"Learn about drag racing, funny cars, and experience what it feels like to spend the day at a drag race"--Provided by publisher.

Blast through the evolving early years of Funny Car drag racing when doorslammers morphed into flip-top rail monsters. The era features historic mounts from Arnie "the Farmer" Beswick, Al “the Flying Dutchman” Vanderwoude, "Jungle" Jim Liberman, Don “the Snake” Prudhomme, and many more! The metamorphosis from doorslammers to fiberglass flip-top dragsters wasn’t ever a cut and dry plan. As drag racers pushed the envelope for more speed, a series of innovations quickly evolved and refined the genre. Funny Cars cut their teeth in the A/Factory Experimental (A/FX) and Experimental Stock (X/S) classes in 1964 with the 2-percent Mopars that looked funny with their axles moved forward. However, it was Jack Chrisman’s supercharged, nitro-fueled 427 Supercharged Factory Experimental (S/FX) Comet Caliente that trailblazed the class on which the NHRA turned its back and the AHRA fully accepted. Showmanship became the draw in the dawn of Funny Car with half-track burnouts and flame-throwing headers that packed fans five deep at the fence. By 1969, the NHRA had no choice but to create a class for these nitro-breathing, flip-top-sporting rail bruisers, indoctrinating the Funny Car (F/C) class at the Winternationals with 40 cars vying for 16 places in the field. The rest, as they say, is history!

Learn about funny cars and how they race.

Southern California was the birthplace of organized drag racing, with the first organized race held at the Santa Ana airport in 1949 and the subsequent founding of the National Hot Rod Association in 1950. Over the next decade and a half, the dragster became the king of the quarter mile on Southern California drag strips. In 1964, veteran dragster owner/driver Jack Chrisman had an idea for something different to grace Southern California's drag strips. It was not a dragster but a stock-bodied race car using nitromethane for fuel in a supercharged engine. With the help of Gene Mooneyham, Mercury's Fran Hernandez, and sponsor Helen Sachs, Chrisman put together the world's first nitro-burning "funny car." It was a steel stock-bodied Mercury Cyclone with a supercharged 427 Ford engine running on pure nitromethane. Chrisman started the evolution that soon turned stock steel-bodied cars into fiberglass-bodied tube chassis funny cars. Southern California drag racers began to lead the way for racers all over the United States in the new funny car class.

"In a top-ten format presents the worlds fastest cars"--Provided by publisher.

Whether racing around a dirt track, a paved track, or down a drag strip, car racing is a thrill a minute experience for the drivers and the spectators. Learn about the long history of car racing, and get the inside scoop on today's fastest racecars.

Re-live Corvette’s early years at the drag strip! Famously known as “America’s sports car,” the Chevrolet Corvette came to market in 1953. That same year, the newly established National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) hosted its first event. The Corvette was never intended for quarter-mile drag racing, and it appeared to be completely at odds with the sport. Early equipment included an underpowered Blue Flame 6-cylinder motor and automatic transmission. But somehow, the two have become forever entwined. The Corvette brought an element of class and style to drag racing. On the showroom and on the street, it has always been unique. It is truly American. Likewise, the uniqueness that sets it apart from everything else also meant that it had no natural competition on the drag strip. However, that fact didn’t dampen enthusiasm. Indeed, the NHRA and other governing bodies introduced Sports Car divisions in the late 1950s, catering to both stock and modified vehicles. Naturally, these classes were packed with Corvettes. Racing historian Steve Holmes breaks new ground by unearthing the complete early history of the Corvette in drag racing. Quarter-Mile Corvettes focuses on the period from 1955 to 1975, which spans the first 20 years of Corvette V-8 production. Fittingly, this was also the era considered by many to be the greatest in drag racing’s history, and Corvettes encapsulated the vibrancy of the period in a way that will never be repeated. Certainly, Chevrolet never intended for the Corvette to become a quarter-mile terror, but today, its nameplate has become one of the longest running in all of drag racing.