Antron Brown, a three-time Top Fuel champion, laughed that knowing laugh and shook his head after talking with fellow new NHRA team owner Tony Stewart before the start of this season.
It’s a room dedicated to the memory of Eric Medlen, the spirited and skilled young Funny Car driver and popular teammate to John Force who passed away 15 years ago after suffering a closed-head injury during a testing accident at Florida’s Gainesville Raceway.
The cost cap in Formula 1 this year is $140 million. To operate a NASCAR team for a single season costs about $15 million. A top-tier IndyCar team’s expenses for a full schedule run about $10 million.
Just as extraordinary as Brittany Force’s speed-ratcheting winning performance en route to winning the recent NHRA national event at California’s Sonoma Raceway was the official news that evening that Don Schumacher had relinquished control of his once-mighty race team.
Blame it on “the three p’s” — promotion, potato salad and porta-potties. They’re part of the reason that in 35 years of Pro Stock Motorcycle racing, Steve Johnson hasn’t earned a championship.
Drag-racing dynasties are a bit like fireworks, which amaze us with a burst of vivid color and delight us over and over with the same bold power and bright sparkle — only to fizzle into the night sky and vaporize, as though we never really witnessed them at all.
Alex Miladinovich's souvenirs from the season-opening Winternationals were sore muscles, a crumpled Funny Car and a plan B to execute following a wild crash that likely ended his season in February.
Not that long ago, Tony Schumacher, Doug Kalitta and Larry Dixon were the main faces of the NHRA Top Fuel class. The landscape is changing dramatically.
