If you’ve read my column for any length of time, you already know that I’ve been a bracket drag racer for many decades. I’ve raced dozens of times at the NHRA Summit Racing Series Bracket Finals as part of a track team. I’ve been on teams from Oregon, California, Texas, and for the last 30+ years, Arizona.
Every year at the bracket finals, everyone gets to race on Saturday—the big team championship race—where tracks from Division 7 send teams to compete for the Div. 7 Team Championship. I’m proud to say that my Firebird team has won that championship several times in the last ten years, including the 2025 title, where we edged outthe other strong Arizona team from Tucson Dragway by less than three points.
At the bracket finals, there’s also a very special Sunday race. It used to be called the Race of Champions, though I’m not sure what it’s called these days. That’s probably because, in all my years of bracket racing, I’ve never qualified to race on Sunday. But last year, the NHRA added a reward for racers who participate in all of the track team races during the season. I didn’t know about that change at the time—I’m not exactly great with social media—so my goal this year, come hell or high water, has been to race in all eight team events.
April 25 and 26 were the final races of Firebird’s Summit Series 2026 season. As always, I was excited to run my little Chevy S10 LS-powered race truck, but the bumper needed reinforcement to handle a tow bar. I took care of that, spending several hours on my back, up and down off the ground, but I was happy with the result. I charged the battery and had the S10 100% ready to go.
Friday night, I hooked up the tow bar and was set to head out early Saturday morning. I didn’t even make it out of my driveway— the bumper had already pulled away from the truck about six inches on the driver’s side. So, I had to drive the truck to the track instead. Unfortunately, just two miles down the road, the engine let out a CLINK-CLUNK and lost a lot of power. I limped the S10 back home and jumped into my daily driver Honda to make sure I could still race in the final two team events. You can imagine how bummed I was at that point. I didn’t want to be racing my Honda, so my goal shifted to simply qualifying for that special Sunday race at the bracket finals. About the only thing that could save the day was winning the racer raffle. So, at the last minute, I dropped $20 on about 25 tickets.
Yep—you guessed it. They pulled one of my tickets, and I won $580. The biggest raffle prize they’ve ever paid out.
