IHRA Outlaw Series Announcements

It's only two weeks until the first of five planned IHRA Outlaw Nitro Series events kicks off at Hebron, OH's National Trail Raceway. After nearly six months of announcements, retractions, hirings, firings, and seemingly never-ending changes, the newest iteration of the International Hot Rod Association is on the verge of kicking off the first major event on their 2025 calendar. With $205,000 in purse money for Top Fuel and Funny Car, they are taking a serious shot at attracting some mid-range or higher fuel racers.

Additionally, there is a total of $507,000 offered for a total of 17 sportsman categories, ranging from Top Alcohol Dragster and Funny Car to Pro Mod, Pro Nitrous, Pro Stock, Mountain Motor Pro Stock, Nitro Harley, Top Dragster and Sportsman, Super Stock, Factory Stock, Stock, Hemi Shootout, Quick, Super, and Hot Rod, and of course, Snowmobiles.

That makes a grand total of $917,000 in purse money to be paid to a total of 298 racers. If all the fields are filled, plus 2 to 4 alternates for some classes, a total of approx. $105,000 in entry fees would be collected. Assuming that the lower sportsman classes will be oversubscribed, there might be as much as $120,000 in total entry fees. That's not much of a down payment on the huge purses offered to Top Fuel ($205,000), Funny Car ($205,000), Pro Mod ($120,000) and Pro Nitrous ($45,000), which total up to $575,000 alone.

With the most expensive spectator ticket being $100 for a 4-day pass, or $20 for Wednesday, Thursday (sportsman only) and $40 for Friday and Saturday (Pros), they're going to need an awful lot of fans to occupy the grandstands at National Trail.

On the IHRA Facebook page yesterday I saw the first two Top Fuel entries that have committed to the entire series, Scott Palmer and Krista Baldwin, plus the first Funny Car to join the party, Dale Creasy Jr.. Additionally, two Pro Mods have entered the first event at National Trail, Frankie "Mad Man" Taylor and Craig Sullivan. That's only five racers so far, but with two weeks to go before qualifying starts at the first event, we expect to see a steady stream of entries flowing in, especially for the $50K to win in Pro Mod. Stay tuned for updates.

Next up on our agenda is the fourth race on the FUNNY CAR CHAOS schedule, the Tulsa Nitro Nationals at Tulsa Raceway Park. Our Arizona photographer, BIG Bob Snyder is already enroute to the event as this is being written. We'll have all the photos and reports up over the weekend. After that we've got our Colorado correspondent, Dale Fackler hitting the road to the Nitro Chaos race at (Smoklin') Mo-Kan Dragway in mid-July. Looks like it's going to be a busy summer for Bob and Dale, and of course, myself (Bobby Thunder).