Drag Illustrated Issue 139, December 2018 | Page 8

FOUNDER’S LETTER Wes Buck Founder & Editorial Director 660.988.2313 wes@dragillustrated.com Scott Dorman Publisher 615.478.5275 scott@dragillustrated.com Mike Carpenter Design & Production Director 704.737.2299 mike@dragillustrated.com I think I just named a few of them, my friends. J.R. Todd, Steve Torrence, Tanner Gray. The long and short of this is that drag racing is chocked full of young folk that are awesome and that I think are the coolest people alive. It’s abso- lutely mission critical for the sport of drag racing that we start getting excited about who’s next, who’s on deck and who’s already out here swinging the bat with great success. It has to happen. We can be as proud as we want about our heritage and it’s a fantastic thing, but we have to start look- ing forward. We have to start looking forward to who’s coming down the chute. I truly believe that we’ve been blessed with some guys and gals who can carry the sport into the future. But we have to look at them with the same passion and enthusiasm as we do many of our heroes that no doubt paved the way for these folks. It was a little bit of a sad day at Drag Illus- trated a few years ago when I decided to can the Nostalgia Issue. We all love looking at these old photos from the 1960s and ‘70s of drag racing dur- ing one of its admittedly golden eras. There were tons of new things, all these barriers being broken, some really iconic people and places. But I started to think about what it really meant and all the effort we were putting into it – and there’s always going to be a time and place for it – but I looked around the drag racing industry and everybody was doing this. Matter of fact, it’s pretty much all everybody’s doing. All we do is talk about how it used to be. That’s it. Every magazine, every website, every video thing is all looking backwards. And that’s great, good for them. But I thought about what we were doing and what we were going to do different, and how I thought we could make a difference. How are we going to positively impact the sport of drag racing? It’s by being excited about the people who are here doing it now. And it’s not just happening in the NHRA. It’s in the PDRA, the NMRA, the NMCA, down in South Georgia, down in Orlando, out in Denver, on the West Coast, on the East Coast. There are young folks all over the country and there are incredibly exciting things going on in the sport of drag racing. There are a slew of superstar talents, superstar personalities and it’s high time we get as excited about them as we are about a 64-car Funny Car field at Lyons Dragway in 1969. God knows I am. Wesley R. Buck Founder & Editorial Director 8 | Drag I l l u s t r a t e d | DragIllustrated.com I invite you to email me at wes@dragillustrated.com and follow me at facebook.com/wbuck and wesbuckinc on Instagram. Nate Van Wagnen Editor-in-Chief 440.986.1480 nate@dragillustrated.com Nancy Koeppen Chief Operating Officer 573.552.5551 nancy@dragillustrated.com Will Mandell Senior Sales Executive 615.426.0465 will@dragillustrated.com JT Hudson Sales Executive 660.341.0063 jt@dragillustrated.com Van Abernethy Senior Staff Writer & Field Subscription Sales 828.302.0356 van@dragillustrated.com Josh Hachat Editor-at-Large 660.988.2313 josh@dragillustrated.com Caroline Fox Customer Service / Office Manager 660.988.2313 caroline@dragillustrated.com CONTRIBUTING WRITERS: Ian Tocher, Ainsley Jacobs, Kelly Wade, Tyler Crossnoe, Bobby Bennett, Lisa Collier, Brandon W. Mudd, Tommy D’Aprile, Will Hanna, Sadie Glenn PHOTO DEPARTMENT: John Fore III, Van Abernethy, Rick Belden, Tara Bowker, Jason Dunn, Paul Grant, Chris Graves, Ron Lewis, Joe McHugh, Gary Nastase, Mark J. Rebilas, Roger Richards, Cole Rokosky, Chris Sears, Jason Sharp, James Sisk, Ian Tocher ADVERTISING SALES: 615.478.5275 SUBSCRIPTIONS & CUSTOMER SERVICE: 660.988.2313 customerservice@dragillustrated.com DRAG ILLUSTRATED MEDIA, LLC 902 Kings Road, Kirksville, MO 63501 P: 660.988.2313 F: 660.665.1636 www.dragillustrated.com Copyright © 2018 by Drag Illustrated Media, LLC. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited. Drag Illustrated is a registered trademark of Drag Illustrated Media, LLC. Printed and mailed by Publication Printers in Denver, CO. All statements, including product claims, are those of the person or organization making the statement or claim. The publisher does not adopt any such statement or claims as its own, and any such statement or claim does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the publisher. Issue 139 I t’s over. The NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing season for 2018 is in the books. We’ve got a handful of new cham- pions – three that I want to talk about right now: Tanner Gray, J.R. Todd and Steve Torrence. These are three young, good-looking, charismatic, vocal, awesome race car drivers that can walk the walk and talk the talk. What more can the sport of drag racing ask for? I look around and I’m literally stunned by it. You can’t ask, really, for much better when it comes to representative young folks to carry the sport into the future. I find myself worried a little bit, at times, that as a sport we’re so excited about our past – and there’s no shame in that. I’m a history buff. I read books. I like history and I like to wax nostalgic from time to time. However, where is the focus on the future? What’s next? Who’s next? I’m going to tell you who’s next: J.R. Todd, Steve Torrence, and the list goes on – Alex Laughlin, Erica Enders, Blake Alexander, Krista Baldwin, Megan Meyer. There’s so many of them. We’ve got a whole list of them in this issue of the magazine with our annual 30 Under 30 list. I’m going to focus on J.R. Todd for a minute here. This is a guy who is living the dream. To do the nostalgic thing, he’s driving for Con- nie Kalitta. It’s a great story. Here’s a guy who has been around the world, chasing the drag racing dream, trying to do this at a high level. He’s driven everything under the sun, from Jr. Dragsters to Pro Mod to Top Fuel to Funny Car. He’s had very seri- ous success everywhere he’s been, nowhere more so than he’s had in Funny Car, which are arguably some of the hardest drag racing cars to drive. This is a phenomenal ambassador for the sport of drag racing. We need to be pouring gas on this deal. We need to be looking forward, we have to be identifying the next superstars, the next heroes, the next Don Prudhomme, the next “Big Daddy” Don Garlits, the next Tom McEwen, the next Shirley Muldowney, the next John Force. I know some of these sit pretty close to home, but we have to be identifying who is going to be the next big-time, su- perpower team owner. Who’s the next Don Schum- acher? Who’s the next Connie Kalitta? Again, who’s the next Greg Anderson? Who’s the next Warren Johnson?