The latest update as of February 4, 2025

It's going to be a busy weekend of racing

It's already started with a total of four time trial sessions today and tomorrow for the Pro Stock, Funny Car, and Top Fuel racers on the invitation list. There's eleven drivers in each of the fuel classes, and 14 racing in Pro Stock. Top Fuel and Funny Car will run standard 8-car elimination fields, with the three non-qualifying racers in each class facing off in a Top Fuel vs Funny Car consolation match race. The quickest winners of the three pairs in the first round of the match race will meet in the consolation final, running just before the Top Fuel and Funny Car finals. The Pro Stock schedule shows four rounds of eliminations, so it appears that there will be bye runs in the quarterfinal and semifinal rounds.

One major difference for the racers will be "chip draws" to determine opponents in all elimination rounds before the finals. Presumably, even the bye runs for Pro Stock will be decided by those draws. That may make it more interesting for the spectators, but will take away some of the incentive to qualify at or near the top of the ladder.

The invitation list on the Shootout website shows only nine racers in each of the fuel classes, but an article about the event on Competition Plus yesterday gave us some updates on the fuel fields. In addition to the nine racers listed on the PRO Superstar Shootout website, the article shows Mike and Jasmine Salinas as part of the Top Fuel field.

On the Funny Car side, there's nothing in the article detailing the two extra drivers, other than to say "none of them are Superstar Shootout 'rookies' other than Jack Beckman". That leaves two of the following four racers to fill the field. Cruz Pedregon, Blake Alexander, Paul Lee, and Alexis DeJoria. We can eliminate Alexander as he has moved on from the Jim Head team and will be driving part-time with Chad Green. That leaves three racers that could possibly fill the two remaining spots, but I'm not going to speculate on who they may be.

The biggest surprise among the non-invited are Steve Torrence and Clay Millican in Top Fuel. There are rumours that the Torrence team (Steve & Billy) will either be a one-car team in 2025, or race a limited schedule, but Millican is a real surprise. He's a social media superstar, has a hard running car, and is very popular. Another oddity, in my estimation is the 14-car Pro Stock elimination field. The promoters should have cut the numbers back to something closer to what was needed for an 8-car field, or added a few more to make it a full 16-car show. Two of the 2024 Top Ten Pro Stock competitors were left out (Matt Hartford and Jerry Tucker), and six racers from outside the Top Ten are on the invite list.

We're not sure if we'll see any results from the "private testing" today and tomorrow, but when the broadcast starts streaming on Thursday morning, we'll hopefully be able to fill in all the blanks in our notebooks. Stay tuned for updates on the event as they happen.

The March Meet is barely a month away, but the dust will be blown off Famoso Dragstrip on Saturday as an open test session will be running. While it's primarily catering to the fuel racers that will be running the March Meet, it is open to all race teams, whether they are competing in March or just wanting to do some testing. The March Meet Event Page is up and accepting entries, selling tickets, and providing lots of information about one of the most iconic drag races in the history of the sport.

At this point it doesn't appear that Northern Thunder will have any photographers on hand for the event, but as with all things around here, that might be subject to change. And as always: stay tuned!