Growing up in a family immersed in drag racing history, Lana Chrisman understood the importance of preserving that history. That's why when Chrisman, daughter of the legendary Jack Chrisman, was offered the Executive Director position at the Lions Automobilia Foundation; she knew she had found her calling.

"I think it's important because we have to understand where we came from, where our industry came from," Chrisman said. "In southern California. So much came out of there, and so many innovators; we have Iskederian and Howard Cams, Keith Black, there's so many of our founding manufacturers came out of Southern California and tested at Lions. So I think that that relationship is important for us to preserve for just for our next generation to understand it and have a clear understanding of where we came from."

Travel back in time to an era when the NHRA Champions were decided on the pit road of the famed Ontario Motor Speedway. This rare broadcast was aired in 1977 via syndication on CBS channels and produced by the legendary Diamond P Sports.

You'll see the legends Shirley Muldowney, Don Garlits, Don Prudhomme, "Dyno" Don Nicholson, Bob Glidden and many more.

However, the most entertaining celebrity might just be a shaggy haired Graham Light racing his Top Fuel dragster to the finals.

In the early 80’s, the growing popularity of the IHRA mountain motor Pro Stock class made a huge ripple in the great drag racing pond – a ripple felt all the way past the front doors of NHRA headquarters in Glendora, Ca.

Headlines once reserved for Bob Glidden, Lee Shepherd, and Frank Iaconio now featured such names as Rickie Smith, Warren Johnson, and Ronnie Sox. The IHRA Pro Stockers had blasted their way into the 7.90s during the 1980 season and the 7.80s one year later.

Never mind the fact the NHRA had just staged the closest point championship in the history of the class, a battle that went down to the final run of the season. The IHRA had seven-second Pro Stockers and wasn’t afraid to flaunt them to the media.

NHRA cars ran 8.30s. IHRA cars ran 7.80s. Get the picture?

In the weeks prior to the end of the 1981 season, the NHRA announced that they would do away with the pounds-per-cubic-inch format and adopt an IHRA-type program.

Instead of the sky-is-the-limit mentality of the IHRA, however, the NHRA put a 500-inch ceiling on their “mountain motors.”

Veterans Day usually always falls on the weekend NHRA concludes its season. 

This year Kalitta Motorsports will team with long-time sponsor Clean Harbors to recognize the sacrifice and commitment of our brave servicemen and servicewomen on Veteran's Day, November 11, during the NHRA Finals in Pomona, Ca.

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.