Frank Hawley’s Drag Racing School will emerge from the pandemic pause with new venues and changes to its horsepower curriculum.

“This is the year we are all learning to be very flexible, and we couldn’t be happier to be offering classes at all the tracks that are hosting us,” Hawley said. “Whether you’re new to racing, moving up from Jr. Dragster, need to improve your skills, or just want to check an item off your bucket list there are lots of class dates coming to a track near you.”

After announcing a revised Mello Yello Drag Racing Series national event schedule yesterday, NHRA officials announced today the schedules for the E3 Spark Plugs NHRA Pro Mod Series presented by J&A Service, the Mickey Thompson Tires NHRA Top Fuel Harley Series, the SAMTech.edu NHRA Factory Stock Showdown Series and the Mountain Motor Pro Stock category.
 

NHRA will relaunch its premier series with back-to-back events at Lucas Oil Raceway at Indianapolis to kick off 17-event season completion

NHRA Drag Racing will return to the world stage in a major way in mid-July, relaunching its Mello Yello Drag Racing Series and associated programs with events on back-to-back weekends at famed Lucas Oil Raceway in Indianapolis. 

The two events will be run on consecutive weeks, July 11-12 and July 18-19, at the home of the newly-sponsored Denso Spark Plugs NHRA U.S. Nationals and serve as the launch point for 15 more NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series events that will follow beginning two weeks later in Seattle. The season will conclude with the crowning of the Mello Yello Drag Racing Series champions November 13-15 at the Auto Club NHRA Finals at Auto Club Raceway at Pomona. The revised schedule is subject to changes due to evolving facts and guidelines.

For award-winning track promoter Bill Bader Jr., hitting the reset button for Norwalk Raceway Park was the best course of action for the facility located outside of Cleveland, Ohio. Unfortunately for the hundreds of thousands of race fans who attend the facility annually, the reset is next season.

Closing in 2020 was not the plan Bader had in mind for what he expected to be a banner season.

It was the late 90's in the IHRA and one driver thought if a dragster could run injected nitro why not a flopper.

The driver, Scott Weis, of Richmond, Va., believed what was good for the goose should be good for the gander. Or, to be more precise, if it worked in a dragster, who not in a Funny car.

Thinking back, Weis remembers the 1998 season when he debuted an injected nitro flopper in IHRA competition. The injected nitro phase was quickly catching on within the NHRA's Top Alcohol dragster teams; proving to be a quicker combination.

An A/Fuel Funny car seemed reasonable, at least to Weis.

The NHRA is expected to announce Tuesday a bold back-to-work plan of 16 consecutive races throughout the country, perhaps with an added event or two at Indianapolis.

But a few Funny Car drivers and one really creative track operator have been thinking about what the NHRA could do to capitalize on the opportunity to show off drag racing while most other sports are idle.

Don Schumacher Racing drivers Jack Beckman and Matt Hagan, along with John Force, already had been considering how feasible it might be to have an event or two at Lucas Oil Raceway at Indianapolis. The dragstrip sits about a mile, maybe two, from most of the shops at Brownsburg, Ind.
  

A two-month delay was worth the wait for two-time world champion Tommy Franklin, as he opened the 2020 Professional Drag Racers Association (PDRA) season with a Switzer Dynamics Pro Nitrous victory in his “Jungle Rat” ’69 Camaro. Racing at the East Coast Nationals presented by FuelTech at GALOT Motorsports Park, Franklin defeated Jim Widener in the final round.
 
Franklin was joined in the winner’s circle by Melanie Salemi in Penske Racing Shocks/Precision Racing Suspension Pro Boost presented by WS Construction, Johnny Pluchino in Liberty’s Gears Extreme Pro Stock, Travis Davis in Drag 965 Pro Nitrous Motorcycle, Walter Lannigan Jr. in $hameless Racing Pro Outlaw 632, and Mark Micke in Drag 965 Pro Street.

The Professional Drag Racers Association (PDRA) was in the middle of professional class eliminations at the East Coast Nationals presented by FuelTech when a lengthy oildown and popup rain shower halted the action Saturday night. The race is slated to continue Sunday at GALOT Motorsports Park in Benson, N.C.
 
“We’ve been fighting the weather all week, and it bit us again tonight,” said Tyler Crossnoe, race director, PDRA. “We really appreciate our racers sticking it out and working with us to make this race happen. Sunday’s forecast looks like it will make for a smooth, fast day of racing.”

Thunderstorms and rain showers kept racers in the pits Friday at the season-opening Professional Drag Racers Association (PDRA) East Coast Nationals presented by FuelTech at GALOT Motorsports Park. Race officials called off the day’s qualifying sessions later in the evening. Jr. Dragster racers completed one qualifying session between storms. 
 
“We sure tried to get some racing in today, but Mother Nature wins this one,” said Tyler Crossnoe, series director, PDRA. “The PDRA and GALOT Motorsports Park track teams worked hard to get the track dry all afternoon and evening. We’ll try again tomorrow.”

If the PDRA’s delayed season-opening race goes off this weekend as planned, it will take place without the series’ reigning champion in the Extreme Pro Stock ranks.

John Montecalvo told competitionplus.com Thursday afternoon that he isn’t making the nearly 600-mile trip from his home on Long Island, New York, to the outskirts of Benson, North Carolina, for a race that was shoved to the back burner for nearly two months due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The 2019 EPS titlist said there are three reasons he won’t be among the competitors at GALOT Motorsports Park.