Josh Hart’s plan for the 2021 NHRA Camping World Drag Racing Series was to run a limited schedule with modest goals.

That didn’t happen.

The Top Fuel rookie sent shock through the class with two wins in Gainesville, Fla., and Charlotte, N.C.’s fall race and four additional semifinal finishes while only competing in 11 of the 18 races this season.

“It has been crazy,” Hart said. “I be lying if I said no (to be surprised about winning races). We didn’t really design to own a Top Fuel team. That was kind of a strange situation by itself. Going from there to here, it has been a whirlwind. I think the craziest thing for me personally has probably been just seeing all the people I looked up to for so long. It is a very cool camaraderie. That has been the craziest thing for me to experience.”

First-year Pro Stock driver Dallas Glenn has been nominated for the 2021 Rookie of the Year award. The Mooresville, North Carolina-resident has had an extraordinary debut season with four final round appearances, two national event wins in Charlotte and Topeka, a No. 1 qualifier in Houston, and 23 round wins so far.

 “To be nominated and in the chase for the Rookie of the Year is a huge honor, especially when looking at the long list of racers that have won it in the past,” Glenn said. “There’s two races left this season and I feel like I’m in two different battles that are really close. I’m still mathematically in the championship battle, which will go down to the wire, and this Rookie of the Year battle feels even closer than that.”

For the past five seasons the NMCA has successfully run the Coan Racing Stock/Super Stock Combo category in its robust championship line-up. New for 2022 will be independent Stock Eliminator and Super Stock Eliminator categories, both competing for prestigious NMCA championships at all six national events. 

“The competition is fierce in Stock/Super Stock and we’ve seen huge growth in the category since we began hosting it five seasons ago. Those car counts give us the opportunity to run each eliminator independently,” said Gene Bergstrom, NMCA Director of Racing Operations and longtime drag racing competition guru. 

Scotty Cannon was up before sunrise last Saturday, hitting the road out of Lyman, S.C.

He was set to become the 20th inductee into Bristol Dragway’s Legends of Thunder Valley. But he wasn’t headed to Tennessee. He was going to Atlanta to help a buddy tune his race car.

“I'm getting a taste of the old days,” said the six-time IHRA Pro Modified champion and 28-time winner in the class he pioneered.

But today’s drag-racing scene and modern cars are far different than they were when he and Bill Kuhlmann, Al Billes, Freddy Hahn, Tim McAmis, and Ed Hoover – and even Shannon Jenkins, Mike Castellana, and Mike Ashley – were ushering in the class, inventing it. Now these 21st Century Pro Mods, with their sophisticated telemetry, require different skills than Cannon had to employ with his popular nitrous-injected ’41 Willys or his supercharged ’63 split window Corvette. Even the NHRA Funny Car class, in which Cannon competed for six years, has made huge performance strides seemingly overnight.

Drag racing innovator and Pro Stock icon Richard Maskin passed away October 16, 2021, at the age of 74.

Maskin was the founder and driving force behind the Dart Machinery brand in 1981, a leader in cylinder head technology that expanded to include engine blocks and intake manifolds. 

Maskin was well known for his participation in Pro Stock as a team owner and crew chief first with AMC entries and later with GM-powered efforts. 

Mike Salinas wasn’t kidding. 

After he defeated Steve Torrence in Sunday’s Top Fuel final round of the Thunder Valley Nationals to score back-to-back victories at Bristol Dragway, the San Jose, Calif., businessman told the crowd he was going to buy a home in East Tennessee.

Mission accomplished.

Alexia DeJoria wanted to get a win in the last three races, and she did just that at the Thunder Valley Nationals in Bristol, Tenn., Sunday.