The 35th annual NHRA Northwest Nationals

After a three week break in national event action; the longest of the season until a similar break between the DENSO NHRA Sonoma Nationals and the Lucas Oil NHRA Nationals (Brainerd), the NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Series kicks into action at Pacific Raceways from July 19 to 21. With all four PRO categories in attendance for the first time at Seattle, and the Top Alcohol classes in competition it's going to be quite the show. And for another first, at least the first time planned, there will be night time qualifying for the NITRO cars on Friday night. It's certainly going to be one of those "BE THERE!" evenings.

After many trips to SIR (Seattle International Raceway), and the renamed facility (Pacific Raceways) over five decades, and seeing first hand, from the grandstands, from inside my dragster, and from the photographers area, I'm interested to see just how much light they can cast on what was so often a brightly lit starting line that quickly faded into almost total darkness by the finish line. With FOX sports television cameras on hand I'm sure there will be the best lighting ever seen at the facility.

We're still waiting to see an entry list to get an idea of just how big the show will be, but with the annual "Western Swing" reduced to just two races on back-to-back weekends on the West Coast there may be short fields in a few categories. We can only hope that the Bandimere family can make good on their promise to build a new track in the Denver area. It appears as though that might be quite a ways in the future, as progress on procuring a site to build on has been slow to this point.

More news on the 2024 NHRA Northwest Nationals tomorrow, and a look back at previous Northwest Nationals events is coming up over the next week. As always: stay tuned!