Seven-time NHRA Top Fuel winner Richie Crampton will be back in a dragster – in Australia.

Lamattina Top Fuel Racing has hired the Adelaide-born racer to drive the Fuchs Lubricants Dragster at the May 5-7 Nitro Thunder event at Sydney Dragway.

Cruz Pedregon, the veteran Funny Car owner-driver and two-time champion, believes he finally has found a crew chief and ideological racing soulmate in Aaron Brooks, a man whose team presence will allow him to step back  bit and enjoy the operation he has worked so hard to build.

And he had only one word to describe how that feels: “Halle-frickin’-luljah!”

The Snap-on Tools Toyota Camry boss didn’t make a pass in Thursday’s first on-track opportunity of 2017 at the Nitro Spring Training event. But he’s convinced that once he gets rolling, he’ll be the Cruz Pedregon fans have expected to see winning and fellow racers have expected to threaten them.

Ever since Advance Auto Parts replaced Traxxas as primary sponsor for Courtney Force, many nitro-class racers had no idea what would become of the Traxxas Nitro Shootout bonus races that have taken place in September at the Chevrolet Performance U.S. Nationals at Indianapolis.
 
John Force put their uncertainty to rest.
 
“They’re still going to do the Shootout. Great people,” Force said during preseason testing near Phoenix.

Past Funny Car champion Robert Hight, the Auto Club of Southern California and the California Highway Patrol introduced a special CHP paint scheme Wednesday that will adorn Hight’s Chevrolet Camaro SS Funny Car at the season-opening NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series race.

The CHP scheme will run in the Circle K NHRA Winternationals at Auto Club Raceway at Pomona this weekend, as well as the Auto Club NHRA Finals here in November. The unveiling was made at the NHRA press conference.

Nothing has come easy for Terry Haddock in his racing career.

That, however, hasn’t stopped the Temple, Texas-based driver from living his dream and competing in NHRA’s Mello Yello Drag Racing Series.

Former Top Fuel racer returned home to Pro Modified Khalid al-Balooshi will field this neat 2017 ZL-1 Camaro built by Jerry Bickel campaigned under the Rickie Smith Racing banner. The car is expected to make its competition debut at the NHRA Gatornationals in March.

Drag racing's most natural rivalry is also its greatest.

This was the result of the ARP Question of the Week which asked, "Drag Racing's Greatest Rivalry."

Three-time and current Top Fuel champion Antron Brown said people ask him what his defining moment was last year, and his answer often surprises people. He replies, “the St. Louis race.” Puzzled, people come back with “What? You lost in the first round at that race.”

Oh, he remembers. He reminds them that he and his Matco Tools/Toyota/U.S. Army team had a strong run and lost to Shawn Langdon by a mere three-thousandths of a second.

“We could have beaten any other car but two cars, and we happened to race one of them. We messed up in qualifying,” Brown said, lamenting that if had earned a more advantageous position on the ladder, “we would have been on to the next round. If we qualified in our normal spot, we wouldn’t even be talking about it.

At the end of last season, Jim Dunn Racing introduced radically designed artwork on its Funny Car that featured an image of the 1960s Mooneyes dragster.  

That artwork returns with even more detail at the NHRA season opener in Pomona, including an overhead view looking at the top of the front engine design on the hood of the Nitro Flopper.   

Jeff Arend will be competing at the 2017 season-opening Winternationals Feb. 9-12 at Pomona, Calif.

The NHRA veteran will be driving a nitro Funny Car owned by Steve Plueger.