Staging Light

National Dragster, Jan 20, 2006 by Burgess, Phil

Welcome to 2006 and the beginning of National DRAGSTER'S 47th year of publication. Sit down, buckle up, and get ready to enjoy the ride that starts right now as your loyal and ever-eager ND staff serves up 48 action-packed, information-jammed, and analysisfilled issues that will carry you through what we expect to be another amazing year of quarter-mile wars.

After the dramatic 2005 season that might have seemed like pure hyperbole, the kind of stuff that makes great advertising but little else, we have seen the future and it is splendiferous. Following a winter's worth of phone calls and correspondence with drag racing's top teams, it's plainly obvious that jaws are set a little tighter, gazes fixed a little harder, and resolve cut a little deeper. Drivers are going on diets to help their teams, crew chiefs are experimenting, and testing schedules are being lengthened. And National DRAGSTER is poised and ready to bring it all to you with our own new resolve.

We, too, spent the winter hard at work, deconstruct ing the last several publishing seasons and determining our strengths and weaknesses and how to exploit the former and minimize the latter to bring our readers the most intriguing and informative publication on the market. We took a long, hard (and sometimes painful) look at the struggles that print publishing faces when stacked against television and the Internet, and it all comes down to one thing: A weekly can't be first with all of the news anymore, so we have to be better.

One of our biggest strengths is our longevity and proven track record. Our reporters are well-known and trusted by the racers; they know we won't burn them or their sponsors. Our goal is to not only use this unprecedented access to the stars of the sport to your best advantage, but to share it with you in ways that have never been done. I don't want to let the cat out of the bag just yet, but we brainstormed on some interest ing ways to bring our readers into the minds and lives of our sport's greatest personalities. We can't wait to show them to you.

You'll see some subtle and some nokso-subtle changes in some race coverage, and we're placing a greater emphasis on analysis. We can all read an eliminations ladder, but what's the story behind the story? And just what does that story mean in the big picture? You get the idea.

Between the seven staff writers, there's nearly 200 years of race-watching experience, so we have a good idea about a lot more than what makes the tires goes 'round, but we're not standing pat on those credentials. We've also contracted the services of two top-flight and highly respected racers - former Top Fuel and Funny Car racer and current ESPN color commentator Mike Dunn for the Pro beat and 37-time national event winner Dan Fletcher for the Sportsman classes - for ongoing expert commentary about the events and the season itself.

All of your favorite columns and features are coming back, too, from Out of the Groove (with a whole new set of interesting questions, including my new favorite "Five Things You Didn't Know About Me") to Collectors Corner. Month in Review? Coming back. The Write Lane? You betcha. Readers Choice? Absolutely! And, of course, we'll also continue the in-depth interviews and probing feature stories that you've enjoyed for years.

Longtime readers will rejoice at the return of the weekly PROfile feature that introduces a litany of characters from all walks of the sport, from drivers and crew chiefs to sponsors and officials. You'll learn their stories and hear what they think about drag racing. At the suggestion of NHRA founder Wally Parks, we kick off this week with a look at one of NHRA's longestrrunning and most respected officials, Division 4 Tech Director Chuck Nelson.

We're also off and running with our preseason preparations. Our staff spent the winter tracking down the sport's 30 best racers in Top Fuel, Funny Car, and Pro Stock - no mean feat during the holidays - to find out about their 2006 plans and give readers a first look at some of their new rides. Next we will present our annual performance predictions and other goodies, and enclosed with our third issue will be the cool, new 2006 Fan Guide, sent free to all NHRA members. A week after that is the souvenir issue for the CARQUEST Auto Parts NHRA Winternationals with our annual extensive preseason preview., and then we're off on the 23-race chase to the 2006 NHRA POWERade world championships.

Needless to say, we're as revved up and ready as you are to get this year rolling. Fire the first pair!

Phil Burgess