Newly licensed Fuel Funny Car driver Jonnie Lindberg will drive Jim Head's Funny Car during the 2017 NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series season.

Lindberg, who earned his license under the tutelage of Tim Wilkerson, is expected to compete in 16 - 18 races this season, starting with the NHRA Gatornationals in Gainesville, Fla.

“This is a dream come true for me,” Lindberg told NHRA.com. “About a week ago, I got a text from Dave Leahy of Electromotion who also works with the Head team, and he said, ‘Call me, we need a driver.’ I called right away and told them I’m up for it. Who would turn down a chance to drive a nitro Funny Car?

Rapisarda Autosport International  driver and international drag racer Wayne Newby, will be chasing his first win at Willowbank Raceway in Top Fuel at the New Year Thunder event on Saturday, January 7.

Since making his debut in late 2014 Sydney-based Newby has finished runner-up at the Willowbank Winternationals twice. In 2015, he lost to teammate and NHRA star Cory McClenathan, then, last season came up short against teammate and three-time NHRA champ Larry Dixon.

​Science fiction fans and pop culture enthusiasts alike are familiar with the voice of actor William Shatner as Captain James T. Kirk explaining the five-year mission of the Starship Enterprise at the beginning of each episode of Star Trek. Kirk ends his oration with, "to boldly go where no man has gone before."

In five months time, drag racing pioneer and icon Jeg Coughlin Sr. and his team of "scientists" at JEGS High Performance have boldly embarked on a new age of competition with the future stars of the sport exclusively in mind for a revolutionary adventure.

The idea sparked from a conversation with the folks at electric car innovators Tesla Motors some two-plus years ago. Coughlin, 79, set himself to the task of developing a reliable electric motor combination for Jr. Dragsters, the half-scale category near and dear to the Coughlin family and tens of thousands of kids throughout the world.

Nick Arias, the founder of Arias Pistons, passed away on January 2, 2017.

Arias was, in his own words, crazy about cars from a young age.

"Some of us outgrew it, but a lot of us didn’t," Arias said in a biography posted on his website. "Trying to figure out how to make an engine work better is just as much fun today as it was when I first started working on street rod engines in my garage 70-plus years ago."

Pro Modified evolved from a group of doorslammer racers who sought to race Pro Stock but couldn't afford the mountainous investment needed to run Pro Stock. These performance-oriented doorslammer racers began to put nitrous on their large displacement engines and found a home in IHRA's Quick Rod division, which was later renamed as Top Sportsman in 1985.

Contingency Connection continues to announce new sponsors for their popular Racer Rewards and Engine Professional Rewards programs: SCAT Enterprises, PROCAR Seats by Scat, UCoat It Garage, Straub Technologies, ProCote Floor Coating, and Design Engineering, Inc (DEI) have all signed on for 2017 joining the largest grassroots, weekly motorsports event-marketing platform in the country!
 
Contingency Connection’s Racer Rewards program is a weekly, grassroots-level contingency program which rewards local racers with money-saving discounts from TOP performance manufacturers. Racers at participating tracks and series simply run sponsor decals for products they use (or would like to use) in order to earn the manufacturer rewards coupons. 
 
In turn, the AERA sponsored Engine Professional Rewards links manufacturers directly to 2,500 plus performance shops, engine builders, installers and machine shops in the United States and Canada.  This all-encompassing “shop oriented” marketing plan is comprised of a direct-mail Engine Professional coupon book, season-long full color ad, videos, sweepstakes, website links and e-blasts; promoting participating manufacturer products, technical information, and advertisements directly to shops.

There's a strong likelihood Kalitta Motorsports VP of Operations Jim Oberhofer never met William Pollard, a physicist, who championed the organization of the Oak Ridge Institute of Nuclear Studies.

Pollard was quoted as saying, "Without change, there is no innovation, creativity, or incentive for improvement. Those who initiate change will have a better opportunity to manage the change that is inevitable."

When Don Schumacher Racing announced its crew chief trio that will serve as the tuners for Terry Chandler's Infinite Hero Foundation Dodge Charger nitro Funny Car in 2017 it turned some heads.

Jack Beckman, the driver of the Funny Car, for one is thrilled to have the threesome – John Medlen, Dean Antonelli and Neal Strausbaugh – calling the shots for him.

After a successful outing with the PDRA at the 2016 Sunshine State Shootout, the Florida-based Outlaw 632 series will expand its reach, competing with the national series for four events in 2017. Outlaw 632 will compete with the PDRA at GALOT Motorsports Park Mar. 31-Apr. 1, Darlington Dragway May 19-20, the second stop with GMP Sept. 8-9 and the World Finals at Virginia Motorsports Park Oct. 20-21. Eastside Auto Transport has stepped up to sponsor the class for 2017. 

Byron Dragway officials have announced the 23rd Annual World Power Wheel Standing Championships will return October 7-8, 2017.  The trademark event event features a wide variety of drag racing action that culminates with two rounds of the wheel standing competition on Sunday afternoon.