With less than three weeks before the start of NHRA’s 75th anniversary Mission Foods Drag Racing Series season of 20 races, teams are packing up and heading to Gainesville Raceway to test their wares before the serious business of gaining No. 1 qualifiers, winning races, winning races within races and earning championships begins in earnest.
Both the series itself and its combatants are looking to find ways to celebrate NHRA’s 75 years of racing and to find ways to elevate both the Mission Foods series and their ability to compete at the highest level.
Rick Ware Racing is a case in point: with two Top Fuel racers who have been to the sport’s mountaintop and want to return, the team is fortifying its crew by bringing Jon Oberhofer into the fold. Jon’s big brother Jim O has been Clay Millican’s crew chief the past few seasons and, when team owner Rick Ware brought eight-time Top Fuel titleholder Tony Schumacher into the team, moved to that side of the pits to help get Schumacher acclimated.
This year, he’ll be joined by younger brother Jon, who had been sharing crew chief duties with Todd Smith on J.R. Todd’s Funny Car. Jon Oberhofer will be working with Millican and both brothers will have the ultimate co-crew chief to assist them: Nicky Boninfante. This is a shrewd move by Ware, to bring Jon O to his team and deprive his former employer, Kalitta Racing of his talents. Both Oberhofer brothers came into the sport with legend Connie Kalitta’s team and both worked with Scott Kalitta before that star’s death.
The Oberhofer brothers were cores in the Kalitta camp, with Jon O working as a cylinder head specialist with Scott Kalitta, then co-crew chief for David Grubnic and Doug Kalitta before moving to the Funny Car side and Jeff Arend, Del Worsham and Todd. Jon O was part of Scott Kalitta’s two championships, earning two Funny Car titles with Worsham (2015) and Todd in 2018. Todd earned race wins at the prestigious U.S. Nationals in 2017 and 2018 with Jon Oberhofer at the helm.
Jim Oberhofer had been Millican’s crew chief since 2022, staying on when Ware bought the team a year later. Jim O and Millican have since recorded five Top Fuel event wins – including the 2024 U.S. Nationals. He started in the trade as a parts washer at Kalitta Motorsports and rose through the ranks, serving as crew chief for Scott Kalitta, Hillary Will and Doug Kalitta, even as he served as the team’s general manager from 2000-2017!
Nicky Boninfante’s love of drag racing began in the grandstands before he began work with Kalitta Motorsports. “After being around this sport as long as I have,” Boninfante stated, “you recognize when a group fits. There’s respect here. Nobody guards information and nobody panics when things don’t go perfectly. That lets you make smarter decisions, and over a long season that usually shows up on the scoreboard,” he said. Boninfante will begin his third season with Rick Ware Racing at the 57th Amalie Motor Oil Gatornationals.
Kalitta Motorsports, basking in Doug Kalitta’s second Top Fuel championship in the past three seasons is also celebrating its 25th anniversary season with Mac Tools, Kalitta’s primary backer. While the team’s familiar red and white color scheme continues this season, there will be subtle markers on the wrap to celebrate these 25 seasons of partnership. J.R. Todd’s GR Supra Funny Car is continuing its partnership with DHL after around two decades of sponsorship, the sponsor having signs a multi-year extension with the team. DHL has partnered with Kalitta to achieve Funny Car titles with Todd in 2018 and Del Worsham in 2015. Dickie Venables and Todd Smith continue to turn the knobs for Todd.
Torrence Racing is returning for a full season of Top Fuel competition with Billy Torrence in the driver’s seat of their dragster. Steve Torrence, the four-time consecutive Top Fuel titleholder is focusing on the family’s business, they said. Richard Hogan and Bobby Lagana Jr continue as crew chiefs on this team, which has little change from the 2025 season – aside from the driver, that is.
In drag racing, numbers tell all of the stories, from reaction times at the hit to lap times, it’s all about the numbers. In NHRA’s diamond 75th anniversary year, the focus will turn to Funny Car when the tour hits its third – of 20 – events on the tour. During the Lucas Oil NHRA Winternationals, Funny Car will conduct its 1,000th race; the class made its first appearance 1966 World Finals in Tulsa, with Eddie Schartman earning the first Flopper Wally trophy. The season-opening Amalie Motor Oil Gatornationals will be the tour’s 998th appearance.
The first Funny Car win to the 900th:
- 1. Eddie Schartman, 1966 Tulsa, World Finals
- 100. Tripp Shumake, 1981 Atlanta
- 200. Bruce Larson, 1989 Winternationals
- 300. John Force, 1994 Topeka
- 400. Tim Wilkerson, 1999 Chicago
- 500. Wilkerson, 2003 U.S. Nationals in Indy
- 600. Jack Beckman, 2008 Phoenix
- 700. Johnny Gray, 2012 Englishtown
- 800. Force, 2016 Denver
- 900. Cruz Pedregon, 2021 Norwalk
Unfortunately, it isn’t always possible to make it to each race, and even if fans can go to an event, they might miss a nuance or 20 as the race progresses. For that reason, it’s always good to know how to find a broadcast of these 20 NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Series contests on FOX Sports. All 20 races will air on either FOX or FS1, together with the FOX One app. Due to the historic nature of this year’s schedule, FOX has agreed to start the year properly, including live eliminations on Sunday, March 8 from noon to 3PM on FS1. That same network will show the Right Trailers NHRA Top Fuel All-Star Callout will show live at 4PM on Saturday, march 7 on FS1.
FOX will air at least five NHRA elimination shows and there are several TBD dates that the free-to-air channel could pick up, depending on its other scheduling.
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