NHRA - National Hot Rod Association

Less than seven months after being severely burned over more than half of his body when his race car overturned and caught fire at Orange County Int’l Raceway in July 1973, the indomitable spirit that sustained Herm Petersen before and since had him…

The button on Herman Petersen’s trademark brown hat pretty much sums it all up: “I’ve Survived Damn Near Everything.” It’s not an idle boast. The Washington state nitro veteran, known as "the Northwest Terror," has…

This is going to be a little short and sweet column, written earlier this week because The Man Who Never Takes Vacations is taking a couple of days off at the end of this week (two days counts as a vacation, right?) to refresh and recharge before we…

By the time you read this, I’ll be in Seattle for the big show there, but I wanted to leave you with a few more parting comments on popular car owner Paul Candies, who died two weeks ago Sunday and whose story I shared here…

To some folks, Paul Candies was “just” the wallet behind the fabulously successful Candies & Hughes race teams that terrorized the strip for four decades. Leonard Hughes was the tuning mastermind, and guys like Mark…

Of all the people I’ve come to know in the more than 30 years on this job, few have been as gracious and friendly as Bernie Fedderly, the Hall of Fame crew chief best known for his work with the likes of Terry Capp, Gary…

Now that the four in a row on the NHRA Mello Yello “big show” stage is history — with a week off before the three-in-a-row Western Swing — I get a brief chance to catch my breath after a busy month. Norwalk was great fun, as it always is. It rained…

It’s a crazy time of the year for those of us who follow the NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series, with a stretch of four races in four weekends that just reached its midpoint last weekend with the inaugural event at New England Dragway. I was…

If this X-ray thread continues much further, I’m going to have to hand out lead-filled vests to the readers who continue to increase the read-iation factor with a series of submissions of their favorite see-through photos and drawings, presented…

Welcome to Part 2 of our look at the “X-ray” art of Tom West. In Part 1 last Friday, West told about his introduction to the art form with which he has become synonymous and showed off five of his earliest efforts. Today, he’s back with an…

In the same vein as last week’s series of cutaway (or, more pointedly, see-through) photos I’m thrilled to be able to present an amazing body of artistic automotive work by Tom West, who many of you may know for his…

Continuing our theme of trick photo shoots, I found a collection of great photos online somewhere (exactly where escapes my already-in-Englishtown brain) that are best described as see-throughs. Also called cutaways and double exposures by those in…

Welcome to Part 2 of Location, Location, Location, a fun look at the stories behind some of the most memorable magazine photo shoots from the early 1970s, as told and illustrated by Steve Reyes. In our first installment, Reyes talked about the…

Steve Reyes Growing up as a young drag racing fan in the early 1970s, I couldn’t get enough of the monthly drag racing magazines that carried me to far-off dragstrips that I knew I’d never visit and…

Driver Carl Olson, left, and tuner Mike Kuhl ran Top Fuel together in the early 1970s and won some of the era's biggest events. When Mike Kuhl and Carl Olson were inducted into the International…

This weekend finishes off the first of what will be several three-in-a-row stretches with the Summit Racing Equipment NHRA Southern Nationals in Atlanta. I usually attend this race – have been since 1984 -- but after hitting the preceding races in…

If it’s Friday, this must be Houston and leg two of back-to-back weekends on the tour. We got home from Charlotte Monday – fortunately no hassle with the flights despite the beginning of the sequestration-caused flight-controller shortage – and I…

Darrell Gwynn threw out the first ball at the inaugural Darrell Gwynn Benefit Softball Challenge, held Sept. 13, 1990, in Reading. I didn't land in Charlotte until last night and missed Thursday's…

It’s really gratifying when one of my columns develops into a multi-column thread that has a life all of its own. It has happened several times, with ramp trucks and wedge dragsters and my early favorite, “Growing Up Boy,” and the Keeling &…

Even though the main trunk of the Keeling & Clayton thread continues to grow, today I’m branching out a bit to address growing questions about a guy whose name has been part of the story even though he never drove for…

For a team and a stable of cars that only existed for seven years, the love that’s being bestowed on the Keeling & Clayton California Chargers is pretty impressive; I wish John Keeling were still with us to share the glory with Jerry Clayton…

As if I really had any doubt, feedback after last Friday’s column about the Keeling & Clayton California Chargers was pretty huge and cemented my belief that they had one of the West Coast’s most popular teams in the 1970s. To illustrate as…

You probably can’t call yourself a true fan of Top Fuel’s history if you don’t still salivate over the beautiful Keeling & Clayton Top Fuelers of the early 1970s. The original slingshot and the later rear-…

I originally had intended for today’s column to be about the Keeling & Clayton team – as promised at the end of last week’s column – but in the days since then, I’ve been flooded with requests for more Mickey Thompson info and photos from…

Until his murder on March 16, 1988, Marion Lee “Mickey” Thompson was the multifaceted face of American auto racing. We all know him for his drag racing exploits, first as a driver then later as a team owner, track operator,…

Thanks to everyone for the great photos and comments submitted the last two weeks to supplement my columns on Mickey Thompson’s Revelleader Grand Am Funny Car, and, apparently, no one is quite ready to let the thread end yet. I heard from quite a…

From the outpouring of love and photos surrounding the story of Mickey Thompson’s Grand Am Funny Car, it seems I’m not the only one with a soft spot for “Thompson’s Torpedo.” Below is an amazing collection of images of the car sent in the last year…

After a somewhat tumultuous debut in 1973 that included driver Dale Pulde’s sudden replacement before the season opener and a nasty fire that sidelined his replacement, Butch Maas, and allowed Pulde to hop back into the…

We all have favorites in our lives. Favorite song, favorite band, favorite movie, favorite actor, favorite color, etc., etc., but for drag race nuts like us, none of them holds a candle to memories of our favorite race car.…

Wednesday was a somber day around here for many longtime members of the National Dragster staff. It was Jan. 23 and marked what would have been the 100th birthday of NHRA founder Wally Parks. It's hard to believe it…