There’s a changing of the guard behind the wheel at Bucky Austin Racing.

Shane Westerfield, a past NHRA world champion and 14-time national event winner, replaces Bobby Cottrell as the team’s driver starting this weekend at the 53rd annual Nightfire Nationals in Boise, Idaho. He will run the remainder of the NHRA Heritage Series events. Westerfield will also drive the car in the NHRA’s Modern Warriors Nitro Legends series.

If a racer only has one race where they can raise a stink on and off the track by performing well above expectations and upsetting the apple cart of the regulars, there's only one logical event to accomplish the mission. 

As Stevie "Fast" Jackson, the iconic doorslammer racer and two-time NHRA champion, sees it, there's no other event like the NHRA U.S. Nationals to show up and show out at. 

Jackson will be racing at the NHRA U.S. Nationals with his Shadow 3.0, a car initially built to race in the Drag Radial arena, has raced with big tires before, qualifying No. 4 at the Drag Illustrated World Series of Pro Modified. 

Jackson said he has lofty goals headed into the Labor Day weekend extravaganza.

If you are going to replace a 157-time winner, you had better be fast. 

“Fast” Jack Beckman will fill the role of John Force’s substitute while he recovers from a Traumatic Brain Injury [TBI] suffered on June 23, 2024, in 
Richmo9nd, Va., while racing the NHRA Virginia Nationals. 

Beckman will drive Force’s PEAK Antifreeze and Coolant Chevrolet Camaro SS for the remainder of the 2024 season in what the team is calling “the Joint Task Force—Mission Championship”.”

Competition Plus’ Water-Cooler Topics From The NHRA Sonoma Nationals in Sonoma, Ca.

NHRA fans will have a new show to tune into with the debut of Talkin’ Funny Cars with Buddy Hull, the first television offering from Werner G+E LLC. 

Hosted by professional Funny Car driver Buddy Hull, the interview-style program debuts July 31 and will be featured on the NHRA FAST Channel, adding to the channel’s list of original series. Viewers can catch the show on 13 platforms, including the Roku Channel and Tubi.

After going winless for nearly a year, Matt Smith returned to victory lane Sunday afternoon after winning a final round battle with his teammate, John Hall. Smith qualified in the No. 1 position for the fourth time this season and the first time since Norwalk. 

Smith beat Eiji Kawakami and Seattle winner Chase Van Sant and had a bye into the final round. The former six-time champion won in the first two rounds and went straight to the finals courtesy of a semi-final bye run. 

For his part, Hall defeated Angie Smith, Gaige Herrera, and Hector Arana Jr. to reach the final round. 

Once again, Top Fuel owner/driver Antron Brown proved he can never be counted out.

Brown, a three-time NHRA world champion (2012 and 2015-16,) celebrated his third win of the 2024 season when he took home the title at the Denso Sonoma (Calif.) Nationals on Sunday.

“Yeah, it was really good. We didn't get to show all of our cards,” Brown said. “We were running with all the top three cars, and we knew that already. And then we ran that (3.685) on Q3. We just made it another decent lap. But what really gave us confidence. ... 

“And nobody was hardly getting down the track, because they were trying to run 68, 69, 70, we went out there and dropped that 71 out there and we got those three brownie points. It really helped us out a lot, and we just never stopped. We knew what position we were in. We know that, at any given moment, we could step up to the plate and race and run with all the cars out here.”

Bob Tasca III was likely doing some California dreamin’ Sunday night – and who could blame him?

The veteran nitro Funny Car owner/driver qualified No. 1 and then mowed down the competition to take the title at the Denso Sonoma (Calif.) Nationals.

Tasca clocked a 4.088-second elapsed time at 277.15 mph to defeat Ron Capps’ 4.729-second run at 175.59 mph in the finals at Sonoma Raceway.

This was Tasca’s second career win in Sonoma – he won there the first time in 2022. This is Tasca’s 18th career nitro Funny Car win.

The best way to shake a bad memory is to create a new one. 

Still stinging from last weekend’s first round loss to Matt Hartford, Aaron Stanfield scored his third Pro Stock race win of the season at the Denso NHRA Sonoma Nationals. Stanfield repelled the efforts of Cory Reed, who was competing in only his second race in Pro Stock. 

Stanfield’s victory was necessary for the seven-race winning streak of Elite Motorsports to keep moving forward. 

If the old adage that suggests speed kills is true, then it was the weapon of choice for Funny Car speed merchant Bob Tasca III as he ran through the Funny Car field at the Denso NHRA Sonoma Nationals. 

Tasca picked up his third win of 2024, stopping a rebounding Ron Capps in the final round. 

Antron Brown (Top Fuel), Aaron Stanfield (Pro Stock), and Matt Smith (Pro Stock Motorcycle) joined Tasca in the winner’s circle at stop No. 12 on the 20-race Mission Foods Drag Racing Series.

Tasca needed only a 4.088, 277.15, to stop Capps, who was back in action with a replacement car after crashing his NAPA Toyota last weekend.