How to have nitro fun without an NHRA budget

Owners of most racing cars have been rather spoiled with options in the 21st century when it comes to the smorgasbord of sanctioning bodies and events available to compete in.

Where, though, do you take an earth-moving, 6,000 horsepower, nitromethane-burning drag racing car outside of the NHRA Camping World Drag Racing Series if you don’t have the desire or stratospheric budget?

For a long time, you had nowhere to go.

Now there’s Nitro Chaos — a four-race, purse-paying, ‘run what ya brung’ championship for racers wanting to compete with any nitro-fueled car, with the only rule being that cars “must run on a minimum 80 percent nitromethane.”

Nitro Chaos launched its inaugural season May 4-6 at Edgewater Sports Park in Cincinnati, OH.

Other than a minimum nitro requirement, the Nitro Chaos series operates on a pretty thin rulebook. Image by Cody Globig

The brainchild of Chris and Tera Graves, the series is an evolution of the popular standalone Funny Car Chaos events held for the last few years. With enthusiastic crowds wanting more fiery action and plenty of teams looking for a place to race against each other, the couple secured a host of sponsors to launch the new series and provide a place to race virtually any nitro-burning car, plus a live streaming package on FloRacing. The promise of $34,000 race purses and a $10,000 championship payout at the end of the 2023 season is attracting a number of Altereds, Funny Cars, old front-engine Top Fuel cars and even an NHRA championship-winning headliner.

Megan Meyer, two-time NHRA Top Alcohol Dragster champion, left racing behind years ago, but the lure of Nitro Chaos’ friendly competition and compact logistics drew her back in.

“When I left NHRA… it was a lot of traveling, a lot of politics; I was just burnt out on it,” Meyer explained. “When I heard Nitro Chaos was (going to be) a thing — which it wasn’t at the time I decided to retire, and really had no plans of getting back in the seat — I was like, ‘Oh, that’s perfect!’ The races are kind of close to home, it’s just a few times a year, I don’t have to travel very much. You know, I can still bring my family and we can still have fun with it, so it was the perfect thing for me to do.”

For Meyer, Nitro Chaos brings all the fun of pro drag racing, but none of the travel, cost or politics. Image by Cody Globig

Former IHRA president and Nitro Chaos Race Director at Edgewater, Scott Gardner, weighed in on how the budding series has developed and where it’s going.

“Chris and Tera’s vision was never to essentially have two series,” he said. “Their vision was the Funny Car Chaos, which is doing really well, and (Nitro Chaos) was born out of it. It’s just been natural (growth) with more and more people coming to the races, more nitro entries. In 2023 it’s really gained its legs with being a points series, having a championship points fund, and all those types of things behind it.”

To keep budgets under control and stay safe at local drag strips, Nitro Chaos runs to the 1/8 mile, giving fans in the stands quick, loud, ground-pounding races. The format has been a big draw for race teams, in particular, running nostalgic and modern equipment alike.

Meyer brought her tried and true, nitro-injected TAD.

“So we run 1/8 mile instead of a full 1/4 mile, so that does help save on parts, which does help on costs,” she said. “Before (in NHRA TAD) we’d only get one run out of the oil and spark plugs; now we get two to three runs. The biggest thing we’ll do (in the turnaround) is we change the clutch every run. Rod bearings — we’ll get a couple runs on those before we have to change them out. And then we’ll just check valves and that’s about it. We don’t have to change heads (like an NHRA TF or FC team), so we don’t need that many people here. We can do it with two or three crew guys, which is nice, again, because it saves on cost. So between rounds it’s mostly just fill it with fuel, pack the parachutes, download the RacePak and change some timing and that’s about it.”

The shorter races in Nitro Chaos mean less wear and tear on parts. Image by Cody Globig

With such a variety of machinery entered, the series also splits the 16 car fields in two — the top eight qualifiers in the A-field, the bottom eight in the B-field.

“The idea is to create a playing field for (all) types of cars,” Gardner said. “Here we’ve had front-engine Top Fuel Dragsters, we’ve had Fuel Altereds, we’ve had Funny Cars, all mixed together at one time. The A-class (rounds) are heads-up, whoever’s first to the finish line wins. The B-class runs off an index that’s 0.2s quicker than the No. 1 (qualifier), so chances are no one’s going to hit that (and break out, common bracket racing-style). But in the final, no matter what happens, we take that (index) off and it’s first one wins. They could technically (break out), and the reason we do it that way is to keep someone from…sandbagging, meaning dogging it during qualifying to be the best car in the B-class and then going out and kicking everyone’s rear ends.”

For Gardner, the main aim is to ensure that all types of cars have a chance to compete. Image by Cody Globig