Paul Lee has won some big drag races in his career, but on a Saturday evening outside Columbus, Ohio, the highly successful businessman who declares drag racing is his expensive hobby won the one that took the cake.

Lee has always managed to keep drag racing in perspective. After beating Del Worsham in the final round of the opening IHRA Triple Crown event at Darana Raceway, the perspective was clear. This one was different.

The Funny Car victory paid $150,000 and positioned Lee as one of only five drivers still eligible for the Triple Crown’s $1 million bonus while delivering what he considers the biggest victory of his driving career.

Daido Metal Performance Bearings will return as the primary sponsor of Paul Lee’s Nitro Funny Car for the season-opening NHRA Gatornationals at Gainesville Raceway, March 5-8. Mainline Sales also returns as a secondary partner, while PowerEdge joins Paul Lee Racing for the 2026 Mission Foods NHRA Drag Racing Series season.

The Anaheim, California-based manufacturer will headline Lee’s 11,000-horsepower entry at one of the NHRA’s most historic events. The move continues a technical partnership that has grown alongside the team’s rise in the Funny Car ranks.

As a retired firefighter who now spends his time working as a machinist and welder, 59-year-old Stephen Tucholsky Jr. has been following in the footsteps of his drag racer father all his life. Now, he’s busy banging gears in a sweet stick-shift 1966 Chevrolet II Nova that’s seriously competitive in Stock and Super Stock.

Tucholsky found the second-generation Chevy for sale on AutoTrader back in 2002. “I wanted to build a Top Stocker/Stock Eliminator car,” explained the man from Richfield, Ohio.

The T-Rex RVR project car is back! Neither supply chain issues, pandemics, nor changes in Lead Content Creator could keep this dinosaur down.

There are “reality TV” programs that would have you believe a first-rate build can be accomplished in a week. On the other hand there are real-world experience that paint a very different picture. Case in point is JF Launier’s awesome Ridler-winning 1964 Buick Riviera, which is said to have taken 22,000 hours of blood, sweat and tears over a course of many years. Most builds lie somewhere in between. The T-Rex TVR falls somewhat into the latter category.