It was a record-setting weekend for Lizzy Musi and the Musi Racing team as the Pro Nitrous star raised the bar for performance in the class at the Professional Drag Racers Association (PDRA) Fall Nationals at North Carolina's Darlington Dragway.

Musi, who already held the speed record of 209.23 mph in the class, put a complete stamp on the quickest and fastest marks in Pro Nitrous thanks to her record-setting pass of 3.615-seconds at 208.62 mph on Saturday in the Frank Brandao-owned Edelbrock/Lucas Oil “King Kong 7” 2018 Dodge Dart. If the conditions presented themselves, a new record was the goal and Musi accomplished it in style.

Alexis DeJoria will once again strap into the seat of a nitro Funny Car when she returns to NHRA competition full-time in 2020. After a two-year hiatus, DeJoria will make her reentry into the sport beginning with the 2020 NHRA Winternationals at Pomona, Calif.

DeJoria made her NHRA debut at the 2011 Texas NHRA FallNationals and went on to win five races, including the prestigious 2014 NHRA U.S. Nationals at Indianapolis, before hanging up her helmet at the conclusion of the 2017 season.

Jack Beckman is very much still in the 2019 NHRA Funny Car championship battle despite an early exit last weekend in St. Louis. He came into the second race of the six-event Countdown to the Championship, leading the point standings and with a lot of momentum on his side.

“We missed the beat here this weekend,” Beckman said, following the loss to defending series champion J.R. Todd. “We made it down the track two of four qualifying sessions, and our car the last two races had been absolutely stellar. I don’t think by any means we were lost. I was very confident heading into race day. The bottom line is this one goes down as a holeshot loss, and that was on me. Had my right foot been three-thousandths of a second quicker, we wouldn’t be talking about this; we’d be heading into the next round and racking up points. I feel like I let the team down.”

Three-time Texas Motorplex Top Fuel winner and 34-time Top Fuel NHRA national event winner Cory McClenathan will be honored at the upcoming 34th annual AAA Texas NHRA FallNationals as the first recipient of the Texas Motorplex Legend award. 

McClenathan who announced he will race the final three NHRA Mello Yello Series national events of the 2019 season and then retire last appeared at the FallNationals in 2018. He has 18 starts, two No. 1 qualifiers, five finals, three wins and 32-15 record at the NHRA super-track located just south of Dallas. McClenathan will be racing a Top Fuel dragster owned by Dexter Tuttle and sponsored by Revchem Composites and Nordic Boats.

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Nitro Funny Car driver Dave Richards has added Strutmasters.com as a sponsor on his Paul Richards Racing Ford Mustang for this weekend’s 12th annual NTK NHRA Carolina Nationals. Strutmasters.com will join a broad roster of long-time sponsors like Prestige Site Works, Upper Cut Turf Management, and FarmBoy Custom Co. on Richards’ Funny Car.

Three-time NHRA Pro Stock Motorcycle World Champion Matt Smith will pull double duty as he takes on the Pro Stock Motorcycle category as usual while he expands his racing resume with a new category of competition – Super Comp. As VP Racing Fuels as his primary sponsor for the Super Comp entry, this will be the second time he has “doubled-up” in NHRA-sanctioned competition; Smith raced Pro Stock Motorcycle and Pro Mod in 2011.

Well-known and respected Australian Top Fuel crew member Ben Patterson has signed up to be part of the PremiAir Hire Racing team.

Ben has just returned home to Australia from Finland following a full season as co-crew chief for Anita Makela’s Top Fuel program which resulted in an FIA European Top Fuel Championship.

Points leader Kevin Rivenbark secured his second victory of the season in Moroso Pro Boost at the Professional Drag Racers Association (PDRA) Fall Nationals presented by $hameless Racing at Darlington Dragway Saturday night. The win helped the 2016 world champion pad his points lead as the all-eighth-mile series heads to the season finale, the PDRA World Finals presented by Pro Line Racing and $hameless Racing, in two weeks. 

In early spring 2010, the inaugural Lights Out race gave little hint of the juggernaut it would spawn for Duck X Productions (DXP) at South Georgia Motorsports Park. Late that same year, promoter Donald "Duck" Long staged No Mercy at the same track, which hosted Lights Out 10 this February and Oct. 17-20, presents the 10th annual No Mercy.

Created by Long largely in response to what he felt was shabby treatment of his drag radial friends at Orlando's legendary World Street Nationals --"They parked us out in the weeds!"--both of those early efforts drew nowhere near the attention or attendance that Lights Out and No Mercy now command. They were encouraging enough, though, for Long to stick with the concept and two years ago add a third race, the unique Sweet 16, which awards $101,000 to the premier Radials vs. the World winner.

Pro Boost newcomer Randy Weatherford took his centrifugally supercharged WS Construction ’18 Camaro to the No. 1 qualifying spot to start off the Professional Drag Racers Association (PDRA) Fall Nationals presented by $hameless Racing at Darlington Dragway Friday night. The former Pro Nitrous driver fired off a 3.663-second pass at 204.64 mph to lead the field in his Moroso Pro Boost debut.