Nothing has come easy for Terry Haddock in his racing career.

That, however, hasn’t stopped the Temple, Texas-based driver from living his dream and competing in NHRA’s Mello Yello Drag Racing Series.

“I love drag racing,” Haddock said. “I love the cars and the challenge of the technology. Some days I get frustrated because we don’t have the resources, but we have nice equipment.”

Haddock will be at the 2017 season-opening Winternationals Feb. 9-12 in Pomona, Calif., behind the wheel of his Top Fuel dragster.

“My expectations are that I hope we make some representative runs,” Haddock said. “I put a new fuel system and clutch on the car, and the first couple of runs we are going to take it easy on it and then kind of see where it goes.”

According to Haddock, he will compete in the first four races – Pomona, Phoenix (Feb. 24-26), Gainesville (March 16-19) and Las Vegas (March 31-April 2).

Haddock, who was the 2008 IHRA nitro Funny Car world champ, acknowledged his passion is driving a Funny Car. He purchased a Funny Car from John Force after the U.S. Nationals last September in Indianapolis. Force drove the Funny Car at the beginning of the 2016 season.

“That Funny Car is almost done and it has all the latest and greatest stuff on it, right down to the laid back headers,” Haddock said. “My goal is to go testing with it and then get it to run properly and then we will come back to racing the Funny Car. I’m hoping to test the new Funny Car after Gainesville or Las Vegas. It just depends how everything goes, but I know I will run a few races in that Funny Car this year.”

Haddock entered 15 NHRA Top Fuel national events last year and qualified for 10. He also ran a limited number of races in his Funny Car in 2016. Haddock made his NHRA Top debut in 2008 and he has been competing in the NHRA Funny Car class off and on since 1998.

Haddock is especially upbeat for the upcoming season since his old crew that worked with him when he won the IHRA championship has reunited with him.

“The guys are coming back and I’m excited to get everybody on the same page,” Haddock said. “Things are going to be way less stressful for me and my right-hand man forever Brian Butler is also coming back. I took for granted how good I had it all those years with those people. Nobody got mad and left, people just went in different directions and all these guys are volunteers.”

A year ago at Indy, Haddock unveiled his Top Fuel dragster with a paint scheme that was a tribute to all of the fallen police officers in the United States – and their canine companions – at that point in 2016.

“We put every fallen officer’s name on our race car and their canines,” Haddock said. “The car is still wrapped that way, and is current with names through Pomona last year. It was a tribute we wanted to do just to say thank you.”

Haddock is unclear what his exact racing schedule will be in 2017, but he did say he wants people to know that his dragster and Funny Car from last season are available for teams to lease for a race or multiple events or to get licensed in.