What's New at The Drag Racing List

January 31, 2001 -- Drag Racing Story of the Day: Mike Preslar Ready for Action in 2001. Mike and Jerami Preslar have resigned their sponsors and are ready to hit the NHRA, IHRA, and match race trail with their 2001 Corvette Funny Car.

Drag Racing Picture of the Day: When the Tomato Had Doors -- Scotty Cannon's Corvette Pro Mod. Ernie Broughton checks in with a nice starting line shot of Scotty Cannon's ZR-1 Corvette.

Drag Racing Movie of the Week: JP's Toy! Jim Pace's Blown Gasser. Dawn Mazi grabbed this footage of Jim Pace's blown gasser doing a burnout and a run at the 1999 California Hot Rod Reunion.

Exclusive bonus photos: 2000 Flashback to NHRA Gatornationals and Denver! Les Welch has provided us with cool photos from NHRA events since about halfway through the season, but he took shots at all the early events, too! If you want to see photos from a particular NHRA event that occurred in 2001, drop us a line at bilden@draglist.com, and we will get the word to Les. In the meantime, check out his photo archives.

Draglist.com needs content! We are always searching for new stories of the day. If you have a drag racing memory you want to share with your fellow racers or drag fans, send it to bilden@draglist.com. We are trying to capture the flavor of drag racing from ALL perspectives, so yours is welcome! Don't worry too much about spelling, grammar, and that stuff. We can smooth out the rough edges. All stories and photos will be credited to you and we can include a link to your email address or to your website if you like. Let's make The Drag Racing List YOUR site -- send us a story!

Updated Draglist Links.

January 30, 2001 -- Drag Racing Story of the Day: Teen Engineering and Royal Triton Lube. Harold Bettes checks in with a funny story of young experimentation (and patient fellow crewmembers).

Drag Racing Picture of the Day: California Stud! Dave Bowman's Rear-Engined Vega Funny Car. Bob Plumer provides a shot of one of the most unique funny cars ever.

January 29, 2001 -- Drag Racing Story of the Day: A Ride to the Top Fuel Finals. Jim Harnsberger provides a blow by blow account of his runner up performance at the 1971 NHRA Summernationals. 

Drag Racing Picture of the Day: Jumpin' Jack Flash '40 Willys. Anni Valder grabbed a shot of Kevin Moore's immaculate doorslammer at Avon Park, GB.

January 28, 2001 -- Drag Racing Lists updated! The Drag Lists have all been updated! We have 3,000 new entries, both new and old. Thanks to Danny White, Steve Klemetti, and hundreds of our readers who have sent email updates. We will update the Match Race Madness game databases this week.

Drag Racing Story of the Day: Wild Willie and the Terenzio Bros. Anthony Terenzio tells how Wild Willie Borsch came to the aid of his fellow altered racers at the Gators one year.

Drag Racing Picture of the Day: John Force Lays Down a Fogbank in 1996. Andy "Tog" Rogers caught the champ on a patented HUGE burnout in 1996. 

Drag Racing Movie of the Week: Pro Mod Bumper Cars. Dutch Pro Mod racer Henri Joosten provided this cool footage of him and another racer getting a little close for comfort at Santa Pod.

Updated Desperately Seeking pages! These guys are looking for old drag cars, friends, or info. Can you help?

Bret Kepner: World Record Holder! From Danny White: Draglist Executive Field Editor Bret Kepner set a national record in HF/Stock Automatic with an '82 Ford Escort. He set the record at 17.78, 74.82 mph on an 18.60 index in Orlando. Danny says, "I hope he had fun tearing that thing down!" Bret credits Paul Wright and Brian Olsen Paint & Body. Congratulations, Mr. Dirt!

Exclusive bonus photos: 2000 Flashback to NHRA Dallas (Spring)! Les Welch has provided us with cool photos from NHRA events since about halfway through the season, but he took shots at all the early events, too! If you want to see photos from a particular NHRA event that occurred in 2001, drop us a line at bilden@draglist.com, and we will get the word to Les. In the meantime, check out his photo archives.

January 27, 2001 -- Drag Racing Story of the Day: The Mighty King Camaro. David Ray tells the tale of the loudest fuel funny car of them all.

Drag Racing Picture of the Day: The "Rakers" Fuel Dragster. Steve Gibbs with a photo and text about one of the tough regular fuel competitors at San Gabriel.

January 26, 2001 -- Drag Racing Story of the Day: Push Starting on the Dry Lakes. Dave Williams tells about his escapes in pushing 'em off on the salt.

Drag Racing Picture of the Day: Classic S&M -- Sox & Martin's Super Stock Cuda. shows off more cool photo art -- this one of perhaps the ultimate doorslammer team of all time.

January 25, 2001 -- Drag Racing Story of the Day: Why Don't More Spectators Race? Tom Worthington wonders how folks can watch such an exciting sport without taking the family car out "just once."

Drag Racing Picture of the Day: Austin Power! Jr. Thompson's Blown Gasser. YEAHHH, baby! Paul Hutchins provides a great pit shot of Junior Thompson's Austin gasser getting some between rounds maintenance.

January 24, 2001 -- Drag Racing Story of the Day: My First Time Driving a Dragster. Travis Perrenot tells about his first ride in the family's gas dragster. He thought he would set the world on fire, but...

Drag Racing Picture of the Day: Jungle Fire! Jim Liberman on fire at Englishtown. Art Cimilluca passed along this great Norman Blake shot of the Jungle Man burning one up  at E-Town.

January 23, 2001 -- Drag Racing Story of the Day: My Ride with the Wild Man, Wild Willie Borsch. Robert Borsch tells of a touching late night cruise with his famous dad.

Drag Racing Picture of the Day: The Prospector Working Out! Jay Mageau's '57 Chevy Funny Car. Jay Mageau provided this D. Sitko shot of his amazing Northwest funny car.

January 22, 2001 -- Drag Racing Story of the Day: Flamin' Frank Shoots the Ditch at San Fernando. Tom Jobe with a funny yet scary tale of Frank Pedregon's legendary humor.

Drag Racing Picture of the Day: Mickey Thompson's Dragmaster, 1961. Pete Garramone got this shot of M/T's machine getting some between rounds maintenance.

January 21, 2001 -- Early Don Garlits Q&A. Bill Pitts asks Jim Hill what the story was with the three seemingly identical cars that Don Garlits brought to Bakersfield '65.

Drag Racing Picture of the Day: Mike Halloran's Vega, 1972. Tom West offers up this amazing photo of the nitro independent. Wonderful clarity and composition on this black and white classic. Thanks, Tom!

Drag Racing Movie of the Week: Jet Cars at Night! Paul Rogers got right between two jet dragsters on the starting line to bring us this unique perspective.

January 20, 2001 -- Drag Racing Story of the Day: No Electronics Means No Trans Brakes, Too. Canadian racer Bill Arps says No Electronics classes should be just that. Do you agree or disagree? Send us your response at bilden@draglist.com and we will add it to his story.

Drag Racing Picture of the Day: Dream Weaver -- John Weaver's Federal Mogul Funny Car. Robert Briggs captured the Division 7 hitter at Sonoma 2000.

January 19, 2001 -- Drag Racing Story of the Day: Female Racer Beats Challenges on Two Fronts. Ford racer Cindy Crawford catches us up on her 2001 plans.

Drag Racing Picture of the Day: Top Fuel Night Qualifying in the UK. Europe's famous Andy "Tog" Rogers joins us with a super night shot of Tommy Moller's Swedish Top Fuel entry at night.

January 18, 2001 -- Drag Racing Story of the Day: The Surfers Meet Kent Fuller - The Strong, Silent Type. Tom Jobe recalls the day the chassis builder extraordinaire Kent Fuller fixed The Surfers' broken chassis and gave them all a ride in his street roadster -- all for FREE, and all without saying one word!

Drag Racing Picture of the Day: Jim Murphy at the Hit! Nostalgia Top Fuel Dragster. Mark Hovsepian contributes one of his spectacular nostalgia dragster photos from the 2000 March Meet at Bakersfield.

January 17, 2001 -- Drag Racing Story of the Day: The Greek's Down Track Wheelies on Demand. Ron Johnson remembers The Greek pulling the wheels at will in the lights. But how did he do it?

Drag Racing Picture of the Day: provides a shot of one of the rarest funny cars in history -- the original Revellution CUDA.

January 16, 2001 -- Drag Racing Story of the Day: Kapiris Flies with Roots Blower in Western Australia. Stu Bond reports that the Aussie Top Doorslammers were rolling this past weekend and Peter Kapiris became the world's fastest Roots blown doorslammer.

Drag Racing Picture of the Day: John Hagen's Super Stock Plymouth. Like the rest of Chrysler's toughest Pro Stock campaigners, John Hagen cut his teeth in Super Stock. Pete Garramone captured John's great looking machine at a Colorado Division 5 event.

January 15, 2001 -- We're number 62! We keep climbing the ladder on the list of the Internet's top auto sites. This week we came in at our highest rank ever, the big number 62. Not bad, when you consider the hundreds of thousands of auto sites out there. To see the rest of the Top 100, click here: 100 Hot Auto Sites. Thanks to all our readers! bp

Drag Racing Story of the Day: Vince McMahon, Where Are You? Funny Car Match Racing Needs a Savior. TAFC match racer Bill Naves lays down an open invitation for a return to fuel funny car match racing.

Drag Racing Picture of the Day: How Many Cubes? A Massive Jon Kaase Ford Pro Stock Motor. James Morgan with a photo and words about the effect of these monsters with gasoline and carbs.

RP Videos retires. We got the following message from Ron Pollock of RP Videos the other day: "We would like to let you know that we will no longer have our videos for sale. We will be retiring in March and plan on spending time on the road. Would appreciate you removing it from your site. We would like to thank you for posting it and for the orders." As of today, all references to RP Videos have been removed from www.draglist.com. If you got a chance to get one of Ron's tapes, you were lucky! Happy retirement, Ron!

January 14, 2001 -- Drag Racing Story of the Day: Is it Time for a New Tournament Structure for Drag Racing? Doug Dornbos goes over all the potential options for making drag racing more entertaining and fair. This also appears as Doug's latest Dornbos Reviews column...

Drag Racing Picture of the Day: Neon Camel '94 -- The Smokin' Joe's Funny Car. Ron Dilley serves up more tasty photo art.

Drag Racing Movie of the Week: Action from the World's Newest Strip! Peter MacGregor shows us one of the first races on the brand new Kwinana Motorplex in Western Australia.

January 13, 2001 -- Drag Racing Story of the Day: Hot Rod Furniture. Robb Lowe shows us some hot rod furniture that would look good in anyone's den. Just bring money...

Drag Racing Picture of the Day: China Syndrome -- Al Hoffman Burns it Down. James Morgan shows Al Hoffman torching another one in his trademark days.

January 12, 2001 -- Drag Racing Story of the Day: Drive 'Em Like Ya Hate 'Em -- Pat Foster's Well-Worn Funny Car Rides. Pat tells us how he'd do WHATEVER it took to get it down the track or to get the crowd on his side.

Drag Racing Picture of the Day: Super Force! Is this the new Castrol Funny Car? Ron Dilley's been playin' in PhotoShop again!

January 11, 2001 -- Howdy, folks. Got a little more rest and did a little more cleanup work on the site last night and this morning. Yeah, we are still showing "doubles" on the banners at the bottom of the page, but most everything else has been cleaned up and all the links are working. Please drop us a line at bilden@draglist.com if you see anything we missed. I think we are back on track, and we have a new look as a bonus!

Drag Racing Story of the Day: Rocket Racing with Slammin' Sammy. New contributor but old friend Peter "The Madbrit" Broadribb checks in with some amazing facts about the quickest man in drag racing history.

Drag Racing Picture of the Day: The Golden Greek in 1960 -- Chris Karamesines' Chizler. Pete Garramone grabbed this shot of The Greek's fuel dragster at Kansas City's AHRA Nats.

January 10, 2001 -- Laughin' just to keep from cryin'... We got our software fixed. It turns out that there was a problem in our Windows 98 registry that messed us up pretty badly. We finally got that cleaned out and the website software reloaded, but in doing so, most of our formatting was lost. Despite a Tuesday to Wednesday all-nighter, we ran out of time to fix everything. 

You may see some pages that don't have the new formatting, and some of the banner links on the left and bottom of each page don't work. We will get those things fixed tonight (after a well-deserved nap!)

Drag Racing Story of the Day: Hot Wheels Big, Up Close, and On Fire! New contributor Chuck Bills tells us about a cherished boyhood memory -- the Hot Wheels funny car team blazing by on the top end at Seattle!

Drag Racing Picture of the Day: Haulin' the Groceries! Tami Brander's Pro Mod Station Wagon. Anni Valder checks in with a great rear view of Tami's neat blown Ford wagon.

January 9, 2001 -- The meltdown continues. We are still working from another computer in our home network (can you say the best investment we've made?) The folks in Microsoft Dallas are still working on what is turning out to be their toughest case in a while. In the meantime, I have to go to work during the day and that's hampering efforts a little... We tried some things last night, but no good. We'll keep working. Here's our latest offerings...

Drag Racing Story of the Day: Race Us the Real Way. Jeremy Grist recalls his grandfather's tale of a meeting between blown gasser racers. Thanks to Rhonda of the Junior Thompson site. The story includes a link to a great Pete Millar cartoon.

Drag Racing Picture of the Day: Scott Weis - Corvette on Fuel! Ron Dilley with a cool late afternoon photo of the gusty fuel funny car independent. 

January 7 and 8, 2001 -- Meltdown! We lost our primary computer at draglist.com late Saturday night! We have the front line folks at Microsoft stumped and they are bumping our problem up to the engineers on Monday morning. This caused us to miss our daily update for the first time ever on Sunday, January 7. We are including both updates in this Monday morning update. We were able to work around the problem to some extent by accessing the main computer from another computer on our network -- hope this works.

Some of the inter-page links won't work, but all pages should be available from our home page. Here are links to our stories and photos for January 7 and 8. We will clean up the site as soon as we can get our primary computer back online. Have a great week! Bill

Drag Racing Stories of the Day:
01/08/01 - 'Blood Did It. Kenny Youngblood was as big a star to artists and wanna-be artists as funny car racers were to other fans.
01/07/01 - Steve Collison Photo Tribute at Hot Rod Nostalgia Online. Dave Wallace and the gang at HRN have put up a great tribute page to our late friend.

Drag Racing Pictures of the Day:
01/08/01 - John Paris Takes a Tumble. Norman Blake captured John's legendary crash at E-town. We can look now because fortunately, John came back to race again.
01/07/01 - Jeff Brozovich's Trim Parts '37 Chevy Nitro Coupe. Ernie Broughton caught up with Broz and his gorgeous purple Chevy in the staging lanes a few years ago.

January 6, 2001 -- Drag Racing Story of the Day: Save Our Auto Mechanics Vocational Courses! Skip Murray reports that they are about to abolish Auto Mechanics at her son's VoTech school. She's asking for help in the form of letters to take to a meeting Tuesday night, January 9. Please help!

Drag Racing Picture of the Day: On the Road of Life... (with a blown VW Bug). Gonzo provides a photo of a VW Bug with PLENTY of "Farfugnugen."

Drag Racing Movie of the Week: 300 MPH Barrier Shattered in Australia! Bret Kepner provides the stats and Carl Witt captured on video the feat Australian drag racing fans have been waiting for -- the first 300 mph pass on Australian soil.

Exclusive bonus photos: 2000 Flashback! NHRA Pros at Brainerd and Joliet! Les Welch has provided us with cool photos from NHRA events since about halfway through the season, but he took shots at all the early events, too! If you want to see photos from a particular NHRA event that occurred in 2001, drop us a line at bilden@draglist.com, and we will get the word to Les. In the meantime, check out his photo archives.

The FREE Match Race Madness PC game has been updated with new racers and times for the complete 2000 season! Click HERE to download it!

Updated Draglist Links.

Don Montgomery's Hot Rod Books! We are extremely proud to offer you Don Montgomery's outstanding hot rod books. Don's books set the standard for high quality automotive books. These beautiful hard cover books make the perfect gift for the hot rod or dragster fan in your life! Well written and packed with hard to find information and hundreds of photos, Don's books "take you back" to the heyday of American Performance cars. A racer himself, Don captures the "inside scoop" on the history of the men and women who drove these fascinating machines. Click HERE for more information or to order Don's books.

The Drag Racing List Souvenir Store is open! That's right! We have plastered The Drag Racing List logo (seen in the upper left hand corner of each page at draglist.com) on a variety of products! Show your friends that you KNOW what you are talking about in drag racing -- 'cause you frequent the site that has all the info!

There are shop aprons, caps, clocks, golf shirts, Tee Shirts for kids and adults, magnets, buttons, mouse pads, mugs, picture key rings, sweatshirts, tank tops, tote bags, and visors! Basically, we waved at things. If they didn't wave back, we slapped a draglist.com logo on 'em! Check out our Draglist Souvenir Store for a neat collection of affordable gifts.

January 5, 2001 -- NITRO CHAT tonight at www.dragster.cc! Paul Fink has put together a great Nitro Chat week at his site. Here's the lineup:

Jan. 4th  9:00-10:00pm  Paul Romine
Jan. 5th  9:00-10:00pm  "Jungle" Pam Hardy

Paul reports that Tony Schumacher and Dean Skuza will also probably be scheduled soon.

Drag Racing Story of the Day: Not Once, But Twice in the Boston Shaker Funny Car. Don Roberts was there and ready to drive, but where was Kosty and the 'Shaker?

Drag Racing Picture of the Day: Blair's Speed Shop Camaro Funny Car -- Front Grille Optional! Paul Hutchins captures the thundering Chevy in the pits.

January 4, 2001 -- Pat Foster stars on Junkyard Wars! Pat Foster did a super job judging the dragster entries on The Learning Channel (TLC) show "Junkyard Wars" last night. A surprise for me was the appearance of Maryland International Raceway racer and chassis builder Rob Hamilton, who I get to see weekly during the summer! If you missed it, check out the TLC website for future play dates:  http://tlc.discovery.com/tlcpages/junkyard/junkyard.html

Drag Racing Story of the Day: Pat Foster Judges Junkyard Wars. Pat's big screen debut was last night on The Learning Channel (TLC). He did a great job. Yesterday, Mike Berry of the Wichita Eagle did a story on their hometown boy. Here is the story, reprinted with Mike's and The Eagle's permission.

Drag Racing Picture of the Day: Steineggar & Eshenbaugh in Pencil. Chris Stinson supplied a terrific pencil drawing from a Bill Turney photo of the fuel dragster naturals.

January 3, 2001 -- Pat Foster is on Junkyard Wars TONIGHT! Here's a DO NOT MISS TV program -- Pat Foster will appear as a judge on The Learning Channel (TLC) show "Junkyard Wars" on January 3rd, 2001. The two-hour show is on at 8:00pm (CST); Pat's segment is called "Hot Rods." Draglist.com is extremely proud to have nominated Pat as a judge on this show and to have provided the video clip used during his introduction. Set those VCRs! Pat says, "It should be a good chuckle to start the New Year... Enjoy!"

Drag Racing Story of the Day: Funny Car Rocks the Rose Bowl. Darr Hawthorne gives the stats on the AAA-sponsored Funny Car float that blew everybody's mind at the Rose Bowl parade.

Drag Racing Picture of the Day: Skillful Hands -- Outstanding Fuel Altered Model Car. Gonzo provides a photo of Criss Webb's immaculate fuel altered model.

January 2, 2001 -- We're number 70! We're number 70! OK, so that's usually not too much to brag about, but we are very pleased to have hit our highest finish yet on the list of 100 Hot Auto Sites. We aren't ready to take on GM, Ford, Chrysler, Toyota, or Microsoft, but it sure is neat being ranked up there with the Top 100 auto sites! We just had our biggest month ever, with nearly 95,000 hits! I'm working hard to hit the big 100K in monthly hits. Thanks again to all our readers! bp

Drag Racing Story of the Day: Tommy Joe and Double Trouble. Gonzo treats us to another hilarious Tommy Joe Cauldwell tale. 

Drag Racing Picture of the Day: Johnny Rocca's Ironhorse '49 Mercury. James Morgan with a nice shot of Troy Critchley in Johnny Rocca's car. James asks, who will run the NHRA Pro Mod races in 2001?

January 1, 2001 -- Happy New Year to all our friends at The Drag Racing List! We have had a fantastic year of sharing drag racing memories with you. I hope everyone has a relaxing holiday season, surrounded by friends, family, health, and happiness. Thanks for making us a part of your life. The Pratt Family -- Bill, Denise, Jason, and Emily

Drag Racing Story of the Day: How to Find What You Want at www.draglist.com. This one's on me. Just a refresher course in finding the information you want at our modest website.

Drag Racing Picture of the Day: San Gabriel "Heavyweights." Steve Gibbs with shots of three of the toughest hombres to run at San Gabriel in 1962.