- The multi-year agreement with Mission Foods includes expansion of popular #2Fast2Tasty specialty races during Saturday qualifying.
- Camping World had one year remaining on its contract with the NHRA but agreed to stepping back early.
- Beginning with the 2024 season, which will open in March at Gainesville, Fla., the elite motorsports program will be called the NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Series.
From coast to coast, grocery shoppers have been greeted with life-sized cutouts of drag racers Justin Ashley, Antron Brown, Camrie Caruso, Alexis DeJoria, Erica Enders, Gaige Herrera, Eddie Krawiec, Cruz Pedregon, Angelle Sampey, and J.R. Todd at Mission Foods displays.
They’ll continue to see the tease of high horsepower—at the grocery before each national event, on NHRA on Fox broadcasts, and on social-media outlets—now that Mission Foods has replaced Camping World as the title sponsor of NHRA’s premier professional series.
Beginning with the 2024 season, which will open in March at Gainesville, Fla., the elite motorsports program will be called the NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Series. The multi-year agreement allows Camping World to stay involved in the 73-year-old sport as the official RV/camper source.
Camping World had one year remaining on its contract with the NHRA but agreed to stepping back early from the role it assumed when the Coca-Cola company abruptly ended its longstanding agreement of nearly two decades in 2020.
Juan Gonzalez, Mission Foods chief executive officer, said, “This is a huge opportunity for us to keep connecting with fans while supporting motorsports in a major way. There’s nothing better than race weekend, and we are proud that Mission Foods will become the official title sponsor of the NHRA Drag Racing Series.”
Mission Foods, already active in flat-track motorcycle racing and the NTT IndyCar Series, first announced its sponsorship of the Vance & Hines NHRA Pro Stock Motorcycle team of Sampey and Krawiec. Then it launched what has become a strategic Saturday-qualifying initiative of cash and Countdown to the Championship bonus points.
Mission Foods will bring back its #2Fast2Tasty Challenge in 2024 in expanded form. Moving forward, the specialty race will be on the agenda for 14 “regular-season” events, including the four-wide spring races at Las Vegas and Charlotte. That program will restart at the March 21-24 Winternationals at Southern California’s In-N-Out Burger Pomona Dragstrip.
The popular Mission #2Fast2Tasty NHRA Challenge, which pits the four semifinalists from the previous race in a rematch, offers an extra payout, a chance for fans to see winners on Saturday as well as after Sunday eliminations, and valuable bonus points that will be awarded at the start of the six-race Countdown. It adds a huge incentive for race teams to advance to the semifinals and chase a Mission #2Fast2Tasty NHRA Challenge victory, for titles often have come by single-digit margins.
NHRA President Glen Cromwell called Mission Foods “a tremendous partner last year” and said, “Mission Foods has already shown such great passion for NHRA drag racing and giving back to racers, and to now have them become our new entitlement sponsor is an incredibly exciting moment for the NHRA and our race teams.” Cromwell said the Mission Foods #2Fast2Tasty Challenge “changed the landscape of our race weekends, and we’re thrilled to see that relationship continue to grow on an even bigger level.”
Mission Foods has been the industry leader for tortillas and wraps since 1977 and is the No. 1 tortilla company in the United States.
Contributing Editor
Susan Wade has lived in the Seattle area for 40 years, but motorsports is in the Indianapolis native’s DNA. She has emerged as one of the leading drag-racing writers with nearly 30 seasons at the racetrack, focusing on the human-interest angle. She was the first non-NASCAR recipient of the prestigious Russ Catlin Award and has covered the sport for the Chicago Tribune, Newark Star-Ledger, and Seattle Times. She has contributed to Autoweek as a freelance writer since 2016.
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