Looming Large! — NHRA’s upcoming 75th Anniversary season (next year) will include a number of special additions for it’s always formidable Lucas Oil Drag Racing Series schedule.
One important aspect — affecting Canada – will be the first ever edition Canadian SPORTSnationals — one of three SPORTSnationals races planned for 2026 – with the other other two being in Louisiana and Kentucky.
BC’s iconic Mission Raceway will be the site for the Canadian SPORTSnatonals race which will kick off the summer season there in a big way. The NHRA Canadian SPORTSnationals will take place June 11-12 followed immediately by their traditional NHRA Northwest divisional event — June 13-14.
DragRaceCanada will post more details about this higher profile event as more information becomes available.

Las Vegas Finalists (Continued) — In addition to the final round placings by Eddy Plaizier & Nathan Sitko at NHRA’s Dodge Nevada Nationals last weekend (already posted) — two other significant racers from Western Canada also faired extremely well at the event.
Victoria BC’s Stan Sipos and his racing partner Les Davenport – who campaign Canada’s all time quick and fast TAFC – also went to the championship round. Driver Stan Sipos – after qualifying #7 – collected impressive round wins over Chris Foster, Mike Gordon and Ray Martin to advance to his 9th career NHRA final round vs Jim Whitely. In that championship dash it was Whiteley earning the win light by an extremely narrow 5.493 secs to 5.502 secs margin. For Sipos it was his 2nd NHRA national event final in recent times after placing R/UP at Dallas just a couple weeks prior. Stan & Les’s Camaro was the fastest of the TAFC car breed at Las Vegas — running 267.27 mph.

Super Comp (9.05) class car racing featured the best finish ever in NHRA national event racing for Medicine Hat Alberta’s Mark Simmons — who was also a R/UP. Simmons, who is the owner of Spider Electric, and highly renowned for his support for drag racing overall in Western Canada, had a superb event run while collected six straight win-lights. In the final — he just missed – he broke out running a too quick 9.045 secs – which lost out to Colorado’s Alec Bianco.

Summit Season Summary — Canada was well represented by some talented Eastern Canadian racers who qualified for the Summit Racing ET World Championship event – also hosted at NHRA’s Dodge Nevada Nationals. That elite field did include for the first time an “Eastern Canadian Division” and four drivers who qualified.
At Vegas Mike Konopacki (from Hampton ON) raced to a round #2 finish for the Motorcycle ET division, as did Mike Cukrovani (from Caledonia ON) in Pro ET. Super Pro qualifier Cody Levasseur (Corbell ON) and Dennis Boyko (Sportsman ET) – file photos below – also made the prestigious trip – but both those drivers lost out in round one.