> The article is mostly focused on race tracks, and especially drag racing. But to me "hot rodding" explicitly means street racing.

Hot rodding about fast cars. Racing doesn't need to come into the picture at all to have a hot rod.

>Hot rodding about fast cars.

the whole hotrod culture produced those fast cars in order to compete with the police, it then turned into in-group competition, and then formal racing.

'hot rodding' wouldn't exist without competition.

The first SCTA style 'hot-rods' were 'souped up' ford flatheads that were lucky to have over 80 horsepower going for top speed runs.

What i'm saying is that 'racing' was before 'fast' in the history of hot-rodding.

p.s. this also applies to the almost-entirely-disconnected very early European car scene. It was racing events and famous individuals that drove the entire culture -- this then lead to 'fast cars'. The history of the Mille Miglia comes to mind.