PremiAir Racing team owner-driver Peter Xiberras snapped a nine-round losing streak to defeat local racer Phil Read in the A-Final of the Atlantic Oils Top Fuel Slam meet at Sydney Dragway, January 27-28.

NHRA star Larry Dixon upstaged his Rapisarda Autosport International teammate Wayne Newby to win the B-Final and Shane Olive took out the C-Final on a solo when team boss Phil Lamattina was a no-show.

“It’s been a while,” said Xiberras, who also paid tribute to Sam Fenech, the much-loved Doorslammer racer who lost his life at Willowbank Raceway earlier this month.
“This one was always about Sam.” 

They aren’t exactly the Odd Couple, Tony Schumacher and Tim Wilkerson.

But the new NHRA teammates with the Joe and Cathi Maynard / SCAG connections seemed an unlikely pairing at first.

Schumacher, for example, has a Top Fuel-leading 86 victories and eight series championships. Wilkerson has won a respectable 22 Wally trophies but no Funny Car titles. Both have won the U.S. Nationals – Wilkerson twice but Schumacher an unprecedented 10 times. They were born nine years apart, almost to the day. One competes in the Top Fuel class, the other in Funny Car. Schumacher is a driver; Wilkerson is a team owner, tuner, and driver. Schumacher’s demeanor is more nonchalant, while Wilkerson constantly is tiptoeing that tightrope between high performance and high anxiety – Schumacher is breezy, Wilkerson intense.

Check out this slick new classic piece of American hot rod ingenuity from the Jerry Bickel Race Cars shop outside of St. Louis. The beauty is destined for Dean Marinis and Happy Pappas and is expected to see plenty of action in the PDRA's Pro Nitrous division as well as NHRA Pro Modified. 

Two decades after she last drove a Top Fuel dragster, accolades continue to roll in for Shirley Muldowney.

The first woman to win a nitro championship, Muldowney on Sunday night (Jan. 22, 2023) was inducted into the National Motorsports Press Association’s Hall of Fame during the group’s annual convention in Concord, North Carolina. The inclusion of Muldowney, 10-time ARCA champion Frank Kimmel, multi-time road-racing titlist Scott Pruett, and racer/journalist Dick Berggren brings the total number of members in that Hall to 121. Muldowney is the second woman inducted by the NMPA following IndyCar/NASCAR driver Janet Guthrie in 2020.

Working on the crew for Tim Wilkerson’s NHRA nitro Funny Car team gave Nick Danner an even bigger itch to drive.

Danner scratched that itch when he attended the renowned Frank Hawley Drag Racing School last month and obtained his Super Comp license.

The legendary George Bryce shares how he got started in the racing and engine-building trade. The former NHRA Pro Stock Motorcycle champion shares some great stories from his long (and still going) career.

For more great engine tech, check out @EnginePerformanceExpo, which returned LIVE on YouTube on January 13th & 14th, 2023.

 
Another season of thrilling heads-up racing at Bradenton Motorsports Park is set to begin this weekend with the U.S. Street Nationals presented by M&M Transmission, Jan. 26-29. With Outlaw Pro Mod headlining a lineup that also includes drag radial classes like Pro 275 and X275, the U.S. Street Nationals is also the official season opener for many of the country’s best outlaw racers. 
 
Outlaw Pro Mod presented by FuelTech and PJS Racing will pay $32,000 to the winner of the 32-car qualified field. The entry list includes heavy hitters like four-time and reigning PDRA Pro Nitrous world champion Jim Halsey, two-time and reigning PDRA Pro Boost world champion Todd Tutterow, two-time and reigning NEOPMA Pro Mod champion Mike Decker Jr., reigning FuelTech Radial Outlaws Series Radial vs. the World champion Jason Lee, Melanie Salemi, Stan Shelton, JR Gray, and Jason Scruggs. 

After an abbreviated 2022 NHRA race season, Bruno Massel III is ready to make a run at his fourth career Comp world championship.

“We won the championship for ’21, and last year, we pulled back quite a bit, running just a handful of races. I needed to kind of reconnect with the family,” Massel said to CompetitionPlus.com. “This year, we’re going to go back after it and run a full season again. I ran just six races last year, and this year, we’ll hit some divisional races early and see where it puts us. If we have a shot, we’ll go after it; if not, we’ll focus on just the National events. Either way, I’m excited to race a full season once again.”

Massel will once again be behind the wheel of his twin-turbocharged Toyota 2JZ inline 6 powered altered.

Tim Wilkerson calls it Racing Scared, and the Funny Car owner-tuner-driver has done it for much of his 27 years in NHRA competition.

The Countdown kickoff at Reading, Pa., was a perfect example. His engine detonated during his semifinal victory over John Force, and he used his back-up car to run the final round. Wilkerson fouled out, handing the victory to Robert Hight. More disturbing, though, was that after climbing from ninth place to sixth, he never made it past the second round the rest of the year and finished ninth in the standings – right where he had started the playoffs. “So after that,” he said, “I'm running the next three races on my heels.”

But Wilkerson said Tuesday, “I won’t have to race scared anymore.”  

​There will be Pro Modifieds and plenty of them. There will also be the large displacement Pro Stockers, and there will be a gaggle of them. 

Now, word comes that another group of factory-built hot rods will invade Bradenton Motorsports Park during the first week of March at the Drag Illustrated World Series of Pro Modified. 

The NHRA's favored Factory Stock Showdown will take part in the action as part of the Factory Stock Classic.