Archive for the ‘Drag Racing’ Category
Four lanes of state-of-the-art drag strip and Rich Christensen’s unique brand of motorized mayhem combine to make the perfect storm of street car drag racing.
This past Saturday marked an important milestone in street car drag racing. It was officially reborn. To use the hackneyed phrase one more time: “This changes everything.†Charlotte’s new state-of-the-art zMax drag strip has been open for a while, but this past Saturday, April 25, marked an important milestone: it was the first time zMax has used all four of its quarter-mile lanes at the same time for the same race… Details & Picture
NASCAR Sprint Cup Series driver Greg Biffle intends to pull some unusual double duty this weekend when he takes to the quarter-mile at zMAX Dragway for Saturday’s PINKS All Out.
Weather permitting, Biffle will qualify his familiar No. 16 Roush Fenway Racing Ford in Talladega Saturday morning, fly to Concord, N.C., then bring his 2007 Shelby GT 500 to the Bellagio of drag strips to compete in an exhibition competition that will be featured on PINKS All Outtakes on SPEED.
“I am so excited about it,” said Biffle, who used to drag race in eighth-mile “grudge matches” as a teenager in Vancouver, Wash. “I’ve always loved PINKS because it’s …Â Details
Chester “Chet†Herbert, a member of the International Drag Racing Hall of Fame who helped develop an exhaust header that blew smoke away from a dragster’s rear tires to improve traction, died Thursday. He was 81.
Herbert died of pneumonia at St. Joseph Hospital in Orange, according to Sara Fensterer, a spokeswoman for Herbert’s son, Doug, who followed his father into professional drag racing. The elder Herbert lived in nearby Villa Park.
Herbert was stricken with polio at age 20 and lived the rest of his life in a wheelchair, paralyzed from the chest down.
“My grandmother told me he was so wild about racing, that if he didn’t have polio to slow him down, he probably would have died,†Doug Herbert said in a statement. “When my dad was 12, my grandma bought him a trumpet and hoped he’d learn to play. But he traded the trumpet for a Cushman motorscooter and it was life in the fast lane ever since.â€
Lying in a hospital iron-lung for six months in 1948, Herbert developed ideas for manufacturing racing parts in his head…Â Details