The first event on the 400 Thunder Top Fuel calendar since January 2020, The Apex Epoxy Flooring Super Thunder meeting at Willowbank Raceway on April 2-3, has attracted two entries and will feature three-time champ Phil Read match race Sydney team owner-driver Peter Xiberras.

Missing from the entry list are leading Australian teams Rapisarda Autosport International and Lamattina Top Fuel Racing.

Xiberras is no stranger to match racing having gone head-to-head with Phil Lamattina at Perth Motorplex in March 2020. The Brisbane based team is scheduled to test prior to the meeting and will be hoping for better luck after their previous attempts to go testing were thwarted by Covid-19 restrictions and rain.

It's been a while since Richard Hartman has been behind the wheel of a nitro-burning vehicle at the Texas Motorplex. But Friday afternoon, Hartman, the former Funny Car racer who now tunes for Tim Wilkerson, thundered his way to the quickest and fast run in Fuel Altered history during first-day qualifying at the Funny Car Chaos event.

Hartman recorded the mark as he ran a 4.920 elapsed time at 296.28 miles per hour in a roadster with a chassis which Wilkerson once drove to an NHRA Series championship runner-up.

Chris Graves grew up a Texas Motorplex kid. As early as he could remember, Graves accompanied his father on trips to the famous Lone Star facility. So it is only fitting that the driving force behind the Funny Car Chaos series staged one of the largest gatherings of Funny Cars since Bill Doner's 64-Funny Car events in the 1970s.

At last count Friday, there were over 70 entries on the grounds of the super track located outside of Dallas.

"When Funny Car Chaos started, would you have said there'd be 64 cars four years in on this deal? Graves asked. "I don't know. I might've believed you. After the first race, we proved that we had something there with the interest and that the racers turned out. We had 25 at the first race. We did baby steps, and we're still taking baby steps in what we're doing.

Fast times and exciting action marked the opening of the 2021 season for the Summit Racing Mid-West Drag Racing Series (MWDRS) presented by J&A Service Mar. 19-20, at Xtreme Raceway Park in Ferris, TX, where Tommy Cunningham and Sean Bellemeur scored wins in the marquee Pro Modified and Top Alcohol Funny Car classes, respectively.

"My dad, Larry Cunningham, he's our crew chief and he did a lot of laptop tuning all winter long, so he felt pretty confident on where he was and each round he just stepped it up a little bit," Cunningham said. "We ended up having our career-best pass in the final, so he did a great job."

Evolution Development Group, Inc. (EVO) today announced the partnership with Don Schumacher Racing (DSR), the winningest National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) team in history, to help keep top racers in the sport on the track, and provide coaching and training for up-and-coming drivers.

It's a remarkable opportunity for fans to get involved with their heroes, said Team Owner Don Schumacher

Once you drive a nitro-burning car and step away - there is still a monster inside, lurking and waiting for the opportunity to be unleashed. All it took for Mitch King was a birthday celebration and a fire-breaking, nitro-burning fuel altered to get the beast growling again.

King returned to the drag strip on Thursday behind the wheel of Terry Haddock’s Top Fuel dragster on the eve of the Funny Car Chaos event at the Texas Motorplex to renew his competition license.

For King, this was more than a procedure to keep his driving credentials current.

Racing a nitromethane-powered car is always a complicated puzzle. Racing one of the only iron-block Chevy engines on nitro just adds to the challenge. But the Stringer family has found a way to make it a bit easier by using the American Flowtech "Master Tune" software. Beginning with the upcoming Nitro Madness Funny Car Chaos event in Ennis, TX, American Flowtech has joined the Stringer family's Blown Cent-less team as a sponsor.

The President of American Flowtech, Jim Maroney, has run nitro cars for decades and thoroughly understands the volatile fuel dynamics. He currently races a Top Fuel Dragster on the NHRA circuit and stays involved in nitro cars in many other series. One of those cars is the Ray Stringer driven "Blown Cent-less" nitro Chevy. Stringer has been using the Master Tune program for several years, and it has been instrumental in improving his performance. Near the end of 2019, the Blown Cent-less ran a 4.09 second ET at 182 mph to become the quickest and fastest iron block, nitro Chevy in history for 1/8 mile competition.

Stringer credits the Master Tune software with helping him achieve a performance level not seen before with this engine combination.

Thirty years ago Atlanta Dragway was a different facility than the one which has played host to the

NHRA Southern Nationals for the past thirty years. It was a lot different.

The facility, built in 1975 under the guidance of Georgia-based farmer Gene Bennett in the woods of Commerce, Ga., was what some of today icons in drag racing history believed was a track on the cutting edge for the era.

Two-time NHRA world champion Del Worsham has grown up in the world of drag racing and throughout his professional career the Funny Car category has been a driving force in his development as a driver and crew chief. Worsham announced today his team will be competing in the upcoming Funny Car Chaos event with the support of long-time rod and piston supplier CP Carrillo.

This weekend at the inaugural Nitro Madness Funny Car Chaos event at Texas Motorplex Worsham will also be getting back to his roots and honoring his father, Chuck Worsham, with a throwback look on his race car. With 68 Funny Car entered Funny Car Chaos is shaping up to be the biggest Funny Car race in over 50 years and should prove to be the signature event of the early 2021 drag racing season.

NHRA Drag Racing was not prepared for a global pandemic, which shut the sport down for four months and vastly changed how the sanctioning body did business.

A year later, drag racing’s premier series appears headed in the right direction. At least, this is the indication given by the opening event in the 22-race NHRA Camping World Drag racing Series.

The NHRA Gatornationals experienced higher attendance and significantly higher television viewership than last year’s rescheduled fall event.