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Keeping NHRA Fans Up to Date

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Reliving some magical Indy moments

05 Sep 2014
Phil Burgess, NHRA National Dragster Editor
DRAGSTER Insider
I have to admit, the 60th anniversary Chevrolet Performance U.S. Nationals lived up to its billing for this reporter. While some people might have gone there to see the dramatic conclusion to the Mello Yello regular season…
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Kasch's Cache, Part 2

29 Aug 2014
Phil Burgess, NHRA National Dragster Editor
DRAGSTER Insider
If this is Friday, then I must be in Indy, enjoying my 32nd straight trip to the Big Go. Wish you were here. You may well be. Here’s Part 2 of Tom Kasch’s cache of Indy pics, these focusing on Top Fuel and other classes, from the 1960s and early…
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Fan Fotos: Kasch’s Indy Cache

22 Aug 2014
Phil Burgess, NHRA National Dragster Editor
DRAGSTER Insider
Several times each week, almost without fail, I and about 50 other folks get an email from Tom Kasch with a dozen or so photos attached. They’re all images he has taken in the past 50 years, mostly from tracks…
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The Tennessee Bo-Weevil

15 Aug 2014
Phil Burgess, NHRA National Dragster Editor
DRAGSTER Insider
Raymond Godman, Preston Davis, and the restored Tennessee Bo-Weevil will be at this year's U.S. Nationals. (Louis Kimery photo) When I think about this great sport that I’ve enjoyed now as…
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I've Got Mail!

08 Aug 2014
Phil Burgess, NHRA National Dragster Editor
DRAGSTER Insider
Remember when you first got on the Internet (or what passed for it back then)? For a lot of us early adapters in the early 1990s, that meant America Online, and save for a nitro engine, there was no more thrilling sound than hearing “You’ve Got Mail…
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Fan Fotos: 1970s California Floppers

01 Aug 2014
Phil Burgess, NHRA National Dragster Editor
DRAGSTER Insider
After last week’s Fan Fotos from the East Coast, we rebound back to the West Coast this week for a series of photos from Insider reader Ed Eberlein that spans from Fremont to Sacramento to Orange County Int’l Raceway to Pomona in a three-year period…
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Fan Fotos: Connecticut Dragway

27 Jul 2014
Phil Burgess, NHRA National Dragster Editor
DRAGSTER Insider
 If you’re like me (and you probably wouldn’t be here if you weren’t), one of the great joys of longtime drag racing fans is looking at old drag racing photos. There are websites and Facebook pages aplenty filled with some ol’ time goodness…
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Indy 1970

18 Jul 2014
Phil Burgess, NHRA National Dragster Editor
DRAGSTER Insider
You may have seen the announcement on the NHRA.com home page last week that Don Prudhomme and Jim Nicoll will be at this year’s Chevrolet Performance U.S. Nationals to talk about their memorable 1970 Indy final round. It’s just one of six great…
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More Things That Aren't Here Anymore

11 Jul 2014
Phil Burgess, NHRA National Dragster Editor
DRAGSTER Insider
You guys are sooooo predictable. Any time I gush about “the good ol’ days” with memories about how cool things used to be, I get a tsunami of emails echoing my declarations and patting me on the back for being a…
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Things That Aren't Here Anymore

04 Jul 2014
Phil Burgess, NHRA National Dragster Editor
DRAGSTER Insider
You know me -- it doesn’t take much to distract me and send me plummeting off course down some uncharted lane of drag racing errata. You know how you can go to YouTube to see one video and keep following related videos until you realize it’s 4 in…
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Remembering Norm Weekly, Mart Higginbotham

27 Jun 2014
Phil Burgess, NHRA National Dragster Editor
DRAGSTER Insider
The weather was beautiful, the scenery was majestic, and the racing topflight last weekend in New England, where I was working the Auto-Plus NHRA New England Nationals at New England Dragway, NHRA’s second visit to the nostalgic and historic track.…
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Your dads (and moms)

20 Jun 2014
Phil Burgess, NHRA National Dragster Editor
DRAGSTER Insider
Thanks so much for all of the kind words on my Father’s Day article last Friday. It was an article that I’d long wanted to write but nonetheless found it difficult, both emotionally and in straying from our usual fare here, but your responses made…
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Father's Day

13 Jun 2014
Phil Burgess, NHRA National Dragster Editor
DRAGSTER Insider
Father's Day
I’m going to go not too far out on a limb here and work under the assumption that a large majority of the Insider Nation is comprised of guys a lot like me. Some older, some younger, some the same age, but all of us,…
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The Ramchargers

06 Jun 2014
Phil Burgess, NHRA National Dragster Editor
DRAGSTER Insider
When the email came Tuesday from Eileen Daniels, wife of the late NHRA Division 3 Director Bob Daniels, advising of the death of Jim Thornton, it was in the form of a simple link to an online obituary. She didn’t say any more and probably didn’t…
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Talking 'Otie,' terminology, skyjackings, and more

30 May 2014
Phil Burgess, NHRA National Dragster Editor
DRAGSTER Insider
By the time you read this Friday, I’ll be in Englishtown for another trip to one of my favorite races, the Toyota NHRA Summernationals. I’ve been going to the East Coast classic since the 1980s, and it seems that each race there provides something…
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More Killers from Kenosha

23 May 2014
Phil Burgess, NHRA National Dragster Editor
DRAGSTER Insider
I really had no intention of continuing the AMC drag car thread this week, but apparently, y’all weren’t ready to let it go, at least based on the outpouring of photos and thoughts that rained into my email this past week. Steve Reyes and Bob…
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A history of AMC Funny Cars

16 May 2014
Phil Burgess, NHRA National Dragster Editor
DRAGSTER Insider
“If you had to compete with the three biggest car companies in America, what would you do?” This was the tagline on some American Motors television commercials back in the early 1970s, and it’s a valid question, for which…
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A Case of the Gremlins

09 May 2014
Phil Burgess, NHRA National Dragster Editor
DRAGSTER Insider
“Now that you did the Vega panels how about a retrospective on Gremlins — the ‘other’ sort of panel!” So came the request from reader Ken Brodsky earlier this week. First off, I have to admit that I…
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Still more Vega panels ...

02 May 2014
Phil Burgess, NHRA National Dragster Editor
DRAGSTER Insider
After last week’s pause to remember some of our fallen friends, we return to the Vega panel thread. There’s not a whole lot of new info to share but some cool photos you guys have sent in, so let’s make this a show and tell. The Insider’s “photo…
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Remembering five fallen friends

25 Apr 2014
Phil Burgess, NHRA National Dragster Editor
DRAGSTER Insider
I love email and text messages — can’t even begin to think where any of us would be without either in this day and age — but I’m almost to the point where I cringe every time a new email pops into my Inbox or my phone sounds off the arrival of a new…
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More Vega panels

18 Apr 2014
Phil Burgess, NHRA National Dragster Editor
DRAGSTER Insider
Ahhhh … the threads that keep on delivering. It always amazes me how one subject of a column can lead to another related one and so on. Those of you who have been around this watering hole a long time may remember the long-running wedge dragster…
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So, I heard you guys have been Wondering …

11 Apr 2014
Phil Burgess, NHRA National Dragster Editor
DRAGSTER Insider
Last week’s Wonder Wagon tale delivered a fine response from the Insider Nation, many of whom remember well those cars and some who were lucky to see the Vega…
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No more wonderin' about the Wonder Wagon story

04 Apr 2014
Phil Burgess, NHRA National Dragster Editor
DRAGSTER Insider
There’s nothing I love better than getting to the bottom of a good mystery, and when it comes to drag racing history, no chapter may be more misunderstood than Wonder Bread’s involvement with the sport back in 1972-73. Most…
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How much Jake can you take?

28 Mar 2014
Phil Burgess, NHRA National Dragster Editor
DRAGSTER Insider
You know me, I’m always thrilled when a story is not only well-received, but also elicits responses that allow a follow-up, and that has certainly been the case after last week’s column on 1970s Funny Car driver Jake…
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Jake Johnston: Funny Car's "what if?" guy

21 Mar 2014
Phil Burgess, NHRA National Dragster Editor
DRAGSTER Insider
I don’t remember prolific 1970s Funny Car racer Jake Johnston having a nickname, but if I were to give him one today, it would definitely be “What If?” What if Johnston hadn’t suffered freak mechanical issues in the final…
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The two Tommy Larkins

14 Mar 2014
Phil Burgess, NHRA National Dragster Editor
DRAGSTER Insider
"Big Tommy" Larkin "Little Tommy" Larkin In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Southern California was home to scores of nitro and gas dragsters, but what are the…
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The Bobby Vodnik story, plus more Cassidy Bros.

07 Mar 2014
Phil Burgess, NHRA National Dragster Editor
DRAGSTER Insider
Bobby Vodnik’s first serious ride was this B/Gas dragster that he campaigned with Larry Reimer and his uncle, Jim DeVos. Vodnik at the wheel of the Speed Sport dragster in San Gabriel,…
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Vodnik, Garlits, and the Mysterious Winternationals

28 Feb 2014
Phil Burgess, NHRA National Dragster Editor
DRAGSTER Insider
Bobby Vodnik, second from right, consults with the Masters & Richter team after losing fire in the first round at the 1964 Winternationals. The great thing about this column has always been…
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The Cassidy brothers

21 Feb 2014
Phil Burgess, NHRA National Dragster Editor
DRAGSTER Insider
(Above) The Cassidy brothers, John, third from left, and Les, third from right, made a lot of fans on the East Coast in the 1970s with their Funny Cars, including their rare Grand Am-bodied alky burner (below). Sharp-eyed…
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Neither wind, nor snow …

14 Feb 2014
Phil Burgess, NHRA National Dragster Editor
DRAGSTER Insider
Fifty years ago at the Winternationals, Jack Williams scored a wild Top Fuel victory that ultimately would lead to the world championship. Race queen Bobbie Hefley presented him with a "flash edition" of National…
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