Steven Smith

2 days ago | hagerty.com | Steven Smith

If you know much at all about motorsports, you’ve likely heard of the National Hot Rod Association, or NHRA, which sanctions drag racing in the U.S. and beyond, and owns several of the major tracks outright. The NHRA has been around since 1951, when it was founded by Wally Parks, then the editor of Hot Rod magazine. This story, however, is about the International Hot Rod Association, founded in 1970. Though the IHRA has managed to stay in business continuously since then, it’s been a rocky road.

1 week ago | hagerty.com | Steven Smith

For 20 years, my metric for the Mini Cooper has been this: I bought a new 2006 Mini, when Mini-mania was in full swing. It was a leftover car, as brand-owner BMW did a top-to-bottom makeover of the Mini for 2007, ditching the Brazil-built four-cylinder engines for an engine that was a joint project of BMW and Peugeot. I’d driven the 2007, and while it was a couple of inches longer, it didn’t seem like a major leap forward.

1 week ago | hagerty.com | Steven Smith

In a conversation February 6 at the PRO Superstar Shootout at Bradenton Motorsports Park in Florida—an independently-run pre-season event before the National Hot Rod Association opener on March 9—Top Fuel racer Tony Stewart said he was so frustrated by his inaugural 2024 season of pro drag racing, and the testing he had done for 2025, that he was actually considering stepping aside as a driver. Good thing he didn’t.

2 weeks ago | hagerty.com | Steven Smith

Buying and Selling, Hagerty Marketplace, Motorsports If it’s even possible to drive from Indiana to Florida with your fingers crossed the whole way, Josh Hart and wife Brittanie did. They didn’t know it at the time, but it would be the most important trip of their lives.

2 weeks ago | hagerty.com | Steven Smith

New auto tariffs are a hot topic of conversation, which has led to widespread mention of the existing “chicken tax,” enacted 61 years ago. You have to be bordering on senior citizenship to remember firsthand when it happened, but even oldsters may not remember exactly why it happened. Here’s a brief primer. Join us, if you will, for a trip to America’s chicken farms in the early 1960s.