NHRA - National Hot Rod Association

 

 

 

 

Keeping NHRA Fans Up to Date

Follow our coverage through our newly designed news and videos sections. Don't forget to follow our social media posts.

Note-worthy

10 Jul 2015
Phil Burgess, NHRA National Dragster Editor
DRAGSTER Insider
If my computer’s hard drive were a house, I would have already starred in several of those reality TV shows about hoarders. They’d hire a crew of 10 to sort through all of the digital detritus on the computer, picking up…
View More

Remembering Roger Garten

03 Jul 2015
Phil Burgess, NHRA National Dragster Editor
DRAGSTER Insider
Roger Garten (photo: Gary Himes) When I started going to the drags in the early 1970s, the Mustang was the clear body of choice in the Funny Car ranks. Jerry Ruth. The Blue Max. The L.A.…
View More

Catching Up

19 Jun 2015
Phil Burgess, NHRA National Dragster Editor
DRAGSTER Insider
It’s been a crazy couple of weeks here at Insider Central as I actually snuck in a mini vacation — I went all the way to Spokane, Wash., to see an Eagles concert — between the Topeka and Englishtown events, and by the time…
View More

Remembering Bud Coons and 'Surfer Hank'

12 Jun 2015
Phil Burgess, NHRA National Dragster Editor
DRAGSTER Insider
It’s no great secret that we’ve lost a lot of our drag racing heroes in the last decade, and if you’ve been following this column for any length of time, you know that I agonize over the losses and sometimes struggle to put…
View More

Bristol Dragway: 50 years of memories

05 Jun 2015
Phil Burgess, NHRA National Dragster Editor
DRAGSTER Insider
We’ve spent some time already this year talking about the NHRA Springnationals and about its stops at Dallas Int’l Motor Speedway and National Trail Raceway, but it all began 50 years ago at fabulous new Bristol Int'l Dragway in Tennessee, a track…
View More

Gary Burgin, drag racing's 'Orange Baron'

29 May 2015
Phil Burgess, NHRA National Dragster Editor
DRAGSTER Insider
We lost Funny Car great Gary Burgin last Sunday, another passing of a fine racer who forever etched his name and his cars into our memory banks. Burgin liked to brag that he had never driven anything down the dragstrip…
View More

Remembering Jim Kelly, 'drag racing's Ansel Adams'

22 May 2015
Phil Burgess, NHRA National Dragster Editor
DRAGSTER Insider
Steve Reyes photos I don’t know who illustrated the reading you did as a kid, whether it was Dr. Seuss or Charles Schulz or Sergio Aragones, but for me, my favorite reading was usually accompanied by…
View More

The 1975 Springnationals

15 May 2015
Phil Burgess, NHRA National Dragster Editor
DRAGSTER Insider
Even though NHRA’s Springnationals was born in Bristol and moved to Englishtown and then, as noted last week, to Dallas before ultimately ending up at its current home in Houston, in my brain, and I’m sure in the brains of…
View More

The all-too-short life of Dallas Int'l Motor Speedway

08 May 2015
Phil Burgess, NHRA National Dragster Editor
DRAGSTER Insider
The NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series’ most recent stop was in Texas for the (deep breath) O’Reilly Auto Parts NHRA SpringNationals presented by Super Start Batteries, and anyone who knows anything about drag racing knows…
View More

When drag racers turn corners

24 Apr 2015
Phil Burgess, NHRA National Dragster Editor
DRAGSTER Insider
Don Prudhomme, left, with Antron Brown, center, and actor Mekhi Phifer (ER, 8 Mile) at this year's Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach Pro/Celebrity race. Former NHRA Top …
View More

Drag racing's female pioneers paved the road to 200

17 Apr 2015
Phil Burgess, NHRA National Dragster Editor
DRAGSTER Insider
Shirley Shahan was NHRA's first female winner, at the 1966 Winternationals, and ABC's Wide World of Sports coverage made her an instant celebrity. Judi Boertman…
View More

Saluting two Southern California icons

10 Apr 2015
Phil Burgess, NHRA National Dragster Editor
DRAGSTER Insider
Souvenir replica pit passes were handed out to everyone in attendance. "TV Tommy" Ivo, left, reconnected with Jeb Allen…
View More

More cool old rear-engine cars

03 Apr 2015
Phil Burgess, NHRA National Dragster Editor
DRAGSTER Insider
My columns a few weeks ago about the transition from front-engine to rear-engine Top Fuelers brought a lot of email and a slew of interesting photos about more of the earliest rear-engine attempts as well as some who took the rear-engine design to…
View More

Fan Fotos: Beeline Dragway, 1970

27 Mar 2015
Phil Burgess, NHRA National Dragster Editor
DRAGSTER Insider
I’m off this week to Charlotte for the NHRA Four-Wide Nationals, and the column that I had planned didn’t pan out. I’ve been holding on to the photos below for just such an occasion, so I made a beeline for them to share with you this weekend.…
View More

'Nitro Nellie' Goins

20 Mar 2015
Phil Burgess, NHRA National Dragster Editor
DRAGSTER Insider
Nellie Goins wasn’t the first female to ever strap herself into a supercharged, nitro-burning Funny Car – pioneers like Paula Murphy, Della Woods, and Shirley Muldowney all preceded her – nor the first African-American racer…
View More

Early rear-engine iron

16 Mar 2015
Phil Burgess, NHRA National Dragster Editor
DRAGSTER Insider
(Above) "Ollie" Morris' back-motor Smokin' White Owl debuted in 1954 and tore up Southern California strips. (Below) Morris, right, and sponsor Harvey Malcomson, of Harvey’s Auto Glass, worked on the car's flathead…
View More

Fan Fotos: 1965 March Meet

13 Mar 2015
Phil Burgess, NHRA National Dragster Editor
DRAGSTER Insider
Last weekend, racers descended on Bakersfield for the 58th running of the March Meet, which now is part of NHRA’s Hot Rod Heritage Racing Series but for decades was known as one of the great fuel-racing events on the calendar. In 1959, the…
View More

Front to back: The rear-engine transition, Part 2

27 Feb 2015
Phil Burgess, NHRA National Dragster Editor
DRAGSTER Insider
Don Garlits showed that the rear-engine design was here to stay with a powerful victory at the 1971 NHRA Winternationals. Although rear-engine Top Fuelers had found some limited…
View More

Front to back: The rear-engine transition

20 Feb 2015
Phil Burgess, NHRA National Dragster Editor
DRAGSTER Insider
Last week’s column about John Wiebe, one of the last and best holdouts of the traditional slingshot Top Fuel design, and our other discussions of the 1971 and 1972 seasons got me to…
View More

'Kansas John' Wiebe

13 Feb 2015
Steve Reyes Ask someone on the street about Kansas, and you’ll probably hear something about wheat fields, The Wizard of Oz, or, for the rockers out there, wayward sons carrying on. Ask any longtime drag…
View More

'Snake,' Leong celebrate 50 years of success, friendship

06 Feb 2015
Phil Burgess, NHRA National Dragster Editor
DRAGSTER Insider
Fifty years ago this weekend, Don Prudhomme drove Roland Leong's Hawaiian Top Fueler to victory at the 1965 Winternationals, his first of 49 career wins. I had planned to publish today…
View More

Forget “Deflate-gate” — We’ve Got “Lions-gate“

30 Jan 2015
Phil Burgess, NHRA National Dragster Editor
DRAGSTER Insider
You do not want to piss off this guy. “You’re going to make me pull out what little hair I have left!” That was the way my Monday began. On the other end of the phone was Larry Sutton, and he…
View More

Unforgettable: Lions' 1972 Grand Premiere

23 Jan 2015
Phil Burgess, NHRA National Dragster Editor
DRAGSTER Insider
Two weeks ago, when I started the 1975 thread with a report on Irwindale Raceway’s wild and wacky Grand Premiere, I mentioned the event’s Lions Drag Strip roots, a race that kicked off the fabled SoCal racing facility’s final season in 1972, and…
View More

Dueling Winternationals kicked off 1975 season

16 Jan 2015
Phil Burgess, NHRA National Dragster Editor
DRAGSTER Insider
NHRA’s incredible 1975 season didn’t officially begin until the Winternationals in Pomona Jan. 21, but by then, a lot of nitro already had been burned. As I mentioned last week, Don Prudhomme kicked off what – at the time – was the greatest season…
View More

1975's Grand Premiere

09 Jan 2015
Phil Burgess, NHRA National Dragster Editor
DRAGSTER Insider
James Warren (above) won Top Fuel, and Don Prudhomme (below) scored in Funny Car at the 4th annual Grand Premiere at Irwindale Raceway to help kick off 1975. Forty years ago last Sunday…
View More

I went to a garden party

19 Dec 2014
Phil Burgess, NHRA National Dragster Editor
DRAGSTER Insider
I went to a garden party to reminisce with my old friends A chance to share old memories and play our songs again. My Christmas present came early this year, in the form of an invitation to a party Dec. 5. For…
View More

The birth of the data recorder

12 Dec 2014
Phil Burgess, NHRA National Dragster Editor
DRAGSTER Insider
Ron Armstrong, standing, and Dale Armstrong pore over data printouts from an early RacePak data logger. “People ask me what was the single thing that made the biggest progression in drag racing…
View More

Farewell, AA/Dale

05 Dec 2014
Phil Burgess, NHRA National Dragster Editor
DRAGSTER Insider
There are no professional drag racing scouts who tour North America looking for the next Don Garlits in the way hockey’s headhunters in the puck-crazed western Canadian province of Alberta scour the area’s peewee leagues…
View More

Being thankful, and more fond farewells

28 Nov 2014
Phil Burgess, NHRA National Dragster Editor
DRAGSTER Insider
By the time this gets published, it’ll be the day after Thanksgiving, and some of you may be reading this on your phones or tablets in a line somewhere awaiting Black Friday stores to open. While I’m thankful I won’t be…
View More

Just another day with the legends

21 Nov 2014
Phil Burgess, NHRA National Dragster Editor
DRAGSTER Insider
Last weekend’s 50th anniversary Auto Club NHRA Finals was steeped in nostalgia, with vintage-car displays, Cacklefests, and, the highlight for me, more Legends chats, this time involving “TV Tommy” Ivo, Ed “the Ace”…
View More