Four of Tony Stewart Racing’s crew members took the spotlight Saturday in honor of Veterans Day at the In-N-Out Burger Finals at Pomona, Calif. Those veterans – Thomas Brown, Kurt Johnson, Allen Oberbroeckling and Chris Shuron – perform unique positions within the Direct Connection Dodge//SRT Top Fuel and Funny Car teams.

Brown, who oversees body and tire preparation on Hagan’s Funny Car, was a sergeant and squad leader in the Army. Johnson, TSR’s track specialist, spent six years as a United States Marine Aircraft Fire Fighter during Operation Desert Shield and Desert Storm. Oberbroeckling, a member of TSR’s hospitality team, was an 88M Motor Transport Operator in the Army. Shuron, a clutch assistant who handles tire preparation on Pruett’s Top Fuel dragster, served in the Marines as a lance corporal.

Drag racing fans were reminded of the inherent dangers of racing Pro Stock Motorcycle Saturday during the Q3 session of the NHRA In-N-Out Finals.

From a purely competitive standpoint, you couldn’t have asked for a more thrilling kickoff to NHRA’s championship weekend.

The top three drivers in the sport’s premier Top Fuel class, separated by just 34 points entering the weekend, all qualified in the top three Friday, with current points leader Steve Torrence emerging atop the charts after day one of the In-N-Out Burger NHRA Finals at In-N-Out Burger Pomona Dragstip.

After hazing the tires in Round One, Torrence bounded back with a chart-topping 3.641-second pass at 335.65 mph in his Capco Contractors dragster, holding off Doug Kalitta and Leah Pruett to lead first-day qualifying.

Greg Anderson is no stranger to winning NHRA Pro Stock world championships – he has five (2003-2005, 2010 and 2021).

However, Anderson is going to have to have a lot of pieces fall into place to get title No. 6 this weekend.

Anderson arrived at the In-N-Out Burger NHRA Finals in Pomona, Calif., in second place in the world standings trailing Erica Enders by 114 points.

Paul Lee was on top of the world for about five pairs of Funny Cars during the Q2 session at the NHRA In-N-Out Finals. The successful businessman, who considers nitro racing his fun time, had run the quickest elapsed time of his career, a 3.875-second pass, to claim the provisional No. 1 qualifier. 

And, even when Matt Hagan edged his career mark on the last pass of the session, Lee was still smiling ear to ear. 

Lee goes into Saturday as No. 2, but the run, the feeling of success, is a personal No. 1 by a mile. 

Del Worsham was lying in bed watching television when a commercial came on, advertising the upcoming In-N-Out NHRA Finals in Pomona, Ca.

It has been a short 32 years since the former bicycle racer who has never raced a car without burning nitro in the tank. He might have last raced full-time in 2017, but the fire never left the belly for the drag racing veteran who has tuned Alexis DeJoria for the last three seasons.

“I started looking through the social media, and seeing that commercial, I wanted to race again,” Worsham said. “I looked at my wife. She was good with it. I called Alexis, was my first call. She was good with it. I said, "All right, we'll make this happen. Let's have some fun."

There’s making hay while the sun is up, and then there’s what cattle rancher extraordinaire/Funny Car point leader Matt Hagan did on Friday at the NHRA In-N-Out Finals in Pomona. Ca. He made a pair of strong runs to secure the provisional pole in Friday's qualifying. 

Joining Hagan atop their respective divisions were Steve Torrence (Top Fuel), Greg Anderson (Pro Stock) and Gaige Herrera (Pro Stock Motorcycle) at the 21st race of the 2023 NHRA Camping World Drag Racing Series season, and the sixth of six races in the Countdown to the Championship playoffs.

Hagan saved his best for last on Friday, thundering to a 3.869-second elapsed time at 328.46 mph in his Dodge Direct Connection Charger SRT Hellcat. If the run holds, it will mark his second No. 1 qualifier of the season and the 51st of his career. He's got the advantage in a three-way championship battle against Bob Tasca III and Robert Hight. Only 17 points separate the trio of aspiring champions.  

Winning does have its rewards, and for Kalitta Racing, their round wins in the NHRA Camping World Drag Racing Series have rewarded the food insecure in the United States. 

In a joint venture between Kalitta Motorsports, DHL Express, and Kalitta Air, the trio donated over one million meals in the “Race to End Hunger.” For every round win the team made during the Countdown to the Championship, Kalitta Motorsports donated $1,000 to the cause matched by DHL Express and Kalitta Motorsports. 

John Force might embellish a story, and he might live in the gray areas of the rulebook. But the 16-time champion said he will not cheat.

While the accusations fly of steadfast cheating in the Funny Car ranks today, history buffs will recall when a fellow competitor accused the cagey veteran of bending the rules. 

The year was 1995, and Force, at the NHRA Atsco Nationals in Phoenix, struggled in qualifying, barely making the 16-car field and in the bottom half of the qualifying list, with a 5.34 elapsed time. NHRA's tech scrutinized with every qualifying run, and the more scrutiny he faced, the worse he did. 

The Pro Modifieds and large displacement Pro Stockers won't be the only ones getting lots of coin to win their respective divisions at the 5th annual Drag Illustrated World Series of Pro Modified event. FTI Competition Converters has stepped up at the March 1-3, 2024, event to deliver the inaugural Intercontinental Top Sportsman Championship. 

It seems natural that two classes that provided the impetus for the headlining category be included in the lineup. IHRA Mountain Motor Pro Stock's competitiveness in the mid-1980s forced some of their competitors to consider the Top Sportsman division as a showcase for their fast cars, and then the advancement of Quick Eights through Top Sportsman led to Pro Modified.