NHRA - National Hot Rod Association

It has been three days since I got the news, and I still can't believe that Gordie Bonin is dead. The death of the popular former Funny Car star last Friday took the community by surprise and by shock, the first reports…

It may only be Nov. 22, but it already feels like Christmas Eve for this Orange County Int’l Raceway pit rat looking forward to the OCIR Reunion tomorrow at the NHRA Motorsports Museum. Even though I never got a chance to visit Lions Drag Strip, I…

Wow, what a surprise. There are a few Don Garlits and Don Prudhomme fans out there among the Insider Nation. Who knew? Yeah, so response to last week’s partially off-the-wall comparison of the similarities between the two…

While I was writing last week’s column and doing research comparing the careers of Don Prudhomme and Don Garlits, it struck as kind of interesting that two of the biggest names in our sport’s history, two of our most iconic…

Well, I devoured my new Six Seconds to Glory book during the race weekend in Las Vegas and found it to be every bit as tasty as I had imagined. It was packed with enough mouthwatering morsels to satisfy any Don…

The original book (left) and the reissue If I say the name “Hal Higdon” to any self-professed Don Prudhomme mega fan, the four words I’d better hear back from them are “Six Seconds…

A couple of weeks ago, my weekly My Favorite Fuelers column on the National Dragster website centered on Top Fuel and Funny Car drivers from the great state of Texas. I purposely omitted known heroes, like Eddie…

After covering 14 national events in 19 weeks, we get a little breather this week, at least on the Mello Yello side, which conveniently will allow me to catch up on overdue business here from the last several columns. I didn’t travel to them all (…

It’s hard to imagine a segment of the NHRA family that Mike Lewis hasn’t touched in more than 40 years in the sport. People today know him as the high-profile face of the Don Schumacher Racing empire, where he serves as…

Last week’s first look at errant racers who clobbered the Christmas Tree was almost exclusively short-wheelbase roadsters, but as I mentioned, there’s plenty of blame to go around in all classes, as this week’s column well illustrates…

As you’ve read over the last two weeks, the introduction of the Christmas Tree wasn’t always met with warm embraces, especially by the old guard, who had honed their spidey senses to enable them to get a good leave on the flagman’s signal, and I…

I got some interesting feedback and pats on the back from a number of people about last week’s column on the history of the Christmas Tree. For a device that’s so central to what we do, it’s certainly had some major changes…

There’s no doubt that this year’s newly rechristened Chevrolet Performance U.S. Nationals was a pretty darned great drag race, with lots of drama, close and exciting racing, Don "the Snake” Prudhomme as grand marshal, and…

While it’s fun and exciting each week to reminisce about the great cars and moments in the wonderful history of our sport — and based on the continual feedback from the Insider Nation, it’s a weekly trip you all enjoy, too — the stories that seem to…

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…