Drag Illustrated Issue 129, January / February 2018 | Page 67

THE
CHAMPIONS
ISSUE
L
egendary football coach Vince Lombardi
once said, “Inches make champions.” In drag racing,
where races can be won and lost by margins of thou-
sandths of a second – dead-even ties to the naked eye
– this quote cannot be truer.
Competition at all levels of the sport, be it NHRA
Top Fuel, PDRA Pro Nitrous, NMCA Radial Wars, or
big-money bracket racing, is at perhaps an all-time high. In 2017,
championships were often decided on the final day of the season –
sometimes even coming down to the final round – leaving no room for
D r a g Il l u s t r a t e d . c o m
mistakes. In many cases, 2017’s champions weren’t decided by dominant
performances or lack of competition. Drivers like Bo Butner, Amber
Franklin and Brittany Force became champions by consistently being
inches ahead of the competition, especially when it mattered most.
While we could easily fill all 12 issues of the year with the stories
of the men and women who secured season championships in 2017,
we had to narrow down our focus list to a select group of victors from
across drag racing’s numerous sanctioning bodies, racing series and
classes. This first issue of the 2018 season, the Drag Illustrated
Champions Issue, is our salute to the 2017 champions.
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Dr ag Illustr ated