Rahn Tobler thought it was time to step aside a few years ago but returned to some unfinished business. Today, he knew the time had come to finish those final tasks.

Tobler, who has tuned multiple drivers to nitro championships, confirmed with CompetitionPlus.com that he will retire from full-time tuning at the end of the 2022 season.

"I realized that the travel and the wear and tear on me was just getting too much," Tobler said. "I'm a 68-year-old guy, and I don't want to complain about getting on an airplane and flying somewhere, but with the time changes and coming back and just getting used to one time and then coming back and doing this every week, it just got to be too much.

The NHRA Lucas Oil Drag Racing Series, starring the best and most decorated sportsman drivers in drag racing, announced the schedule for the upcoming 2023 season, featuring stops across the country.

Starting on Feb. 3-4 at Orlando Speed World Dragway, the 2023 NHRA Lucas Oil Drag Racing Series season will include 46 total divisional events and 24 regional events, finishing Nov. 3-5 at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. The season will also feature nine doubleheader events, which have been a popular draw for race teams in recent seasons.

Steve Gibbs looked at the full parking lot of Irwindale Dragstrip and the crowded pits full of fans, and he couldn't help but be both happy and sad. He was happy that drag racing fans still cling to the history of the straight-line sport and sad that he had to create his own event to ensure the pioneers of the sport were never forgotten.

"This whole thing wouldn't have come about had my relationship with NHRA kind of come to a crossroads, all around the hot rod reunion events that we were doing at the time," Gibbs admitted. "I did retire from NHRA. I was a consultant working on an annual contract basis, and we came to the 25th anniversary of the Hot Rod Reunion at Bakersfield. And just the way the corporate folks decided they needed to run things differently. It finally got to the point that I just said, 'I can't do this anymore."

If one moment defined the Mountain Motor Pro Stock movement, it was the first-ever seven-second run. That day in April 1980, had the same effect on the class as putting a man on the moon had for space travel. It might as well have been. Seven-second Pro Stockers were science fiction in those days.

If one can consider it wrong to cross a time barrier, then Rickie Smith was the guilty party and the sports reaction caught him off guard. In fact, the hard-nosed racer feared he had done something wrong when an IHRA official sought to escort him back to the starting line. His transgression, a seven-second ET slip in winning the first round during the IHRA Pro-Am Nationals in Rockingham, NC.

“I was happy that I had won, but the next thing I know, I had a race official coming over to me and telling me to follow him,” Smith said. “I didn’t know what was going on. I thought I was in trouble. I had every thought running through my head that you could have. But, then I got to thinking, if you’ve done something wrong, they don’t usually pull you up in front of the crowd to throw the book at you.”

The only book the IHRA had in mind to throw at Smith was the history book. He had, in legal trim, traveled where no Pro Stock racer had gone – into the sevens.

Ted Jones had an open-door policy with IHRA founder Larry Carrier, and while he tried to not wear out his welcome, on a fall day in 1976 he couldn’t resist bringing his idea to the boss.

Jones was the VP of Competition for the five-year-old sanctioning body, and little did he know that his intuition would one day change the way the Pro Stock division would be contested. The IHRA was always searching for its niche in a drag racing world dominated by the National Hot Rod Association, and to a point the now-defunct American Hot Rod Association.

Jones wanted to do away with the status quo for the Pro Stocks. He was tired of following the NHRA’s lead of factoring cars into competitiveness, and the aggravation that came along with policing it. His idea of throwing the standard formula of pounds to cubic inch out the window had the potential to be taken one of two ways – (A) the greatest thing since sliced bread or (B) downright blasphemous. The bottom line is that Jones had to deal with the never-ending issue and not Carrier.

“It was a nightmare without end because you always had to adjust the rules,” Jones, who now owns a television production company, said. “You had several weight breaks and they were for every combination under the sun. You had them for staggered valves, cylinder heads, wheelbase, and so on and so forth.

“Most every Pro Stocker had to run a small block because if you didn’t, you’d have to run so much weight that it was unreasonable and the parts breakage for running such a heavy combination was unreal. It was a real headache.”

SEMA (Specialty Equipment Market Association) announced a five-year vision to expand the SEMA Show into an “all-city” experience. Officially called SEMA Week, the expansion’s goal is to create the most passionate and exciting automotive event in the world. SEMA Week will kick off in 2023 with new concepts, activities, and events introduced over the five-year roll-out period.

The PDRA (Professional Drag Racers Association) came along in 2013 when the eighth-mile, doorslammer drag racing community was in the midst of a tempest. Almost ten years later the organization has weathered the storm. 

The all-eighth-mile championship drag racing tour returns in 2023 with an eight-race schedule in 2023. The 2023 schedule includes stops at staple PDRA facilities like Virginia Motorsports Park and GALOT Motorsports Park, as well as returns to U.S. 131 Motorsports Park and Darlington Dragway. Along with eight points races, the 2023 PDRA schedule features the third annual Summit Racing Equipment PDRA ProStars specialty race. 

The way Steve Gibbs gets around makes moving around at 82 years old look so effortless. It could be in the genes or the daily regimen of living healthy. Those who know Gibbs understand his passion for preserving what many call drag racing's golden age is the genuine factor.

The former NHRA competition director channels a burning passion into drag racing, keeping him on his toes and feeling younger with each passing year.

Six years have now passed since Gibbs left the NHRA's Heritage Series and created his own deal, a revival of sorts, ensuring once a year, the initial movers and shakers of drag racing can get together and relive what many have declared as the good old days of drag racing.