Dickie Venables cannot help it. The multi-time championship tuner has self-diagnosed himself.

"I'm definitely a tinkerer," Venables admitted.

Venables during the pandemic definitely doesn't have idle hands, as he's crafting himself a devil of a workshop behind his house. Shortly after drag racing became suspended on March 12, 2020, Venables went to work on crafting a 1,500 square shop into the image in his mind which never happened because 24-races annually never afforded much time or energy to do anything else.

Don Schumacher Racing, a leader in motorsports cause-related marketing programs, has joined more than 100 professional athletes and sports organizations to support the Center for Disaster Philanthropy (CDP) by participating in the Athletes for COVID-19 Relief campaign. The team-wide initiative, in which all drivers on DSR’s current roster have committed to raising funds at www.athletesrelief.org, will include authentic team-used gear to generate fundraising dollars.
 
Since the NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series season came to a screeching halt last month, drag racing’s winningest organization has made a series of efforts in the fight against the global COVID-19 crisis. It was announced in late March that DSR’s manufacturing arm, Don Schumacher Motorsports, had converted its two Stratasys 3D printers, which are typically used for race-related projects, to manufacture the headband components of medical face shields. Individually, several DSR drivers have gotten involved in relief efforts of their own, including most notably Top Fuel driver Leah Pruett’s recent ‘Cameo request’ program, which enabled her to raise more than $2,000 for her local food bank in Lake Havasu City, Ariz.

Dean Skuza is over drag racing. And, that's not a knock on the sport.

Skuza, 53, has settled into the simpler life of enjoying his family and a life where he's not chasing the NHRA drag racing tour from coast to coast. A day of babysitting his grandson Theodore, 2, is more gratifying anyway.

Skuza made a lot of ground with limited resources, winning two national events in his career. He finished in the top ten every season he raced from 1994 through 2003.

He never considered himself a "rockstar" although his tendency to not walk the corporate line made him a people's champion. Skuza's pit area was a favorite destination for the rock and roll icons who often visited the NHRA events.

CompetitionPlus.com Editor Bobby Bennett caught up with Skuza to discuss his time as a people's champion. His outlook on his career and most importantly would he consider a return.

Bob Glidden’s Undefeated 1978 Fairmont Was Ugly, But A Perfect Transition

Ask ten-time world champion Bob Glidden what he remembers about the only known undefeated Pro Stock car in drag racing history and he’ll tell you it had an appearance that only a mother could love.

And, yes, Glidden was a mother with his 1978 Ford Fairmont, which never lost a round of competition, national, regional or match race.

“It was ugly but looks never won races,” Glidden admitted. “We were just battling the NHRA with the rule deals. They kind of had a rule for me and then a rule for everyone else. That car got a little bit of a weight break.”

Tulsa Raceway Park's Todd Martin said his facility plans to open soon, but it won't be business as usual. He's outlined a plan for the track to reopen, although there is no date set.

"Tulsa Raceway Park will have a solid personal protection plan in place as it relates directly to facility and Racers," Martin said. "We encourage everyone to follow the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) guidelines regarding how you conduct your daily lives so that life can quickly return to normal."

Martin said his staffers would be donning masks and using hand sanitizer regularly.

Stevie "Fast" Jackson has made a career of going quick and fast whether it's been behind the wheel of championship-winning Pro Mod or his challenging radial-tire equipped Shadow 2.0, a car built specifically for Donald Long's Radial vs. The World class.

The quarantine has taken its toll on drag racing, but for Stevie Fast, the toll ends on this day, as he and Phil Shuler head out to the track for a private test session.

On this day, Stevie Fast goes where no man has gone in his bid to become the quickest in radial tire racing. 

 
Born the day after the Amalie Motor Oil NHRA Gatornationals was postponed, the Virtual Reality Drag Racing Association was the brainchild of CompetitionPlus.com founder and publisher Bobby Bennett and his staff. The goal was a four-race fan vote series. Soon after the beginning of this endeavor Bennett contracted Covid-19 and his staff pressed on running the events and eventually crowning Terry McMillen and the AMALIEⓇ Motor Oil team the inaugural VRHRA Top Fuel champion. The events netted a total in excess of 1.1 million fan votes and McMillen garnered the lion share throughout the series advancing to three final rounds, winning twice and picking up two No. 1 qualifiers.
 

Pioneering NHRA female racer Barbara Hamilton, the first woman licensed by NHRA to drive a supercharged vehicle, died April 23.

Hamilton’s place in NHRA history was assured when she became the first woman licensed by NHRA to drive a supercharged vehicle in 1964. Hamilton often said she wasn’t interested in making history; she merely wanted to race her Willys coupe, which was powered by a blown 271-cid small-block Chevy.

After she obtained her license, Hamilton won the C/GS class at the following Springnationals and set a NASCAR national record when that group also sanctioned drag racing. 

Late Baby Boomers and early Gen X'ers grew up reading Mad magazine and tried their best to live out the famous words of its fictional mascot Alfred E. Neuman, whose "What, me worry?" motto defined a generation of American youth.
 
For Jeg Coughlin Jr., the five-time NHRA Pro Stock champion who plans to retire from full-time competition at the end of 2020, a chance to have some fun and represent the mischievous comic book brand in 2004 was simply too good to pass up. In the end, the one-off Spy vs. Spy design his team ran at the second Las Vegas race in 2004 turned out to be an all-time best seller.

Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell had it right 46 years ago when they sang, “Ain’t nothing like the real thing.”

But when the real thing isn’t an option, for racing, at least, it becomes a case of “anything is better than nothing.”

That’s been the situation for racers around the country since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic in America. NASCAR, IndyCar, NHRA have been idle for more than a month, and some series may not resume for another month still, if not longer. Racing on local and regional levels has been put on hold, too, though two dirt tracks in South Dakota plan to reopen this weekend with restrictions on the number of fans allowed to view the action.