Tyler Hilton and his Great Expectations team invested considerably in their Top Fuel program before the California Hot Rod Reunion. That investment was purchasing a championship-proven dragster previously campaigned by Tony Bartone and Steve Boggs in hopes of helping Tyler have a realistic shot of winning the 2022 NHRA Heritage Series Top Fuel Championship. Well, it paid off for them. 

Hilton rolled into this weekend's 30th annual California Hot Rod Reunion, second in the Top Fuel points, just two rounds behind leader Bret Williamson for the Top Fuel Championship. Hilton not only got around Williamson to win the Top championship, but he also qualified number one, set low elapsed time with a career-best 5.592, and won the race, leaving nothing on the table for the competition. 

Well, that ought to answer a few questions. 

Ever since Tyler Hilton and his dad Bobby announced they would purchase the championship-proven dragster once campaigned by driver Tony Bartone and tuner Steve Boggs, many wondered just how well they would fare. 

After the first and lone session of Top Fuel qualifying on Friday afternoon at the 30th annual California Hot Rod Reunion in Bakersfield, California, Hilton blistered his way to the No. 1 qualifying position. Hilton blasted out a 5.751 at 226 miles per hour out of the trailer, thus marking a career-best elapsed time for the Great Expectations driver. 

One conversation with Richard Tharp and you will quickly conclude this is a man who has lived life on his terms. He certainly was no saint but a star... he was every bit of that persona. 

Tharp is 81, and every one of those days, he's lived bearing the reputation of what some say is one of the best drivers to climb behind the wheel of a race car or snare the race queen. He has a straightforward answer for what earned him this legend. 

"It's pretty easy to realize I had big balls," Tharp said without hesitation when asked what made him a great race car driver. "I had two balls and a brain."

For the fourth year in a row, Jim Halsey wrapped up the Professional Drag Racers Association (PDRA) season as the Switzer Dynamics Pro Nitrous world champion. The driver of the Brandon Switzer-tuned, Fulton-powered “Daddy Shark” ’68 Camaro won two races and took runner-up honors at another two races to hold off Chris Rini’s late-season charge. 
 
Halsey is now the only driver in PDRA history to win four world championships in the same class. 

Last week, a LinkedIn message popped up that urged friends of Dean “Guido” Antonelli, crew chief for Ron Capps’ NAPA Auto Care Toyota Funny Car, to congratulate him for his new position as the team’s “Coordinator of Fun.” 

Curiously, Capps knew nothing of it at first: “I don’t know. Maybe there’s something I don't know about. Obviously we have fun, and I think the success we've had is you walk in our pitarea and there's good rock and roll playing. The crew's loose. They're having fun, and they put that car consistently together every time, flawlessly for Guido and [co-crew chief John] Medlen. I don't know what the inside joke is there. I'll probably get a note [about it now], but we do have a good time.” 

The little girl who grew up in Schenectady, N.Y., and whose first driving experience was on her uncle’s John Deere tractor upstate, near Plattsburgh, on the shores of Lake Champlain, and the young Indiana boy who napped up in the luggage rack of the bus in the early-morning hours as he and his dad made their first excursion together to the Indianapolis 500 grew up to drive race cars and make their marks in motorsports.

And this Monday, the two – Shirley Muldowney and Tony Stewart – will be among the honorees at New York City’s Marriott Marquis at Times Square at the 37th annual Great Sports Legends Dinner. The charity gala will benefit the Buoniconti Fund To Cure Paralysis, a fundraising arm of The Miami Project that includes the Darrell Gwynn Quality of Life Chapter.

Football’s Edgerrin James, baseball’s Vladimir Guerrero, basketball’s Tim Hardaway, and skiing’s Lindsey Vonn and Sarah Will are among the athletes who will share the spotlight at the event the Tudor Group and the Mack Family present each year.

After nine rounds of drag-racing competition, one lucky driver will be crowned winner of the 27th annual Million Dollar Drag Race sponsored by Mickey Thompson Tires & Wheels.

Running this weekend at Capital City Motorsports Park in Montgomery, Alabama,, the 1/8-mile bracket racing challenge will feature cash prizes each day, including the Mickey Thompson Tires & Wheels Million that will pay up to a total of $1 million depending on the number of eligible racers who enter.

Red Line Synthetic Oil has partnered with Legends Nitro Funny Cars as the Official Title Sponsor to present the 12-car invitational event to be held during the NHRA Nevada Nationals at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway Oct. 27-30.

Bringing the captivating breed of nitro-burning Funny Cars with 1979-or-older body styles and 21-gpm fuel pumps to the audience of the penultimate 2022 NHRA Camping World Drag Racing event has been the result of collaboration between the partners of the Legends Nitro Funny Cars group, the sanctioning body, the racers, Red Line Synthetic Oil, and 17 associate sponsors.

It was such a juicy idea, and Rob Wendland just knew it would help Johnny Gray win Funny Car trophies and championships for Don Schumacher Racing. 

His colleagues thought he was crazy, he said, but he kept telling himself, “This is going to be as cool as hell.” 

The crew chief knew that just the right kind of shoe, an appropriate one with just the right kind of sole, helps “read” the racetrack. And reading the racetrack correctly then tuning the car accordingly is at least one secret to success in drag racing. So, he figured, “Why go with ‘appropriate’ when you could have perfect?”