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I devoted most of yesterday to trying to make some of the phone calls I mentioned in the column a week ago and trying to at least touch base with some of the people I've yet to reach but have promised myself I would. …

Those of you who have followed this column since its inception July 23, 2007, some 380 entries ago according to my quick math, have seen this column evolve into its current format. Originally, it was conceived as a behind-the-scenes look at how …

There are times when I wish that I could work exclusively on this column, and this is one of those weeks. I have so many things on my "want-to" list that I just can’t seem to get to them. I have promises out to so many people to call for stories…

Two weeks ago, we heard from former Funny Car racer Jeff Foulk, who shared his memories of the East Coast Fuel Funny Car Circuit, and this week, I heard from fellow era flopper pilot Drake Viscome, who dropped me not one but…

They may not have sported superchargers, but it's clear that, pardon the pun, injected Funny Cars have blown a lot of people away over the years, at least based on the outpouring of info that the last few columns has inspired. I received a great…

On Thursday, Darrell Gwynn will be in Reading, where he and his father, Jerry, along with NHRA Board Chairman Dallas Gardner, former NHRA VP Steve Gibbs, former NHRA Division Director Darwin Doll, Kenny Koretsky, and Jack…

In Tuesday's injected Funny car follow-up, I featured the Glory Daze Camaro of Kevin Johnson and mentioned that his dad, John, had taken some pretty cool photos from Maple Grove Raceway while working there in the early 1970s…

First, I want to thank you all for the kind words about the Jeb Allen article last Tuesday. It was challenging for reasons that many of you understand and for the…

From the outside, Jeb Allen looked like he had it all. He was driving a Top Fueler and on the front cover of the sport's most popular magazine, Drag Racing USA, when he was 17. He became a national event Top Fuel…

Injected fuel cars are a big part of the sport's history from Jr. Fuel on up, and although the combination lives on today in the Top Alcohol Dragster class in the A/Fuel designation, injected fuel funnies are no more, though…

Just as the ramp trucks themselves passed into history, to be replaced by enclosed trailers, then fifth-wheel trailers, and ultimately 18-wheelers, so too must end (for now) the history of ramp trucks here. Oh sure, I could (and probably will)…

Well, I'm back safely from yet another Big Go and ready to make up for lost time. I looked at the Last updated tag on the home page yesterday when I arrived back in SoCal and saw that it had been a whole week since I had posted. Wow, sorry about…

Another column, another collection of awesome ramp-truck shots sent by the Insider Nation. Anymore, I'm finding it cooler to ogle the cars on the backs of the trucks than I am the trucks themselves. As we are rediscovering/…

You guys had a lot of spare time on your hands this weekend, right? I don't know how else to explain the avalanche of ramp-truck photos that appeared in my Inbox the last several days. Seems that a lot of you have either been scouring the Internet…

And the wheels on the ramp truck thread go 'round and 'round. So here we are, columns later still talking about ramp trucks as this thing grows bigger and bigger tentacles, reminding many of the way that our wedge dragster thread spiraled out of…

It's Ramp Truck Tuesday at the Insider … OK, well, I guess it doesn't need its own day of the week anymore because stuff just keeps pouring in. I've received a ton of ramp-truck photos – including…

How many can you name? (View bigger) They belong to a fraternity founded in the…

Today's column is a bit of a mash up of comments from recent columns, including the ongoing ramp-truck discussions, Tommy Ivo's glass-sided trailers, "the Snake" and "the Mongoose," and Hot Wheels. I'm having to create so many subfolders in my email…

Y'know, I thought I was one of the biggest "Snake" and "Mongoose" fans in the world, but Jeff Mittendorf has me and just about the rest of you beat like the Army Monza did the world in 1975-76. I was the lucky guy who grew up playing with the Hot…

Not unexpectedly, everyone flipped over "T.V. Tommy" Ivo's trailer gallery here Tuesday, including Jim Randel, who saw Ivo's Corvette-topped truck in the early 1970s. "This was probably around 1971 to 1972 timeframe at Motion Raceway off of Route…

So, last week I mentioned that Tommy Ivo was putting together a little something for your reading enjoyment about his glass-sided haulers. I had dropped him a line to ask where he had gotten the idea, how they came to be, etc., and, as always, "your…

If I've said it once, I've said it a hundred times in the 350-plus columns I've filed here: You guys rock. Sure, a lot of times, I'm the guy coming up with the topics based on whatever tickles my fancy that week, but it's the ongoing dialogue that…

Predictably, the ramp-truck thread is expanding and appears about to run out of control like a trailer that jumped its hitch. And I'm smiling all the while. Keith Crouch of Toledo, Ohio, wrote, "I find this 'Snake' and '…

From early indications, this ramp-truck thread may just turn out to be another long-winded wedge-type deal as tips and pics continue to flow in and out of Insider International's global information headquarters. Part of this, of course, is due to…

News of Don Prudhomme's find of former partner Tom McEwen's Hot Wheels ramp truck, first reported here last week, has really ramped up the excitement, if you will, at the prospect of seeing it with Prudhomme's…

For a guy who created and lived a lot of it, Don Prudhomme sure digs drag racing history, especially the equipment that helped make him a megastar in the sport. He began by tracking down and restoring a lot of his old Funny…

It's not as if I didn't know this would happen, but I was besieged with e-mails following Friday's Patriotic Power column, in which I foolishly made what I knew was only a partial list of cars with…

Well, here we are, on the cusp of a Fourth of July weekend, a time that's known as much for backyard barbecues and fireworks displays as it is an expression of pride in the United States. Though I'm sure that there are many…

With the exception maybe of Lions Drag Strip, no drag racing facility seems to be more canonized than one of my faves, good ol' Orange County Int’l Raceway. It seems that the love, admiration, and good memories of the SoCal…

It's Friday, the end of the working week for a lot of you, but with Bristol thundering along this weekend, plus the Holley NHRA National Hot Rod Reunion and more going on around the country, it's going to be a busy weekend in the old NHRA.com…