What's it all about?
No real new column today – even the Insider deserves a week off to celebrate the holidays – but just a chance to once again express my thanks to the loyal visitors to this little cyber pit space. It seems impossible that since I rolled out this…
A Christmas Letter to My Younger Self
Seems like it’s all the rage these days, especially among sports stars and rock 'n' rollers – of which I am neither – to offer up a little something called “Letter to My Younger Self,” in which one shares the wisdom of a lifetime with one’s…
Drag racing on the tee-vee, 1976-style
While I was researching my last couple of columns about Ontario Motor Speedway and the Supernationals and World Finals, I used my typical National Dragster and magazine article resources but also got sucked into…
Ontario's World Finals, 1974-80
We continue our look back at the great facility that was Ontario Motor Speedway this week with a recap of the seven editions of the World Finals held at the Southern California race facility, beginning with the 1974 event.
NHRA’s sudden decision…
NHRA Supernationals, 1970-73
The 1970 season was, by many accounts, one of the most important in NHRA history. It marked the first season for a new class, Pro Stock, and the first time that a season champion would be crowned in a fledgling class known…
Ontario Motor Speedway
Last week’s column about Funny Car elapsed times and the number of class-best passes that were recorded on the quarter-mile at Ontario Motor Speedway, along with what we have learned over the years about the track’s ability…
Funny Car performance, then and now
If you are a fan of the Funny Car class – and hey, who isn’t? – the 2015 season was a spectacular one, not just for its dramatic finish on the final day of the schedule last Sunday in Pomona, but also for…
Dirt biking with the stars
Don Prudhomme, left, and National Dragster's Leslie Lovett, two-wheelin' it
Fred Mooneyham’s brief mention last week about dirt-bike riding with his nitro peers in the 1970s and motocross…
Teen Terrors of the '70s: 'Fearless Fred' Mooneyham
Teenage Fred Mooneyham with his father, Gene, and crewmember Larry Faust.
(Above) Mooneyham cut his teeth in a front-engine Top Fueler in Louisiana. (Below) Mooneyham and brother Gene…
The Perils of Billy Meyer
As I teased in last week’s column, Billy Meyer’s road to Funny Car fame was not without some painful bumps, a trio of which I will share with you this week.
As you read in the previous column, the impressive start of Meyer’s Funny Car career came…
Teen Terrors of the '70s: Billy Meyer
Of the Teen Terrors of the ‘70s that I’ve profiled the last few months, there’s no disputing that Billy Meyer enjoyed the longest and most successful career of all of them. He won national events in NHRA (12) and IHRA (eight…
Happy birthday, Texas Motorplex
By the time you read this, I’ll be in Dallas for my annual trip to the AAA Texas NHRA FallNationals at Billy Meyer’s Texas Motorplex, which is celebrating its 30th anniversary this season. I won’t say I’ve been to every NHRA…
Remembering Dave Beebe
Another hole was torn in the fabric of our racing family last weekend with the passing of Dave Beebe, whose surname was one of the more famous in our sport thanks to the accomplishments of he and brother Tim in the Top Fuel…
Teen Terrors of the '70s: The Allison Brothers
Randy and Gary Allison, circa 1972.
Imagine, if you can, two young brothers with zero nitro-racing experience deciding to try their hand at Top Fuel. It’s not a scenario you can even begin to…
Bill "Maverick" Golden
Before he became one of the godfathers of wheelstanding, Golden earned his "Maverick" nickname with a succession of highly successful Dodge doorslammers.
The Little Red Wagon…
Teen Terrors of the '70s: John Stewart
John Stewart will forever be remembered by drag racing fans of the 1970s as the teenager who beat “Big Daddy” Don Garlits in his first ever side-by-side competition, but the kid from Sacramento, Calif., with the long hair…
Teen Terrors of the '70s: Bobby Hilton
A lot of kids are born into racing families and follow their fathers into the sport, but few can claim the quick start that launched Bobby Hilton into his career as a teenage Top Fuel driver in the early 1970s.
His dad,…
Teen Terrors of the '70s: Jeb Allen
This is the first in a series of articles on teenage nitro drivers of the early 1970s, beginning with Jeb Allen, the only teen driver to win in a nitro class at an NHRA national event. He was the sport's youngest…
Drag racing's teen terrors
Nitro teen terrors of the 1970s (clockwise from above left): Billy Meyer, Jeb Allen, John Stewart, Randy Allison, and Bobby Hilton
When you think of today…
'The Likeable Logger'
I don’t remember which of our zany cast of characters here at National Dragster in the 1980s first labeled Top Fuel racer Earl Whiting “the likeable logger,” but whoever it was nailed it spot-on. The Washington…
Pro Stock wheelies
Last week’s announcement by the NHRA concerning Pro Stock rules changes targeted the concerns of many about the class, covering everything from technological relevance – i.e., no “factory hot rod” today has a carburetor – to fan appeal, and to me,…
Remembering Doug Nash
It’s one thing to create a legacy doing something and quite another to create two legacies while doing two completely different things, but that’s how Doug Nash will be remembered. Fans of this column certainly will remember…
From the Quotebook
Last week, I shared some of the interesting tidbits that I’ve gathered throughout the years, little random bits of flotsam and jetsam that otherwise would have just floated around on my hard drive. Those were from my notebook; today, we delve into…
Note-worthy
If my computer’s hard drive were a house, I would have already starred in several of those reality TV shows about hoarders. They’d hire a crew of 10 to sort through all of the digital detritus on the computer, picking up…
Remembering Roger Garten
Roger Garten (photo: Gary Himes)
When I started going to the drags in the early 1970s, the Mustang was the clear body of choice in the Funny Car ranks. Jerry Ruth. The Blue Max. The L.A.…
Catching Up
It’s been a crazy couple of weeks here at Insider Central as I actually snuck in a mini vacation — I went all the way to Spokane, Wash., to see an Eagles concert — between the Topeka and Englishtown events, and by the time…
Remembering Bud Coons and 'Surfer Hank'
It’s no great secret that we’ve lost a lot of our drag racing heroes in the last decade, and if you’ve been following this column for any length of time, you know that I agonize over the losses and sometimes struggle to put…
Bristol Dragway: 50 years of memories
We’ve spent some time already this year talking about the NHRA Springnationals and about its stops at Dallas Int’l Motor Speedway and National Trail Raceway, but it all began 50 years ago at fabulous new Bristol Int'l Dragway in Tennessee, a track…
Gary Burgin, drag racing's 'Orange Baron'
We lost Funny Car great Gary Burgin last Sunday, another passing of a fine racer who forever etched his name and his cars into our memory banks.
Burgin liked to brag that he had never driven anything down the dragstrip…
Remembering Jim Kelly, 'drag racing's Ansel Adams'
Steve Reyes photos
I don’t know who illustrated the reading you did as a kid, whether it was Dr. Seuss or Charles Schulz or Sergio Aragones, but for me, my favorite reading was usually accompanied by…