Since 2015, Drag Illustrated’s 30 Under 30 list has been one of the most popular announcements at the Performance Racing Industry show. Popular because of its adherence to the fact that drag racing, in all of its forms, is producing new and exciting competitors.
Some, in fact most of these younger racers, mechanics, team members and ancillary supporters have entered straight-line racing with their families by their sides; others felt the urge to drag-race and melded with the community easily.
Wes Buck and his Drag Illustrated team asked fans who their choices might be and combed the community to find the right group of 30 drag racers born in the last decade of the last century that epitomize the health and efficacy of modern-day drag racing.
To place an exclamation point on this year’s class, the magazine is celebrating more than the robust class that will be presented with their 30-Under-30 jackets and gift certificates from DI partners during the PRI show in Indianapolis this week. Drag Illustrated, through its 172nd issue’s cover art, is also celebrating the health and youth of NHRA’s Pro Stock class, which is teeming with newer and definitely exciting talent.
“Pro Stock’s Next Generation” is made up, in part of 2021 Rookie of the Year Dallas Glenn, 2021 race winner Kyle Koretsky, Troy Coughlin Jr. and Aaron Stanfield. They’re on the cover and they’re also on the minds of every other competitor in NHRA’s Pro Stock community. These four, along with Mason McGaha, Cristian and Fernando Cuadra Jr, together with Vincent Nobile, are the new generation of successful door-slammer racers in, arguably, the most technical of NHRA’s professional Camping World Drag Racing Series categories.
Glenn leads the 2021 Drag Illustrated 30 Under 30 class, based on his Rookie of the Year status, his three Pro Stock victories and his third-place result after 17 Pro Stock races this year. He assumed the seat of Jason Line at KB Racing, which also includes 2021 Pro Stock champ (and 99-race winner) Greg Anderson, as well as Kyle Koretsky.
Madison and Macie Gordon, who are learning driving crafts in Jr Dragster, were born to the sport. Their father Doug is a champion racer and his daughters have been learning their crafts by serving as crew on Doug Gordon’s Top Alcohol Funny Car.
“If it’s up to me, I would race every weekend until the time I die,” said 22-year-old Darian Boesch, whose passion for racing came at the age of seven, when he climbed into a Jr. Dragster. He won the Top Sportsman championship in 2020 with his roots-blown Camaro. Taylor Iacono Nobile, like so many, knows drag racing as a family endeavor; she’s a third-generation racer who earned her first national event win in Super Comp at Reading this September. This wasn’t her regular ride – it’s her sister’s dragster – but that didn’t make any difference for the 23-year-old, who recently married Vincent Nobile.
The “Junk Mail” truck, built and campaigned by Jordan Fisher, is turning heads with the former mail delivery Jeep, which is running in the 4s on eighth-mile tracks. Fisher works at The Metal Shop in Delmar, Delaware. Mark Benston Jr., 29, the Cecil County Dragway Pro 275 champion has been around high-horsepower cars all his life, as his dad has an engine shop. He’s gone through the Jr. Dragster and bracket racing ranks to hone his driving and mechanical capabilities in Outlaw 10.5 and Pro 275 competition.
Joey Oksas is the MWDRS Pro Mod champion, in his first full season of driving in the midwest series, following his 2020 debut, where Oksas went to three final rounds. The 24-year-old earned three victories in his title season. A star of Street Outlaws and No Prep Kings, Justin Swanstrom earned two race wins in his first full season of Street Outlaw, finishing third in the 15-race series. Nick Schroeder, racing Pro Street in PDRA, is showing that he has the tuning knowledge of a veteran, despite being 24 years old. “I’ve grown up all my life at the racetrack,” he acknowledged.
Videographer Kyle Christ has been wielding his video camera at race tracks since he began recording passes for his father, Tim. “I started in 2009,” the 23-year-old Christ said. “My dad built an Outlaw 10.5 Mercedes, so I started with that.” He now has a YouTube channel, Straight Line Media with more than 4,000 subscribers. Joey Gladstone races Pro Stock Motorcycle in NHRA as teammate to Cory Reed. Despite an early season accident, he finished eighth in the season standings. Grudge racer Marques Hatton, 27, is looking to move from X275 to PDRA’s Extreme Pro Stock ranks in 2022. “The opportunity to drive a Pro Stock car has always been a dream of mine,” he said.
Being a Top Alcohol Dragster driver and car chief feels natural to Brian Inouye, 30 this fall, who’s been around the sport since his toddler days. “Ever since I was a kid, I wanted to stand on the gas in one of these A/Fuel cars.” William Garner is PDRA Pro Nitrous Motorcycle championship tuner for his older brother, Chris Garner-Jones. Their father, the late T.T. Jones had a tremendous influence on his sons, leading to Chris’ two world championships this season, with William turning the dials. NHRA’s Super Comp World Champion Christopher Dodd, 25, was born into the sport and has been around tracks since before he had teeth. “I’ve always liked Super Comp,” he said. “It’s an appealing class with super-tight competition.”
When race officials start young, as Gavin Carter, 25, did, it bodes well for the sport. Carter got into the sport pretty much by accident; he needed a job, went to Memphis International Raceway and started parking cars and working concessions. “There’s so much involved behind the scenes and that was really interesting to me. That hands-on experience made me want to explore it even more.” Billy Kleinspehn, an official at Maple Grove Raceway, is another young man who loves the sport of racing. He’s worked any number of positions at the Pennsylvania track and is hope “is to be full-time. I’m definitely going to take that if it becomes available.”
In addition to being a bracket racer, Payton Cusimano is starring on social media with her site Chicks on Slicks, which encourages young women racers around the world to share their stories and inspire others. She’s also the social media manager for INDYCAR’s Road to Indy ladder series. Buddy Perkinson has been around the drag racing scene seemingly for decades, even though he just turned 30 in September. He’s had stints in a variety of NHRA pro and sportsman classes, but most recently he’s been tearing it up in PDRA’s Elite Top Sportsman, taking that championship in 2020 and finishing fifth this year.
Blake Peavier, who is NHRA’s Top Dragster world champion, hadn’t won a race until 2021, but now he’s also earned his first championship. “There are so many good names that have been on this list, so it’s incredible and humbling to even be thought about for this,” he admitted. Luke Fath’s road to this 30 Under 30 honor started with Scott Kalitta. Friends with sons Corey and Colin Kalitta, Fath attended his first race before the age of 10 and would go to Michigan and attend races with his buddies. At 19 he started with Kalitta’s hospitality unit and before long, he’d moved to the marketing side, where he remains in a full-time role.
Nick Taylor is a No-prep racer, fabricator and content creator in Indiana who isn’t afraid of putting in long hours at the track and at his shop, Mid America Kustoms. The 27-year-old loves building race cars and campaigning them. “I have fun driving anything and I just love racing in all forms,” he said. Drag radial racer Rylan McClaskey, earning back to back championships in Tex275 at age 21 is still finding that success hard to believe. He’s forged relationships with people who have helped him along the way after starting in Jr. Dragsters at eight, moving into bracket, index and no prep racing as soon as he could at 16.
Canadian Pro Mod standout Spencer Hyde, 30, had to put many plans on hold in 2021 with the US/Canada border closed, so he used his 1969 Camaro to record the quickest Pro Mod run in Canadian history and won the inaugural FuelTech pro Mod Drag Racing Series championship. JoAnna Iacobelli is a Ford Performance racer and content creator who has a great relationship with Ford Performance as a social media creator. While she hasn’t been able to run her 2018 Mustang as much as she’d like, she has high hopes for next year and into the future. Radial Fest promoter Zach Jones, a Huntsville, Alabama-area native found his niche by installing a 10-foot printer in his parents garage, hoping to build a graphics business. The 30-year-old now has his own company, Z7GFX that designs and produces stickers, decals and labels for some of the biggest names in the industry.
In its 30 Under 30 issue, Drag Illustrated paid tribute to Dylan Cromwell, the Head Racing crew man who died earlier this year by naming him one of the ’30” to be remembered and cheered for his accomplishments in NHRA’s Funny Car camp. Cromwell had a bright future ahead of him due to this prodigious work ethic and ability to have fun when he wasn’t working hard. As driver Blake Alexander said of his crewman, “He really cared about his family and that’s something we all reflect back on. We’ve all been thinking about it, and as we spend time with our family, we enjoy it more, just knowing that’s what Dylan would want us to be doing.
Quotes furnished by Drag Illustrated
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