Erica Enders wasn’t aiming to have the quote of the day Friday at the NHRA Thunder Valley Nationals, but it just happened to work out that way. 

She emerged from her Melling Performance Chevrolet Camaro as the provisional low qualifier following six races of sheer frustration. Without batting an eye, Enders proclaimed, “It sucks to suck.”

Friday night, her performance indeed didn’t suck as she drove to the top of the qualifying leaderboard with a 6.627 elapsed time at 205.88 miles per hour. Her run edged out teammate Cristian Cuadra, who stepped up in a fast Friday evening session with a 6.632. Defending event champion Aaron Stanfield’s 6.636 was the third quickest of the Elite Performance logjam.

NHRA Funny Car racer Robert Hight acknowledged that he was concentrating less on what tune-up was in his Chevy Camaro on Friday at Bristol Dragway and more about which sponsor’s hat and shirt he was wearing and how he would weave that company’s name into his interviews.

Like almost every other nitro racer in the Camping World Drag Racing Series this weekend, the three-time champion from John Force Racing was trying to slog his way through the start of a unique twin bill that combined qualifying for the regularly scheduled Thunder Valley Nationals with the first round of eliminations for Sunday’s/Monday’s rain-plagued New England Nationals at Epping, N.H.

Leah Pruett raced to the Top Fuel qualifying lead on Friday at Bristol Dragway, taking the provisional No. 1 spot at the NHRA Thunder Valley Nationals.

Robert Hight (Funny Car), Erica Enders (Pro Stock) and Gaige Herrera (Pro Stock Motorcycle) are also the provisional No. 1 qualifiers at the eighth of 21 races during the 2023 NHRA Camping World Drag Racing Series season. The first round of eliminations in Top Fuel and Funny Car from the postponed NHRA New England Nationals also took place on Friday in Bristol.

Former Top Fuel superstar turned Nostalgia Funny Car has some sage advice for the rumormongers. Don’t believe everything you hear. 

The combination of his team owner Rick Akers being hospitalized to the team’s hauler breaking down in Arkansas is why they are not participating in this weekend’s Red Line Oil Legends Funny Car competition during the NHRA Thunder Valley Nationals in Bristol, Tenn. 

“Everybody’s speculating a lot of stuff,” McClenathan said. “They’re speculating I got fired. None of that’s true. My biggest thing was, if you want to know the truth and know what’s going on, you got to call the owner.”

There was Bob Glidden, who went a calendar year without a loss behind the wheel of his 1978 Ford Fairmont.

Then there was Steve Torrence, who made a clean sweep of the NHRA’s Countdown to the Championship.

Today, as Bristol Dragway launches the NHRA’s fourth stop for the Pro Stock Motorcycles, one racer who got his start racing outlaw bikes with nitrous oxide and no wheelie bars will be looking to continue his bid for perfection at the picturesque drag strip carved out from inside a valley in the mountains of Tennessee. 

AHDRA/AMA All-American motorcycle drag racing is set to deliver a fantastic show to motorcycle enthusiasts from today until June 11, 2023, in the upgraded Kuhnle Motorsports Park in Thompson, Ohio. It promises to be a thrilling event with the Advanced Sleeve All-Harley Nitro Buckeye Nationals showcasing AHDRA's Top Fuel heroes, gasoline studs, and pro and sportsman bikes that will race down the Kuhnle quarter mile.

Crank up the speakers, invite your friends over, and check out this high-intensity video on your television from the creative genius of Les Mayhew.

The Rooftec Competition Eliminator Bonus Fund has taken the complex Lucas Oil Drag Racing Series category to the next level. A class that was waning in participation and interest is now on an incredible upswing thanks to this outside-of-the-box program. This show is both educational and entertaining as the racers describe their different approaches to getting the promised land.

This show will deliver an incredible presentation from the NHRA Division 4 event at Houston Raceway Park, the last NHRA event there ever.

Between giving rain-soaked New England Dragway and its remarkably steadfast fans every effort to present the New England Nationals at Epping, N.H., and keeping its Camping World Drag Racing Series on schedule, NHRA officials performed a delicate balancing act Monday.

The result is a rare doubleheader in one three-day event, starting this Friday at Tennessee’s Bristol Dragway.

The notion of combining Epping eliminations with Bristol qualifying Friday and Saturday, then running the Thunder Valley Nationals eliminations Sunday as scheduled at first sounded like interstate insanity, like mass confusion that would make four-wide racing look simple. Add to all that the Mission Foods #2Fast2Tasty Challenge races that award prized Countdown points and as much as $10,000 to the winners, and it seems crew chiefs, racers, and fans would find the action-packed agenda downright dizzying.

As the adage goes, "There's always one person who doesn't get the memo." Clearly, T.J. Zizzo didn't get the memo mandating a part-time nitro operation isn't supposed to be competitive. 

The Rust-Oleum-sponsored Zizzo coined the "super part-timer" phrase for the racers like him who compete part-time and know how to go rounds, and at his hometown event, the NHRA Route 66 Nationals reached the semi-finals.

"It's quite amazing that we could take almost 20 months off and still come out swinging with all new equipment," Zizzoi said. "[That's a] testament to our team members. It's a testament to everyone that has surrounded this race car for a decade and a half. Some of them have been with us for almost 30 years or more. And it's a testament of how hard we work away from the racetrack. I love when we're at an event, and fans come up and say, 'Oh my God, you guys come out here and do so well, I want to work for you."