Matt Smith has a lot on his plate for the 2022 season, including a possible manufacturer switch. 

Smith confirmed to CompetitionPlus.com that in 2022, Jianna Salinas and Jimmy Underdahl would join the multi-time championship-winning team Matt Smith Racing. They will continue to run their Suzuki program. 

"I think it's going to be awesome. What this is going to do, it's going to bring a two-bike Suzuki team to MSR. We're going to control the tuneups for all of that team and do the motor program and everything for it."

Smith said in 2022, he plans to scale back to just two V-twin bikes - those ridden by him and his wife, Angie. 

While many drag racing fans were getting all giddy over the NHRA's unpublicized revelation of its new Factory Experimental exhibition category, past NHRA Pro Stock champion Allen Johnson found himself a bit hot under the collar. 

Johnson found himself in a bit of anger deja vu.

"That's really what we wanted to try to do back in '15, or when we had the meeting out in Denver, with Mopar, NHRA, and myself, we brought that up that we needed to put these type engines in a Pro Stock car and bring the class cost down," Johnson explained. "It didn't really get anywhere. [NHRA VP of Operations] Graham [Light] decided he wanted EFI."

While Johnson got his venting out of the way, he began to change his tone to a more peaceful one. 

Wayne Swofford and his non-descript red Nova "Leroy" took the top spot over 25 entries in the South East Gassers B/Gas qualifying field, but it was number-two starter Colby Welch who would leave Shady Side Dragway Nov. 6, with the class elapsed time record and his second race win of the year.

"This was a really big win for us," the 18-year-old driver later declared in his pit. "And we set the record, too, so I mean, we made some good milestones to end the year."

Welch and his "Moonbeam" '65 Ranchero opened with a relatively easy victory over Jason Roberts, followed by a competition bye and a close, though off-the-pace, win over defending class champion T.J. York in the quarter finals. He returned to form in the semis, though, to officially post the quickest SEGA B/Gas pass ever while eliminating third-place qualifier "Tennessee Charlie" Lee.

A record-setting 104 entries showed up for the season finale of the South East Gassers Association (SEGA) Nov. 6, at Shady Side Dragway in Shelby, NC, where Ben Christopher took the A/Gas race title, Colby Welch prevailed in B/Gas, Larry Floyd wrapped up his 2021 championship run with the C/Gas victory, and Super Stock rookie Ron Allison capped off his own championship-winning run with his second race win of the year.

Just by showing up at Shady Side, former Outlaw 10.5 standout Ken Rainwater became the first to officially sew up a 2021 SEGA championship, as participation points alone were enough to put him and his '66 Nova "Renegade" out of reach of last year's B/Gas champ T.J. York. 

Veteran nitro Funny Car driver Ron Capps isn’t the best driver to never win an NHRA world championship. He accomplished that feat in 2016.

Now Capps heads to the season finale – the Auto Club NHRA Finals in Pomona, Calif., Nov. 11-14 with a 58-point lead over his Don Schumacher Racing teammate Matt Hagan and 83-points in front of third-place Cruz Pedregon.

And mathematically the top seven drivers in the points standings – fourth through seventh being J.R. Todd, John Force, Bob Tasca III and Robert Hight – are still in the championship hunt since 180 points are up for grabs in Pomona.

“The plan to win the race is the ultimate and that would take care of business,” Capps said. “There also more available points in qualifying and they are giving a few more points for qualifying position. Honestly, right now, we are going with the same mindset and that’s to qualify. There are going to be 20-plus Funny Cars and you just don’t know.

Reigning NHRA Pro Stock Motorcycle world champion Matt Smith is in position to win his second world title in 2021.

Smith heads to the season finale – the Auto Club NHRA Finals in Pomona, Calif., Nov. 11-14 with a 20-point lead over Steve Johnson and a 30-point lead over Angelle Sampey. 

Smith pilots a Buell while Johnson and Sampey are aboard Suzukis. In Pomona, at the finale, the race winner will receive 150 points instead of 100 like at the other previous Countdown to the Championship events. Also, a driver can obtain more qualifying points in Pomona than other races as well as receive more points for where they are specifically qualified on the ladder.

“Our plan is to get every point we can and win the race and if we win the race, it doesn’t matter what anybody else does,” Smith said.

Funny Car racer Gary Densham has been racing in NHRA fuel Funny Car competition since 1973, and it never occurred to him to keep track of how many events he'd raced. As he saw it, "I just want to go to the next race; that's all that counts."

So last year, NHRA's FoxSports broadcasts proclaimed on the FallNationals broadcast from Dallas, he was content to "go with it."

As such, Densham's family and friends began planning a 500th race celebration, and after racing the Lucas Oil NHRA Nationals in Brainerd, the party was on for the Auto Club Finals in Pomona, Ca., the place where it all began on February 15, 1973.

Densham then got a surprise in Brainerd. 

Three days after winning the Dodge NHRA Nationals at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, three-time reigning Top Fuel World Champion Steve Torrence was back in town Wednesday to attend the SEMA Show at the Las Vegas Convention Center and announce an expansion and extension of his team’s partnership with Red Line Synthetic Oil. 

Phillips 66 performance oil brand will continue to provide the internal protection that has made the Capco Contractors dragsters the most dominant vehicles in drag racing’s premier category the last five seasons.  Red Line Oil Brand Director Mark Beatty confirmed a multi-year contract extension, starting in 2022.

Although Top Fuel racer Brandon Welch said it has “been frustrating coming out of the COVID lockdowns and reducing the number of races we can run,” he is showing that he is using the extra time at his San Diego shop wisely. He came off the trailer Friday and took the provisional No. 9 spot in the line-up with a 3.940-second pass at 260.26 mph. His Max Mileage Dragster skated all over the lane and ended up crossing the center line, but the former Funny Car driver made a case for his best qualifying position yet in Top Fuel. 

Unfortunately, Troy Buff bumped him out in the final qualifying session Saturday as they ran side by side. 

His still-freshly restarted program, Welch said, “is in a stage of constant growth and improvement. With the extra time in the shop, we have been examining any areas of our program where we are light on spares or where special tools would help make us faster in servicing the car. We use our time to slowly address those items and keep on growing.