ET Impressive! — A young Canadian racer came precariously close to giving Canada yet another National Championship title last weekend. Within the NHRA Mopar Las Vegas Nationals race schedule was the Summit Racing ET Finals — which was a season concluding confrontation between the 64-best rated ET Bracket racers from across north America – and including 8 racers from Canada.
From within that mix – it was Alberta’s Daniel O’Connor (Morinville) with the best finish overall when he took runner-up honours for the Super Pro national championship. After winning his first 3 rounds with his ’68 Acadian (sponsored by Ebertz Brother Racing) – Daniel (RAD Torque Raceway = home track) lost a extremely close final round to Idaho’s Duston Wurtz – with Wurtz’s MOV being a meare 5 inches!
Congratulations are in order to all 8 Canadian racers who qualified and made the long tow to and from Las Vegas — Trevor Rock (St Thomas ON) and Riley Toth (Medicine Hat AB) for Bike ET, Pat Boniferro (Welland ON) and Chris Stone (Mission BC) for Pro ET, Frank Hood (Ore Medonte ON) and Wally Kuzyk (Spruce Grove AB) for Sportsman ET. Randy Hodges (from St Catherines ON) also competed for Super Pro.

At Las Vegas Cayuga Dragway regular Frank Hood went to the third round for NHRA’s Summit ET Finals before losing out.  Rather remarkably – Frank highway drove his Camaro to and from event to compete – about 3700 km each way! 

No Mercy Semis – Highly talented BC-based door slammer pilot (and former NHRA Pro Mod World Champion) Jordan Lazic — tried his hand again within that rather wicked world of Radial Outlaw Racing Series recently. Jordan was an invited driver for the very potent and elite small tire experts “Team Buginga” owned by Manny Buginga (from Massachusetts). During the Duck X Productions event hosted at fabled South Georgia Motorsports Park Oct 26 — Jordan took the controls for one of the Team Bujinga Ford Mustangs within the Radial Vs The World class competition – part of the RORS events menu. Jordan went the semi final rounds for that “Shootout” competition losing a close one to Ken Quartuccio by a 3.47 to 3.49 secs count — his quickest run yet and first time into the 3.4 range. Quartuccio clinched the overall ’26 championship at the race.

CDRHF This Weekend — Canadian drag racing proponent extraordinaire John Scotti will host the 2026 induction ceremony for the Canadian Drag Racing Hall of Fame on Nov 7th. The annual affair (now held at Scotti’s extravagant Lamborghini Showrooms – Kirkland PQ) will include four highly deserving Canadian drag racers, with icons Larry Dobbs (Ontario) and Wendall Howes (New Brunswick) joined by skilled Western Canadian racers Nathan Sitko (Alberta) and Mike Gondziola (Saskatchewan) sharing the spotlight.
The evening’s ceremony will also recognise and honour season champions for the John Scotti Canadian Championship Series circuit of racing last summer and include the identity of the 2026 winner for the John Massingberd Memorial Award.
DragRaceCanada will post highlights from the gala event.

Nathan Sitko – who just recently clinched the 2026 NHRA Hot Rod Heritage Series Funny Car Championship – will be inducted into the Canadian Drag Racing Hall of Fame — this coming weekend!

“Top” Running Canadians! — Dunmore Alberta’s Aaron Steinkey was once deep into the mix for “Top” class racing held at the NHRA national event level. At Las Vegas (last weekend), Steinkey entered his two cars again – one each for TS and TD.
Steinkey was brutally fast as usual in both categories. For TD his 6.109 secs was both the #1 qualifier and also low ET of the race in the class.
While he did exit in round #2 for TD – his event exploits with his nitrous-injected TS Camaro were more successful. After qualifying that car 2nd (6.193 secs) he put together four round win lights before losing in the championship final to Ed Olpin.
And we would be remiss if we did not also point out that Canada most certainly did dominate qualifying for the TS class overall – securing the top three positions after qualifying!
In addition to Steinkey being #2— it was Mission BC’s Kirk Lanz taking the pole (6.163 secs) with his Pro-charger Camaro and Will Yakimetz (Vegreville AB) in his supercharged Camaro landing the #3 slot on the final ledger.

Spencer’s Season Best! — Ontario’s Spencer Hyde did notch some great math for Funny Car class racing at NHRA’s Mopar Las Vegas Nationals. Spencer qualified high for what turned out to be the quickest ever assembly of fuel Funny Cars in NHRA history (1st all 3-secs field & record quick bump of 3.968 secs).
Spencer’s best run in the Jim Head Racing Mustang (presented by the Waldeck Real Estate Group) was a season quick 3.887 secs to qualify 5th. Spencer topped Paul Lee in his round one match but could not outrun eventual event winner Jordan Vandergriff in the quarterfinals. For Spencer Hyde’s post event thoughts from Las Vegas click: HERE