PEPSI NIGHTFIRE CELEBRATES 41 YEARS!

Hot weather and hot racing provided a perfect backdrop for one of the most anticipated events of the season at Firebird. The 41st edition of the Pepsi Nightfire Nationals featured a strong turnout of fans and racers in both the Professional and Sportsman ranks.

We’ve selected a colorful cross-section of photos taken at this year’s Nightfire event. We have a library of virtually hundreds upon hundreds of great shots from a whole host of photographers. Quite a number of these outstanding images (and many, many more) will find their way into future publications like our 2013 Motorsports Annual, Track Schedule brochure, Nightfire Bracketeer pre-entry form and other select printed pieces, not to mention a vast array of print publications in the coming months (like National Dragster, Drag Racer magazine, Inside Track and others).

Our appreciation goes out to everyone who supported the Nightfire weekend. Without question, it was one of the best to date. At the same time, we want to pass along special thanks to everyone on the Firebird track staff for all their hard work throughout the event. Each and every member of our team works tirelessly from sun up to well past sundown each and every day (several that started at 6 am and didn’t quit until nearly midnight over the course of 4-plus days `n nights in August). We’re indebted to their help and grateful for everything they do from the moment the gates swing open for parking early in the week until everything wraps up in the Pepsi Winner’s Circle on Sunday night.

As much as we’d like to publish a photo of each and every racer who attended this year’s event, that would be virtually impossible to accomplish. Hopefully you enjoy a small assortment of color and excitement from Nightfire XLI (roman numeral for 41). In an effort to showcase almost every eliminator or special award winner we made an attempt to post all the winner’s circle photos from the weekend. In case you weren’t aware—there were 45 different award recipients over the span of four days and nights! By our account, there’s not many other Drag Races on planet earth that offer this many eliminator titles and awards for one weekend of racing.

If you had fun at this one, don’t miss the opportunity to participate at Halloween Classic XIX on October 10-14 later this season.

All Nightfire Images are presented on behalf of David Fudge, Brian Losness, Rick Cate, Gary Himes, Alex & Jessica Charlton, and the Firebird staff. Under penalty of the law pertaining to photographic ownership rights and respective copyrights of each photo used on our website, you may not copy or use any photographic image displayed on firebirdonline.com. Should you like a print or original file of one of the photos on this site, please contact the photographer in person (or email us for an address/phone number) to order images direct from the source.  In the future, you’ll also be able to check out all the fantastic images from: http://www.maxcacklephotos.com/ (Chris Graves/Tera Wendland).