That’s little ol’ me with V. Gaines (one of the nicest Pro Stock drivers/people on the planet) and Buddy Perkinson (one of the best drivers not currently competing in NHRA Pro Stock) on Sunday morning in Charlotte 10 years ago.

Like the Sportsman categories, this class is filled with some of the coolest cats, and it always has been.

The drivers and tuners and builders and crew members are so much more than gearheads or simple adrenaline addicts. They are engineers and orchestra conductors and artists. They are scientists and magicians and yes, professors. (There is only one Professor, though – let’s be honest).

Pro Stock is poetry, it is art in motion, it is so beautiful I want to frame it and put it on my wall.

I will settle for living inside of drag racing and getting to learn from these people as much and as often as I can.

I’m very grateful to be part of NHRA drag racing, from all of the incredible Sportsman racers I’ve been so privileged to write about to the extraordinary Pro Stock racing I have been fortunate to view from the front row.

I’m never leaving.