NHRA - National Hot Rod Association

Thanks to a huge assist from fellow racer Gary Clapshaw, "Big Daddy" Don Garlits was able to race to his first 300-mph performance at the 2001 U.S. Nationals. In the wake of Clapshaw's passing Dec. 15, it's a story worth retelling.

Rodney Flournoy was a Southern California fan favorite in the 1980s with his family-run Funny Car. Nearly 40 years later, he's still burning nitro in the NHRA Hot Rod Heritage Series, now with his daughter at his side.

An all-star cast of racers and longtime acquaintances of “the Dones” gathered at the Wally Parks NHRA Museum to remember legendary promoter Bill Doner and tell old stories and celebrate one of the most unique members of the drag racing family.

The NHRA season closer hasn’t always been held at Auto Club Raceway at Pomona. In fact, since the inaugural event in 1965, the race has been run at six locations, more places than any other NHRA race. Here is a look at the history of the event and the drama it always produces.

Twelve-plus years and still going strong, the Dragster Insider column tells "the stories behind the stories" in the history of our sport. Here's a look back at some November stories from its archives.

This weekend’s Dodge NHRA Nationals Presented By Pennzoil at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway will mark the 900th NHRA national event to include the Top Fuel class, dating back to the 1963 Winternationals. Here's a look back at the heroes and stats of the class.

Drag racing lost another of its nitro-racing veterans Sept. 25 with the passing of 1970s Funny Car star Bill Leavitt just about a week shy of his 81st birthday. Leavitt was the first Funny Car driver to record an elapsed time of less than 6.5 seconds.

Earlier this week, veteran Top Fuel racer Cory McClenathan announced his pending retirement from competition. Here's a look back at his 30-year career behind the butterfly.

Words of admiration and old stories keep rolling in after the passing of Tom Jobe, resulting in some more touching tributes and interesting stories about the fabled Surfers Top Fuel team of the 1960s.

Bob Skinner, Mike Sorokin, and Tom Jobe, known collectively to Top Fuel fans of the mid-1960s as The Surfers, rode a wave of success and popularity for three years. With the Sept. 7 passing of Jobe, the last surviving Surfer, we look back at their magical time.

Legendary 1970s racetrack operator and promoter Bill Doner, who died last week, was a lot of things to a lot of people -- benefactor, starmaker, friend, adversary, storyteller -- but above all he was loved, revered, and respected by those in his universe.

The Chevrolet Performance U.S. Nationals will celebrate its 65th running in just a few days, and a lot of history has been created across the decades. Here's a look at some of the interesting trivia from the event that we've put together.

At this year's Chevrolet Performance U.S. Nationals, as they have been for the last 60 years, when the event was held in Detroit, two longtime fans of the sport will be settled into their seats watching all of the action at the 65th edition of the "Big Go."

Between 1955 and 1963, only one driver, George Montgomery, had won NHRA's Nationals more than once, and, incredibly, he had won it three times before anyone had even won it twice.

The 65th Chevrolet Performance U.S. Nationals is just round the corner and the number 65 itself is a great piece of event history. In 1965, Winternationals winners Don Prudhomme and car owner Roland Leong became the first to win two NHRA national events in a season when they won at Indy after a long road trip.

The 65th annual Chevrolet Performance U.S. Nationals is coming up and promises to be a celebration of the event’s long and rich history. In the months leading up the event, we'll chronicle some of the great stories that made Indy the world’s biggest and most important drag race. This week: Indy's "unknown" Top Fuel winner.

Remembering Funny Car owner Jim Green, photo researching with Don Prudhomme, and catching up with Marvin "Who?" Graham.

Legendary race car painter “Wild Bill” Carter created some of the most memorable paint jobs for some of the sport’s most famous racers.

The early 1980s was an interesting time in drag racing when sand racers defected in huge numbers to the asphalt and introduced us to future world champions like Alan Johnson and Gary Scelzi and a slew of other talented racers.

Southern California racer Jim DePasse made a name for himself drag racing on both sand and asphalt. He wasn't the best-known racer among NHRA fans, but as NHRA National Dragster Editor Phil Burgess remembers him, he was a friend to many.

Harold Satterlee is honoring his uncle, "Famous Amos" Satterlee, by creating models of his uncle's famous cars, often melding together multiple kits to get the parts right and to to preserve his uncle's legacy. Also, some loving memories from one of Amos' grandchilden.

Legendary nitro tuner "Famous Amos" Satterlee passed away April 4 at age 88. He left behind a legacy of broken records, race wins, and drag racing championships on asphalt, water, and sand.

One came to fame as a teenager ahead of his prime and the other with a sponsor that was ahead of its time, but this week we mourn them together with the passings last weekend of NHRA pioneers Bobby Vodnik and Frank Oglesby.

Dave Chenevert was the first Gatornationals Top Fuel winner way back in 1970 and the first of 30 different drivers to win Top Fuel at Gainesville Raceway. Relive that wild weekend from the memory of one of his teenage crewmembers, Fred Mooneyham, himself a future Top Fuel driver.

The Gatornationals, the third oldest event on the NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series schedule, has a deep and rich heritage that ensures its place in the history books and in the hearts and minds of racers and fans alike. Here's a look back at 50 Memorable Moments from the event’s colorful history.

Ezra Boggs and the Moby Dick Funny Car were match-race mainstays in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and occasional national event competitors. Boggs passed away Feb. 20 and was remembered by friends.

No one has driven a nitro Funny Car longer than Gary Densham, who kicked off his 49th season in Pomona. The lifelong Southern Californian is a regional treasure to those who grew up watching him race his line of Teacher’s Pet floppers at tracks up and down the West Coast.

The sport lost another friend yesterday with the passing of former Funny Car owner/driver Ray Alley, at age 86 after a lengthy illness. In this special column, drag racing hall of famer Kenny Bernstein remembers Alley, who gave him his first Funny Car ride.

The 2019 season kicks off next Friday in Pomona, launching the NHRA season as it has every year since 1961. But how did NHRA end up planting its flag in this suburban wonderland? 

Former Top Fuel and Funny Car racer Frank Rupert passed away Friday, Jan. 4, due to complications after going into cardiac arrest. In this special Insider column, Brad Littlefield shares the history of the respected nitro veteran.