Three-time NHRA Pro Mod champion Troy Coughlin made it known Friday he has every intention of becoming a three-time JEGS Performance Street Car Super Nationals winner by claiming the provisional No. 1 slot in Outlaw Pro Mod at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. The Ohio native laid down a lap of 5.746 seconds at 269.03 on a challenging race surface.

“It’s a little more windy and it’s a little bit cooler, so the air conditions are a whole helluva lot better and the track is just awesome,” Coughlin said. “I mean, it’s too awesome, in an essence. We’ve gotta learn how to race that.”

The NHRA just closed its books on the 2016 season on Nov. 13, and it’s not too early to start looking toward the future for Pro Stock driver Drew Skillman.

“In 2017 we will be back with Gray Motorsports,” Skillman said. “Everything went really well with them. We struggled a little bit there at the beginning and we kind of got our sh*t back together halfway through the swing. We’re going to stay on that same path and keep chipping away at the program we have going.”

Former Pro Modified, Top Fuel, and Funny Car driver Mike Ashley, the flamboyant Long Island entrepreneur, has been called many things in his drag racing career.
 
But he might be surprised to discover that the latest of them is “prophet.”

There was little doubt a member of the three-car KB Racing team would be the 2016 NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series Pro Stock champion. 

In the end, it was the baddest of the bad, Jason Line, who claimed his third NHRA Pro Stock championship by achieving eight wins in 14 final rounds. Ironically, the driver he beat out for the title, teammate Greg Anderson, won his eighth race of the season in 14 finals to finish the 2016 campaign. 

So much for the disdain Line spewed at the onset of the season, expressing his dislike for the rule changes which led to his most dominant drag racing season ever. 

Late 1974 Funny Car champion Shirl Greer’s Tension ’65 Dodge Coronet never made it to California when a flip of the coin determined its fate in 1965. 51 years later, a coin flip similarly sealed the decision for son Van to leave his replica car home and accept a ride in Eric George’s ‘72 Maverick to compete for the NHRA Summit Racing Series National Championship in the Pro category.

In another chapter of the tight and geographically widespread racing community coming together to help a racer out, well-connected West Coast racer and K&N Spring Fling bracket event promoter Kyle Seipel facilitated the deal between Van and George when a series of issues and a coin flip prevented him from making the tow across the country from his native Tennessee.

Top Alcohol Dragster pilot Garrett Bateman experienced dizzying highs and terrifying lows at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway the week before the NHRA Finals in Pomona, Ca. His triumphant victory behind the wheel of Rick and Linda Henkelman’s HipLink A/Fueler at the NHRA Toyota Nationals was following by an enormous explosion at the regional event one week later.

In a display of what nitromethane can do when compressed, a failure in the valve train led to a cylinder being filled with nitro where it would hydraulic and leave a gaping hole in the cylinder head and engine block. Damage from the concussion and the fire left Bateman and Tyson Parker, son of Top Alcohol Funny Car driver Russ, scrambling to make repairs in time for the first round of qualifying. The 5.24 that Bateman recorded was one of the most gratifying runs of the versatile driver’s career considering the monumental effort that went into it.

The Auto Club Finals at Pomona, Calif. signals the end of the NHRA season, but this time it’s the end of the Morgan Lucas Racing (MLR) Top Fuel team.

Lucas on Friday night informed his team, which features popular driver Richie Crampton and crew chief / car builder Aaron Brooks, of the decision to disband the Brownsburg, Ind.-based organization at the conclusion of this weekend’s race.” Everyone has been graceful about the news,” he said.

Elite Motorsports and Mopar have announced that they will end their partnership at the end of the 2016 racing season.

"I want to thank everyone at Mopar and Dodge, from the top executives to the engineers on to the people helping us at the races for their hard work and dedication," said Elite Motorsports team owner Richard Freeman. "My guys should be commended. They basically worked around the clock with pretty much zero days off for the entire season, busting their butts to try and give Erica and Jeggy competitive racecars. We look forward to a fresh start into 2017."

David Rampy has had a career worthy of a spot on the Mount Rushmore of NHRA Sportsman racers.  The four-time world champion has 92 national event wins across five different categories plus a final round appearance from a brief Pro Stock endeavor.

However, the driver of the Ray Skillman Chevrolet-sponsored A/EA Bantam roadster and GT/HA ’87 Camaro in Comp and Super Stock is contemplating his future in the NHRA Lucas Oil Drag Racing Series. Concerns about the current state of affairs have the usually positive and softspoken 61-year-old wondering how long he should prolong his outstanding career.