It's race day at the CompetitionPlus.com Thunderdome located in Spartanburg, SC. Qualifying is complete, now it's time to begin the process of eliminating down for a winner of the Truharvest Thunder at the Dome, Race 4 of 9 in the Virtual Reality Hot Rod Association. 

It's all fun in fantasy land to get away from the troubles of what is happening in the real world. 

For those new to this fantasy world, this is how it works. The race with the most votes advances to the next round. We had a day of voting to seed the eight-car fields. 

First-round ends tonight at 6 PM EST. 

Every high profile drag racer has that one car that just didn’t meet their expectations.

Scotty Cannon had his 1997 version of the 1941 Willys, the first car he ever failed to qualify after winning five world championships and he had been the only driver to qualify at every Pro Modified event up until that point.

Bob Glidden had his Ford EXP, a Pro Stock car built at the urging of Ford to run under the pounds-per-cubic format and converted to 500-inch competition. Glidden said it was the worst car he ever owned in his career.

Scotty Cannon had his 1997 version of the 1941 Willys, the first car he ever failed to qualify after winning five world championships and he had been the only driver to qualify at every Pro Modified event up until that point.

Bob Glidden had his Ford EXP, a Pro Stock car built at the urging of Ford to run under the pounds-per-cubic format and converted to 500-inch competition. Glidden said it was the worst car he ever owned in his career.

The most prestigious event on the ANDRA calendar, the Australian Nationals, returns to Sydney Dragway for the first time since 2015 on February 11-12.

Initially scheduled for Calder Park Raceway, Melbourne, a week earlier, the event has been moved due to unavoidable delays in finalizing the track re-surface.

The good news for race starved Victorians is that racing at Calder Park is set to resume early in 2022 and will host the 2023 Australian Nationals. 

CHE Precision is a family-owned company built on hard work and strong partnerships and we are excited to announce our new partnership with Elite Motorsports and Erica Enders Racing in 2022,” said Rochén Holguin, Business Development and wife of the owner.

“We look forward to supplying the team with the best high-performance valve train components on the market and high-performance building a relationship on and off the track with great people like the Enders, and the Freemans.”

After running five NHRA Pro Stock races in 2021 with KB Racing, Rodger Brogdon is making the full plunge in 2022.

Brogdon confirmed to CompetitionPlus.com he will compete full-time in Pro Stock in 2022 competing in 18 races for the KB Racing team.

“I’m going to run my wagon (1966 Chevy II wagon Comp Car) and run all 18 Pro Stock races, so I’m going to be really busy,” Brogdon said. “I signed on with (KB Racing) for the (2022) year. I’m going to run a Camaro. We bought another car that I’m going to drive (in 2022). It is actually my old car I built in 2015, we bought it back. It is a really, really good car. It is a Camaro, and it just seems a little bit quicker than most of them.”

The KB Racing team is headed up by reigning Pro Stock world champion Greg Anderson.

For the latest in drag racing news and historical drag racing articles, visit http//:www.competitionplus.com.

The 1981 season was one of change for NHRA, as the sanctioning body began expanding in certain areas. One of those was their television presence. In 1981, NHRA expanded to coverage of EIGHT drag racing events.

Diamond P, who produced NHRA drag racing, gave up the staple of its annual presentations to an expanding ABC Wide World of Sports and allowed the group to broadcast the east coast July barnburner - the NHRA Summernationals in Englishtown, NJ.

Check out the iconic Chris Economacki team with newly retired Reggie Jackson to bring drag racing coverage.

Over at CompetitionPlusApparel.com, we specialize in cool drag racing apparel. 

Here are a few we have on the shelves if you've been seeking a cool look. 

Pro Modified Lyle Barnett driver Lyle Barnett, competing in his first VRHRA fan-vote season, said after his first victory earlier this month that he wanted to win all nine races of the season. He remained on the course with a victory in Thursday's final round at the Red Line Oil SuperNationals. 

However, unlike the first two races, this triumph was a battle to the last minute in a match with an equally polarizing figure - Stevie "Fast" Jackson. In a race characterized by the largest vote total of all the other professional categories combined, Barnett and Jackson energized their fan bases which spanned from the United States to the Middle East to Australia, including ten different countries. 

"I woke up this morning and I'm like, 'man, I feel like I've either drank a whole bottle of liquor or been ran over by something," Barnett admitted. "Then I realized it's because I spent all day stressing, pacing, calling everybody I know, phoning friends, threatening people with their lives, like get on your phone and vote, do whatever you got to do. Send this to your family members. I don't know how much of Verizon's bandwidth we used up yesterday, but it was a lot. A lot."