Posts Tagged: NHRA
Ken ‘Big Stick’ Godsey’s 1964 Mercury Comet tribute to drag racing legend Ronnie Sox made its first nine-second pass at the NHRA Holley Hot Rod Reunion — a wheels-up, bouncing four-speed launch that still gets commenters talking about clutch adjustment and crash-box durability years later. Barely a minute long and almost entirely without narration, the clip lets the launch speak for itself. Watch to see the pass that earned it.
Ford built just 100 of these 1964 Fairlanes and disguised the 427 on the paperwork as a mild 289, then sent them drag racing against Mopar’s best. At the NHRA Winternationals, the two fastest cars in the field turned out to be two Thunderbolts racing each other. Here’s how a hand-built, fiberglass-paneled sedan won Ford a national championship in a single season.
At the 2026 NHRA Gatornationals in Gainesville, one Stock Eliminator racer sent the front wheels of a completely unmodified muscle car off the pavement — and NHRA’s own rulebook says it’s perfectly legal. Bobby Fazio’s coverage captures 35 minutes of staging lane interviews, in-car runs, and mid-track action from one of NHRA’s most historic stops, including a wagon several fans called the best-appearing car in the field. Watch to see why a factory suspension can throw a wheelie a wheelie-bar car would need a tech inspection for.
Car Craft brought a 1968 Chevrolet Chevelle SS396 hardtop to Irwindale dragstrip in November 1967 expecting the 375-horsepower L78 to dominate the timeslip. Writer John Raffa came away frustrated instead, and said so in print in the February 1968 issue. That contradiction, a genuinely fast car that still disappointed the man driving it, says more about muscle car era expectations than any dyno figure. Read on to find out what quarter-mile testing actually measured.
At the 2026 NHRA Rocky Mountain Nationals in Edmonton, the 3,500-horsepower Yeti Chevelle went head-to-head with Mike Gondziola’s Terminator and Sander Spelt’s Bunker Junker through a full weekend of Pro Modified eliminations. The coverage runs from Thursday test-and-tune through Saturday’s final round. It’s proof that regional Pro Mod racing delivers just as much spectacle as any national event.
The fifteenth NHRA Holley National Hot Rod Reunion brought vintage front-engine dragsters, Funny Cars, and gassers back to Beech Bend Raceway Park in Bowling Green, Kentucky, along with a Thursday thunderstorm and a weekend of brutal heat. The covered bleachers filled anyway. What keeps a nostalgia crowd this loyal to a small-town strip, and why does the NHRA Motorsports Museum keep bringing its living-history event back here? Read on to find out.
NHRA’s 50 Greatest Drivers list wasn’t slapped together as clickbait – it came out of a genuine blue-ribbon panel debate for the sanctioning body’s 50th anniversary, weighing everything from national event wins to the sport’s technological history. Don Garlits sits at number one, with John Force, Don Prudhomme, Bob Glidden, and Shirley Muldowney rounding out a top five that basically built modern drag racing. Decades later, NHRA even expanded it into a Top 75 list for its 75th anniversary. So who’s your pick for the top spot?
Ed Wheeldon, known on the drag strip as Fast Eddie, once turned down a $250,000 offer for his 1968 Dodge Dart, a genuine factory Hemi Super Stock he still races at Eddyville Dragway for a $200 appearance fee. Mopar Max Magazine later put him on its cover after the car ran a best pass of 6.501 seconds. Few six-figure Hemi drag cars still see the strip today. Find out why Wheeldon insists on keeping his in the game.
Chrysler’s second generation Hemi arrived in 1964 as a race engine barely disguised as a production part, and its nickname came honestly. The 426 stood 10.72 inches at the deck, spread its bores 4.80 inches apart, and needed an engine bay most cars did not have. Roughly 11,000 street versions were ever built. Read on for how NASCAR banned it, why the valvetrain made it so expensive, and what made it the default choice for nitro racing.
Jack Chrisman’s 1965 Mercury Comet — the altered-wheelbase car credited with launching NHRA’s fuel Funny Car division — turns up on static display at the 2017 Southeast Gassers Association Knoxville event, owned by the family behind Barillaro Speed Emporium. One commenter adds firsthand history, having grown up at Lions and Irwindale and even met Chrisman’s son. See the car that made stock-bodied Mercury look deceptively ordinary.
Street Wars at Raceway Park in Englishtown mixed muscle, import, and tuner cars into the same lineup on March 13, 2016 — and the pass everyone still talks about wasn’t a muscle car win. A car nobody expected to touch a Nissan GT-R ran a clean 10-second pass and caught the whole crowd off guard, while a Hemi-powered entry went home with a loss one fan still can’t forgive. Watch to see exactly how the lineup shook out.
Filmed at Raceway Park’s Street Wars event in Englishtown, New Jersey on November 2, 2014, this compilation lines up American muscle against import tuner cars run after run down the quarter mile. One entrant, a compact SUV nobody expected to take seriously, turned in a number that still has commenters arguing years later. Watch to see which side actually earned bragging rights that day.
Jim Isherwood spent decades behind the wheel of Mopar Super Stock race cars, and this ride-along in his 426 Hemi-powered Satellite GTX Belvedere captures exactly why fans still talk about him. Since his passing, the comment section has turned into something between a technical breakdown and a tribute. Watch, and listen, to understand why nothing else sounds quite like a Hemi under full throttle.