By Jen Dunnaway

Editor

During the NHRA Northwest Nationals at Pacific Raceways in Kent, WA this weekend, lifelong drag racer Mark Niver was killed after a wreck caused by a parachute malfunction. The chutes tore away before they had a chance to slow Mark’s Top Alcohol dragster, which then barreled through the sand trap and slammed the catch netting, causing the car’s frame to buckle over onto the driver’s cockpit. It seems a little senseless for a “safety net” to be responsible for someone’s death–shouldn’t it have a break-away design so it could still slow the vehicle significantly but then let go before causing catastrophic damage? I guess you can’t prepare for every possible eventuality when you’re dealing with basically flimsy vehicles hurtling through space at 300 mph–but NHRA has been a little deadly lately, and I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a safety crack-down before too long. Rest in peace, Mark Niver.

By Brian Lohnes

BangShift.com

BangShift.com is proud to announce that we will be providing free wall to wall streaming video from the 2010 Holley NHRA National Hot Rod Reunion, June 18-20, at Beech Bend Raceway in Bowling Green, Kentucky. The race will feature everything from the Mopar Hemi Challenge, to Nostalgia front engine fuel dragsters, Funny Cars, Fuel Altereds, and the incredible Cacklefest. We’ll be there, broadcasting live, for every second of it!

As we’ve done at the March Meet, California Hot Rod Reunion, and West Coast Hot Rod Association races, we’ll bring great live footage of the action from the second it starts right through the end on Sunday evening. Continue reading at Bangshift.com

By Jen Dunnaway

Editor

In conjunction with this year’s K&N Horsepower Challenge, our favorite filter company will be sending eight finalists to the races and then awarding one of them this ultra-bad brand-new Harley. The Horsepower Challenge will see the top eight NHRA Pro Stock drivers face off against each other in a series of eliminations. Each finalist K&N sends to the event will be assigned to a specific driver–and whoever’s paired up with the driver who wins the event will be the one who gets to take home the Harley. Talk about having a reason to root for your driver! Become a fan of K&N on CarDomain, and check out the K&N site to enter the contest.

By Jen Dunnaway

Editor

But miraculously, pro stock driver Vinnie Deceglie walked away from this nasty wreck during this weekend’s qualifying for the NHRA Arizona Nationals. Photo by Mark Reblias, via Facebook. Click below the jump for the action shot!

Continue reading "Upside-Down On Fire Is About As Bad As It Gets" »

By Speedhunters

Car Culture At Large

Our beloved CRX was just inducted into the NHRA museum and it is quite an honor. Thank you to Tony Thacker and the NHRA for recognizing our efforts in Sport Compact Drag Racing. Tony Thacker created a display in the west wing of the museum entitled “The Two Brothers Exhibit”. There is another two-brother racecar right next to the CRX from the 40’s and 50’s that did innovative things with a racecar in the salt-flats.

I think the people who visit the exhibit will ask the same question over and over. “Why are there fat tires up front?” I think the CRX is the only front wheel drive car in the museum. “Those crazy kids draggin backwards.” The Sport Compact Drag circuit was built on individuality. We didn’t want to do what the domestics did but do something entirely different. Continue reading at Speedhunters

By Ron Bergenholtz

By Brian Lohnes

BangShift.com

Here’s a film that’s been around a while, 60 years to be exact. It was lost to the public eye for many years, but in today’s times it has been passed around the Internet. This most recent version that we found on YouTube is the cleanest copy we’ve seen, and it’s presented full length, 27 minutes of greatness. The film we’re talking about is Ingenuity in Action, produced by Hot Rod magazine in 1959.

The YouTube title says this is from 1958, though the race depicted is the 1959 NHRA Nationals, the first year that event was held in Detroit. In 1958 it was in Oklahoma City.

In this you’ll see many huge names of the time, as well as Hot Rod writers including NHRA founder Wally Parks. It’s corny at times, but that is what makes this absolutely fantastic, the most epic tale of how it was there ever was.

Come back to this when you have time to see the full 27 minutes. It’s worth it.

By Rob Einaudi

Editor-in-Chief

Sorry for the crummy bootleg. We’re all glad Dan came out of this nasty wreck ok. More details at BangShift.com

By John Naderi

StreetFire.net

Why do the truly great ones among us always get taken prematurely? It is with a heavy heart that I report the death of Shaun Carlson. He passed away on October 4, 2009. Earlier this year Shaun was diagnosed with Brugada Syndrome and as a result he received a pacemaker. At this time it is unknown if this was a contributing factor to his death. You can read more about this and his career as an NHRA Pro Stock driver here.

But Shaun was much more than a Pro Stock driver, he was a journalist and photographer cutting his teeth at Truckin’ magazine and later helping Turbo make it’s legendary mark on the dawn of the Sport Compact era. I always wanted to shoot like him, he could make a car look absolutely beautiful in a studio decades before Photoshop replaced raw talent. Then he revealed another side busting out a single cam CRX with Jason Whitfield. This car had an unparalleled amount of fabrication and paint job that screamed mid-nineties 909 mini-truckin’ style (and I say that with the utmost admiration).

Shaun soon outgrew the journo game (he actually had more to offer the world) and he took his Nuformz fabrication shop public. His B-series block guards were revolutionary. And then came Steph’s yellow EK Civic hatch that stood the FWD drag world on its steelies. Shaun essentially built the world’s first tube-chassis FF drag car with Steph Papadakis forever changing the game. Thinking back, I must admit to being honored to see that car make its first pass at Battle in Palmdale in ’98 I believe.

In 2000 Shaun dropped a Ford Focus on the SEMA Show that was quite possibly the pinnacle of his tuning and fabrication talents. The car was eventually reskinned as an SRT-4 and was the start of a long relationship Shaun had with Mopar Racing.

Shaun was never given a real shot in Pro Stock, which may have been a good thing since – while he was no slouch behind the wheel, always able to cut a great light – his true talents are on the fabrication side of things. This led to a team ownership of the Mopar drift team where he and driver Samuel Hubinette captured two FD Championships. After trying to polish a turd in the way too-long wheelbased Charger Shaun’s latest, greatest work, a Mopar drift Challenger has yet to smoke a tire in competition. I don’t know if that car will ever run or for that matter if Samuel will run the Viper at this season’s FD finals but hope both come to pass.

I’ll miss Shaun’s infectious grin, his style, which as of late included a Mohawk and his wild ways, which we had in common. But most of all, I’ll miss his work and the impact he had on this sport, which may never be duplicated. Here’s to you, Shaun Carlson.

By Rob Einaudi

Editor-in-Chief

Here’s a recap of the NHRA drag racing action from last weekend in Dallas!

By Rob Einaudi

Editor-in-Chief

This car sold for $1,242,000 at Barrett-Jackson back in 2006. This weekend it sold for $264,000. Ouch.