Mickey Schultz, who distinguished himself as an auto racing PR rep for a host of major sponsors, sanctioning bodies and some of drag racing’s most successful drivers and teams, died March 3 in hospice care, ending a lengthy battle with Alzheimer’s disease.  He was 81.

Bob Glidden, John Force, Greg Anderson, Jason Line, Gary Ormsby, Tony Bartone, John Myers, Bob Vandergriff Jr., Angelle Sampey, Larry Morgan, Billy Meyer, K.C. Spurlock, Larry Nance, Brad Jeter and Steve Johnson were but a few of the drivers with whom Schultz worked in a drag racing career spanning 25 years.

Few racers have traveled a path like Paul Lee’s.

Lee was a teen-aged spectator at Old Bridge Raceway Park in Englishtown, New Jersey, when a TV camera captured him in the pits observing driver/tuner Dale Armstrong servicing the “Speed Racer” Funny Car between rounds.

A year later, Lee was turning wrenches on a nitro-burning Funny Car driven by Al Segrini. 

Almost 50 years down the road, Lee is a highly successful businessman who believes he’s on the cusp of his best season yet as a Funny Car owner and driver.  Lee enters this week’s NHRA season-opening Gatornationals with newer Dodge bodies, a new clutch package, and his first full season with Dustin Heim and Jason Bunker serving as co-crew chiefs. 

History and struggle created prestige at the 65th running of the iconic Good Vibrations Motorsports March Meet at Famoso Dragstrip. Bobby Cottrell captured his fifth March Meet title in Nitro Funny Car, tying the legend "Big Daddy" Don Garlits, while Mark Whynaught mended his heartbreak from the year before taking home the crown in AA/Fuel Altered. 

Joining Cottrell and Whynaught in the winner's circle at Famoso was Eily Stafford in Nitro Pro Comp. The AA/Fuel Dragster group elected to run their eliminations in October during qualifying at the California Hot Rod Reunion, the series finale for the NHRA Heritage series.

The AA/Fuel Dragster group opted not to return on Sunday, postponing their final eliminations until October during the California Hot Rod Reunion.

Spencer Massey has 18 career NHRA Top Fuel national event wins. Massey has proven he can beat the best in the business, but he has been living a different racing life for the last several years.

Massey competes in high-dollar bracket races and drives a limited Top Fuel NHRA schedule for Pat Dakin's team.

Massey will compete in the Top Fuel class at the Gatornationals in Gainesville, Fla., March 10-12.

Hector Arana Jr. definitely made the most of his limited 2022 NHRA Pro Stock Motorcycle schedule.

Competing in only seven of the season's 15 races, Arana Jr. had wins in Dallas and Las Vegas and finished 11th in the points standings on his Buell.

Now, he's being rewarded for it. 

The champagne remains corked, the bottles of the best wines resting in neat rows.

And Ron Capps keeps telling wife Shelley, “We’re going to open this bottle somebody sent us.”

But the phone rings, and the NHRA Funny Car owner-driver, and three-time and current champion has to discuss a business matter. Or he’s headed to the San Diego airport, ready to make an appearance for longtime sponsor NAPA. Or he has to join his Dean “Guido” Antonelli-led team at the Brownsburg, Ind., race shop. Or the couple is busy with daughter Taylor and son Caden.

After three rounds of Pro Modified qualifying for the World Series of Pro Mod at Bradenton Motorsports Park (BMP), Canada’s Spencer Hyde with his screw-blown ’69 Camaro was solidly in the 32-car field at 22nd of 61 entries. 

However, once the fourth-and-final session got going, Hyde’s 3.68 gradually got pushed out of contention.

With a last-chance effort, Hyde knocked 5-thousandths off his qualifying time to post a 3.682 that bumped Brandon Snider’s 3.683 from the field and gave Hyde the 32nd-and-final position for eliminations and a shot at the $100,000 winner’s purse.

Persistent rain and cool temperatures won big on Sunday at the 65th Bakersfield March Meet at Famoso Dragway. As a result, the Group 1 and 2 categories will return to complete their divisions on Monday morning. The Top Fuel dragsters will run their eliminations at the California Hot Rod Reunion in October. 

Overnight rains wreaked havoc on the event schedule, throwing the race schedule two hours behind. Several of the sportsman categories got in a round of competition, and three of four pairs in the Funny Car division were completed before the rain began to fall again. There was a break in the precipitation where the race could continue. 

 
Despite a series of passes well into the 3.60-second zone Saturday night, no one topped Johnny Camp’s 3.626 at 205.91 MPH effort at the top of the qualifying order for the Drag Illustrated World Series of Pro Mod presented by J&A Service at Bradenton Motorsports Park. Just .056 seconds separate Camp and the No. 32 qualifier, Spencer Hyde, with his 3.682 at 204.51. Sixty-one cars attempted to qualify for the 32-car field, and 44 of them dipped into the 3.60-second range. 
 
No. 1 qualifiers in the other WSOPM classes are Richard Freeman in the $hameless Racing Mountain Motor Pro Stock Invitational presented by Seminole Paving, Nichole Elff in the Xtreme Front-Wheel Drive Challenge, AJ Berge in the D H Davies Racing Factory Stock Classic, and Pete Maduri in Top Dragster. 

One might think it's always a piece of cake watching Bobby Cottrell go to work every time he fires up the Bucky Austin AA/Fuel Coupe. 

One might be wrong; at least, that's how it played out during his first three days at the 65th Bakersfield March Meet.

The five-time NHRA Heritage Series champion, who has won the March Meet four times in a row, started the weekend with a fire while testing on Thursday. On Friday, the team couldn't get in their usual dominant groove, and Saturday's first session didn't offer much improvement as he hovered in the fourth and fifth positions.