Training an entirely new crew, reuniting a six-time Top Fuel champion with his crew chief, and shaking off legal challenges normally would make a single team the obvious story of the NHRA preseason.   

“I thought we would be the weird ones,” managing partner Scott Gardner said of the Straightline Strategy Group (SSG) and its Clay Millican-headlined Top Fuel team.

Oh, no, Scott, you’re not even close, not this year.

While electronic engine management is disproving the old notion of “no replacement for displacement,” there’s still nothing better than old, yellowed newsprint for evaluating drag racing’s formative years. The sport’s rapid rise from the mid-1950s through the ’60s was duly documented only by the tabloid press, the first independent medium to pay us regular attention. A half-century ago, the pen was mightier than all of today’s websites, blogs and podcasts, television and cable networks, terrestrial and satellite radio stations—combined.

Beyond the fun and value delivered at the time to mailboxes, news racks, and speed shops, unaffiliated “drag rags”—i.e., cheap periodicals controlled neither by a sanctioning body nor NHRA-leaning Petersen Publishing Co. (whose editorial director until 1963 was Wally Parks), recorded the truest accounts to be found of this new American motorsport and its supporting industry. In 1964-65, the peak of L.A. publishing’s golden age, no fewer than three independent tabloids competed nationally for readers and advertisers week after week, right through winter, collectively producing 150 issues per year. Classic clippings from these Drag News, Drag Sport Illustrated, and Drag World weeklies comprise most of the artwork for our series.

Replace it with Pro Modified!

Replace it with Factory Stock!

Just kill it!

Those are just a few of the comments I have read over the last three years.

It was 4 AM in Australia, about 2 hours before I was to get out of bed and prepare for a long 14-hour flight across the Pacific ocean. Why in the world would legendary starter Larry Sutton be calling me out of the blue? 

Instead of taking the call, I texted back.

"Larry, can I call you back later? In Australia, trying to stretch out two hours of sleep." - Bobby

It was astonishing enough in 2011 that a senior NHRA executive said the sanctioning body’s technical committee has no aerodynamic expert. That just didn’t sound proper for a sport that rewards aerodynamic efficiency and superiority.

Seven years later, it’s just as astounding that the NHRA – a sport with the fastest-accelerating vehicles on Earth, ones that on a perfect pass will jiggle a driver’s brain in an extreme, abnormal fashion – doesn’t have a concussion protocol.

It was evident three weeks in Las Vegas than fans like the four-wide concept of the NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series.

They liked it enough that sellout crowds were announced for Saturday and Sunday racing after a near-capacity crowd opened the Denso Four-Wide NHRA Nationals on Friday.

The Strip became the second permanent four-lane track in the world. Its Speedway Motorsports Inc. sister facility near Charlotte is the other.

When motorsports magnate Bruton Smith’s publicly held Speedway Motorsports Inc. purchased Las Vegas Motor Speedway in 1998, one of his first projects was to complete construction of the dragstrip where only a massive concrete grandstand stood near the big oval track upon the acquisition.
 
It was slated to be the first permanent four-lane dragstrip. But while most of the infrastructure was prepared for double-wide racing, only two lanes were completed in 1999. It remained that way until work began late last year to expand it to four lanes for competition and Las Vegas now has joined SMI’s sister track zMAX Dragway at Charlotte Motor Speedway as the only four-lane dragstrips in the world.
 
The 91-year-old Smith is founder and chief executive of

The National Hot Rod Association took a wrong turn a few weeks ago when it toughened penalties for drivers crossing the centerline during competition in Mello Yello Drag Racing Series events.

In addition to the past penalty of having the run disqualified, drivers now are docked five to 15 points for crossing the line or hitting one of the orange foam blocks.

Top Fuel dragsters and Funny Cars must remain within their lanes for 320 feet past the 1,000-foot finish line. Apparently, after that, they can cross over to take out an opponent without losing championship points. There also are no points penalties for crossing the line on burnouts.

NHRA states “crossing the centerline and/or striking timing blocks is a serious safety concern and causes delays in racing due to cleanup time required for such incidents.”

Bob Glidden grabbed the ringing telephone and said, “You’re lucky you caught me. I just came in the house. I’ve been out for a week, digging up a septic system.”

Mind you, he was 70 years old at the time. But the Whiteland, Ind., native never lost that Midwest work ethic, that lunch-bucket mentality and even at 70-plus could put a longshoreman to shame with his productivity. Most remarkable is that Glidden’s self-imposed septic-tank assignment came not long after he underwent experimental surgery at Johns Hopkins Medical Center to receive stem-cell implants in his heart.

(Glidden, in typical fashion, sloughed off the serious procedure, saying, "I had open-heart surgery in 1994. Compared to that, this is no big deal.”)