Drag Racing 2025 Style

2/8/05

Jeff Burk Photo

For you sci-fi fans out there, you know that the great thing about a time machine is that you can go into the future, grab a newspaper, come back to the present day and have the winning lotto numbers, see who’s going to win the Triple Crown and show your friends great photos of Paris Hilton when she’s wrinkly and getting hip-replacement surgery.

Time travel exists and is happening around us at this very moment. The good news is that I actually have had access to one of these time machines! The bad news is that the technology is still in its nascent stages and only allows me to be dropped off at the ticket window of Pomona. So, instead of being able to buy next week’s L.A. Times, all I can pick up is a free copy of National Dragster. Since I am dropped off at Pomona, I would love to say that I actually go in to see the racing and could tell you what it’s all about, but since a Thursday adult ticket in 2025 costs $2700, and I generally don’t carry around that kind of cash and by 2025 all the credit cards I am carrying with me are long expired, a ticket is a little out of my price range.

However, on my last trip I was able to bring back a National Dragster (in its computer tablet format) and I’ve excerpted some of the headlines and highlights of ND from February, 2025.

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FORCE CLASS WINNER TAKES A LOOK BACK

Ashley Force, Force Class veteran and winner for the 10th straight season, remembers the old days when Force Cars used to be called Funny Cars and they actually allowed non-Force Family-owned vehicles to race in the class.

“Can you believe that there was actually a time when they allowed just anyone with a car and a couple million dollars to race?” she laughed. “I mean, they didn’t even perform the DNA test to confirm that they were related to us! My dad was so wild back then… can you imagine? Racing with virtual strangers!”

KENNY BERNSTEIN ANNOUNCES RETIREMENT TOUR

A remarkably young-looking Kenny Bernstein has announced that 2025 will be his final year behind the wheel of a dragster. Billed as his “Forever Red…No, This Time I Really REALLY Mean It” tour, Kenny promises to turn the wheel over to his great-grandson, Brandon III after the World Finals. Maybe.

COLE COONCE WINS PULITZER PRIZE FOR “VELOCITY’S FATHER”

Nobel-winning scientist, Cole Coonce, has garnered yet another honor as he goes to New York to accept the Pulitzer Prize for his ground-breaking three-volume biography of Franklin Ratliff. Having known Ratliff since his days posting on the Header Flames board in the 1990s, Coonce was particularly suited to documenting the life of the genius known today as “the father of the modern-day dragster.” The Ratliff prop-driven, sponge-encapsulated dragster with escape pod, has long-been the benchmark for safe racing and allowed cars to break the mythical 600 MPH barrier. “It’s hard to imagine a time when we didn’t use his innovations,” said Coonce when his nomination was announced, “but believe it or not, these completely logical designs were laughed-at by folks in drag racing. Ratliff was once the Copernicus of the racing world, ostracized for being too far ahead of his time!”