Funny Car is a type of drag racing vehicle and a specific racing class in organized drag racing. Funny cars are characterized by having tilt-up fiberglass or carbon fiber automotive bodies over a custom-fabricated chassis, giving them an appearance vaguely approximating manufacturers' showroom models. They also have the engine placed in front of the driver, as opposed to dragsters, which place it behind the driver.
Top Fuel is a type of drag racing whose dragsters are the quickest accelerating racing cars in the world and the fastest sanctioned category of drag racing, with the fastest competitors reaching speeds of 341.68 miles per hour (549.9 km/h) and finishing the 1,000 foot (304.8 m) runs in 3.62 seconds.
Shirley Muldowney, also known professionally as "Cha Cha" and the "First Lady of Drag Racing", is an American auto racer. She was the first woman to receive a license from the National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) to drive a Top Fuel dragster. She won the NHRA Top Fuel championship in 1977, 1980, and 1982, becoming the first person to win two and three Top Fuel titles. She won a total of 18 NHRA national events.
Pro stock is a class of drag racing featuring "factory hot rods". The class is often described as "all motor", due to the cars not using any form of forced induction such as turbocharging or supercharging, or other enhancements, like nitrous oxide, along with regulations governing the modifications allowed to the engines and the types of bodies used.
Kenneth Dale Bernstein is an American drag racer and former NASCAR and IndyCar team owner. He is nicknamed the "Bud King" for his success in the Budweiser King funny car and dragster. He has also been nicknamed the "King of Speed," because he was the first driver to break 300 miles per hour in the standing-start quarter mile. Bernstein owned King Racing, which he drove for in the NHRA and fielded various cars in other racing series such as IndyCar and NASCAR. Bernstein retired from full-time competition in 2002 and moved his son Brandon into the Bud King Top Fuel dragster, but returned to finish the season in place of his son after Brandon suffered a severe injury. With the exception of a brief return to Funny Car in 2007, Bernstein did not return to the car and instead continued to run his team until the end of the 2011 season when he left drag racing altogether.
Don Prudhomme, nicknamed "the Snake", is an American drag racer.
Brainerd International Raceway is a road course, and dragstrip racing complex northwest of the city of Brainerd, Minnesota. The complex has a 0.25 mi (0.40 km) dragstrip, and overlapping 2.500 mi (4.023 km) and 3.100 mi (4.989 km) road courses. The complex also includes a kart track. The raceway hosts the National Hot Rod Association's Lucas Oil Nationals. It is a popular racetrack for the Trans Am Series. The spectator seating capacity of the circuit is 20,000.
Don Nicholson was an American drag racer from Missouri. He raced in the 1960s and 1970s when there were few national events. The National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) estimates he won 90 percent of his match races. As of 2002, he held the record for the most number of categories in which he reached a final round : Funny Car, Pro Stock, Super Stock, Competition Eliminator, Stock, and Street. He was nicknamed "Dyno Don" after he was one of the first drivers to use a chassis dynamometer on his cars in the late 1950s, a skill that he learned while working as a line mechanic at a Chevrolet car dealer.
A gasser is a type of hot rod originally used for drag racing. This type of car originated in United States in the late 1950s and continued until the early 1970s. In the days before Pro Stock, the A/Gas cars were the fastest stock-appearing racers around.
Tom McEwen was an American drag racer who was a winner of the National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) U.S. Nationals. His racing career spanned 45 years. He is ranked at number 16 on a list of the 50 most significant drivers of NHRA’s first 50 years.
The NHRA Winternationals are an annual drag racing event held by the National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) at In-N-Out Burger Pomona Dragstrip in Pomona, California.
The Hot Rod Magazine Championship Drag Races were a series of drag racing events sponsored by Hot Rod Magazine between 1964 and 1969. It was considered "one of the most significant drag racing events" of that era.
The Logghe Stamping Company is a dragster and funny car fabricator based in Detroit, Michigan.
Altered is a former National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) drag racing class and a current drag racing chassis configuration that forms the basis of many classes of NHRA Competition Eliminator.
Ed McCulloch, nicknamed "The Ace", is an American dragster and funny car driver.
The NHRA Summernationals, hosted by the National Hot Rod Association (NHRA), was an annual drag racing event held from 1970 to 1992, 2002 to 2017 and again in 2020, mostly at the Old Bridge Township Raceway Park in New Jersey.
The 1978 NHRA Winternationals were a National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) drag racing event, held at Auto Club Raceway in Pomona, California, on 5 February; rain halted eliminations after round one was complete. Racing resumed on 13 February, only to have an unusual snow storm interrupt again; the final was held on 14 February.
Doug Thorley was an American Funny Car drag racer, hot rodder and businessman. In 1967, he won the NHRA Nationals' first Funny Car Eliminator title, and was given Car Craft's All-Star Drag Racing Team Funny Car Driver of the Year Award in 1968. Hot Rod magazine describes him as "one of drag racing's most famous early era drivers."
Dale Emery, nicknamed "The Snail", was an American drag racer. Emery raced Fuel Altereds and Funny Cars, and briefly in wheelstanders, as well as serving as crew chief for several top teams.
Frank Manzo, nicknamed "Ace" or the "Manz", is an American funny car drag racer, named to the 2010 American Auto Racing Writers & Broadcasters Association All-America Team.