NHRA Top Fuel Dragster Pilot Mike Salinas Sets Timetable for Return to Racing

NHRA Top Fuel dragster owner-driver Mike Salinas, sidelined all season, recovering from quintuple-bypass surgery, told Autoweek Sunday during the Denso Sonoma Nationals at Sonoma, Calif., that he plans to return to the seat of his Scrappers Racing Dragster, most likely next season.

“I’ll get cleared. Our progress is real good, I’m about 30% right now,” the Bay Area businessman said. “I could be cleared in another three months. I’m going to get my license cleared at the end of the year.”

Salinas said his and wife Monica’s pace has mellowed in the past few months.

“We were always on ‘kill.’ We just never realized there was a world outside our world. We never looked at anything else,” he said. “Now, we’ll take a ’57 convertible we have and go to the beach and drive down the coast, and we look at each other like we were 16 again. We’re enjoying life.”

The 63-year-old Salinas has won nine times and finished in the top five in the NHRA season championship twice (third in 2021, fifth in 2023).