When Greg Anderson and the KB Racing team tried to manipulate the Pro Stock ladder at the Finals at Pomona, Calif., in 2019, taking a shot at the Elite Performance group, Jeg Coughlin labeled it “shenanigans.” 

Those were legal shenanigans, and this weekend at Las Vegas, Elite boss Richard Freeman decided to give KB a dose of its own medicine. 

“Happened to us in ’19,” Freeman said, asserting that turnabout is “fair play.” 

Greg Anderson is the gold standard when it comes to NHRA’s Pro Stock class.

Anderson is the all-time wins leader in the class with 98 national event titles.

The top qualifying machine Brittany Force has become in 2021 kept churning at Dodge//SRT NHRA Nationals presented by Pennzoil at The Strip Las Vegas Motor Speedway Friday.

Force, in her Monster Top Fuel dragster, clocked a 3.693-second elapsed time at 333.41 to take the provisional No. 1 spot.

Momentum is definitely on Alexis DeJoria’s side right now.

After qualifying No. 1 and winning the last event on the NHRA Camping Word Drag Racing Series tour in Bristol, Tenn., Oct. 17, DeJoria kept rolling at the Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway Oct. 29.

Already the track record holder in Top Fuel, Brittany Force added another impressive performance at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway on Friday, racing to the provisional No. 1 spot at the Dodge//SRT NHRA Nationals presented by Pennzoil. 

Alexis DeJoria (Funny Car), Kyle Koretsky (Pro Stock) and Steve Johnson (Pro Stock Motorcycle) are also the provisional No. 1 qualifiers at the 19th of 20 races during the 2021 NHRA Camping World Drag Racing Series season and the sixth race in the Countdown to the Championship playoffs. 

Some of Dylan Cromwell’s coolest moments in high school came on the football field as a player for the Scobey Spartans in his hometown of Scobey, Montana. But his love was auto racing, and not long after graduation, he was working daily on race cars that blasted the length of three football fields quicker than anyone could read this sentence. 

Matt Hagan had a chance to take the Funny Car lead in Friday qualifying. But neither he nor Don Schumacher Racing (DSR) colleague Ron Capps, who had a one-point advantage over him, got a single bonus point as both of their Dodge Chargers failed to make it into the top three in the provisional line-up. Hagan muscled to fourth place in his Mopar Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat Redeye, but Capps didn’t cross the finish line under full power in his NAPA Dodge and was seventh. 

For Halloween weekend, John Force and PEAK Antifreeze and Coolant are throwing it back to Force’s roots. The 16-time world champion will run a modified paint scheme on his PEAK Chevrolet Camaro at the Dodge//SRT NHRA Nationals at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. On the side of the blue PEAK Camaro that has won three events and earned three No. 1 qualifiers in the NHRA Camping World Drag Racing Series 2021 season, will be the signature John “Brute” Force fist.

The Dodge brand is doubling down on its role as a pure performance brand with a sneak-peek at one of two new performance-based programs, set to be announced in early November. 

Top-level drag radial cars are well capable of running 3.50s over the eighth mile these days, but there's more to it than sheer, brute horsepower, sticky track surfaces and hi-tech Mickey Thompson radial racing tires.

"I'm not saying everybody running fast is running traction control or wheel-speed management or something like that--but they probably are."

So says the man who would know, Shannon Davis of Davis Technologies, a pioneer in traction control systems who attends literally dozens of drag racing events each year. Part engineer, part teacher, some might even say part wizard, Davis is the go-to-guy for many of drag radial's finest tuning minds when they need traction-related advice or solutions.