RacingJunk’s Best of 2025: Top Articles of the Year

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Our Top Articles of 2025 reflect the stories that resonated most with the RacingJunk audience this year—breaking news, deep dives, feature builds, and industry insights that drove conversation and clicks. These pieces captured what mattered most in 2025, from emerging trends to timeless debates, and showcased the voices and reporting that keep RacingJunk at the center of the automotive world. If you missed any of these, now’s the time to catch up.

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Brittany Force, part of the legacy of John Force family racers, is following her sisters in planning to start a family with her husband Bobby. Married just a few short months ago, Force, who holds both ends of NHRA’s track records in Mission Foods Drag Racing Series Top Fuel competition, has been racing professionally since 2013. She has a pair of dragster championship titles to go with her nine of 10 speeds over 340mph in NHRA Top Fuel pro racing.

Any car that needs a parachute to slow down is bound to be a wild ride. However, the driver of this C7 Corvette drag car got a much wilder ride than he – or anyone in the stands – expected. Drag racer Jason Hoard is lucky to be alive after a terrifying crash that saw his Corvette take flight during a the first round of a “no time” format drag race. In a not time race, the scoreboards are turned off so that the competition can’t see what you’re really working with, and vice versa. The event took place at World Wide Technology Raceway in Madison, Illinois.

Hoard suffered a some broken ribs in the harrowing crash, as well as a possible punctured lung. From the video, we can see that the S197 Mustang in the left lane got the jump on Hoard, who might have pushed a bit to try to catch up. About halfway down the track, we can see the Corvette get slightly squirrelly. Before Hoard can respond, the car becomes airborne, before smashing the rear bumper on the ground and tumbling violently over the left-lane retaining wall.

Senate Bill 712, also known as Leno’s Law due to it’s support from comedian and famous collector car enthusiast Jay Leno, recently leapt a big hurdle on its way to reducing the need for smog checks on cars 35 years or older — passage from the California Senate floor to the Assembly Transportation Committee with bipartisan support.

The purpose of the bill is to reduce the financial onus on collector car owners for vehicles that are driven for special occasions, not used as daily commuters, by not holding them to the same emissions standards as a daily driver with the justification that the environmental impact is radically smaller.

The law was authored by California State Senator Senator Shannon Grove (R-Bakersfield) who is pleased with the legislation’s progress, while still having some reservations about the current iteration: “I’m thrilled to see Leno’s Law clear the Senate Floor, marking a significant step for car enthusiasts across California,” said Senator Shannon Grove. “Leno’s Law would give collectors the option to have a smog check exemption and that is a win for many enthusiasts!”

This hasn’t been the year that Elite Motorsports has hoped for or planned for in the NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Series Pro Stock category. The team’s lead driver, five-time champion Erica Enders was languishing outside the top 10 in a class in which she’s shared domination – until 2024 – with KB Titan Racing’s Greg Anderson, now a six-time titleholder, while the balance of the team showed only two of its many entries in the vaunted top 10 standings: Aaron Stanfield in fifth and Jeg Coughlin Jr. in ninth place.

Things haven’t gotten better since the Super Grip NHRA Thunder Valley Nationals last weekend at Bristol Dragway in Bristol, TN. NHRA disqualified Enders’ qualifying times on Saturday evening following the fourth session, when her rear wheels didn’t meet NHRA’s approved specifications for Pro Stock. The disqualification wasn’t noted by NHRA in its preview for Sunday’s event, but the series doubled down after the race by imposing both a $5,000 fine and docking Enders 100 points.

There’s a popular misconception in NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Series competition, stating that Top Fuel and Funny Car classes run on nitromethane. Well, that’s the fuel they use, true, but they run on another commodity: money.

And money is holding back the driver of Valley Services Scrappers Racing’s Top Fuel entry, Jasmine Salinas, who currently holds fifth place in the season-long points chase. Last weekend on The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, the sophomore dragster driver made her way to the finals of the 4-Wide Nationals that saw Tony Stewart, another sophomore dragster driver, earn his first victory in Top Fuel. He’d won at Las Vegas in Top Alcohol Dragster, but was still looking for his first Mission Foods title.

Mission accomplished for Smoke, who has the breadth of sponsorship with Stellantis brand Dodge and many other partners that have long backed both Stewart and his Funny Car teammate, four-time Flopper champion Matt Hagan.

We often talk about the need to have younger drivers come up through the ranks, but in order for that to happen, they need money. Lots and lots of money. These days, it just isn’t there. Even for champions. Even for series veterans.