brothers with zero nitro-racing experience deciding to try their hand at Top Fuel. It’s not a scenario you can even begin to…

Before he became one of the godfathers of wheelstanding, Golden earned his "Maverick" nickname with a succession of highly successful Dodge doorslammers. The Little Red Wagon…

John Stewart will forever be remembered by drag racing fans of the 1970s as the teenager who beat “Big Daddy” Don Garlits in his first ever side-by-side competition, but the kid from Sacramento, Calif., with the long hair…

A lot of kids are born into racing families and follow their fathers into the sport, but few can claim the quick start that launched Bobby Hilton into his career as a teenage Top Fuel driver in the early 1970s. His dad,…

This is the first in a series of articles on teenage nitro drivers of the early 1970s, beginning with Jeb Allen, the only teen driver to win in a nitro class at an NHRA national event. He was the sport's youngest…

Nitro teen terrors of the 1970s (clockwise from above left): Billy Meyer, Jeb Allen, John Stewart, Randy Allison, and Bobby Hilton When you think of today…

I don’t remember which of our zany cast of characters here at National Dragster in the 1980s first labeled Top Fuel racer Earl Whiting “the likeable logger,” but whoever it was nailed it spot-on. The Washington…

Last week’s announcement by the NHRA concerning Pro Stock rules changes targeted the concerns of many about the class, covering everything from technological relevance – i.e., no “factory hot rod” today has a carburetor – to fan appeal, and to me,…

It’s one thing to create a legacy doing something and quite another to create two legacies while doing two completely different things, but that’s how Doug Nash will be remembered. Fans of this column certainly will remember…