It would seem strange that lack of parts would be an issue for a standout Stock racer like Randi Lyn Butner in 2022.

However, that’s what the racing world has become at time since the COVID-19 virus impacted the world in March of 2020.

Having her 1967 Pontiac Firebird sit idle for most of the 2022 NHRA Lucas Oil Drag Racing Series season was tough for Butner since she won the ultra-tough Division 3 championship title in 2021.

Waiting for parts in 2022 helped Butner keep perspective about what she accomplished in 2022.  

Peter Kapiris, one of the most popular and respected identities in Australian drag racing circles, will return to racing at the Atlantic Oils Top Fuel Slam meeting at Sydney Dragway, January 27-28.

Kapiris' last race was in August 2015 where he finished runner-up to John Zappia at Hidden Valley Raceway and then stepped aside to concentrate on the family wholesale fruit business. Plans to return earlier were thwarted when COVID-19 hit the sport in early 2020.

The return of Kapiris is a significant boost to the category that, at times, has struggled with car counts this season. 

The epic two-day celebration of Mo-Kan Dragway's 60th Anniversary with...NITRO CHAOS! Including special guest Don Garlits and over sixteen outlaw nitromethane-burning drag racers in a battle for over $35,000! July 14-15, 2022.

There are multiple types of stories in drag racing. Those you can tell, and those you shouldn’t. Then there are those you tell to win a trophy.

For almost a decade, some of drag racing’s greatest storytellers came together for a good old-fashioned yarn-spinning competition where the first liar almost always took the prize. The scary part about it was that the stories were accurate with some embellishments.

Over the next couple of weeks, we plan to bring you the best of these stories, some in word and some in video. - Editor

There’s no question Marty Robertson will have his racing plate full in 2023.

Robertson has competed in everything from Radial vs. the World to Pro Stock to No Prep Kings. Now he has built three Pro Mods to race this year, all designed for different sanctioning bodies.

“We have a very big season planned,” Robertson said in a press release. “I’ve got a Pro Boost car built for PDRA, and we’re running a full schedule to win a championship. I’ve got an NHRA-legal car built to run a full season of NHRA to win a championship. And I’ve got an ultra-lightweight outlaw car to run at any event where they have lighter rules on weights and power.”

With the NFL playoffs heating up this weekend and the start of the NHRA 2023 Camping World Drag Racing Series around the corner, attention is rising on both sports. At the end of last year NHRA Top Fuel driver Justin Ashley was a guest on New York Giants David Tyree’s new podcast Catch the Moment to talk drag racing, football and performing at an elite level in sports and life. Ashley, the 28-year-old professional racecar driver and team owner shared what attracted him to the sport and how one of his goals is to one day leave the sport better than when he entered.

As former sportsman world champion Monty Bogan Jr. sees it, if you're going to be busy, you ought to make it worthwhile.

Bogan, a former IHRA Top Stock champion and Stock/Super Stock standout, made known his plans to travel from NHRA's Division 2 to race in the Rooftec NHRA D4 Comp Eliminator Bonus Fund.

Bogan plans to drive the H/Super Modified Automatic Camaro of Lee Sharp and Tim Freeman in chasing the richest payday that Competition Eliminator has ever seen.

Three-time NHRA champion Larry Dixon will return to Australia to race for Rapisarda Autosport International at round four of the Burson Auto Parts Australian Top Fuel Championship, Sydney Dragway, January 27-28.
 
Dixon will join RAI regulars Damien Harris and Wayne Newby.

Dixon last raced in Australia at the opening round of the ATFC championship in January 2022 when he substituted for Western Australian Harris, who was sidelined due to Government border closures.

Lyle Barnett doesn't want the credit, although he deserves it.

On September 24, 2015, at South Georgia Motorsports Park, he experienced one of the worst fires in doorslammer drag racing history, leaving him with third-degree burns to his face, hands, and feet. He also ended up in a battle for his life.

As Barnett so eloquently puts it, a day earlier, he believed, "I was ten feet tall and bulletproof."

Rick Jackson, a longtime highly successful Top Alcohol Funny Car owner in NHRA, passed away Jan. 16.

Jackson, a former drag boat racing owner, transitioned into the Top Alcohol Funny Car ranks and had great success with drivers including Tony Bartone (2009-2013), John Lombardo Jr. (2014-18) and Shane Westerfield (2019-2022).

“Rick was a cool guy,” Westerfield said. “I watched from the outside for years from when he was boat racing when I was a little kid at the races. He had a Pro Gas Flat he raced, and he always had the professional look. Everything was classy in the pits. He moved to the upper-class Alcohol Flat and I watched him progress and then when he went to the Funny Car thing, he carried over his professionalism.