The North Carolina racer was first inspired by his big brother John Furr, a three-time IHRA Hot Rod World Champion.

“I started going with him to the races when I was in school and all the way up through college,” Furr recalled. “I didn’t have enough money to race myself, but I watched it and got hooked on it. I wasn’t very good at it when I started, so I never thought I would run with it as I have. John made it look easy, but it was very, very hard for me.”

That may be so, but once Steve got the hang of it, he was always in the running.

He posted a record of 18 IHRA national-event wins, 37 IHRA Pro-Am wins, and numerous divisional victories. None were as memorable as the very first national win.

“The first race I won, they put us on the cover of Drag Review with the ‘Furr Flies’ headline,” Steve said. “I had switched to Super Rod and John ran Hot Rod. I bought a car in 1994 and we did a ton of work to it. The first race in 1995 at Darlington, we both won and it was such a huge deal. I didn’t think it could get any better than that.

“It was a huge accomplishment. We went on to win multiple times after that, but that first time is special.”

That victory propelled him to winning multiple races and his first world championship in 1996.

Besides his brother, Steve was inspired by world champion Scott Duggins, who has always built engines for him. He also learned by racing his hero, Alonzo Moore, and others like Rusty Cook and Carl Watts in Super Rod.

“I remember going with John, watching all those Super Rod guys and thinking it was the coolest thing,” Furr said. “I wanted to get in that class although it was a class full of sharks.”

Steve also learned a lot traveling with one of his brother’s toughest competitors in Hot Rod, Marshall Smith Jr.  With such knowledge around him, it wasn’t long until Furr was making his own mark as one to beat.

“It progressed quickly. I won my first race in ’95 and won the championship with my Camaro in ‘96,” he said. “John won in Hot Rod so we got to get up and make speeches together. I was talking to Edmund Richardson and he got me thinking about two cars. So I ran a dragster at 8.90 a few years.

“I had some success. I finished second in both cars in 1997 and John did as well, so in all the rod classes we finished second. Scott then talked me into swapping cars for a year. He drove my 8.90 and I got into Top Dragster. He won the 8.90 championship in my car and got me introduced to spraying nitrous and going fast. I was hooked after that.”

A two-time Sportsman driver of the Year in 2004 and 2006, Steve continued to be a force in both Super Rod and Top Dragster. He was the Super Rod champion both of those seasons and also finished runner-up to Bryan Bennett in the 2006 Top Dragster point standings.

He also was IHRA Super Rod World Champion in 2011 and IHRA Top Dragster World Champion in 2016.

He has a combined 92 IHRA and NHRA victories, over 170 final-round appearances and was PDRA Top Dragster World Champion in 2020. Some of the race tracks he loves includes Darlington, where he won that first race, along with Rockingham, only 75 minutes from his home, and Maryland International Raceway.

While the first win is the most memorable, the 2016 season was particularly meaningful. John died in September that year and Steve won the IHRA Top Dragster world championship weeks later. There was a late-summer stretch where he won every IHRA and NHRA race he attended.

Photos from that World Championship victory lane, show the words “For John,” painted on Steve’s dragster. The family tradition continues with Steve’s son, Nick, now joining him at drag strips across America.

 

“We got him in Junior Dragsters when he was eight,” Steve said. “Nick, who is now 20, is racing John’s Nova that he won the championships with. He loves it. I’ve had him in the dragster a little bit, but he always gravitates back to John’s Nova. He thinks it’s so cool when people tell him they used to race against John in that car back in the day.”

Steve still credits his big brother for the success he has enjoyed. “I didn’t have any idea what I was doing, but he was always mentoring me and teaching me,” Steve said. “I’m sure I was a pain to deal with. I see a lot of me in my son and me getting on him. My brother could be hard on me and I can be the same with my son.

“You want him to be good and disciplined at it because this is a disciplined sport. You’ve got to be tough to be good at this. I’m thankful to John for being where I’m at today.”

As much fun as the national events were, Steve also remembers the divisional events as fondly. He racked up divisional titles, racing at different tracks in the Carolinas like Piedmont and Farmington. Even when points format was changed, he still raced at a lot of divisional races because he enjoyed them. He also enjoyed the camaraderie of the IHRA officials, mentioning Danny Waters Sr. and others who helped create great memories.

“The IHRA was a great place to race for years because of those guys,” he said. “It was such a fun time to come to the track, a great atmosphere and the IHRA always treated you right. I always appreciated all they’ve done for the racers.”

Now 55, Steve is still going strong. Still one of the drivers to beat, there doesn’t appear to be plans to slow down anytime soon.

“I started in my early 20s. My brother was smart enough to quit in 2010 when he started his own business at home,” he said. “I continued and even though he wasn’t going anymore, I’d still talk to him about it. I guess I’ve just got hooked on it over the years and as long as my son stays interested in it and I’m still competitive, we’ll keep doing it.”

 

It has also been a place of innovation and racing history. Now, the South Carolina track is recognized as a legendary facility as part of the International Hot Rod Association (IHRA) Hall of Fame.

 

The 1/4-mile drag strip was constructed by Harold Brasington, who built nearby Darlington Dragway in 1950, and Woodrow Hall under the guidance of IHRA founder Larry Carrier. It opened in 1976 and has remained a mainstay on the IHRA schedule. It has hosted multiple national events, the IHRA Sportsman Spectacular and has served as home to the IHRA Division 9 (Raiders) Summit Team Finals. 

Innovative at the time, two towers were constructed to relieve congestion at the starting line. The track also was home to the first five-second pass and the first 200 mph pass by a door car when Bill Kuhlman ran 202.24 mph in a Pro Mod at the IHRA national event in 1987.

Darlington Dragway hosted several other IHRA national events over the years with 17-time world champion “Big Daddy” Don Garlits beating Connie Kalitta in the finals of the 1979 Winter Nationals. Other Top Fuel winners included Doug Herbert, Paul Romine, Gene Snow, Tommy Johnson Jr. and Kalitta. 

“The King of Speed” Kenny Bernstein won in both Top Fuel and Funny Car, while legendary female drivers Shirley Muldowney and Rhonda Hartman also enjoyed their share of success at Darlington.

The track played a key role in the first Pro Mod championship for Shannon “The Iceman” Jenkins who won both national events there in 1997. He beat rival Scotty Cannon in the final of the season-opening Winter Nationals and John Bartunek in the IHRA Finals. Cannon was also a multiple-time winner at his home state track.

Speaking of legendary matchups, Tom “The Mongoose” McEwen beat Don “The Snake” Prudhomme at the 1984 Winter Nationals. Others to conquer the South Carolina strip include IHRA Hall of Famer Rickie Smith, who was nearly unbeatable during a stretch in Pro Stock, Darrell Alderman in his famed Dodge, and Funny Car star Raymond Beadle, who also earned fame as car owner for 1989 NASCAR champion Rusty Wallace.

Those are only some of the greats to win at Darlington.

 

The tradition of champions continued with Tylor Miller one of the top Doorslammer racers in the country. His sister, Brooke, won back-to-back Junior Dragster track championships at Darlington, before moving up to the Pro Mod ranks with the Pee Dee Fleet Motorsports Team.

 

They are the children of track operators Russell and Dee Dee Miller, who took over the legendary facility in 2015. They, along with track manager Rhett Gardner, returned it to one of the premier racing facilities in the United States.

 

Jeff Miles took over as track president in 2022. His daughters, Shelby and Morgan, race Top Dragster in bracket races throughout the Southeast. 

There was a complete overhaul of the track, which included a new drainage system and 750 feet of the track from the burnout boxes past the 1/8-mile finish line made all-concrete. In 2016, the revived facility was named International Hot Rod Association Track of the Year.

In 2021, Scotti Watts (Top), Aaron Brock (Mod) and Budd Trammell II (Junior) were Darlington representatives at the IHRA Summit SuperSeries World Finals. The track continues to play a key role in drag racing history and will serve as home to the IHRA Division 9 (Raiders) Summit Team Finals once again in 2022.

With a rich history that extends to today, Darlington Dragway has well earned its spot as an IHRA Hall of Fame facility.

Elrod has lived a life filled with hard work and sacrifice, but he has done it all with his family by his side. He has traveled the country winning races, championships, and the respect of his drag racing peers, with his wife Barbara, children, grandchildren, and his closest friends huddled together in a pit area that more so resembles a small caravan than a working space for racecars. On any given race weekend, the collective Elrod clan can be found serving as crew members, racers, and just plain moral support.

They have become known as one of the first families of drag racing, and for their efforts on and off the track, the man behind it all – Dave Elrod – has been selected to the inaugural International Hot Rod Association (IHRA) Hall of Fame class as the IHRA celebrates its 50th anniversary in 2021.

“It is an amazing honor and very humbling to be selected to IHRA’s Hall of Fame,” Elrod said. “To be recognized by my peers for doing something that I have loved is very unexpected and appreciated.”

During a career that has spanned four decades, Elrod has collected nearly 100 national, divisional and points-paying event victories, accompanying four IHRA world championships in three different classes in 1983, 1992, 1994, and 1995. He has appeared on numerous magazine covers, won several bigtime races, and even earned IHRA’s prestigious Sportsman of the Year award.

“I would have to say that my greatest award was the Sportsman of the Year award given to me because it was voted on by my peers,” Elrod said. “Most people outside of racing do not understand how hard it is to do what we all love to do – race, work and take care of your family while being competitive over a long period of time. The people that I have become friends and competed with and helped over all these years thought enough to vote for me. It was a great award.”

Beginning with the father Dave, the two brothers, Tony and Jacob, along with driver Pat Forster, and sister Jamie, who serves as co-crew chief, Team Elrod has been racking up victories for years in nearly every class imaginable.

“I met Pat Forster in 1992 and he started going to the track with me. In the late 90s, he started driving our dragster and in 2005 we partnered up and formed Team Elrod,” Elrod said. “He is my partner, my friend, and has become family. His wife, Dee Ann, and their children, Kaylee, Joey, Will, and P.J. are our family and we wouldn’t want to be racing without them being part of it.

“Racing is the sport that my whole family loves. My children, grandchildren, and every part of the family are involved in our sport. Our daughter, Shelley, and Travis Colangelo own American Race Cars and build amazing cars that allow us to win. Jamie drives our ATM American dragster, Tony drives multiple cars, Jacob drives the Corvette Roadster tribute car. Pat runs Top Dragster in the American dragster and P.J. drives the Junior Dragster. Tony’s son, A.J., and his daughter, Lily, are counting the time when they can run in Junior Dragster. Racing is our family. We work hard together, we play hard together and we pray hard together.”

And it is that family atmosphere, with both his family and the families of his competitors, that have made race weekends over the past 40 years so enjoyable for Elrod.

“That’s how IHRA racers are everywhere we went. It didn’t matter what state you were in, the racers were always willing to jump in and help you – until you got to the starting line,” Elrod said. “Most of our children are now racing each other. It really was a family atmosphere. I remember Jacob driving the 4-wheeler towing the car while my daughter would stay in the pits and prep the other cars. Before GPS was around, Jacob was also my co-pilot and he would take the atlas and a ruler to figure out how to get to a track and calculate how long it would take to get there.

“A lot of years there was a full northern tour with several races within two hours of our home. That’s when we would have three to five rigs at our house and everyone would stay together. That’s how we got to know so many other racing families.”

Collectively, Team Elrod has won seven IHRA world championships, 60 IHRA national event wins, and nearly 100 IHRA division wins. So many, that Elrod has a hard time finding just one that stands out above the rest.

“The IHRA world championships we have won have been special. Specifically, winning the points championship at Bradenton was great. After that, they started posting the wins at the Don Garlits Museum,” Elrod said. “There were numerous race wins that really stand out. When we ran the T-Bucket Roadster, it would leave so hard it would blow the bell housing apart, so we carried extra transmissions with us. We were racing the national event at Milan, Michigan, and it blew, but we were able to change it out in 15 minutes to make it back the next round and ended up winning the race.

“I have no idea how many local wins at Muncie, Tri-State, Marion, Norwalk, and others we have. I do remember there was a bounty on me for a year at Muncie and Marion. One of my favorite wins was the time Jacob and I both won the IHRA Northern Nationals at Martin, Michigan. I won in Top Dragster and Jacob won in Quick Rod. Then there were the races at Grand Bend Raceway in Canada. The Canadians were a great crowd and we always did well there. Jacob was the first to win three national events in one day there, winning Hot Rod, Quick Rod, and E.T. combo.

“Another race that stands was qualifying in Top Dragster at Norwalk’s national event in the early 90s. We had one of the oldest, smallest motors in the field of about 90 cars trying to qualify for a 32-car field. We did and we made it to the finals where I went red against Scott Stillings. Of course, winning at Bristol was always one of the more exciting victories because of how tough it was to win there, and my favorite track to visit was Epping, New Hampshire. There are just so many memories from so many places.”

And for Elrod, that amazing journey all began with a fascination with his brother.

Elrod’s brother, Max, was paralyzed from the waist down. Inseparable, Elrod began going to Kettlersville Drag Strip in Ohio alongside his brother as he competed in a ’63 Dodge with hand controls set up for the brake and gas. As he watched that night, Elrod remembers the excitement he felt as the cars lifted high off the asphalt at launch and powered down the strip.

“One night on the way to the track, Max had had a few beers and I had to drive,” Elrod recalls. “When we got to the track, I asked him if I could race, and he said OK. I used the brake and gas torquing the car up and had a better run than he ever had. From then on he let me run his car.”

Over the years, Elrod has gotten behind the wheel of a long list of race machines. From street cars, to stock, modified, and class cars. From Novas and Corvettes to Camaros, roadsters, and dragsters, Elrod has raced just about anything with wheels. As part of that impressive list, he has also competed in numerous classes including Top Sportsman, Top Dragster, Stock, Hot Rod, Quick Rod, and even Super Stock, where he was the first to run eight seconds in 1989 in a Firebird owned by Harold Stout.

“In the early days we didn’t have much to race on money-wise, so we stayed local. That is where I learned to be consistent and gained the knowledge you need to be competitive. I had to win to be able to keep racing and you can’t eat just by winning trophies,” Elrod said. “I went to a couple of IHRA national events and did well, so in 1981 we made the decision to start to follow the IHRA circuit. We built a Corvette to be competitive, but in 1982 I barrel-rolled it at the finish line at Bristol at the last race of the year. The next year we built a ’23 T-Bucket Roadster and went racing.

“The best part about those early years was being able to make lifelong friends throughout the United States. We traveled the circuit using our vacation time and raced all over the country. We decided that if a race was eight hours or less from home, we would take all four kids. If it was more, we would find family to keep them so we could have time together.

“My family supported me in racing from the time we were married and started having children all the way to the present. They were not only my supporters but also crew chiefs, mechanics, co-drivers, and are racers today.”

Today, Team Elrod has three American dragsters, a 2019 American roadster tribute car, a ’63 split-window Corvette, and two American Junior Dragsters. Elrod was originally slated to fill one of the dragster seats, but he tore his rotator cuff and handed the ride over to his son.

Team Elrod continues to compete and be successful even today. And with every victory, with every race day spent in the pits with dozens of family members, Elrod vividly recalls those early years in the sport and how that determination and never-give-up attitude led to the full family affair he enjoys today.

“I am grateful for everything racing has allowed me to do in my life,” Elrod said. “It has been a great adventure and I really enjoyed everything about IHRA. The racers, officials, tracks, events, all of it. It has been a wonderful life.”

Consider the enormous impact that he’s made both on and off the track, it becomes clear that Herbert is both a Hall of Fame drag racer and person.

The California native and longtime North Carolina resident had his first real taste of success in the early 1990s. He won his first career race at Bristol Dragway in 1992, setting off a streak of six straight wins at Thunder Valley through 1997.

“That was awesome. We went to Bristol every year and couldn’t do anything wrong,” he recalled. “Winning the Top Fuel race in 1992, being the first to make a four-second run, the first to go over 300 mph, getting to race Shirley Muldowney, Gene Show, Eddie Hill, all those and others were great drivers that I got to compete against.

“Anybody asks me what my favorite track is and it definitely was Bristol. How could it not be?”

Herbert, the son of drag racing pioneer Chet Herbert, beat Kim LaHaie for that first victory. It came months after he made it to the final round at Darlington where he lost to Gene Snow. Once he broke through with the Bristol win, Herbert went on to claim the 1992 season championship. He followed it up with three consecutive IHRA Top Fuel titles from 1994-96.

With an appreciation of the history of the sport, Herbert realized how special it was to have legendary drivers lined up beside him. He recalled a couple of occasions when he faced off with Muldowney and another time with former IHRA President Mike Dunn.

“Having Shirley there was neat. She was such a tough competitor with a top-notch team with crew chief Rahn Tolber,” Herbert said. “IHRA was such a neat family deal. There are so many great memories that are fun. I remember racing Mike Dunn at Norwalk. He was a great competitor and a really neat guy.”

Herbert, nicknamed “Dougzilla” by fellow IHRA Hall of Famer and rival Clay Millican, competed in his final IHRA race in 1999. He defeated Jim Bailey in a car that Herbert owned in the IHRA Finals at Rockingham. He added to his legacy as a 10-time, national-event winner in NHRA competition.

Over the last few years, Herbert has been working with NASCAR Hall of Fame crew chief Ray Evernham in developing a land speed record car with Dodge Viper engines. There are plans in place to attempt to break the current record of 463.038 mph for a piston-powered vehicle at the famed Bonneville Salt Flats.

Herbert’s greatest contributions, however, have come off the race track after losing his sons in a highway crash.

After the accident, he established B.R.A.K.E.S. (Be Responsible And Keep Everybody Safe), a teen safe-driving program. It goes beyond standard driver’s education with a curriculum that addresses many situations responsible for accidents involving teenagers.

The program, which has been featured in PEOPLE magazine and on national television, has trained more than 45,000 teens from 46 different states and five countries.

There are testimonials from coast to coast of how the training has saved lives. Research from the University of North Carolina shows that teens who have taken the course are 64 percent less likely to get into an auto accident.

He continues to make a major impact in the drag racing world through Doug Herbert Performance Parts, which supplies cams, lifters, and other parts to make cars go fast. If going fast on the ground isn’t enough, Herbert has also embarked on another passion as a personal pilot.

With a lifetime of achievement on and off the track, the International Hot Rod Association welcomes Doug Herbert into the inaugural IHRA Hall of Fame class.

That old adage rings true across most disciplines, but it especially holds true in the world of drag racing. Drag racing is a sport all about mechanical prowess, the ability to adjust on the fly, and driver skill behind the wheel.

Few consistently master all three areas of the sport, but for those that do, their legacy lives on even today. Dennis Mitchell is one of those drivers that truly knows about success.

Mitchell is a five-time International Hot Rod Association (IHRA) Modified Eliminator world champion, with a sixth title driving in the short-lived Factory Modified category. He has 20 national event victories and countless IHRA divisional wins, which ranks him among the five most successful drivers in both championships and victories in the sportsman categories. For that and many other reasons, Mitchell was selected to the inaugural IHRA Hall of Fame class as the IHRA celebrates its 50th anniversary in 2021.

“It is a great honor to be chosen as a member of the IHRA Hall of Fame,” Mitchell said. “I remember those IHRA days and the people, especially Ted Jones, Robert Leonard, Bob Frey and Jeff Byrd from Winston. I remember a lot of the people and their families. It was a close-knit group back then and a lot of fun.”

Mitchell was born in Madison County in Alabama in July of 1943 and has lived in Huntsville, Alabama for the past 58 years. When he wasn’t racing, Mitchell spent much of his time working in machine shops before starting his own shop in his hometown in the late 80s, where he worked until his retirement in 2020.

But while Mitchell was a talented artist in the shop, it was no match for his skill behind the wheel.

Mitchell’s journey in motorsports began in 1963 when a track opened not too far from his hometown in New Hope, Alabama. Mitchell took his streetcar – a 1963 ½ Ford Galaxie with a 390 engine – to the strip and gave the straight-line sport a try for the first time.

“I took my streetcar out to that local strip and decided to give it a try. I was not very successful, but I had a lot of fun,” Mitchell said. “After a couple of years, I decided to build a gasser. I chose a 1950 Henry J (B/Gas). That car was not very successful in the beginning, so I decided to completely rebuild the car again and it became a big winner locally. Next came a 1958 Corvette (D/Gas) which was also very successful locally.”

After a number of years being the proverbial big fish in a small pond, Mitchell decided to step it up a notch in 1978. He bought a Chevy Vega (C/G and C/A) from IHRA Pro Stock racer Keith Albritten and, after another year of local success, decided to give points racing a try.

Mitchell’s first foray into the world of the IHRA was far from ideal, with weather dealing a blow to his first-ever points paying event. Not long after, Mitchell turned his hesitation about racing at the national level into his first Ironman trophy.

“In 1979, the very first IHRA points race I competed in was Gulfport, Mississippi, in February. I set a record for C/Gas in that event, but it was very cold and got rained out,” Mitchell said. “The race was rescheduled for the next weekend, but I was hesitant about returning. My friend told me, ‘They’re not going to send you a postcard and tell you that you won’ so I decided to return and things changed forever with a win there.

“A few weeks later I decided to go to the WinterNationals in Darlington where I qualified number 33 out of a 64-car field and won my first national event. We continued to attend races and ended up winning the Modified Championship, plus the overall Sportsman Championship, in 1979.”

With a divisional win, a national event win, and a championship all in his first year, Mitchell was poised for success like few who came before him.

In 1980 he built a Chevy Monza (C/A) and won the Modified Championship that year, adding additional championships in the class in 1985 and 1987.

One year later in 1988, when former IHRA president Billy Meyer decided to simplify sportsman drag racing by eliminating the popular Modified, Super Stock and Stock eliminators, Mitchell adjusted by taking hold of the brand-new junior Pro Stock class known as Factory Modified.

Factory Modified was created to retain the traditional heads-up format of drag racing and eliminate handicap racing with the intention of simplifying the races and attracting the attention of American automobile manufacturers. The class was also designed to act as a feeder class for the Pro Stock division in the same way that the alcohol classes provided a stepping stone to nitro racing.

Mitchell opted for Factory Modified over the redefined indexed-bracket system or racing NHRA. That year, Mitchell once again proved to be a quick learner, taking the title in the first year of the class.

With the Factory Modified category lasting less than three years, Mitchell returned to the Modified Eliminator category in 1991 with a 1990 Chevy Cavalier (C/G and C/A) and added his sixth and final championship in 1998. His final victories came during the 2000 season at Cordova, Illinois, and Rockingham, North Carolina.

During his illustrious career, Mitchell racked up 20 national event victories and countless divisional wins. Known for dominating with his stick-shifting door cars in a class where most contended in automatic dragsters, Mitchell made a name for himself as one of the best to ever get behind the wheel. And he did it all with his family by his side cheering him on – and preparing the car.

“I have a wonderful wife, Adonna, and two daughters, Tresa and Karen. Without them I would not have gone anywhere,” Mitchell said. “My daughters were my crew. Both were mechanically knowledgeable and made most of the decisions from round to round. They were the best crew anyone could have wanted.”

More than 20 years since he last graced a victory lane with the International Hot Rod Association, Mitchell’s impact on the sport is still felt today, making him a prime candidate for the inaugural IHRA Hall of Fame, joining such names as Clay Millican, Rickie Smith, Anthony Bertozzi, and Mike Boyles.

The North Carolina drag racing legend is honored as a Pro driver in the inaugural International Hot Rod Association (IHRA) Hall of Fame class. Being part of another inaugural class helped Smith know he had made it as a drag racer.

“I’ve won 11 world championships and a lot of races,” he said. ”But, the biggest honor I had in drag racing was when they put my name on the Bristol Dragway tower. I went in as one of the first four (Legends of Thunder Valley). The first four were (IHRA founder) Larry Carrier, (NHRA founder) Wally Parks, (17-time world champion) Don Garlits and me. When you go in beside those three people, there aren’t any bigger names.”

Smith has made a big name for himself with five IHRA championships and 33 career professional wins (second on the all-time list).

He was a good athlete in school, a wrestler and a high school football player with scholarship offers from several college. But coming from a blue-collar background and being mechanically inclined, it was no surprise that racing won out over other sports.

“I was raised up working on bulldozers and piddling on heavy equipment,” he said. “When I got out of school, I got a car and started running some local tracks like East Bend and Farmington.”

His first street car was a 1967 Pontiac Firebird and the first race car, a 1972 Chevy Nova. King was a racing fan growing up, but more of the circle track variety. His uncle would take him and his cousin to the legendary Bowman-Gray Stadium in Winston-Salem to watch NASCAR short-track action.

While he first dreamed of trading paint on the round track, drag racing better suited his racing budget.

“I got the racing fever when I was 13, 14 or 15 years old,” King recalled. “The races at Bowman-Gray got me hooked, but I couldn’t afford to work on a car like that and tear it up. So I took my car and started racing at the drag strip.”

It wasn’t long until he was racing on the IHRA national tour. He won back-to-back Super Modified championships in 1976-77, beating the likes of John Lingenfelter and J.R. Gray.

When Smith stepped up in Pro Stock in 1979, he found the competition even tougher, counting Ronnie Sox and Warren Johnson as his fiercest rivals. After Johnson won titles in 1979-80, Sox followed in 1981. Smith broke through in 1982 with his first Pro Stock championship.

Lee Shepherd and Bruce Allen combined to win the next three titles before Smith put together a streak of four straight from 1986-89. He even tried his hand at NASCAR, running three races in the Busch Series (now Xfinity Series) in 1988 with a best finish of 16th at Myrtle Beach.

Smith ran a STP paint scheme on his Pro Stock car in the early 90s, similar to the one his longtime friend Richard Petty ran on the NASCAR circuit.

Making his mark in both IHRA and NHRA competition, Smith is a three-time NHRA Pro Mod World Champion. But, his best memory comes from his days racing with the IHRA Pro Stock class.

It was a big step up from the Super Modifieds where he set the record with a 10-plus second run to the Pro Stocks, which ran eight seconds in the quarter-mile. Thanks to Smith, the Pro Stock times got even lower.

“I’ve been fortunate enough to set a lot of records and be the first one doing stuff,” he said. “My favorite memory was when I was the first guy to run in the seven’s in Pro Stock. It was at Rockingham in the early rounds of eliminations and they stopped the whole race and brought me across the scales.

”I didn’t know what was going on until we got to the starting line. They stopped the race and presented me an award since it was a really big deal at the time.”

Beyond the records, few racers can match his longevity and toughness. In his first race after emergency back surgery in 2020, Smith won the Pro Mod race at the NHRA Gatornationals.

Still going strong at 68, Smith has no plans to hang up his helmet.

“I’ve been doing it for 47 years and doing it for a living 40 years,” he said. ”A lot of people have done it 20 or 25 years, but I’ve been able to do it 40-some years at a fast, competitive level. If I’m not at the race track, I don’t know how to act. It will be hard to walk away from one day.”

While it is far from intimidating at first glance, when competitors showed up to the racetrack and saw that brown and white 1957 Chevy wagon with Charlie Brown and the rest of the Peanuts gang adorning the side pull into the staging lanes, they knew they were in for a long day.

Such is the legacy left by Super Stock legend and eight-time International Hot Rod Association (IHRA) World Champion Mike Boyles, who was selected as part of the inaugural IHRA Hall of Fame class as the IHRA celebrates its 50th anniversary in 2021.

Over a career spanning the entirety of the existence of the IHRA, Boyles racked up titles, national honors, and over 200 career victories all from behind the wheel of his iconic ’57 Chevy wagon. And it all came about thanks to an unlucky incident to a colleague back in 1969.

“I was working at the dragstrip and this guy that was running a car there also ran a garage and had a radiator shop. He got radiator stuff on his hands one day and he couldn’t run his car, so I drove it for him,” Boyles recalled. “I had run a street car before just for the fun of it, but that was my first time in a car built for drag racing. I ran it for a while and did fairly well with it. From then on I was hooked.”

Boyles began racing with the IHRA during its inaugural season in 1971, winning his first IHRA title in 1975. By the early 90s, the North Carolina native had compiled an impressive eight IHRA World Championships in Super Stock in 1975, ’78, ’80, ’82, ’85, ’90, ’91 and ’92.

He won Classic Gear Jammer championships in 1997, ’98 and 2008, as well as the 1983 Stroh’s Sportsman Cup. He was inducted into the North Carolina Drag Racing Hall of Fame in 2010.
All told, Boyles figures he has over 200 wins to his name, among them 22 national event victories and over 50 wins in the IHRA’s various national points-earning divisional formats.

“God was good to me,” Boyles said. “I didn’t deserve to win a lot of times that I won. I just messed up less than the other person; I made the fewest mistakes.”

His most memorable wins, according to Boyles, took place at the legendary Bristol Dragway, where he counts himself as one of the winningest sportsman drivers in the track’s storied history.

“I had taken time off from 1987 to 1989 after Billy Meyer cancelled the class and I had two kids I was putting through college. In the early 90s, after Super Stock came back, I won four Bristol races in a row for a total of 25 rounds without a loss at the spring and fall races for two years,” Boyles said. “Combined I have eight wins at Bristol and, to my knowledge, I have the most sportsman wins ever at the track.”

In addition to Bristol, Boyles accumulated trophies at a number of different tracks up and down the East Coast, including Norwalk, Lakeland, Florida, Rockingham, New York International and Bristol.

The vast majority of those wins took place inside the cockpit of his famous brown wagon.

Boyles began driving the car in 1971 and later bought it in 1977. The 3,600 pound monster was a beast on the track, but also a pain off of it, leading to Boyles having his first opportunity to get behind the wheel.

“The guy that owned the car ran it in the late 1960s, but it kept breaking axles and rear ends because he couldn’t run anything, but a regular old Chevrolet ’57 rear end under it and the car weighed 3,600 pounds. So he parked it and built a Camaro,” Boyles said. “I asked him if I could run it and he said if I fixed the rear end and got some axles and a spool to put in it I could. After that it quit breaking and I started winning. I won like seven weeks in a row and it paid $60 for first place.”

After running the car for the first time in 1971, Boyles bought the machine in 1977.

And the rest, as they say, his history.

For all his championships, except for a brief window in 1978 when it blew a motor and he won the championship in a Nova driving for Rodney Barnett, Boyles’ entire career has taken place inside the big brown wagon.

Despite the countless winner’s circle celebrations and on-track accomplishments, Boyles is most recognizable not by what’s under the hood but by what’s on the side of that car. Characters from the iconic Peanuts cartoon, created in 1950 by Charles M. Schultz, have made his Super Stock wagon famous.

“Everybody called it the ‘big brown wagon’ and (Lyle Everson) wanted something different so he took it to a guy and told him to come up with something to put on it. He put that picture of Charlie Brown and Lucy on it that said, ‘Damn You Charlie Brown,’” Boyles said. “After that it just stuck. In fact, almost everyone at the track calls me Charlie. Not many people call me Mike, not at the drag strip anyway.”

During his career, Boyles garnered a lot of attention – both good and bad – for his performance on the track. He recalls drivers coming from all around the country to try and beat him and, for the most part, sending them home empty handed.

“I probably had a few rivalries, but I tried not to look at it like that. I knew a lot of them wanted to beat me and they built cars to beat me. And some of them actually did beat me. But over the long run, I kept hanging on until I did better than they did,” Boyles said. “I had a guy out of Mooresville who had a ’57 and he kept building motors trying to outrun me. Then there was this guy out of Wisconsin. I beat him and his ’57 and the next year he came to Bristol with a sign on the back of his car that said, ‘goodbye Charlie Brown.’

“He was running about two-tenths quicker than I was and we had a pro tree back then. I got ahead of him on the tree and beat him by just a little bit. Coming back up the return road, my buddy handed me a cold beer and said, ‘you earned this one.’ Over the years, guys built cars to try and beat me and a lot of them had faster cars, but somehow or another, I managed to get lucky and do well.”

Boyles’ last IHRA win came at a points race at Piedmont Dragway back in 2009, and he had a runner-up at Rockingham in Super Stock in 2013.

At the age of 75, Boyles continues to race, earning two wins and a third-place finish last year in local competition.

While his days of traveling the country competing for national titles may be over, he relishes a career that includes inductions into the North Carolina Drag Racing and IHRA Hall of Fame's, as well as his National Driver of the Year award. And he isn’t done driving just yet.

“I am glad to still be as competitive as I am,” Boyles said. “I am 75-years-old and those young boys are probably asking, ‘what is he still doing out here?’

“But I am here to have fun. That is how it has always been. I just went and had fun. I wanted to be competitive, but I wanted to do my part for the sport. I just went out there and raced my lane. I want to race as long as I can. I might not beat anybody, but I’m not telling them I can’t beat them.”

With a record six-straight championships from 2001-06 and a record 51 professional victories, Millican is honored as part of the inaugural IHRA Hall of Fame class.

Fifteen years after his last championship, the Drummonds, Tenn., racer recalls the determination of the Peter Lehman-owned team.

“What we did in the IHRA, that’s the stuff you dream of,” he said. “In 2000, we learned to win and we almost won the championship that year, losing to Paul Romine by less than half a round of competition. After that, it was ‘game on’ and the flood gates opened.

“It was about attacking the car, attacking the race track. We had a bunch of guys who were about taking care of each other and turning the win lights on. It was the most amazing thing I’ve ever been a part of. Those guys were so dedicated to that race car. They had the want-to; they wanted to win and I wanted to win.”

Despite racing against stiff competition like Romine, Bruce Litton, Jim Bailey and others who drove Doug Herbert’s cars, they expected to win every week. Even Millican’s special friends, the Lagana family, had a tough time matching the Werner Enterprises dragster.

“When we showed up and didn’t win, we were all disappointed,” Millican said. “I had raced enough in the Sportsman series to know you weren’t supposed to win like that, but somehow it kept happening. It was an incredible run, not often that comes around. I’m awful proud of my IHRA record.”

Millican was chosen to drive the car after racing in the IHRA Modified Series. There were so many great moments that he couldn't pick out one that stood above the rest.

He does recall the time he won two races at Rockingham in one weekend after the spring race had been rained out. There are other big moments, like beating a well-funded NHRA interloper at Norwalk and one of the sport’s legends for his first victory.

“We beat Cory McClenathan in the NHRA Fram car at Norwalk, that was our Daytona 500,” he said. “I remember my first IHRA Top Fuel win against Shirley Muldowney in Grand Bend, Ontario. There were about 50-some highlights because every win was so special. When you won an Ironman, it was huge.”

Millican grew up in a racing family. His father was a fan of all forms of motorsports, which was passed on to Clay, who named one son after three-time NASCAR champion Cale Yarborough. He remains a big fan of stock car and sprint car racing, although he and sister, Leigh Millican Hubbard, the 2020 Top champion at Memphis International Raceway, always gravitated towards drag racing.

“I don’t even remember the first race I went to. Whether it was NASCAR, sprint car, drag racing, if it had a motor in it, my daddy absolutely loved it,” Millican said. "We’re a motorsports family top to bottom, but drag racing was always the thing.

“My first vivid memory of a Top Fuel car, “Big Daddy” Don Garlits was at Lakeland Dragway near Memphis. That thing was so loud, so powerful, I never saw anything like it.”

One of Millican’s greatest victories came at the 2003 IHRA Northern Nationals at US131 Dragway in Martin, Michigan, where he passed his hero Garlits for first-place on the Top Fuel all-time win list.

He also raced in the NHRA, scoring his first win at Bristol in 2017. It was on Father’s Day weekend and less than two years after the death of his son Dalton in an motorcycle accident. A man of faith, Millican sees the timing of the victory as part of God’s plan.

Millican feels blessed to make a living, driving a 300-plus mph rocket down the track. It’s something he could only dreamed of when he started bracket racing with a 1969 Dodge Charger, which was a replica of the General Lee from the Dukes of Hazzard television show.

Bracket racing remains something dear to Millican’s heart, even doing commentary for the Great American Bracket Race at Memphis in 2020.

“I still love bracket racing and go to the bracket races every chance I get,” he said. “But, when I got the opportunity to go Top Fuel racing in 2000 and we chased the IHRA championship full-time, it was beyond anything I could have asked for. I never really thought about driving one, let alone it turning into a career where I was winning and paying my bills thanks to it.”

Inducted as a Legend in the inaugural IHRA Hall of Fame class, Carrier pushed the entire sport of drag racing to new heights. He raised the level of the professional product, while not losing sight of the Sportsman racers whose support remains vital to this day.

Carrier built and founded Bristol Motor Speedway, which opened in 1961, with partners R.G. Pope and Carl Moore. He built Bristol Dragway four years later and October 1970 founded the IHRA, which sanctioned its first national events in 1971.

David McGee, through his role as editor of Drag Review Magazine and IHRA publications director, worked closely with Carrier. He fondly remembered his old boss as tough, but fair.

“Larry was fearless. He had tremendous self-confidence and never walked away from a controversy or a tough decision,” McGee said. “He and Carl Moore enjoyed great success with their oval track but drag racing was a different animal and he welcomed the challenge. LC was a very complex person.

“He was incredibly loyal to his family and those who supported him. He certainly enjoyed taking on challenges and his mind was always working — often late into the night — on ways to improve and be more financially successful.”

The IHRA rivaled NHRA as the largest drag racing organization at that time. Decades later, it remains the leading promoter of grassroots, Sportsman drag racing and a force internationally with tracks in Canada, New Zealand and Australia.

The IHRA, through Carrier’s vision, was the first to attract the involvement of a major corporation in drag racing. Carrier signed R.J. Reynolds’ Winston brand to sponsor the IHRA tour in 1975. A true promoter of the sport, he also introduced RJR to the IHRA’s biggest rival in NHRA.

Jeff Byrd, the late President of Bristol Motor Speedway and Dragway, was working for the R.J. Reynolds tobacco company when he first met Carrier.

Asked about his memories at the time of Carrier’s death in 2005, Byrd recalled, “He was a guy of the highest integrity, very honorable in his dealings with RJR. He told us that if we wanted to see all that drag racing could do for them we also needed to see NHRA. He not only introduced Winston to the IHRA, but also to its biggest competitor.”

Carrier sold Bristol Motor Speedway in 1970, but repurchased the facility from Warner Hodgdon in 1985. With the track deeply in debt, he brought it back from financial ruin. He sold Bristol Motor Speedway and Dragway to Bruton Smith in 1996 for $20 million with the speedway then at 71,000 seating capacity.

Denny Darnell, known for his work in both NASCAR and drag racing, served as Vice President and General Manager of Bristol Raceway and Dragway from 1985-88. In a 2005 interview, Darnell recalled that Carrier brokered the deal with ESPN to show both the NASCAR Cup and Busch Series races.

He also talked about how Carrier made the IHRA one of the top motorsports sanctioning bodies in the world.

“When Larry started IHRA, it was comparable to NHRA in every facet,” Darnell said. “They had better tracks and paid better money. He solidified drag racing when he brought Winston into IHRA and NHRA.”

A member of several Hall of Fames, including the Tennessee Sports Hall of Fame in 1987 and the International Drag Racing Hall of Fame in 1995, Carrier ventured outside of motorsports as the founder of the World Boxing Federation, which sanctioned fights in 49 countries at the time of his death in 2005.

Other sports-related ventures included owning a Bristol bowling alley, the Tri-Cities Golf Club and several World Champion horses.

His children found success in their own right. His son, Larry Jr., was a successful businessman in Atlanta, while sons Mark and Andy became owners of the Carrier Boyz drag racing team, which fielded the Top Fuel entry for Cory McClenathan.

Prior to his team ownership, Mark compiled a 31-2-1 record with 26 knockouts as a professional heavyweight boxer. Carrier’s daughter, Carolyn, served as a public relations representative for NASCAR legend Bobby Allison.

Larry Carrier’s impact remains great with Bristol Motor Speedway and Dragway one of the largest entertainment venues in the world. The IHRA continues to be a force in drag racing in North America and throughout the world.

“Bringing R.J. Reynolds into the sport, the pro ladder, free entry for pro teams, bigger payouts and points funds for all classes, supporting safety improvements, and securing first-class TV were just some of his contributions,” McGee said. “It was an honor to be part of that and my years with IHRA remain among my most cherished memories.”