A year ago, the first part of the season was a struggle for Pro Stock driver Matt Hartford.

Through the first five races, he won just two rounds, and his best qualifying position was eighth.

He seems to have changed his fortunes in 2023.

Cruz Pedregon raced to his second straight No. 1 qualifier, hanging on to the top spot at Saturday’s NHRA Four-Wide Nationals at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

Brittany Force (Top Fuel) and Matt Hartford (Pro Stock) also qualified No. 1 qualifiers at the fourth of 21 races during the 2023 NHRA Camping World Drag Racing Series season.

Pedregon’s run of 3.910-seconds at 326.71 mph in his 11,000-horsepower Snap-On Tools Dodger Charger Hellcat SRT from Friday held up, giving the two-time world champion his second No. 1 spot this season and the 64th in his career. Pedregon will race for his first win of the season on Sunday, with his opening-round quad also featuring Steven Densham, Tim Wilkerson and Bobby Bode.

If Cruz Pedregron has proved anything at the last two national events – Pomona, Calif., and Las Vegas this weekend – his team has figured out a qualifying tune-up.

Fresh off grabbing the No. 1 qualifying spot at the previous event – the Winternationals – the veteran driver is on the verge of duplicating the feat at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

Pedregon clocked a 3.910-second elapsed time at 326.71 mph in Q1 Friday, which was good enough for the provisional pole at the NHRA Four-Wide Nationals in Vegas.

“Yeah, the track was really good even with not a lot of cars running on it, but really for us, it’s been trying to back the car down,” Pedregon said. “We showed up; we had one extra month to salt or to bask in our glory from winning, dominating Pomona. And I think that we thought we were pretty cool, and so we opened the show in Gainesville, just smoking the tires. 

Stop us if you have heard this before – Brittany Force is dominant in qualifying.

That was once again the case at the Four Wide Las Vegas Nationals on Friday.

Force clocked a 3.697-second lap at 335.73 mph in Q2 to take the provisional No. 1 qualifying spot at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

“It feels good to get back on track and currently No. 1, to run like that, such a big improvement from Q1, going from a .74 to a .69 is huge for the team,” Force said. “And when I crossed the finish line, it felt like a killer run. Got on the radio, and I could actually hear someone for once say,’ .69.’ So, we all congratulated each other on the run. That’s very exciting to do. The great thing is we get two more before going into race day.”

In the ten years Brittany Force has been racing Top Fuel, she has proved two things without a doubt – she can win world championships as she did in 2017 and 2022, and she can qualify No. 1 at national events.

Alexis DeJoria admits there was a time when she had a posture problem.

Not having a race car will do that to a driver. Just for clarity, DeJoria did have a good race car; it wasn’t doing what she and her championaship tuning duo of Del Worsham and Nicky Boninfante wanted it to do. It just wasn’t behaving right.

​One could easily argue that Alex Laughlin is drag racing’s version of the Swiss army knife. So far, he has competed at 4-Wide races since 2016 in Pro Stock, Mountain Motor Pro Stock, Pro Mod, and Top Fuel. As if driving a fuel Funny Car isn’t complex enough, he will get to do it alongside three other drivers.

Do you live in the Southern California area or plan on coming to So Cal anytime soon?

Well, if you are a car guy or gal, an all-around hot rod enthusiast, or just looking for something fun to do, make sure to stop by and visit the Lions Automobilia Foundation and Museum located at 2790 E Del Amo Blvd in Rancho Dominguez, CA 90221, as they have expanded their days and hours of operation. 

Designed to encapsulate the history of hot rodding and car culture as well as acting as a tribute to the fabled drag strip once known as Lions, which held its last drag race in December of 1972, the Lions Automobilia Foundation and Museum has quickly gained in popularity over the past few years, with interest from visitors all across the world. 

Two-time Top Alcohol Dragster World Champion Megan Meyer will be making a new championship run this season in the inaugural Nitro Chaos Championship Series, a four-race gauntlet across the Midwest. Meyer will be competing at Nitro Chaos events beginning with Edgewater Sports Park near Cincinnati on April 28-29 with the attitude of having fun but also feeding the competitive fire that led her to two NHRA world championships. The popular world champion unveiled a new look racecar yesterday through her new YouTube channel with primary sponsor Gunk and new associate sponsor Shop Squad from NGK NTK. The racer and mother of one is looking forward to building on her Nitro Chaos success from last year.

Mark and Joanne Walter, owners of J-Angel Productions, parent company of MotorManiaTV.com, revealed today a new partnership with Weldon High Performance for the 2023 streaming season on MotorManiaTV.com (MMTV).  

“We find ourselves in a unique situation in the sportsman drag racing world and at a crossroads in the business of streaming those events in today’s racing and economic environment,” stated Mark. “With so many events moving behind a paywall, we wanted to find the right company to help us keep the streams free to the fans, families and crews of the sportsman racer.