After hosting the largest Funny Car event in over 50 years in March of 2021 at the Texas Motorplex, the excitement and anticipation for the beginning of the 2022 Funny Car Chaos season has been building for almost a year. The season opener, Funny Car Chaos Classic, will happen March 24-26 at the famed track south of Dallas and early indications are this event will be even bigger. The season will conclude with the Funny Car Chaos Championship Finals at Texas Motorplex, October 7-8, to begin the 2nd annual Stampede of Speed. Over $45,000 will be awarded at this event and the 2022 Series Champions for both Funny Car Chaos and the Outlaw Fuel Altered Association will be crowned. 

The Specialty Equipment Market Association (SEMA) welcomes the installation of a new water well and weather and hydrologic equipment used for measuring salt growth conditions as part of its broader Restore Bonneville program. Federal and state funds were released last year to install the monitoring equipment and help increase the volume of salt pumped onto the Bonneville Salt Flats this year to a total of up to 500,000 tons.

As part of the Restore Bonneville program, SEMA and the racing community joined forces with the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM), Utah Department of Natural Resources (DNR), Utah Geological Survey (UGS), and Intrepid Potash Inc. in the collaborative restoration effort. Originally in the 1960s, the racing venue was over 13 miles in length, but the course is now eight miles or less. According to a study by the BLM, the Salt Flats have also shrunk in size from 96,000 acres to about 30,000 acres.

Located in northwestern Utah, the Bonneville Salt Flats are composed of densely packed salt remnants of an ancient lakebed formed over thousands of years. They serve as a unique stage set for movies, commercials, marathons, and rocket club launches, and possess rare physical qualities that make it the perfect venue for land speed racing, such as providing a cool surface that doesn’t overheat tires. Since 1914, hundreds of land speed records have been set and broken in a variety of automotive and motorcycle classes. Speed Week, the marquee event at Bonneville, began in 1949, with scores of racers and thousands of spectators descending on Bonneville in the quest for records.

Toyota NHRA drivers will compete under the Toyota Gazoo Racing North America (TGRNA) banner beginning with the 2022 racing season. TGRNA will serve as the North American arm for Toyota’s global motorsports division, Toyota Gazoo Racing (TGR).

“The opportunity to introduce TGR North America to the NHRA community in 2022 and continue the support in Formula DRIFT and GT4 competition is a big moment for everyone involved in Toyota’s overall motorsports program,” said Paul Doleshal, Group Manager, Motorsports and Assets for Toyota Motor North America. “The ability to showcase the GR family of vehicles on the race track and ultimately be a part of applying racing performance to production vehicles is something that we all strive for through motorsports. Showcasing the capability of our race enthusiast engineers to our new and existing fan base of enthusiasts is the overarching goal of the program.”

The 2022 NHRA Camping World Drag Racing season will see another familiar face in the Top Fuel ranks as fan favorite and 2018 US Nationals Top Fuel winner Terry McMillen today announced he will compete on a limited schedule, competing in six to eight national events in 2022, so he can continue to support his son Cameron’s junior dragster career. McMillen will race under the Dan Mercier Racing banner.

“We met Dan in 2017 when he purchased a Top Fuel dragster from us and we have stayed friends,” said McMillen, who has two career Top Fuel wins and finished in the Top Ten in 2020. “He runs a family operation just like us, so it is a perfect partnership. After spending last year with Cameron at the track I knew the only way I would come back right now was if I could race around Cameron’s schedule.”

Dan Mercier Racing purchased the Terry McMillen Racing operation so the veteran driver will be returning to the same livery that he earned his first No. 1 qualifier at the Dodge Nationals in 2020 at Indianapolis Raceway Park.

As was the case during Hurricane Florence in 2018, Rockingham Dragway was ground zero for Duke Energy’s effort to restore power to a Sandhills region hit hard by last week’s ice storm. 

More than 150 bucket trucks, dozens of support vehicles and more than 300 linemen and other workers were bivouacked at the racetrack at the company’s Winter Storm Restoration Center.

The opening round of the 2022 Burson Auto Parts Top Fuel championship at Sydney Dragway, January 21-22, will be a wide-open affair. Each of the six entrants will bring a different narrative to the event.

Current Australian titleholder Peter Xiberras has not set foot on a racetrack since winning the championship in June 2021. Xiberras lives in NSW, with his car and team based in Queensland. 

“We might be the current champions,” said Xiberras, “but I feel like we are heading into the opening round as underdogs. Everyone else has been out there testing. In contrast, we haven't been able to do any due to the weather and COVID-19 restrictions hampering our plans. We will be looking to make the most of the two scheduled test passes on Friday before the all-run format gets underway on Saturday.”

He's Pat Musi, and he has no filter. The New Jersey native who relocated from Carteret, NJ, to Mooresville, NC, almost a decade ago has experienced more than his share of culture shock since. The most recent was abandoning the conventional national event scene of the established race series for the outlaw confines of the No Prep Kings series. 

In this exclusive interview, CompetitionPlus.com's Bobby Bennett discusses the changes, misnomers, and challenges he encountered in making the switch. 

Musi addresses the issues associated with racing the traditional national event scene and the advantages of the pathway he's taken along with his daughter Lizzie Musi.

Musi is straightforward and shows his traditional gruff, and we expected no different. 

Justin Ashley has proven to be so much more than a successful, and youthful drag racer. He’s been proficient in bringing new faces into the major league drag racing marketing platform 

Justin Ashley Racing announced today its primary sponsorship agreement with Phillips Connect, a national leader in semi-trailer tracking and sensor technologies, to begin the 2022 NHRA Camping World Drag Racing Series season. The wide-ranging marketing program will initially include the NHRA Winternationals, NHRA Arizona Nationals, and NHRA Gatornationals with primary sponsorship on Ashley’s Davis Motorsports 11,000 horsepower Top Fuel dragster and comprehensive corporate hospitality and business-to-business initiatives.

The stars of the NHRA Camping World Drag Racing Series will begin preparing for their pursuits of Top Fuel, Funny Car and Pro Stock world championships from Wild Horse Pass Motorsports Park outside of Phoenix, Arizona, during the PRO Nitro Spring Training test session slated for February 10-12. The testing sessions hosted by the Professional Racing Organization will be closed to the public except for Saturday, February 12, when fans who have purchased tickets to the NHRA Arizona Nationals will have the opportunity to purchase tickets for the on-track testing action. Fans may add on test session tickets to their Arizona Nationals ticket order online or they may call the NHRA Ticket Sales Center at 800-884-6472 if Nationals tickets have been previously purchased.

Almost 30 drivers from more than a dozen of the top professional NHRA teams, including nine current or former world champions, will be testing many with brand new race cars and new sponsors.