When Angelle Sampey blasted through the top end beams at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway for the final time in November, the three-time champion didn’t know if that would be her final time aboard a motorcycle in professional competition.

It was a surreal moment for the NHRA’s winningest female racer as one of the most decorated racers in Pro Stock Motorcycle history reflected on a truly amazing career.

Josh Hart finally got it done. He had planned to step up to the Top Fuel ranks a year ago, with Bob Vandergriff Racing. It was going to be perfect: Hart lives down the road at Ocala, and just as with every other class in which he has competed, he would make his first Top Fuel passes on home turf.

But with most of the pro and sportsman racers assembled at Gainesville Raceway last March, the NHRA joined every other sport in suspending its season. That offered both Hart and Vandergriff a chance to take a step back and reassess their program together. Their mutual decision was that Hart’s best bet would be to own his own team.

With funding from Burnyzz and Technet and accomplished tuner Ron Douglas as crew chief, Hart is seeing his dream become reality. Before the opening qualifying session Friday, Hart said the experience would “be pretty surreal,” because “I never thought I was going to be here. You hear all the rumors about money, sponsors . . .  For the stars to align enough for me to be able to do this, it’s an honor.”

Steve Torrence maintained his top spot in Top Fuel on Saturday, as the three-time defending NHRA Camping World Drag Racing Series world champ qualified No. 1 at the season-opening 52nd annual AMALIE Motor Oil NHRA Gatornationals at Gainesville Raceway.

Ron Capps (Funny Car), Greg Anderson (Pro Stock) and Angelle Sampey (Pro Stock Motorcycle) are also No. 1 qualifiers in their respective categories at the first race of the 2021 NHRA Camping World Drag Racing Series season

Pablo González Matos had one drag bike, and he raced it to six national championships in Puerto Rico. But when his son Pablo showed a real interest in following in his father’s treadmarks, Dad quit to throw his resources into his 16-year-old’s program. It was a smart move, for Pablo González went on to match his father in Puerto Rican motorcycle titles.

That was 24 years ago, and Friday at Gainesville Raceway, at the start of pro qualifying for the NHRA season-opening Amalie Oil Gatornationals, Pablo González Matos’ son was paying him back, paying tribute to his sacrifice.

The younger González, a Southeastern Drag Bike Association 6.0 Index bracket-racing champion who lives a couple of hours away at Orlando, made his debut in the Pro Stock Motorcycle class, riding Blake Gann’s EBR V-twin that honored yet some else who helped his career flourish. González’s bike was one that his longtime friend Shawn Gann used to compete in what’s known today as the Camping World Drag Racing Series.

The popular, flamboyant, and friendly Shawn Gann passed away suddenly last May. But this remembrance has brought his and González’s relationship full circle. This was the race at which the González family met the Ganns, exactly 30 years ago.

The 2020 NHRA season was a rough one for a lot of people.

It was especially hard on Steve Torrence and his Torrence Racing team.

Ron Capps is one of the living legends of the sport of drag racing.

The 2016 Funny Car world champion has 66 wins on his resume. He has more than 760 round wins and more than 560 total races under his belt.

Oh so much has changed in the Pro Stock class since 2010. Greg Anderson had won yet another championship, a fourth, and was vaulting into the stratosphere of class legends. Today he still commands respect with his 94 victories (second only to John Force among active drivers), 840 round-wins (fourth-most in NHRA history), and 106 No. 1 qualifying positions. But July 1, 2012, the tide shifted. Anderson still won plenty more races (although none since Dallas 2019). What shifted the momentum that evening was a young woman from Houston and her victory at Chicago – against rival Anderson in the final round, which made it all the juicier for her. She became the first woman to win a Pro Stock race.

She said Anderson “grabbed my shoulder and said, ‘Well deserved.' That means a lot, coming from [him].” She referred to him as “an 800-billion-time champion and somebody I’ve been trying to beat for eight years.” But at that point, Anderson already was perturbed that he had made “the history book now for the wrong reason,” he said. “The bottom line is this has been a long time coming for Erica. You knew she was going to win soon. I didn't want to be the guy on the other end, but I am now,” he said. “And it's probably going to open the floodgates for her."

PPG will continue its sponsorship of the Tasca Racing team throughout the 2021 NHRA season. 

Led by Bob Tasca III, team president and driver, Tasca Racing is running a full schedule in the Funny Car category of the NHRA’s Camping World Drag Racing Series. The team’s 11,000-horsepower PPG Ford Shelby Nitro Mustang will display the PPG logo in every race this year.

PPG will serve as Tasca Racing’s primary sponsor for two key races – the New England Nationals at New England Dragway in Epping, New Hampshire, set for June 11-13, and the Mile High Nationals at Denver’s Bandimere Speedway from July 16-18. PPG is also Tasca Racing’s secondary sponsor for all other races this season, which begins in March at the AMALIE® Motor Oil NHRA Gatornationals and runs through November.

Mike Bucher has achieved a lifetime drag racing goal.

Bucher obtained his Top Fuel license Wednesday and will compete in the season-opening 52nd annual AMALIE Motor Oil NHRA Gatornationals at Gainesville (Fla.) Raceway March 12-14.

“I want to make it clear that God did this, and he gets the glory, the thanks, the credit, above and beyond anyone else,” said Bucher, 58. “I believe he’s helping me. I asked him to, and I feel his presence. I made five passes, and we had car struggles the first two runs because it was the beginning of the year and two passes were good. The third one went well, 4.03 (seconds) at 276 (mph). The next one I had to pedal it (at West Palm Beach), the car put the front wheels up and went toward the centerline. The last run it took a 4.30 to get my license, and I ran a 4.30.