​In baseball, there’s a term called an upper deck shot. An upper deck shot is when a batter hits a baseball as far as possible without going entirely out of the stadium. 

When it comes to Top Fuel racer Mike Salinas Friday night during the opening qualifying session at the NHRA Midwest Nationals, upper deck shot seems such an inadequate description. 

Consider Funny Car racer Ron Capps to be the reluctant No. 1 qualifier.

Capps, who ran a 3.888-second elapsed time at 332.59 miles per hour to secure the provisional No. 1 spot at the NHRA Midwest Nationals, is grateful for the top spot, but given his druthers would have been satisfied with being second on the qualifying sheet. 

One might think Greg Anderson wants to win the NHRA Midwest Nationals to secure his place in drag racing history as the winningest driver in the Pro Stock division. 
 
And one might be wrong. 

Veteran motorsports writer and nitro crew guy Brad Littlefield said it best. 

On his Twitter feed, the son of the supercharger expert Mert Littlefield wrote, “Godspeed Chris Vandergriff. Thank you for always being a kind, fun, generous dude. The lights dimming at the PRI Show meant it was time to beeline to the Hedman Hedders booth and watch you hold court.”

In one post, Littlefield said what thousands of Chris Vandergriff’s friends were thinking following his unexpected death following complications from a major heart attack on September 21, 2021. He was 51 years old. 

On Wednesday at the NHRA U.S. Nationals, long before any nitro or Pro Stock vehicles have either unloaded or even arrived, the Stock and Super Stock community prepares for the annual ritual of determining whose car is the best in class.

Following the pandemic-shortened format of 2020, the 2021 event returned to a bit of normalcy with the Class Eliminations format. With the event shortened by a day, the battle for class was moved up a day to Wednesday.

In this video feature, you see the sights and sounds of the A/Stock Automatic classification, the top of the food chain for the traditional Stockers dating back to the 1960s.

Funny Car team owner, crew chief and driver Tim Wilkerson will add one more title to the every-growing list of job responsibilities this weekend at the NHRA Midwest Nationals: Top Fuel team owner. Wilkerson will debut a Top Fuel dragster with Kentucky businessman and former Top Fuel racer Keith Murt behind the wheel when the NHRA Camping World Drag Racing Series gets underway at World Wide Technology Raceway outside of St. Louis, September 24-26. The most recent Funny Car national event winner will have his son Daniel Wilkerson operating as crew chief for Murt during the event.
 
“I started putting this Top Fuel dragster together earlier this year with the plan to get Daniel licensed in it,” said Wilkerson, following his victory at the DeWalt NHRA Carolina Nationals. “I ran into Keith at the San Antonio Funny Car Chaos race, and we got to talking. He wanted to get back into racing, so we worked out a deal. He is going to run the car this weekend and then Daniel is going to get his license in it on Monday after the race.”

Lamattina Top Fuel Racing will be taking a two-pronged attack in the newly announced Australian Top Fuel Championship.

The Australian Championship-winning team has flirted with a second car at selected events over the recent past, but the new championship structure will see two of Australia’s premier drivers push the team to highest level. With the second LTFR seat previously occupied by a ‘who’s who’ of drag racing royalty that includes John Lamattina, Cameron Ferre, Richie Crampton, Kelly Bettes and Aaron Hambridge – the new team driver is the highly experienced and regarded, Shane Olive.

Olive will join the team for the new Australian Top Fuel Championship that will include two races at the team’s local Sydney Dragway plus two races in Victoria, a round in Western Australia, and a secret Grand Final event.

400 Thunder has released details of their 2021-22 calendar that will start in November and run to June.

The six-round series will feature three events at Willowbank Raceway, Queensland, two at Heathcote Park Raceway, Victoria and a single yet to be confirmed meeting at Sydney Dragway.

Robert River remembers the crash vividly – and fortunately, he walked away.

River, who competes on a limited NHRA Pro Stock schedule, was involved in a horrific accident while competing in a Nostalgia Pro Stock event at the World Series of Drag Racing at Cordova (Ill.) International Raceway Aug. 28.

Robert and his father, David, a fellow Pro Stock racer, had never been in a racing accident.