Battling NHRA’s big budget nitro Funny Car teams is quite the challenge.

However, it is one nitro Funny Car team owner/driver Chad Green welcomes.

Green was clearly up to the challenge at the season-opening Amalie Motor Oil NHRA Gatornationals in Gainesville, Fla., last Sunday notching a semifinal finish.

The chemistry and performance for the first NHRA national event of the season with new Funny Car driver Alex Laughlin and Jim Dunn Racing was a success. The team qualified well, ran in the 3.90’s at 320mph in the opening round, and gave their competition a good run for it. The team and driver will look to build on that success and participate in the celebration of the last NHRA national event at Wild Horse Pass Motorsports Park with a Special Edition Funny Car and limited-edition driver signed hero card.

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 season-opener at No Problem Raceway just outside of New Orleans.

NHRA issued a statement on March 16, 2023, declaring Amalie Motor Oil NHRA Gatornationals Top Fuel champion Mike Salinas committed a rules infraction and, while he'd been declared the winner, was docked 20 points. 

The infraction, which isn't clearly defined on nhraracer.com, was described by NHRA's Jeffrey Young in a statement for CompetitionPlus.com. 

"The NHRA tech department made a mathematical error in weighing the car," Young said. 

Mother Nature had other ideas about this weekend. But even the lady of the weather cannot stop the determination of the Funny Car Chaos series.

Rescheduled until March 23 - 25, 2023,  the 3rd Annual Lone Star Forklift Funny Car Chaos Classic, presented by So-Cal Speed Shop of Waco, descends upon the Texas Motorplex with over 50 entries expected to participate in the season opener.

The rules-free, run whatcha’ brung approach to the Funny Car Chaos formula has a mix of unique participants, including roots and screw superchargers, injected-nitro, turbocharged, and many other oddball power combinations, all chasing the same end goal. 

The show will feature 32 cars qualifying over four different eight-car fields with equal points value across each field, giving any Funny Car an equal chance to claim their portion of the $20,000 year-end Championship payouts made possible by Fat Tirez Apparel, Excel Drywall, and Performance Motorcoaches.

Almost 33 years to the date it debuted, the unthinkable finally happened. 

The NHRA Gatornationals last weekend featured the first time one of the major sanctioning bodies fielded a national event without a single nitrous car on the Pro Mod entry list since the class debuted in March 1990. The field was comprised totally of supercharged cars, centrifugal, roots, and screw versions only.

Leading nitrous engine guru Pat Musi, who builds most of the engines for the PDRA’s Pro Nitrous division, said Pro Modified fans had better get used to it. 

‘There won’t be any at the next event either unless something changes,” Musi said. 

Ozzy Moya loves drag racing and plans to be around the straight-line sport for the foreseeable future. He just doesn't plan to do it anymore at South Georgia Motorsports Park, just outside Valdosta, Ga. 

Moya announced on March 14, 2023, that he'd agreed to sell the track he purchased in 2015 to his friend of 35 years, Raul Torres. The deal is expected to close in 45 days. Moya will continue to run Orlando Speed World. 

Moya said he'd received calls asking if it was health reasons or battles against the local government that led to him sell, but neither played a factor in the decision. 

It’s quirky to think that something as pedestrian as a metal building could be inspirational.

But it has been for two-time Funny Car champion Cruz Pedregon, who spent many fond hours as a youngster with drag-racer dad Frank and brothers Frankie and Tony inside their metal-building shop.    

Now, Pedregon has taken the opportunity to own his own private-label discount metal building company that caters to the racing industry. Lee Beard, who consults on Pedregon’s Snap-on Tools Snap-on "Makers and Fixers" Dodge Hellcat Funny Car, coordinated the business deal, as well, introducing the principals.

Anyone familiar with the robust complexity of the Comp Eliminator category knows how difficult it is to win multiple races in a season. And getting back into the right mindset to compete on that level takes an adjustment period for most people, but Steve Szupka isn't most people. 

Szupka is coming into the 2023 NHRA Lucas Oil Drag Racing Series as the Division 1 champion in Competition Eliminator, an accomplishment that's still sinking in for him - primarily because, at this time last year, he wasn't even planning to compete in the category. If it weren't for the generosity and camaraderie of the drag racing community, Szupka's championship hopes would not have been realized. 

Szupka's story is similar to many second-generation drivers. He grew up at the track where his mother fondly recalls warming up his baby bottles on the manifold of his father's Super Stock entry. When he was a teenager, it was only natural that he would attend Frank Hawley's Drag Racing School to get his license. His first car was a C/Econo Dragster, so he's no stranger to Competition Eliminator. 

When Nelson Hoyos came into drag racing decades ago, the most valuable lesson he learned was the value of dreaming big. And he's got a big one brewing right now. 

The dream is not significant, not because it's unattainable. It's large because it could be significant for the sport if it becomes a reality. 

Hoyos seeks to bring major league drag racing back to Louisiana for the first time since May 1990, when NHRA promoted the Cajun Nationals at State Capitol Dragway in Baton Rouge, La.