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Keeping NHRA Fans Up to Date

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Top Fuel blowovers, Part 4

22 May 2012
Phil Burgess, NHRA National Dragster Editor
DRAGSTER Insider
It was more than two years between Shelly Anderson’s blowover at the 1996 Brainerd event and the next one to befall a racer, but Pat Dakin won’t soon forget when his number came up in Topeka in the fall of 1998. Racing Doug…
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Top Fuel blowovers, Part 3

18 May 2012
Phil Burgess, NHRA National Dragster Editor
DRAGSTER Insider
Like a Top Fueler flipping overbackward and returning to earth pointed in the wrong direction, I’m back for part three of the blowover chronicles, beginning with a little historical tidying up before we continue the chronological account of all…
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Top Fuel blowovers, Part 2

15 May 2012
Phil Burgess, NHRA National Dragster Editor
DRAGSTER Insider
At first blush, the twin blowovers in June 1986 and August 1987 by Don Garlits’ similarly enclosed front-end Swamp Rat XXX and 31 dragsters may have seemed to be a plague upon his streamliner design, but within a few years, it became clear that…
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Top Fuel blowovers, Part 1

11 May 2012
Phil Burgess, NHRA National Dragster Editor
DRAGSTER Insider
The streamliner series was, predictably, well-received, as I think we all have a soft spot in our hearts for experimentation and oddball efforts. As you may recall, very few of the streamliners or other aero-influenced Top…
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Flying high: Harry Schmidt and the Blue Max

03 May 2012
Phil Burgess, NHRA National Dragster Editor
DRAGSTER Insider
Harry Schmidt, right, with Raymond Beadle (RayMar photo; Marc Bruederle collection) Surprise. Bet you didn’t expect to see me this week, let alone on Thursday. Then again, I didn’t expect us to…
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Remembering "the Bird"

24 Apr 2012
Phil Burgess, NHRA National Dragster Editor
DRAGSTER Insider
Last Thursday, a strong turnout of the NHRA family came together at the Wally Parks NHRA Motorsports Museum presented by Automobile Club of Southern California to honor our longtime friend Bernie Partridge, who died a week…
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Top Fuel streamliners, the sequel

20 Apr 2012
Phil Burgess, NHRA National Dragster Editor
DRAGSTER Insider
After Top Fuel’s streamlining experimentation phase in the mid-1960s burned out after just a few years, the conventional slingshot didn’t change much beyond the standard addition of a body to cover the frame of the “rail…
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Streamliners of the '50s and '60s

10 Apr 2012
Phil Burgess, NHRA National Dragster Editor
DRAGSTER Insider
With all of the talk about aero trickery that has been the natural byproduct of the wheel-pants thread, I’ve received quite a few requests for a more full accounting of Top Fuel streamlining efforts in the sport’s history.…
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Your 'Grumpy' stories

06 Apr 2012
Phil Burgess, NHRA National Dragster Editor
DRAGSTER Insider
Even a week later, it’s hard to believe that Bill “Grumpy” Jenkins is gone. His loss still resonates from garage to pit area, felt by anyone who called himself or herself a longtime race fan, and even among the racers…
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Continuing the Breed-lovefest

03 Apr 2012
Phil Burgess, NHRA National Dragster Editor
DRAGSTER Insider
(Above) Craig Breedlove, left, and engine builder Dave Carpenter with the new and still unpainted Spirit II outside of Quinn Epperly's shop (Left) Breedlove held a model of Spirit of…
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Farewell to the grumpy one

30 Mar 2012
Phil Burgess, NHRA National Dragster Editor
DRAGSTER Insider
Everyone loved Bill Jenkins, but perhaps none more so than Linda Vaughn. I had a whole other column ready to go – ahead of schedule even – when I got the news via text yesterday morning that we’d…
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Smarty pants

27 Mar 2012
Today’s history lesson on wheel pants comes out – literally -- of the clear blue sky from fellow drag racing history freak Bret Kepner, who pointed out that, “It was the airplane racers of the 1920s who, while competing in one of the top spectator…
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Wheel pants: Aero aid, fashion statement, or dangerous duds?

16 Mar 2012
Phil Burgess, NHRA National Dragster Editor
DRAGSTER Insider
In the early 1970s, I was a newly minted teenager in junior high, trying to impress the girls by styling in bell-bottom pants. Meanwhile, miles away geographically but never far from my brain, Top Fuel was going through its…
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The first 300

06 Mar 2012
Phil Burgess, NHRA National Dragster Editor
DRAGSTER Insider
Two weeks from today will mark the 20th anniversary of the breaking of one of drag racing’s great barriers, Kenny Bernstein’s shattering of the 300-mph plateau at the 1992 Gatornationals. While it took 15 years – 1960 to…
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Readers Choice 2012

02 Mar 2012
Phil Burgess, NHRA National Dragster Editor
DRAGSTER Insider
In the last two weeks, in addition to the normal writing that the National DRAGSTER editorial staff has been doing – Sportsman stories from Phoenix, previews for the Tire Kingdom NHRA Gatornationals presented by…
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Welcome to No. 500

28 Feb 2012
Phil Burgess, NHRA National Dragster Editor
DRAGSTER Insider
In May 2010, I reached the big 5-0, a milestone age for most males who begin to realize that maybe the ride they’ve been on has well passed its halfway mark. I’m more a glass-half-full guy and never thought much of it and…
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The incredible Mr. Pickett

24 Feb 2012
Phil Burgess, NHRA National Dragster Editor
DRAGSTER Insider
In 1974, I made my first trip to Irwindale Raceway for a Funny Car show. I don’t remember much of the specifics of the event, but I remember leaving with a crooked little grin on my 14-year-old face after seeing Pete Everett’s Pete’s Lil Demon Funny…
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The flying doorstop

21 Feb 2012
Phil Burgess, NHRA National Dragster Editor
DRAGSTER Insider
Dean Court photo By basic appearance, today’s Top Fuelers haven’t changed much since “Big Daddy” Don Garlits debuted his successful rear-engine dragster at the 1971 Winternationals. The small…
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Rocket roundup redux

17 Feb 2012
Phil Burgess, NHRA National Dragster Editor
DRAGSTER Insider
The final buzzer had sounded on my weekly hockey game. It had been a hard-fought and heated battle with our longtime nemesis, each jockeying for the top spot in our division, that ended unsatisfyingly for both in a tie. Cross words (and crossed…
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The Rat Roast: Who was roasting whom?

14 Feb 2012
Phil Burgess, NHRA National Dragster Editor
DRAGSTER Insider
Photos by Jerry Foss Celebrity roasts are always good fun, where friends and acquaintances take turns skewering the object of their affection, regaling the assembled multitudes with sordid stories, amusing…
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Turns out, you're all rocketmen

03 Feb 2012
Phil Burgess, NHRA National Dragster Editor
DRAGSTER Insider
Well, well, well … turns out the Insider Nation is full of closet rocket-car fans. I’ve never really written much about our hydrogen-peroxide-fueled friends before, but now that I have, the fond memories are flooding in. The tale of “Capt. Jack”…
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Pomona: SoCal drag racing's lifelong love

01 Feb 2012
Phil Burgess, NHRA National Dragster Editor
DRAGSTER Insider
When you live in Southern California, you take for granted some sights not usually seen elsewhere. Movie stars in your local restaurants. Palm trees. Top-down convertibles in December. In-N-Out burgers. And, of course, NHRA Drag Racing in early…
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'The Rocketman'

31 Jan 2012
Phil Burgess, NHRA National Dragster Editor
DRAGSTER Insider
Even for a fan who grew up watching them in the 1970s and early 1980s, there was a lot that I didn’t know about rocket cars, but after spending time on the phone last year with "Capt. Jack" McClure and yesterday with “the…
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Rocket roundup

27 Jan 2012
Phil Burgess, NHRA National Dragster Editor
DRAGSTER Insider
In the interest of full disclosure – and many of my longtime column readers know this already – the two-part story on “Capt. Jack” McClure’s rocket go-kart was a long time coming. I did the interview about a year ago and –…
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'Capt. Jack' and the amazing rocket go-kart, part 2

24 Jan 2012
Phil Burgess, NHRA National Dragster Editor
DRAGSTER Insider
Jack McClure went from successful fishing-boat captain to the cover of Drag Racing USA thanks to his unique rocket-powered go-kart. Of all the exhibition acts to grace the quarter-…
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'Capt. Jack' and the amazing rocket go-kart

20 Jan 2012
Phil Burgess, NHRA National Dragster Editor
DRAGSTER Insider
There have been a lot of weird and wild cars go down the dragstrip throughout the years. A wheelstanding tank. A jet-powered Kenworth truck. Chain-driven sidewinder dragsters and Funny Cars. But no bid for wildest drag…
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Sparring partners

17 Jan 2012
Phil Burgess, NHRA National Dragster Editor
DRAGSTER Insider
Being a columnist ain’t easy. It wouldn’t even be easy if this was my only gig and there wasn’t some weekly content monster called National DRAGSTER. Don’t get me wrong; this column is still one of the most fun things I get to do each week…
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Remembering Tommy "T.C." Lemons

13 Jan 2012
Phil Burgess, NHRA National Dragster Editor
DRAGSTER Insider
It didn’t take much arm-twisting after I broke the sad news of the death of Tommy “T.C.” Lemons, Don Garlits’ most storied crew chief, first on Twitter and then on NHRA.com, to get the stories and plaudits pouring in for an…
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Feedback squared

10 Jan 2012
Phil Burgess, NHRA National Dragster Editor
DRAGSTER Insider
Feedback2. I think that’s right. I was never very good at math that didn’t involve elapsed times. (I am pretty good at Photoshop, though. Except my drawing here would seem to indicate feedback to the fourth power or…
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The gift-giving continues

06 Jan 2012
Phil Burgess, NHRA National Dragster Editor
DRAGSTER Insider
Happy New Year everyone, and welcome to the first DRAGSTER Insider column of 2012. I hope you enjoyed time off with your family, that all of your Christmas wish-list dreams were fulfilled, and that you’re ready for another year of shedding…
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