Drag racing grew out of the American post-World War II car culture, when gearheads gravitated to muscle cars and domestic manufacturers. That heyday for Detroit is just a memory -- like that of Southern California dragstrips Orange County and Lions -- both at the racetrack and on U.S. highways.

The National Hot Rod Association could see a bigger presence of Asian automakers in its Funny Car ranks, with once-entrenched Ford souring on its return-on-investment prospects in the sport and Chevrolet having walked away from its considerable influence years before. Mopar/Chrysler still will shoulder the American connection in the pro ranks.

But John Force is courting Kia and Honda in the wake of Ford's departure from the Funny Car class at the end of the 2014 season.

His dilemma, he told Competition Plus this past weekend, is this: "It ain't just finding one car. I can take that on. It's finding two -- and then I got to find a manufacturer.

"I've been to Detroit. Going to go globally, to companies that build our brand in America," Force said. "If you've got a product made in China, I don't care about that. As long as you manufacture over here, where some of our people get the jobs, that's where I'm looking."

He said, "I'm looking at Kia and Honda. I've already started the process with Zach [Brown, owner of Force's new marketing-agency partner JMI] where we're going."

Force gave a little insight into Ford's decision to bail on the NHRA pro scene.

"The value of NHRA -- that's what Ford said -- there were issues there," Force said. "They got me. They got Tasca. Then they got involved with NHRA, and pretty soon for the return how much money can they spend? I've got to give more of a return."

So with engines and bodies that just might flash a Kia or Honda brand, Force plans to sign on with a new manufacturer. Off the track, however, he's planning to leverage a familiar avenue for revenue to pay for it all: Hollywood.

He said he took years to become a recognizable figure then discovered that because of "Driving Force" on the A&E cable channel, "my kids are on a TV show for six months and they walk [through] an airport and everybody knows them." The business light bulb went on for him. "Wait a minute -- I'm going back to Hollywood," he told himself. "They've been trying to get me for years. And we lost Eric. So the deal was to go back to Hollywood, get involved with them, get my guy Brent [Travers] back to run it, and generate some money to help fund these teams." He said, "We broke it down, that if we can find a sponsor for this much, we'll take the TV money and put it in there."  

NEW CAR LOT IN BROWNSBURG - The new in-house-built dragster that carried Morgan Lucas to victory at Charlotte from the No. 1 starting position is the archetype of a car the team wants to manufacture and sell. 

"We don't want to just build them and sit on them," Lucas said. "We want to build something that's good and offer it up to the rest of the class."

He said Seattle-area-based Brad Hadman, his supplier until now, "always built a great car, but we wanted to build something more consistent, that we can have both cars [his and the one Brandon Bernstein drives] a little more alike, in the sense of just trying to nit-pick them a little more. We wanted something a little bit better. We wanted something that we knew we could build pre-load into the car, that we could make a little more forgiving, lighter, just little things."  

The new dragster Lucas drives is a collaborative effort from GEICO/Lucas Oil crew chief Aaron Brooks, assistant crew chief Rod Centorbi, and clutch specialist Richie Crampton at the Morgan Lucas Racing shop at Brownsburg, Ind.

"Aaron, he's a fabricator at heart. He may be a crew chief right now, but he's an artist when it comes to working with metal. We've got a couple of other guys in the shop who are the same way," Lucas said.

"I told them this is what I wanted to see happen, and they just kind of ran with it. Next thing you know we got a great car that we have a lot of confidence in. It seems like every run it takes what we put at it."

The team had wanted to debut the car at the U.S. Nationals, but it wasn't quite ready to throw into competition. So they tested it the Monday before the Charlotte race in two half-track, early-shutoff runs. Lucas said it "showed a lot of promise," so he told Brooks, "All right, let's just take it to the next race and keep working on it."

It didn't need much more tweaking. Lucas didn't make a full pass in the first qualifying session Friday, but then he and the car cranked out a 3.749-second elapsed time that matched the zMAX Dragway record at 324.51 mph in Q2. The rest of the weekend it sailed down track with 3.7s and one 3.8.

BIG D AT BIG D - Larry Dixon won the 2001 and 2007 Texas AAA Fall Nationals near Dallas and led the field five times. But when he gets back into the cockpit of a dragster this weekend at the Texas Motorplex, he's not over-hyping this chance to compete. He'll be helping longtime friend Dexter Tuttle, who gave JR Todd, Alan Bradshaw, and Steve Torrence a chance to shine in Top Fuel. "Dex is kind of gearing up for next year," Dixon said. "I'm just going to help him out a little. He's trying to get something going again full-time for next season. He figured this would be a good time for him to start working on it and use the Texas race as a test event. It's flattering that he asked me to do it, so we'll go out there, try to sort it out and hopefully have some fun in the process.

"It is a test," he said. "It's not like I will have run the car beforehand. These cars are so sensitive, it's really hard to run a car on your own without other cars around to help create good conditions on the track. So this is kind of the only way to get it out there. Dex is based in Fort Worth, and timing-wise it's a perfect situation.

"I just need to see how things get sorted out and at what pace. He's getting a lot of support from DSR [Don Schumacher Racing] teams to sort out some of the engine components that he's purchased from them," Dixon said. "We'll just go out, mash the gas, and see how it goes."

The Ennis, Texas, track is one Dixon said he likes to visit, and he appreciates the all-concrete Motorplex's role in NHRA history. He said when owner Billy Meyer built the track in 1986, he raised the standard for dragstrips.

"If it wasn't for Billy Meyer building the track he built, Bruton Smith (Speedway Motorsports owner/CEO) wouldn't have tried to one-up that place and build the tracks he did. When Billy's track opened, it absolutely blew away anything else our sport had ever seen."

DEEP IN THE HEART OF THE COUNTDOWN - Maybe the most dangerous Pro Stock driver right now is Erica Enders-Stevens and her Husky Liners/Cagnazzi Camaro team. She was a top-five driver when sponsorship disappeared and left her sidelined for six of the past eight races. But she managed to maintain a ninth-place spot in the standings and secure a berth in the Countdown. With fresh funding from Husky Liners, the Houston native (who lives in New Orleans now with driver husband Richie Stevens) is making the most of her opportunity. She had a semifinal finish at last week's Carlyle Tools Carolina Nationals at Concord, N.C., and gained one place in the order.

"At this moment we're the underdog, and we've got some fighting to do to get this car up to the performance level of the rest of the pack," she said. "Being back in the car and getting seat time is only going to make it better."

She moved within 10 points of seventh place and is 109 points, a little more than five rounds, behind leader Mike Edwards.

Enders-Stevens kicked off her return to full-time Pro Stock competition by beating another Houston racer, buddy Rodger Brogdon. Then she used a holeshot to eliminate best friend Allen Johnson, the reigning Pro Stock champion.

"A semifinal finish is nothing to be ashamed of. There are a lot of guys who would have traded spots with us today," Enders-Stevens said Sunday.

Enders-Stevens means business, and being back in her home state only heightens her motivation to win and rocket through the standings.

REALLY?! 50?! -- Funny Car owner-driver Tim Wilkerson's last victory was in July 2011 at Seattle. While that seems like yesterday, it has been 50 races since then. "These days, it really doesn't matter how well you qualify," the Levi, Ray & Shoup Mustang driver said. "You're going to face a car in Round 1 that can beat you, and this time we got spanked. We started looking ahead to Dallas, and every person on this team knows we have a car that can win there."

He said, "In a place like Charlotte, you had to be just about perfect for four consecutive laps, and your car had to be perfect, too. Matt Hagan went 4.10, 4.06, 4.08, and then 4.06 again in the final, and he was runner-up to Robert Hight. That's four great laps, doing everything right, and he didn't win. That's what we all face just about every week. One of these weeks, it will be our turn, because we're good enough to work our way through to a win."

NOT PANICKING AT ALL - Shawn Langdon, who lost his grip on the Top Fuel points lead after one of several surprising first-round defeats at Charlotte, isn't panicking.

"We had a minor setback in Charlotte, but we still feel good about things.  The Al-Anabi car is still running strong, and team morale is still up. So it's not anything we're going to let get us down. Hopefully, we can get that No. 1 spot back at the end of the Dallas event. This weekend is just another opportunity for us to do what we do. 

"We don't need to change anything or alter our strategy. We need to keep doing what we've been doing all year, and that's making hard, strong runs in qualifying and being aggressive. We need to race smart this weekend. Last year in Dallas, we went into the final qualifying session not qualified, and we were able to get that No. 1 qualifying position. We know we're capable of making good, strong runs down there. When it gets hot down there, the track gets tricky. So we just need to race smart this weekend."

Langdon said, "All the cars in the top 10 are still capable of winning. Now it's a matter of not making mistakes. If you make a mistake, there's a good chance you could drop three, four, or even five spots in the point standings. We just need to be in the finals or semifinals every week. We need to go rounds and get those small bonus points, and we'll be OK."

Khalid alBalooshi, his teammate, said, "Charlotte was tough on our team, but it was hard on a lot of teams. We dropped two places in the points, but the points are still very close.  Both Al-Anabi cars were very good last week . . . but we had problems on Sunday. I think we will be better in the next five races. We are still in the race for the championship, and I feel very good about our team. We do not change what we do, especially with how the Al-Anabi car has been running. The car has been good all year. We want to keep doing the same thing."

FROM THE SUGGESTION BOX - Pro Stock veteran Greg Stanfield, who works hard with limited resources but still is one of the best in his class, has struggled as a Countdown non-qualifier. But he showed his sense of humor at Charlotte when he qualified 11th and lost lane choice -- and subsequently the round -- to eventual winner Jeg Coughlin. Stanfield joked that the NHRA might want to change the rule that the higher-qualified car gets lane choice in the first round. "It hurts, man. They need to change that," Stanfield said with a laugh. "That or swipe a motor from Mike Edwards."