What's New at The Drag Racing List

January 31, 2002 - New columns! We are proud to report that two of drag racing's prolific story tellers have taken up permanent residence at draglist.com in the form of regular columnists! Bob's Berserko Lounge has a new address and it's right here at draglist.com! You can catch Bob Doerrer's writings at least once a week. Hemi Hunter's Top Fuel Tales also finds a permanent weekly home here as Gary Peters' outstanding stories continue to get rave reviews. Both of these guys and their work will be available from the front page from here on out. Welcome aboard, Bob and Gary!

Event Report: Tucson and Other Winter Happenings. Flyin' Phil Elliott with a behind the scenes look at who, what, when, and how at the NHRA 2002 Season Warm-up at Tucson. Pete Gemar adds photos.

Drag Racing Story of the Day: The Terenzio Bros. Hustler: The Forgotten Toy Funny Car. Did you know there was a Terenzio Bros. toy funny car in the '70s? I had one, but they were gone just as quickly as they appeared. Geno Terenzio tells why...

Drag Racing Picture of the Day: The Racing Head Service U/Stock Olds in 1970. Bill Peters captured this '50s Lead Sled that held the U/Stock record at the time. Boss, Daddy-O!

Drag Racing Movie of the Week: Cannonball Final: Fuel Funny Car Versus Alcohol Funny Car! Sharkman caught this battle between John Spuffard's nitro flopper and Lex Joon's upstart alky machine at the Cannonball race at Santa Pod.

January 30, 2002 - Drag Racing Story of the Day: Mendy Fry's Junior Fuel Plans for 2002. Mendy Fry and her husband Pete Harris are breaking out on their own after a successful 2001 run with Ron Johnson's Junior Fuel team. Here's Mendy's progress report on preparations for the 2002 season.

Drag Racing Picture of the Day: High Art: Basic Bob's Drag Bike Sculpture. Basic Bob did this amazing drag bike sculpture using ordinary scraps of metal.

January 29, 2002 - Drag Racing Story of the Day: Swamp People from the East. Fred Vosk tells a funny tale about Don Garlits and Connie Swingle in their somewhat less than refined days...

Drag Racing Picture of the Day: Low Buck Floppers from the Northeast. Art Cimilluca sent in his and Bill Schaible's shots of some fun and relatively inexpensive funny cars, Dave Sano's 'Vette and John Cerchio's Beretta.

January 28, 2002 - Danny White Gets Married! I'm proud to announce that my good friend and our stalwart Research Editor Danny White got married on Friday, January 25. Danny wed the former Gena Renee' Means. Both are avid drag racers so the only question is: who gets the keys to the race car? Congratulations, Danny and Gena! Best wishes for much health and happiness! bp

Drag Racing Story of the Day: MIR Tower Demolition: The End of an Era. Saturday saw the demolition of the venerable Maryland International Raceway tower, my summer home for the last 14 years. Photo sequence by Stephen Jones.

Drag Racing Picture of the Day: The Amazing 1/2 Scale, Hemi Powered, Nitro Burning 1937 Dodge Pro-Mod Street Machine. Berserko Bob Doerrer spied this little jewel on his way back from a gig and had to stop to check it out.

Story Update: The 2002 National Time Trials - NHRA Pros Test at Firebird. Flyin' Phil Elliott with an analysis and review of the NHRA's first test session this weekend at Firebird Raceway. Chris Stinson adds a few photos!

January 27, 2002 - Drag Racing Story of the Day: Let Freedom Ring: The Freedom Machine Top Fuel Dragster. Top Fuel veteran Don Roberts provides a short history of one of his favorite rides.

Drag Racing Picture of the Day: Ben Beneke's Top Fuel Harley Motorcycle in 2000. Anni Valder caught up with the two stroke terror at Shakespeare County Raceway two seasons ago.

Drag Racing Movie of the Week: Chuck Haynes Sets New Australian Jet Dragster Records. Luke Nieuwhof watched Chuck Haynes break the Australian jet records three times last weekend and he caught the event on video.

January 26, 2002 - Drag Racing Story of the Day: Show Me the Money, Revisited: 2000 NHRA Earnings. After the response we received for his 2001 NHRA driver earnings report, Steve Klemetti went back and did the 2000 season as a comparison.

Drag Racing Picture of the Day: Nitro at Night: Dobbo Nails a Perfect Light. Cheryl Greene sent up this awesome Jon Gall shot of Allan Dobson leaving the line perfectly: green light's on, front wheels are up, and header flames are roof high!

January 25, 2002 - Drag Racing Story of the Day: It's Time to Create Nostalgia Pro Stock. Danny White says it's time to bring back to pre-tube frame, pre-Lenco Pro Stock cars. Here's an initial set of rules to get the discussion rolling.

Drag Racing Picture of the Day: Micke Kagered: 2001 Swedish Top Fuel Champ. Andy "Tog" Rogers offers up a great shot and some background on the alcohol funny car veteran's awesome rookie year in Top Fuel.

January 24, 2002 - Drag Racing Story of the Day: Up to Our Butts in Gators and Heroes. Gary Peters has another great Hemi Hunter Top Fuel Tale, this one of the team's trip to the 1972 GatorNationals.

Drag Racing Picture of the Day: Smax Smith Gets All Four Wheels off the Ground. Aidan Smith sent in this Sharkman shot of dad Smax going for a little tumble in his Top Alky car a few years ago.

January 23, 2002 - Drag Racing Story of the Day: Purp's Adventure: Mega Bucks Meets No Bucks. Laurie "Purple Girl" Watts went down to Phoenix to test with the big boys this weekend. Her little purple digger got plenty of stares from the pros and ran its career best.

Drag Racing Picture of the Day: Robert Koper's Dutch Monte Carlo Pro Mod. Yvon Bakker sent this shot over from the Netherlands, proving that the drag racing bug is infesting the entire world!

January 22, 2002 - Drag Racing Story of the Day: The 2002 National Time Trials - NHRA Pros Test at Firebird. Flyin' Phil Elliott checks in with his first Draglist story -- an analysis and review of the NHRA's first test session last weekend at Firebird Raceway.

Drag Racing Picture of the Day: Model Showcase: The Blair's Speed Shop Camaro. Wendell Sowers builds some of the nicest funny car models you'll ever see. Here's his rendition of the Blair's Speed Shop car.

January 21, 2002 - Major Upgrades to Site Layout. We had a very busy weekend, making changes to nearly every major page at draglist.com! We are especially happy with the way our new home page looks -- we hope you agree! There are too many changes to mention them all, but here are a few highlights: We have fixed long-awaited racer entry form. We have added most of the photos to Ray Ray's Drag Photos (instead of just links to the photos). We have updated the Drag Racing Calendar for the 2002 season. We have pages that describe how to Contribute and how to Contact us. We have selected a new Guestbook (drop us a line). We have added some new info to our Welcome page.

New Columns and Columnists! We also added a new section this weekend, the Racer's Scrapbook. Racing veteran Ron Pellegrini thought we should begin a section where racers could show off mementos from their racing careers. We will be showing time slips, patches, programs, records, etc. You know, stuff that goes in scrapbooks! Racers, start looking around for stuff to scan and send in!

We are also extremely pleased to report that veteran photojournalist Flyin' Phil Elliott will be joining the draglist.com staff beginning this week! Phil will be writing a regular column and also will make available many of his old columns from Super Stock Magazine and elsewhere. Phil's first contributions will be to cover the weekend's NHRA pro test sessions. Welcome aboard, Flyin' Phil!

Drag Racing Story of the Day: Global Info-Links Australian Nationals Amongst Best Ever. Rob Oberg provides a full report from Australia's first national event of the year.

Drag Racing Picture of the Day: Berserko Bob: What A Guy Won't Do To Win $100. "Berserko Bob" Doerrer shows one reason he got his nickname with an outrageous display at a New Jersey mall. We had to retouch the photo, but the story was too good to pass up!

January 20, 2002 - Drag Racing Story of the Day: Ben Bray Wins the Australian Nationals Top Doorslammer Title at 17. Rob Oberg reports that disaster turned into surprising victory this weekend as a non-qualifying Victor Bray watched 17 year old Ben win the Australian Nationals via killer holeshots.

Drag Racing Picture of the Day: Laurie Cannister's "Girl Power" Camaro IHRA Pro Funny Car. Vic Cooke got this shot of Laurie launching on a stout 5.88 pass at Norwalk 2001.

Drag Racing Movie of the Week: Down Under Top Comp: Doorslammer vs. Funny Car! Luke Nieuwhof was on hand December 29 when Robin Judd's Studebaker Top Doorslammer faced John Napier's alcohol funny car.

January 19, 2002 - Drag Racing Story of the Day: Early '60s Fuel Racing and Heat Treating. Harold Bettes tells about his first nitro fueled flathead dragster and his innovative way of heat treating parts.

Drag Racing Picture of the Day: Bracket Chevelle Chassis Twist to the Max. David Whitewolf sent in this shot of a Gene Fulton powered Chevelle trying to twist itself in two.

January 18, 2002 - Drag Racing Story of the Day: Postcards from England: More Vacation Notes from the NHRA World Finals. John Hutchinson provides more impressions of his trip from Gateshead, England, to Pomona, California, for the 2001 NHRA World Finals.

Drag Racing Picture of the Day: Cook Bros. & Jahns' Three-Wheeled Dragster at San Gabriel 1963. Troy Cagle sent along this shot of the driver totally exposed and totally boiling the hides in this radical machine.

January 17, 2002 - Drag Racing Story of the Day: NHRA 2Day to Debut on ESPN2 on Sunday Mornings. NHRA Communications reports that drag racing fans will get a weekly drag racing show in a consistent time slot.

Drag Racing Picture of the Day: Ron Potter's Golden Nugget Mustang Fuel Funny Car. caught the seldom seen Golden Nugget car in the staging lanes at the '72 Springnationals. 

January 16, 2002 - Drag Racing Story of the Day: Dunn Added to NHRA Broadcast Team for 2002 ESPN Telecasts. NHRA Communications reports that Top Fuel driver Mike Dunn has found a home in the ESPN broadcasting booth for 2002.

Drag Racing Picture of the Day: The Magic Muffler AA/Fuel Altered Gets Vertical! Tom West was in the right place as usual and caught the Magic Muffler AA/FA trying to cut loose its bonds with the planet.

January 15, 2002 - Drag Racing Story of the Day: No Racing This Saturday: The Hemi Hunter Livens Up a Car Dealership Grand Opening. Gary Peters explains how the Hemi Hunter fueler livened up a VW Dealership opening through header flames and whiskey sours.

Drag Racing Picture of the Day: John Zappia's Top Doorslammer Powerstand. Stu sent in this Luke Nieuwhof shot of the West Australian Top Doorslammer veteran getting airborne with his boss Holden Monaro.

January 14, 2002 - Buster Couch passes. We are sad to report that legendary NHRA starter Buster Couch has passed away. Our deepest sympathies to all who knew him. Here is more information from Steve Gibbs:

This may not be news to some of you, but I'm sorry to say that we lost Buster Couch this weekend. He died at home, in his easy chair, some time Friday night or Saturday morning. His health had not been good in recent times, but it still comes as a shock.

Buster was one of the most unforgettable characters that ever walked this earth, and while I am saddened by his passing, I can't help but smile at the many good memories of the times we spent together, both on and off the job. He was definitely an American original.

Buster's son Mike would like everyone to be aware of the funeral arrangements.

Services - Wednesday, Jan. 16, at 2:00 p.m.
Horis - Ward Funeral Home
Rockdale Chapel
1999 Highway 138
Conyers, GA 30013
770-918-8851

If you would like to send a card:

Mike Couch
671 Providence Club Drive
Monroe, GA 30656

Drag Racing Story of the Day: Taking a Walk on the Wild Side: New British Top Fuel Effort for 2002. Jeremy Cookson reports that ace fuel tuner and former "Fire Up" magazine publisher John Wright and Top Methanol rookie Darryl Bradford are going nitro racing this year.

Drag Racing Picture of the Day: Frank Jonkman's Nitromare '72 Mustang Fuel Funny Car. Joe Barrett caught Frank's awesome  retro fuel flopper on a wild ride.

Updated Drag Racing Lists! We have updated all the drag racing lists. This wraps up all the racers for 2001. Racers, if your best times are not on the lists, please let us know ASAP so we can get you updated for 2001. The next lists we publish will have the first of the 2002 racers on them. Check out the Drag Lists page for all the new stats and rankings!

Updated Match Race Madness Game! When the Drag Lists get updated, the MRM game is not far behind! We did it all on the same day, so retro-gamers, go get it! And remember, we have fixed the bug that plagued us throughout 2001. Once again you can race your "fantasy" car against all the stars! You can download the ORIGINAL two-out-of-three match race computer game HERE! 

January 13, 2002 - Drag Racing Story of the Day: Berserko Bob - Jet Car Flag Starter. We take great pride in welcoming the inimitable "Berserko Bob" Doerrer to the family of draglist.com contributors. For funny car racers and fans of the 1970s, the name Berserko Bob was synonymous with drag racing FUN on the East Coast. Here's a story and Norman Blake photo of Bob FLAG STARTING two jet dragsters!

Drag Racing Picture of the Day: Buster Couch in the Winner's Circle. Pete Keller sent in this photo of Buster sharing in the celebration after the Van Iderstine, Young, and Marshall team won Top Fuel at Sanair 1972.

Drag Racing Movie of the Week: The Prospector '57 Chevy Funny Car on the Loose! Cheryl Ogonoski grabbed this footage of Jay Mageau getting out of shape in Canada's wildest '57 Chevy, starting in one lane and ending in another.

January 12, 2002 - Drag Racing Story of the Day: Will Angelle Race for the Championship in 2002? Jerry Battle reports the NHRA Pro Stock Motorcycle champ still does not have funding for the 2002 season, possibly preventing a title defense.

Drag Racing Picture of the Day: Original Plans: The Mickey Thompson Revelleader Grand Am.  Possibly the rarest thing we've ever shown, Ron Pellegrini's honors us with his original drawing for Mickey Thompson's revolutionary funny car. In this version, Ron has submitted the drawing to M/T, who has returned it with comments. For this special drawing, we have posted it both in our standard 468 pixel format and FULL SIZE.

January 11, 2002 - Drag Racing Story of the Day: Pat Foster: What the CHRR Means to Me. The NHRA has just announced that the 11th Annual California Hot Rod Reunion will take place at Bakersfield Raceway on October 4, 5, and 6, 2002. We went back into our files and pulled out this Pat Foster piece written just before the 2001 race in which the veteran driver/builder/tuner describes his feelings about the event.

Drag Racing Picture of the Day: Bob Gibson's Tom ' n' Jerry Nostalgia Funny Car. Aussie photographer Steve Bibby was on hand at the 2000 NHRA World Finals when Bob Gibson's awesome resto flopper caught his attention.

January 10, 2002 - Drag Racing Story of the Day: Southern Fuel Coupes Looking for New Members. Bob Gettys reports that the unique funny car, pro mod, and altered circuit is looking to increase their ranks and are offering free membership to do it.

Drag Racing Picture of the Day: Patrick Wikstrom's Blown Pro Mod Camaro at Night. Sharkman caught Patrick's awesome Euro Pro Mod during a burnout at dusk.

January 09, 2002 - Drag Racing Story of the Day: Top Fuel Oil Burners. Gary Peters explains what happens when some Top Fuel racers need a blower unit for a heated garage and there's a used supercharger hanging around...

Drag Racing Picture of the Day: Tribute to the Kings: The Sox & Martin Duster. Ron Dilley shot the restored S&M Pro Stock Duster back in 1995. It shows just how good Pro Stock cars once looked.

January 08, 2002 - Draglist Links fully migrated to LinksManager! Farewell to our old friend LinkBank, who served us loyally for many years and allowed us to become the Internet's biggest drag racing links site at over 10,000 entries. Unfortunately, LinkBank's parent company is ceasing operations this month. I reviewed several replacement options and decided on the LinksManager service. Under the leadership of LinksManager president Joel Lesser, the LinksManager team worked ALL WEEKEND writing custom scripts to import my 10,000 links and 50 categories into their system. The rush was on because I did not know when the LinkBank servers would be turned off. Thanks to Joel and his dedicated team, the Draglist Links now are fully integrated into the LinksManager system with no loss of functionality. In fact, LinksManager offers a better search capability and many other neat features. I'll be talking about these more in the near future. For now, check out the NEW Draglist Links at http://www.draglist.com/links/links.html.

Drag Racing Story of the Day: 1st Annual HangoverFest a Chilling Success. OK, we've seen New Years Day drag races before, but at CORDOVA? Yep, Tazz reports on drag racing at 15 degrees farenheight.

Drag Racing Picture of the Day: Kathy Lloyd's Flathead Powered Nostalgia Dragster. Robert Briggs provides a shot of Kathy's Nostalgia Eliminator III digger at the Goodguys 2001 Nitro Nationals.

January 07, 2002 - Happy New Year from draglist.com! Hope you all had a great holiday season. We've been busy here ever since. My last day at work was Friday, 12/28. I'm an IT consultant in the D.C. area, so the next job isn't too far away. While the resumes circulate, I'm taking this short break to try to catch up on things long neglected in my home office. 

I am busy updating Draglist.com for 2002. You may already have noticed some minor cosmetic changes. The thing is, MINOR cosmetic changes to Draglist.com involve changing about 1,800 web pages! I also just found out that my LinkBank service provider, which allows me to maintain 10,000 drag and auto links at Draglist.com, is about to go belly up. I'm desperately copying all that work from their servers and working with a new service provider to upload them before the current servers go cold. I also updated edrags.com to make it easier to use and easier to see. There are a lot more sites there now, including several photo sites. Check it out at www.edrags.com.

Let's see, what else? Oh yeah, Danny White just sent me about a thousand new updates for the drag lists, so let me get busy on them. By the way, Danny just got engaged, folks. He's too shy to mention it, so I will. Congrats, pal! Luckily, he's turned her on to drag racing (she even races now and then), so it looks like I'm safe for Draglist research for the immediate future, at least!

Anyway, that's what we're doing. What are YOU all doing for 2002? Drop us a line with your plans. We will do our best to pull together some stories of the day based on our readers racing plans for this year. Keep in touch! bp

Drag Racing Story of the Day: Injected Nitro Front Motor Diggers in NHRA Comp: Low Buck? As a counterpoint to Stu Sandhaus's call for Injected Nitro cars in NHRA Comp, current Junior Fuel dragster racer Ron Johnson wonders how affordable they could be based on his current expenses with an alcohol car.

Drag Racing Picture of the Day: John Force vs. Tom McEwen at Sanair 1986. Rob Potter took this shot of the John's Jolly Rancher Cavalier lining up to face Tom's Coors Corvette.

January 06, 2002 - Drag Racing Story of the Day: Atlantic Seaboard Rat -- The McClains Have Nitro and WILL Travel. Stephen McClain and the Tri-State Racing team have a Chevy AA/Fuel Dragster and they want to run at YOUR track this year.

Drag Racing Picture of the Day: Del and Frank Do Doughnuts -- The CSK Mini Funny Cars. Rick Menges offers up another entertaining drag racing cartoon.

Drag Racing Movie of the Week: The Greene Machine Fuel Funny Car Blows a Slick at 275! Luke Nieuwhof sent this awesome video footage that captures the Greene Machine funny car as Allan Dobson blows a slick, but saves it.

January 05, 2002 - Drag Racing Story of the Day: Pat Foster: The Driver and Builder as Tuner. Pat Foster was one of the greatest drivers and chassis builders in drag racing history, but he also did a lot of tuning. Pat fills us in on this little-known portion of his career.

Drag Racing Picture of the Day: John Denski's Dodge Challenger Nostalgia Funny Car. John Denski is putting back together the former Williams and Bohl alky machine from the Midwest. Can anyone put him in contact with Williams and Bohl or provide any info on the car?

January 04, 2002 - Drag Racing Story of the Day: Thursday Nights at the Nitro Garage. Gary Peters tells how all the neighborhood folks would meet down at the garage for the weekly test firing of the Hemi Hunter fuel dragster.

Drag Racing Picture of the Day: Jim Nicoll's Fuel Dragster at Indy 1970. Ken Andrus caught Jim in the pits just before the dramatic final round race against Don Prudhomme.

January 03, 2002 - Drag Racing Story of the Day: AHRA World Champs and Circuit Funny Cars: The Battle for Legitimacy. Does winning Spokane mean that much? And what's the deal with these 7.50 funny cars? Here's my take...

Drag Racing Picture of the Day: Rug Doctor in the House -- Jim Epler's Funny Car. Ralph Reiter caught this cool nighttime top end shot of "Mr. 300" at NHRA Seattle in 1995.

January 02, 2002 - Drag Racing Story of the Day: Photo Review: 2001 AHRA World Finals at Spokane. David Hapgood sent along these photos that accompany his great story on the world's wildest national event. This is the only place you will see these photos!

Drag Racing Picture of the Day: The Dawn Patrol -- Fuel Fiat Altered. Ralph "Gonzo" Crosby proves that there's nothing like a blown fuel Fiat, whether real or imagined...

January 01, 2002 - HAPPY HOLIDAYS FROM DRAGLIST.COM! Our sincere best wishes to you and yours for a happy and restful holiday season and a healthy and prosperous new year! We have had a wonderful year at draglist.com with readership absolutely skyrocketing in the past few months. We will have shared our vision of "drag racing coverage from the hard core fan's point of view" with visitors hitting over 1.5 million page views in 2001. We are on track for over 3.5 MILLION page views in 2002! Thanks so much for making us part of your daily web surfing. We do it for the love of the sport and it is really gratifying that you choose to spend time with us. We hope to put in some big site upgrades soon. For now, we'll just say SEASON'S GREETINGS!

Drag Racing Story of the Day: Show Me the Money 2001 -- What Did the Pros Earn? Steve Klemetti shows which NHRA pro and semipro drivers made the most prize money in 2001. Includes stats on Top Fuel, Funny Car, Pro Stock, Pro Stock Bike, Pro Stock Truck, Top Alcohol Dragster, and Top Alcohol Funny Car. UPDATED on 01/02!

Drag Racing Picture of the Day: Five Scale Fuelers for the New Year. Roger "Riceman" Lee sent along this photo of five of his latest scale model masterpieces to wish everyone a happy new year.