Drag Racing Blog

“The first Volkswagen winner at a non-Volkswagen event in my 20 years in Bakersfield” -Famoso drag strip track announcer. Props to veteran VW drag racer Mike Lawless, who ran a bunch of rounds against the V-8 guys, on his way to winning the March Meet 2009 Hot Rod class. Mike was tight on his dial-in, and his VW Karmann Ghia engine held up well for the entire day, despite being hot-lapped hard near the end. He runs alcohol with mechanical injection, no fan shroud or air-cooling of any kind. Tow vehicle support was provided by Troy Palmer and his dad. The March Meet is a huge event, with over 500 race cars in 14 classes, so this is an historic victory for the VW drag racing world. This race is the first stop on the NHRA Hot Rod Heritage Racing Series. Former VW drag racers running at the March Meet included Bob Godfrey, who was driving a Top Fuel Nostalgia Funny Car. The Karmann Ghia that the announcer is referring to was driven by Roger Crawford of Heads-Up Performance, who was testing a nitrous combo the previous weekend. Here are the stats for some of Mike’s passes. You can see more drag racing statistics at the Famoso Raceway website. Read the rest of this entry »

This Nostalgia Funny Car video covers the first round of qualifying from the 2009 March Meet, held at Bakersfield CA. These drag racers are part of the NHRA Hot Rod Heritage Racing Series, and this event was the first stop on the tour. The track surface of the drag strip was a bit cold, so the Nitro Funny Cars were skating around and blowing the tires off. Here are the top eight qualifiers, according to dragracecentral.com. There are also links to drag racing videos of all of the Nostalgia Funny Car rounds. Read the rest of this entry »

VW drag racing video of Clyde Berg wheelstanding his old Volkswagen Beetle race car multiple times. He stands it up so hard that he gets three tires off of the ground! This is classic drag racing footage that you won’t want to miss, from the PRA 2000 DVD. Clyde sold his race car overseas, a few years after this drag racing video was shot.