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Alex Taylor
Alex Taylor has grown up alongside the modern dragand-drive movement. These days, she’ s helping introduce it to an entirely new generation. Taylor’ s automotive roots run deep. Raised around her father Dennis Taylor’ s shop, she began building her 1968 Camaro with her family at 15. One year later, she and her mother, Debbie, competed in HOT ROD Drag Week 2013, making Taylor the youngest driver ever to compete in the grueling event.
Since then, Taylor has evolved from promising young racer into one of the performance industry’ s most versatile personalities. She earned a marketing degree, launched Alex Taylor Racing, became co-host of HOT ROD Garage and won back-to-back Roadkill Nights Hellcat Grudge Matches. Her 1955 Chevy 210 also carried her into the 6-second club, establishing Taylor as one of drag-anddrive racing’ s top competitors, and she continues getting quicker. In 2025, Taylor broke her own personal records with multiple 6.60 passes. In early 2026, she laid down a personal best 6.55 at 222 mph and later won the Unlimited Iron class at Sick Summer in June of this year.
Perhaps Taylor’ s greatest strength, though, is her reach beyond the starting line. Through racing, television, social media, and her race team, she has become an ambassador for hot rodding itself, proving that the next generation is interested in preserving car culture and ready to build its future. – MADELYN ZARON
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Stevie Jackson
Stevie“ Fast” Jackson has evolved from one of drag radial racing’ s most feared drivers into a championship-winning Pro Mod racer, tuner, and team owner whose influence now stretches across multiple
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Justin Ashley
Since making his Top Fuel debut in 2019, Justin Ashley has had a successful career by any measurement. He was the NHRA’ s Rookie of the Year in 2020; he’ s won 19 national events, including six victories in 2023 alone; he won the 2025 U. S. Nationals; and he’ s finished third in the championship points standing each of the past two seasons.
But it’ s Ashley’ s pure driving ability, and the way he has changed the standard for the entire class, that puts him on this list. His reaction times are on a completely different level from other drivers, forcing them to either step up, or risk losing despite their car’ s performance.
Last season, Ashley’ s average reaction time was. 0424. The Top Fuel average was. 0802, nearly four-hundredths slower. In a sport where wins can be decided by thousandths, that is a massive gap. Eleven of the 15 best individual reaction times in 2025 belonged to Ashley.
Through the first 12 races of 2026, Ashley has somehow improved from a year ago, dropping his reaction time average to. 0382. He once again holds the best RT of the year thus far with a. 025. His teammate, Will Smith, is second best at. 0459 average RT, while Antron Brown is third with a. 0567 average – still nearly two hundredths behind Ashley. The class average is. 0720, a sign that the rest of the field is stepping up their game as well – just not enough to catch Ashley.
“ Competitors know when they race him that they’ ve got to bring their A-game,” says fellow Top Fuel star Tony Stewart.“ It’ s a curse for Justin as well because he’ s so good that you know that you have to rise to the occasion. The hard part is doing that. But when you do it, the even harder part after that is figuring out how do you do it all the time, like he does.” – CRAIG COOK categories.
Jackson built his reputation in the small-tire world, where his combination of driving ability, tuning instincts, and personality made him one of the defining figures of Radial vs. the World. He also proved himself on big tires, winning the 2013 ADRL Pro Nitrous world championship and later competing in PDRA Pro Nitrous before moving into NHRA Pro Mod. There, Jackson reached another level, winning back-toback world championships in 2019 and 2020.
More recently, he became a consistent threat in the Drag Illustrated Winter Series. Jackson finished runner-up at the 2025 World Series of Pro Mod, losing the $ 150,000 final by just. 001 second, then returned to Bradenton in January 2026 and won the $ 75,000 U. S. Street Nationals.
But Jackson’ s impact now extends well beyond his own driving. Killin’ Time Racing has grown into a full-scale race operation capable of assembling, tuning, and fielding cars across Pro Mod, PDRA Pro Nitrous, Pro Boost, Pro Street, and other high-horsepower categories. The KTR brain trust includes longtime collaborator Phil Shuler, Jeffrey Barker, Jeff Pierce, and engine builder Bob Reinhardt, among others. Jackson has also increasingly applied his tuning experience to customers’ programs rather than simply his own.
That evolution may be Jackson’ s most important one yet.“ Stevie Fast” is still capable of winning the biggest races himself, but through KTR, he’ s built a platform to influence considerably more cars than the one he’ s driving. – NATE VAN WAGNEN
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Luke Bogacki
Luke Bogacki has spent a lifetime mastering the art of sportsman drag racing, and his legacy is becoming as much about the racers he influences as the races he wins. Bogacki started racing Jr. Dragsters in 1993 and developed into one of the most accomplished competitors of his generation. His résumé in-
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