Switzer Dynamics Pro Nitrous young gun Marcus Butner defeated reigning world champion Jim Halsey in the final round of the PDRA Fulton Racing Engines North vs. South Shootout presented by Penske Racing Shocks to claim his first career win in the class Saturday night at Maryland International Raceway. Ken Quartuccio (WS Construction Pro Boost presented by P2 Contracting and Ty-Drive) and Doug Nicholl (M&M Transmission Pro 632) also claimed their first career wins in their respective classes. 

There isn't a day that passes when I don't think about my father. I miss him that much.

My dad inspired me into being what I am today, even though he never drag raced.

I was the only son of three children. My father was my hero.

We were never rich. Dad’s education was no different than most young men growing up poor in South Carolina. He quit school in the eighth grade to help support his grandparents working in the Carolina textile mills.

That’s all he knew to do – work. When he got married, he worked hard, yet he made time for his only son, me. 

If there's one thing Mike Bucher has learned in life, it's this. Sometimes the most insightful life lessons can come from the most heart-wrenching tragedies.

Bucher, an ordained pastor, and part-time Top Fuel drag racer, learned early on just how cruel life can be. He also learned at a young age how tragedy sometimes has a purpose, no matter how brokenhearted the situation might leave him. 

Bucher was only 15 years old and the heir apparent to his father Jim Bucher's Top Fuel cockpit when suddenly he fell ill and died. Then the kid going to drag races since he was three days old watched as his hero left him behind and his future shattered in pieces. 

Rapisarda Autosport International veteran Damien Harris has made Australian Top Fuel history as the only driver to win Top Fuel championships across three sanctioning bodies. The West Australian's maiden title came in 2005 under ANDRA; in 2016, he secured the 400 Thunder Championship. At Hidden Valley Drag Strip, Darwin, on June 17, he secured his place in the history book when he defeated reigning champ Peter Xiberras to win the Burson Auto Parts Australian Top Fuel Championship.

Some years ago, Mike Salinas and his father, Mike Sr.,  rode in his Peterbilt truck to Famoso Raceway for a California Hot Rod Reunion event in Bakersfield, Ca. The conversation was fun and lively, and, at times, entertaining. They were still father and son, but this time as adults.
 
“It’s more of a love/hate relationship as you’re growing up,” Salinas admitted. “I started companies and I knew that they were because of him.”
 
Mike Sr. was tough on him and his siblings. The stern lessons far outweighed the conversations of praise. It didn’t mean he wasn’t proud. He didn’t share his feelings of praise much.  

Maryland’s own Jim Halsey collected his third Switzer Dynamics Pro Nitrous low qualifier award of the 2023 PDRA season Friday night at the Fulton Racing Engines North vs. South Shootout presented by Penske Racing Shocks at Maryland International Raceway. He recorded his weekend-best 3.652-second pass during the first qualifying session, which was completed on Thursday night to get ahead of rain forecasted for Friday. 

Damien Harris Is on the cusp of claiming his first Aussie Top Fuel title since 2015 at the final round of the 2022-2023 Burson Auto Parts Australian Top Fuel championship at Hidden Valley Raceway, Darwin, June 16-17.

Harris holds a comfortable 65 point lead over two-time champ Peter Xiberras and veteran Phil Read, tied in second place.

At six-foot, three inches tall 250 pounds, Ken Regenthal is an imposing figure. And once, he admits,  he drove a race car with an automatic transmission. 

Regenthal is a stick-shift racer through and through. Even though he didn't race in the old Modified days, he's racing as much of this competition style as he can with various series, including the Carolina-based Gearjammers. 

For the last 13 years, Regenthal has been the driving force behind the Clemmons Concrete Stick-Shift Nationals, an event comprised of high-rpm, manual transmission-equipped doorslammers. The event started at Farmington Dragway, a popular eighth-mile destination outside of Winston-Salem, NC., but was moved this year when paving delays made the track unavailable. Piedmont Dragway in Greensboro, NC., serves as this season's host track. 

The only detail Jason Scruggs would prefer to tell about his new Mississipi Missile ’69 Camaro outlaw Pro Modified is that it has doors and four wheels. 

But for the sake of being forthcoming to the media, the newest car belonging to Mitchell and Jason Scruggs is about as light as they can get a Pro Extreme machine, thanks to an abundance of titanium. 

One of the greatest and best-remembered stories in all of dragdom was Jon Asher's 1972 series for Super Stock & Drag Illustrated magazine about his exploits in Cecil Lankford and David Sien's Brand-X Funny Car.

Asher, who had absolutely zero qualifications to get behind the wheel of a fuel-burning Funny Car other than being one of the best to ever photograph or write about them, made seven laps, earned his license, and, famously, caught the car on fire on his final run. "People still ask me about it every once in a while," said Asher, who was Editor of Car Craft in that magazine's best years and today is a Senior Editor at Competition Plus.

It all started at a 1971 AHRA Grand American race in Colorado when Lankford told Asher to get in his car for the warm-up. "When we were done and I shut it off, he told me, 'You ought to drive this thing sometime' " Asher said. A few months later, the day after the Manufacturers Race at Orange County International Raceway in November 1971, he did.

"The first thing I noticed was the incredible noise," said Asher, who was 29 at the time. "You're in the car, all strapped in and ready to go, and when you step on that accelerator, your first inclination is to take your foot out of it because it's shocking. I still remember the first couple of burnouts. I was waiting for this huge cloud of smoke to envelop me, and it was more like the exhale from a cigarette puff. It was embarrassing. When the car launched, it really set me back in the seat. You're trying to mentally process everything, but you suddenly realize that everything's happening a lot faster than you ever thought it would."