Veteran Pro Stock Motorcycle racer Steve Johnson is always looking for ways to get his program moving forward.

Friday, prior to the Mile-High Nationals, he took an unconventional path.

“Friday, we did something that probably no one else has done,” he said. “We went to the Harley-Davidson dealership here in town – Rocky Mountain Harley Davidson – and the service department over there allowed me to put the motorcycle on their chassis dyno. It was the only Suzuki in the place. We got a chance to seat the rings, break in the pistons. It’s got some new parts in it. It gave us the opportunity to feel a bit more comfortable about going to a fight and bringing bullets that are already in the gun versus bullets that might be in your trailer. You’ve got to go down the track a few times easy with no timing and all that other stuff.”

The 2016 ESPY awards show was held on July 12 on ESPN and it was a night 2016 NHRA world champion nitro Funny Car driver Ron Capps will never forget.

Capps was nominee for the Best Driver Award, which was won by Formula One driver Lewis Hamilton.

“What’s funny is my wife kept telling me to go talk and introduce myself,” Capps said. “I wanted to meet Steph Curry and Kevin Durant because I’m a Warriors fan. I walked right up to them and I just wanted to say ‘hi’. But it was funny because I turned into a complete fan and every time I turned around there was somebody that I looked up to as a kid or watched on TV. I was in awe just looking around. Probably Chris Berman was the one that I was most excited to run into. Russell Wilson stood there when we were doing the red carpet.”

Jon Asher, the Senior Editor for CompetitionPlus.com, will bring you his four decades worth of insight to the NHRA Mopar Mile High Nationals outside of Denver, Co. Follow along daily with the seasoned journalist as he brings you this weekend's race from a different angle - HIS!

Thomas Albert Dunford of Tazewell, Va., passed after crashing his dragster July 23 at Maryland International Raceway in Mechanicsville, Maryland. Dunford was 60.

According to the official St. Mary’s County Sheriff’s office press release, for unknown reasons, it appears he failed to activate his brakes or parachute causing the dragster to travel through the sandpit, water barrels, and into the trees at the end of the track.

Robert Hight knows how to win NHRA nitro Funny Car races, but has had a hard time finding the winner’s circle lately, going 34 races without a victory.

Hight snapped that unwanted streak Sunday at the Mile-High Nationals.

Antron Brown won the Top Fuel trophy at Las Vegas earlier this year, but he had no idea whether that same luck would follow him to the high-altitude NHRA Mopar Mile-High Nationals at Denver. He knew Thunder Mountain and Bandimere Speedway at Morrison, Colo., involved as much gambling as the Nevada desert oasis.

“You go to Denver like you’re playing craps, he said. “You just roll those dice and hope they come out right so you stumble onto a good combination that’s going to work.”   

Eddie Krawiec completed what crew chief Matt Hines called “an incredible comeback weekend” for the Vance & Hines Harley-Davidson team Sunday, logging the first NHRA Pro Stock Motorcycle victory for the newly designed Street Rod at the Mopar Mile-High Nationals at Bandimere Speedway near Denver.  

Krawiec took advantage of Matt Smith’s red-light foul aboard the Polaris Racing Victory motorcycle by seven-thousandths of a second in their final-round match-up.

Drew Skillman has definitely figured things out.

The 29-year-old driver drove his Ray Skillman-sponsored Chevy Camaro to its second consecutive NHRA national event win.

Final round-by-round results from the 38th annual Mopar Mile-High NHRA Nationals at Bandimere Speedway, the 14th of 24 events in the NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series: