Billy Meyer’s famed Texas Motorplex had an active and highly successful season of drag racing in 2021 which started by hosting the largest Funny Car event in over fifty years with the Funny Car Chaos season opener in late March. This highly anticipated drag race attracted a record sixty-eight funny car teams from coast to coast to compete for over $50,000. The Motorplex staff led by Andy Carter continued to raise the bar and capped off the season with the “Stampede of Speed” last month which took their national event weekend to an entirely new level of entertainment. That momentum will carry forward into next year as the 2nd Annual Funny Car Chaos Classic will bust through the gates in Ennis, Texas on March 24th-26th and will again stand as the only event in the world to qualify 32 Funny Cars for the main event. With that also comes a series record high payout, guaranteed at over $55,000!

Tony Stewart Racing (TSR) has announced its crew chief lineup for the team’s 2022 debut in the NHRA Camping World Drag Racing Series with Top Fuel driver Leah Pruett and Funny Car pilot Matt Hagan.

Neal Strausbaugh will be the crew chief for nine-time Top Fuel event winner Pruett and Dickie Venables will continue his longtime role as the crew chief for 39-time Funny Car event winner Hagan. Both Strausbaugh and Venables come to TSR from Don Schumacher Racing (DSR), where the duo have spent a combined 25 years.

Strausbaugh has been an assistant crew chief since 2008 working across both Top Fuel and Funny Car, first with Cory McClenathan in Top Fuel (2008), Tony Schumacher in Top Fuel (2009-2016), Jack Beckman in Funny Car (2017-2018) and Pruett (2019-present). Venables has had two stints at DSR, spending 2010-2011 with Funny Car driver Johnny Gray before returning in 2013 to lead Hagan’s Funny Car effort.

At 77 years young, Ron Allison may well be the most impressive rookie the South East Gassers Association has ever seen.

Prior to this year, the Sparta, TN-based septuagenarian had been a Legends car champion and jet-ski speed record holder, but this year's SEGA season opener represented his first official drag racing experience. It took Allison just six events to earn his first SEGA Super Stock race title in June and he finished the season with five wins and the 2021 series championship to his credit.

"I didn't think I'd win the first race this year; it's just been like a dream come true," Allison said after a come-from-behind charge in the points chase to win the series season ender at Shady Side Dragway and edge out 2020 class champion Mark Hackett for the 2021 SEGA SS title.

On Thursday, it was ladies' day at the top of the sportsman food chain in qualifying for the Auto Club NHRA Finals in Pomona, Ca. Female drivers paced the first two spots in the Top Alcohol Dragster division. 

Julie Nataas thundered to the top spot in the dragsters while Sean Bellemeur paced the Funny Cars in their lone session. Travis Gusso was the king of the hill in Competition Eliminator. 

Once upon a time, there was a young boy who walked in his dad's shadow, eagerly wishing he could be what his father was in the drag racing world. Kenny Koretsky was and is a proud father, running the roads of the NHRA tour up until the mid-2000s as a Pro Stock driver. Kyle was Kenny's boy.

However, as Kenny hung up his driving suit and Kyle began to work his way up through the ranks of Competition Eliminator and inevitably a Pro Stock frontrunner under the KB Racing, Dad began to notice a change in his status. 

Kyle was not there as Kenny's boy. Kenny became known as "Kyle's Dad."

Roger Richards admits during his four years of service he only disobeyed one order. The order, as he puts it, wasn’t a real order, it was a suggestion from those higher up.

This was 1972 and upon his honorable discharge from the U.S. Army, for his safety, it was advised that he don civilian attire while traveling home. He was one of the members of the military who was spat on by war protesters as he walked through the Oakland Airport.

“I was a Vietnam era veteran,” said Richards, who has been Attitude’s CompetitionPlus.com Director of Photography since 1999. “I volunteered several times to go to Vietnam but never got sent. I always had this funny saying that they wouldn’t send me because I was so crazy, they were afraid I’d kill someone.”

Slammin’ Sam Smith, the co-host of CompetitionPlus.com’s Power Hour with the Monday Morning Racer for the past year, truly understands and appreciates Veterans Day, Nov. 11.

Smith served in the U.S. Army from 2009-20014. He went in with a Private E1 ranking and left with a Specialist E4 ranking.

On the strength of three wins and five final round appearances in a fantastic debut season, Pro Stock’s Dallas Glenn was named the 2021 NHRA Rookie of the Year on Sunday, edging out a talented list of first-year competitors in the NHRA Camping World Racing Series.

The award recognizes the top rookie competitor in the NHRA Camping World Drag Racing Series. The nation’s leading auto racing journalists select the winner through a voting system based on the following criteria: number of events competed in, performance on and off the racetrack, participation in NHRA promotions, and relationships with fans, sponsors, and media.

Glenn was named the top rookie at Sunday’s NHRA banquet at Auto Club Raceway at Pomona, culminating a dream season for the rising star that also saw him finish third in points.