Five-time NHRA Pro Stock champion Erica Enders can hear her critics barking and howling like never before. For the first time since 2016, when the Elite Motorsports team ran a Mopar, the defending world champion has started the season with at least two first-round losses.

Let them bark and howl; Enders says speed bumps are a part of life, and she's ready to find her groove.

"When you are winners, and you are champions, you have to keep fighting," Enders said. "You have to keep pushing forward to find ways to be better. And sometimes that makes you take a step in the other direction."

From the time Jasmine Salinas climbed behind the wheel of an injected nitro-burning dragster in the Top Alcohol Dragster division back in 2019, it was understood that driving a Top Fuel dragster was inevitable. On the day after the NHRA Arizona Nationals, the inevitable happened.

Salinas made a total of three launches and made it successfully to the 330-foot mark behind the wheel of one of the race team’s Top Fuel dragsters. Salinas will continue her testing at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway in April, where she intends to make her first full passes. 

“My initial reaction was, ‘I know I didn’t even make a full pull, and the power of these cars is absolutely incredible,” Salinas explained. “And at that moment, right there is where I realized I want to spend this entire year taking my time because it gave me even more respect for these cars and the power that they have. I want to respect it so much and take my time with it because of the horsepower and how fast it was. I’ve 100 percent fallen in love with it, and I’m ruined, and I’ll be even more ruined when I make my first full pass.

The Southeast Gassers Association (SEGA) held its season opener Mar. 25, at Silver Dollar Motorsports Park in Reynolds, GA, where Rick Varner made series history by becoming the first driver to win two SEGA classes at one event.

The reigning Super Stock champion successfully opened his campaign to repeat with a final-round win over Jerry Dean, then rushed back to his pit to swap cars and win again in the A/Gas final against Gabriel Burrell.

Varner said he’s been campaigning two cars at most SEGA events for more than seven years, but the difference maker at Silver Dollar was, “I did my job on the tree and I was lucky.”

Doorslammer legend Victor Bray, the popular face of drag racing in Australia for more than 30 years, will join fellow racers Jim Read, Ash Marshall, Larry Ormsby, Eddie Thomas and Graeme Cowin as a member of the Motorsport Australia Hall of Fame.

Motorsport Australia is the peak body for auto racing in Australia and is affiliated with the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile, the governing body for world motorsport.

Bray was inducted into the Hall of Fame at a ceremony held during the 2023 Formula 1 Rolex Australian Grand Prix.

Some of the most extraordinary drag racing careers began with the humblest goals. Frank Manzo dreamed of just winning one race and ended up winning 105 of them and 17 championships.

If only Coleman Roddy had such initial goals as Manzo. Instead of winning a race, Roddy wanted to do just good enough in competition to have his name mentioned in the pages of National DRAGSTER, the NHRA's house publication. Let the record reflect that winning two world championships will get the job done. It will also get you on the cover and makes you a legend in many drag racing circles. Over the weekend at the NHRA Division 4 Lucas Oil Drag Racing Series, Roddy, who won NHRA Comp championships in 1983 and 1984, was a legendary face in the pits at Houston Raceway Park.

What a difference a year makes.

To say Kebin Kinsley's Funny Car Chaos Series' Funny Car Classic performance a year ago was a disaster would be an understatement. Kinsley and his "War Wagon" Nitro Funny Car team were plagued with numerous issues at last year's Funny Car Classic from the Texas Motorplex in 2022. Kicking the rods out during the burnout in the first qualifying session on Friday afternoon, added with a small fire in the pits, before finally smoking the tires right at the hit during their final chance to make the show on Saturday. 

Fast forward one year later, Kinsley and his team would right the ship and not only win the battle of taking home a trophy from the Funny Car Classic but also win the War by taking home top honors. Kinsley put together a dominant performance on Saturday evening at the Texas Motorplex in Ennis to capture the 'A' Field title at the third annual Classic and his first Funny Car Chaos victory. 

Competition Plus’ water-cooler topics from the Arizona Nationals at Wild Horse Pass Motorsports Park
 
CAMRIE CARUSO NOTCHES FIRST PRO STOCK VICTORY – Pro Stock sophomore Camrie Caruso made NHRA drag-racing history Sunday at the Arizona Nationals at Wild Horse Pass Motorsports Park near Phoenix, beating Bo Butner in the final round. But the second woman (behind five-time champion Erica Enders) to win in the Pro Stock class had a controversial road to her first pro victory.

Stock Eliminator Bryce Granier racer was 11 years away from being born when Houston Raceway Park was built in 1988 as an NHRA response to Billy Meyer taking away the flagship national event facility over to the rival IHRA. Suffice to say; he didn't know the politics of the track being constructed. 

What he did know was the magnitude of being the final NHRA Stock Eliminator winner at the famed facility in Baytown, Texas. And for it to be his first career victory, he will never forget it. 

Granier stopped Rylie Trumble in the final round for a monumental victory.