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Every major sporting organization in this country has its premier event – the one glorious pinnacle of the season that followers of that particular persuasion wait restlessly all year to attend; where things are bigger, better, louder, brighter, and thanks to plenty of media hype, the place to be for any true disciple of the sport.
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| Through the 1970s, Top Fuel Bike was a regular eliminator category at Indy -- ultimately replaced by Pro Stock Bike. |
There’s the Super Bowl, World Series, Indy 500, Daytona 500 and many more, but for drag racers and fans alike, nothing stirs the imagination or the competitive fires quite like a trip to the U.S. Nationals at Indianapolis Raceway Park on Labor Day Weekend.
The Granddaddy of all NHRA national events, the “Big Go” is recognized for having charted the course for all competitive drag racing since its inception in 1955, when an 8,000-foot runway at the Great Bend, Kansas, Municipal Airport became the site of the very first NHRA National Championship Drags.
At the inaugural event, competition was held in 30 classes, encompassing NHRA's regular 27 divisions -- Gas Coupes/Sedans, Altered Coupe/Sedans, Fuel Coupe/Sedans, Competition Coupe/Sedans, Street Roadsters, Roadsters, Hot Roadsters, Modified Roadsters, Open Gas, Dragsters, and Stock cars. There was also one class for four-cylinders and two for gasoline-powered sports cars. Trophies were to be awarded to all class winners, for National Record holders in all classes, for fastest speed, and, the biggest award of all, the Top Eliminator National Championship.
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| With personal guidance from the late Les Lovett (right), Wally Parks was seen shooting action for the first time since his Hot Rod magazine days. |
Scheduled to be run between Thursday, Sept. 29 and Sunday, Oct. 2, the worst rainstorm in 30 years washed out Sunday's final runs, and the race was eventually concluded Nov. 19-20 at the Southwest Regional Championships in Phoenix, Arizona. After a two month wait, Calvin Rice, a 25-year-old resident of Santa Ana, California, was crowned NHRA's first National Champion by virtue of a winning pass of 10.30 seconds at 141.95 mph.
The NHRA had every intention of returning to Great Bend for the 1956 Nationals, and the local city council had even promised to build a new asphalt strip on the huge concrete runway at the Municipal Airport. Ultimately, however, Kansas City, Missouri was chosen as the venue for the second National Championship Drags, simply because the event had outgrown the Great Bend facility in just one year. The event was also moved from its late September date to its now traditional Labor Day weekend, running Aug. 31 through Labor Day Sept. 3.
Three hundred and fifty two entrants, representing most of the country's 48 states as well as Hawaii and British Columbia, took part in the event, gunning for honors in one of NHRA's 29 classes. Reigning National Champ Calvin Rice made the official ribbon-cutting run in a stunning 9.99 seconds, a time that was not bettered during the course of the meet. Rice, running with a blown Chrysler instead of his '55-winning flathead, later grabbed the official Low E.T. award with a mark of 10.09.
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| The walking man is none other than Whit Bazemore, a talented young photographer who was always telling the rest of us that someday, somehow, he'd be driving a fuel Funny Car. Later, we were calling him "Blaze More." Nowadays, he has us on the receiving end of a big "I told you so." |
The following year, the NHRA was on the move again, with the 1957 version of the National Championship Drag Races landing at the State Fairgrounds in Oklahoma City. While the event had moved from Great Bend to Kansas City to take advantage of its bigger facility, the move from K.C. came in part because of hard feelings after NHRA was stuck with an unexpected $10,000 cost to repave the strip. Boasting ample paved areas, separate participant and spectator parking, a cafeteria, dormitories ($25 for four days!), seating accommodations for thousands, and a wide and smooth dragstrip with a paved return road, the Oklahoma City venue certainly fit into NHRA's vision of a modern facility worthy of hosting its premier event.
Despite the newly instituted fuel ban, 450 entrants from at least 38 states took part over the course of the four-day event, during which speed records were set in 17 of the 30 contested classes. Art Arfons set top speed with the Rolls Royce-powered "Green Monster" at 152.54 mph, an all-time record for a gas-burning entry. Buddy Sampson took top honors, besting LeRoy Mackey in the final with a mark of 10.42.
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| Three years after what could've been a career-ending crash, Shirley Muldowney's comeback continued at Indy in 1987. Her canopied fueler went to the semifinals that year. |
For the first time since its inception, the Nationals were held at the same venue two years in a row, with the 1958 edition held again in Oklahoma City. By this time, the event was proving so popular that entries were limited to 500, a number that was easily reached a month before the event's start. Based on the large turnout of purely local cars in the Stock classes at the '57 Nationals and the fact that Stockers could be seen at most tracks every weekend, Stockers were omitted from the 1958 Nationals to make more room for more high performance cars.
The 1958 Nationals was historic as it featured the addition of Little Eliminator, crowning a champion from among the Gas coupe/sedan classes to go with the big one, the Top Eliminator champion. When the smoke cleared, Escondido, California’s Ted Cyr was crowned the NHRA's 1958 National Champion. For his efforts, Cyr received the four-and-half-foot tall Champion Spark Plug Trophy and the winner's grand prize, a new 1958 Chevy Fleetside ½-ton pickup.
In 1959 the NHRA took to the road again, continuing to search for the perfect home for its ever-expanding premier event. After debating between Detroit, Chicago, and Wichita Falls, Texas, NHRA finally settled on Detroit as the site for the decade-closing Nationals. It was a shrewd move to place the sport on the doorstep of the nation’s auto makers, as hot rodding's popularity was in its innovative use of passenger-car parts to increase performance, through experimentation and development of new configurations.
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| in 1970, “Wild Willie” Borsch wheeled the “Winged Express” to a mark of 7.11, which was the quickest AA/FA run ever. Today, the famous car is still thrilling race fans with Mike Boyd at the controls. |
The 1959 event was to be held at Detroit Dragway, a 4,500-foot-long strip being built just 20 minutes from Detroit. Stock classes, which sat out the 1958 Nationals, returned to "the Big Go," boosting the limit for accepted entries to 750. The event also was expanded to a fifth day to accommodate the larger number of entries. Among the 80,000 who attended the 1959 Nationals were hundreds of representatives from the various automobile manufacturers, including Chevrolet's Ed Cole and Chrysler's Tex Colbert.
"Never before had so much high-level attention been focused on the drags," wrote NHRA President Wally Parks, who still was serving as editor of Hot Rod Magazine. "Top leaders in the auto industry stood shaking their heads, some stating, 'I'd never have believed it if I hadn't seen it!' Not only impressed by types and performance of the vehicles, and the obvious investment in time and money, they were even more amazed at the hardworking, dedicated enthusiasm of the contestants.
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| Not since the Snake's "'63" had one run shocked the troops like the 5.50/271.41 low-qualifying effort from Kenny Bernstein in 1986. The next-closest qualifier was nearly two-tenths slower (5.66). |
Also of great import to the manufacturers was the three-way shootout for Top Eliminator that emerged between cars powered by Ford, Chrysler, and General Motors engines. Champions crowned in the 34 classes came from 16 states, and records were set in 23 of the 27 classes eligible for records, with cars powered by engines from Chevrolet, Chrysler, DeSoto, Ford, Studebaker, Oldsmobile, and Cadillac among those garnering glory in front of Detroit's automakers. Superchargers became the "in thing" at the 1959 Nationals, as various models appeared on a large number of cars in competition, their teams willing to accept the one-class-up bump required by the rules, i.e., a blown C-legal Dragster would have to compete against unblown dragsters in the B class.
The new trend proved it had a real future in drag racing when Houston's Rodney Singer, running with a blown Lincoln engine in his dragster, defeated Akron, Ohio competitor Jiggs Shamblin with a pass of 9.76, 152.00 when Shamblin's mount shattered the clutch. Singer became the Nationals' first supercharged winner, a string unbroken in the interceding 41 years.
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| How quick was a "'60" in '67? So quick that this historic pass by Jack Chrisman's tire-smoking, direct-drive, flip-top, Cammer-powered GT-1 Comet prompted Hot Rod magazine to recommend removing blowers or otherwise slowing down these "supercharged experimental stockers" before they began taking off like airplanes. |
Detroit hosted the Nationals again in 1960, and incredibly, in a move that would be unthinkable in this day and age, the NHRA actually banned women drivers from the event, as reported in the August 12, 1960 issue of National DRAGSTER: “One of the restrictions to be in effect at the National Drags this year will be the exclusion of women driver in any class of competition. The girls have been allowed to drive at previous Nationals events, in the street classes only, but last year's experience in which the meet's sole accident involved a female stock car driver, prompted the new "no gals" edict.”
Unbelievable! Needless to say, this ill-conceived ruling was quickly done away with, and soon there were more changes were in the wind, as the following article from National DRAGSTER reported in early 1961:
“Hot rodding's number-one event, the National Championship Drag Races, moves its location to Indianapolis this year, right in the realm of the "Capitol of Racing." A brand new facility, known as the Indianapolis Raceway Park, has been given approval by officials of National Hot Rod Association, producers of the Nationals, and will be undergoing extensive preparation to accommodate the huge turnout of contestants and spectators expected at this year's Big Go. The new location promises facilities and conveniences far superior to any ever afforded a Nationals event, this being the 7th annual, and there is every indication that the '61 Big Go will top all previous Championships.”
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| Imagine the surprise when Wally Booth broke the national ET record, qualified first among 32 starters, and set Low ET of the Nationals - with a genuine AMC-powered Hornet! The year was 1975, and it would be the crowning glory of American Motors' under-funded Pro Stock program. |
Finally, the biggest drag racing extravaganza of the year had a permanent home, and as advertised, it quickly settled in to provide generations of race fans with the thrill and excitement of outstanding championship competition. If there was any doubt as to the dominance of the Indy show when compared to all others on the NHRA schedule, it was quickly dispelled, as former Drag News editor Dave Wallace remembers in the following highlights, gleaned from his personal notebooks:
“After so many years, some of the oldest of this blue-lined paper is turning from white to various shades of yellow, despite careful storage in dry, dark pages,” remarked Wallace. “To turn these small, fragile pages and to view the old negatives is to see and smell anew the incomparable excitement of the world's greatest drag race; to relive a lifetime of memories made on the outskirts of Clermont, Indiana.
“Asked to rank the most-significant runs of the hundreds of thousands of passes made at Indianapolis Raceway Park since Labor Day Weekend of 1961, no two people would agree. How could they? What follows are one person's favorites, beginning chronologically with the first Indy Nationals, and ending with the last edition actually covered by this reporter. The accompanying images are purely subjective: personal favorites from one reporter's photo files of Labor Day weekends since 1975 - both on and off the track. To the men and women who helped fill up these musty old magazines and Spiral notebooks and rolls of black-and-white film, thanks for the memories!”
1961: GENE ADAMS' & TOM MCEWEN'S 8.42
The seventh NHRA Nationals was the first at brand-new Indianapolis Raceway Park. Pump gas was still the only fuel allowed (and would be until the 1964 edition). When the "unHemi" Top Gassers of McEwen & Adams (Oldsmobile) and unheralded Pete Robinson (small-block Chevy) both dipped into the 8.40s -- two full tenths under anyone's expectations -- NHRA officials refused to announce the numbers, and threw out the times!
1964: CONNIE KALITTA'S 200-FLAT
Fuel was back, finally, following seven gas-only Nationals. Kalitta's Top Fueler, the flagship of FoMoCo's factory fleet, posted the first double-century speed at an NHRA national event. Significantly, he did it with Ford's single-overhead-camshaft (SOHC) 427 powerplant
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1967: JACK CHRISMAN'S 7.60
How quick was a "'60" in '67? So quick that this historic pass by Chrisman's tire-smoking, direct-drive, flip-top, Cammer-powered GT-1 Comet prompted Hot Rod magazine to recommend removing blowers or otherwise slowing down these "supercharged experimental stockers" before they began taking off like airplanes.
1973: JIM BUCHER'S 6.09
The last Chevy hero's pole-snatching 6.09/226.70 on Sunday was the quickest in event history -- upstaging all of the late Chryslers with Rodeck's aluminum replica of a rat motor. No Chevy had won a Nationals Top Eliminator title since the first Indy meet (1961). Alas, Bucher couldn't break that streak, and his short-lived IRP record would be Chevy's last hurrah in Top Fuel at Indianapolis.
1973: GARY BECK'S 5.94
Finally, IRP's first Five! The historic effort occurred in the semifinal round, enroute to Beck's second-straight Nationals title. He also hit a top speed of 243.90 MPH, and successfully backed up both numbers for both ends of the national record -- a rare Indy sweep!
1975: WALLY BOOTH'S 8.75
Imagine the surprise when Booth broke the national ET record, qualified first among 32 starters, and set Low ET of the Nationals -- with a genuine, AMC-powered Hornet! It would be the crowning glory of American Motors' under funded Pro Stock program.
1982: DON PRUDHOMME'S 5.63
This was the "Nitrous Nationals," when laughing gas had yet to be declared illegal. Whether the Snake's bottle was ever filled appears extremely unlikely. (At the time, Prudhomme, who'd lobbied against laughing gas, claimed to be using the juice.) This much we knew for sure is: (1) No single flopper pass had caused quite so much commotion; (2) the car clearly "nosed over" before the lights; (3) only a handful of runs had caused such extensive engine destruction. Perhaps coincidentally, NHRA banned nitrous not long afterward.
1986: KENNY BERNSTEIN'S 5.50/271.41
Not since the Snake's "'63" had one run shocked the troops like this low-qualifying effort from KB's all-conquering Tempo. Consider that the next-closest qualifier was nearly two-tenths slower (5.66); that the ET would be been quick enough to place Bernstein fourth in the Top Fuel field; and that the accompanying 271 blast was Top Speed of the meet - for everything! (Crewchief Dale Armstrong's secret weapon turned out to be the original L&T "two-speed" clutch.)
1987: BUDDY INGERSOLL'S 7.24/198.23
Yes, "Banned Buddy" fell short of his goal to crack 200, but his turbocharged Buick got within two MPH on two thrilling runs. The quickest, fastest pass ever made by an NHRA-legal doorslammer occurred in the quarter-final round of Comp eliminations. Ingersoll's six-cylinder BB/Altered Turbocharged Buick consequently advanced to the semis, where NHRA's double-century barrier seemed certain to fall. Instead, a broken coil wire spoiled his quest.
1988: GENE SNOW'S 5.00
Five full months after Eddie Hill's barrier-bursting 4.99 at IHRA's flagship facility (Texas Motorplex), NHRA had yet to uncork the champagne reserved for its own four-second celebration. Everyone figured the Fours would finally fall at Indy. Not everyone expected the leading challenger to be the struggling Snowman, whose untested 300-inch car wasn't even completed when qualifying opened. On Labor Day, he got within 7/1000ths of the barrier, but failed to break through. Nonetheless, NHRA's first five-flat was THE pass of the 34th annual United States Nationals, according to this reporter's notes.
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| What NHRA national event is complete without the lovely Linda Vaughn? |
THE BEST OF THE REST:
• 1961: Pete Robinson's 8.48 (the quickest official, announced ET for "Sneaky Pete")
• 1963: The Golden Commando Plymouth's 11.97 (NHRA's first sub-12-second Super Stock time).
• 1964: Don Garlits' 7.67 (to win the first Indy Top Fuel finale).
• 1964: Norm Weekly's 202.24 (in the closing run of the meet, after eliminations concluded; a special, successful, one-shot attempt to set Top Speed of the meet).
• 1964: Jack Chrisman's 156-flat (in the original Chrisman's Comet, a major crowd favorite forced to compete as a B/Fuel Dragster; the first nitro-burning "supercharged stocker" to appear here).
• 1965: Don Gay's 9.37 (in another full-bodied, nitro-burning "B/FD": his Pontiac-powered Infinity GTO).
• 1966: Eddie Schartman's 8.28/174.41 (in one of the original Comet factory floppers, unblown, on fuel; no resin or burnouts allowed).
• 1967: The Ramchargers' 6.76/273.76 (for the T/F qualifying pole).
• 1967: Garlits' 6.77 (his first-ever six, coming in a final-round defeat of James Warren).
• 1967: Doug Thorley's 7.69/192.30 (Top Speed and the winner of Indy's first F/C Eliminator with a Corvair roadster).
• 1969: Leonard Hughes' 7.24 (Number One F/C qualifier).
• 1970: Willie Borsch's 7.11 (quickest AA/FA run ever).
• 1971: Garlits' 6.21 (quickest ET ever, right off the trailer).
• 1973: Dave Anderson's 4.62/344.82 (twenty-seven years later, the Pollution Packer's rocket powered pass is still the fastest for IRP).
• 1974: Billy Meyer's 6.19 (first F/C run in the 'teens -- with his parachute out ahead of the lights).
• 1974: Dale Armstrong's 200.44 (first AA/A over 200).
• 1974: Ken Veney's 6.99/203.61 (IRP's first Pro Comp six).
• 1975: Armstrong's 6.67 (Low ET -- by a bunch -- in Jim Foust's unbelievable Alcoholic BB/FC Plymouth Satellite).
• 1976: Prudhomme's 5.97 (low qualifier and new NHRA record).
• 1979: Garlits' 9.95/165 (in Swamp Rat I, smoking the tires through the lights on what was supposed to be an "easy pass" to kick off eliminations for the 25th U.S. Nationals).
• 1981: Lucille Lee's 5.74 (Thursday's best ET from a little-known SoCal secretary, driving the late Marc Danekas's car).
• 1982: Beck's 5.48 (quickest ET ever -- made possible by a nitrous assist, according to team members).
• 1983: Elmer Trett's 200 (NHRA's first recognized two-wheeler to 200 MPH).
• 1984: Garlits' 5.63/250 (out-of-retirement performance is "Big's" best NHRA effort in nine years).
• 1986: Bob Glidden's 7.37/189.43 (NHRA quickest P/S ET and fastest speed ever; set on first day of qualifying).
• 1986: Darrell Gwynn's 5.34 (quickest ET ever).
• 1986: Warren Johnson's 190.07 (new speed record, set Friday).
• 1986: John Lingenfelter's 6.96 (A/D was first carbureted gasser in the Sixes, plus low Comp qualifier).
• 1987: Joe Amato's 282.13 (so-called "ludicrous speed" -- in the "bad" lane, yet).
• 1987: Mike Dunn's 274.64 (new F/C record in an unusually fast Indy -- dubbed "The Top-End Nationals" by racing media).
• 1988: Lori Johns' 5.19/283.82 (controversial newcomer -- who was actually booed on the return road -- was quickest T/F pilot on opening day, breaking IRP's ET record; subsequent 283 tied for Top Speed overall and a new strip record).
• 1989: Dick LaHaie's 4.983 (IRP's first Four -- immediately followed, in the same lane, by Darrell Gwynn's Low-ET 4.981).
• 1989: Ron Boggs's 6.12/225 (not even these career-best numbers and Ron's holeshot could quite hold off eventual-winner Tom Conway in the TA/Dragster semis, but the losing effort earned Ron's front-motored, 160-inch-wheelbase roadster a standing ovation the full length of IRP's return road.
• 1990: Darrell Gwynn made his first appearance at a race since his April 15 accident in England. Pro winners were Ed McCulloch, whose Funny Car win was his fifth at the granddaddy of national events; Joe Amato, Jerry Eckman and Dave Schultz. Frank Hawley had driven Gwynn's car to the final only to be foiled by fuel-pump woes. The race was highlighted by NHRA's 21-20 win over NASCAR in the Gwynn Benefit Softball Challenge, which helped raise more than $150,000.
• 1991: In a storybook moment, multi-time Alcohol Funny Car champ Pat Austin and family bought the Top Fuel operation of his terminally ill teammate, Gary Ormsby, and in his Top Fuel debut at the U.S. Nationals almost became the first to win in two classes at the same race. Minutes after winning the Alcohol Funny Car title, Austin's blower exploded on his burnout for the Top Fuel final giving Kenny Bernstein an easy win. Austin vowed, "I guarantee that I will not only win with the Top Fueler before the season is over, but I'll win with both.” He went on to accomplish the historic feat a month later in Topeka, Kansas.
• 1992: NASCAR legend Richard Petty served as grand marshal of the U.S. Nationals. Kenji Okazaki became the first Japanese national to race in NHRA national event competition when he drove Jim Dunn's Funny Car entry at IRP. McDonald's cars driven by Ed McCulloch (Top Fuel) and Cruz Pedregon (Funny Car) swept titles while Warren Johnson downed Larry Morgan, who was in his fourth straight Indy final, for the Pro Stock crown. Dave Schultz won his fourth U.S. Nationals title in Pro Stock Bike.
• 1993: John Force won his first U.S. Nationals title on a single when Kenji Okazaki was shut off with a fuel leak. Force was ready anyway with a 5.10, which was low elapsed time of the event. Brent Fanning was suspended from the NHRA tour for a starting-line stunt with his Udder Nonsense Trans Am. Cow manure was released from Fanning's parachute pack and splattered all over the track moments before the $50,000 Shootout final. In a weird Top Fuel final, 1991 runner-up Pat Austin, the No. 16 qualifier, beat 1992 runner-up Doug Herbert, the No. 14 qualifier, 7.16 to 8.54. … Warren Johnson beat Scott Geoffrion by a thousandth of a second in the closest Indy final ever, 7.16 to 7.17.
• 1994: Connie Kalitta won Top Fuel at the 40th annual U.S. Nationals for his first Indy win. Kalitta, 56, defeated Eddie Hill, 58, in a final-round battle of the class' oldest drivers. Cruz Pedregon won his second Indy title in Funny Car, and Warren Johnson and Dave Schultz extended their Indy winning streaks to three with respective victories in Pro Stock and Pro Stock Bike. That year, Great Bend Motorplex, site of the first NHRA National Championships, was dedicated as a Kansas historical site.
• 1995: Top Fuel Rookie Larry Dixon, Cruz Pedregon, W.J., and Rick Ward scored victories at the U.S. Nationals, where Al Hofmann collected the $100,000 Big Bud Shootout win and John Myers his fourth straight Wax Shop Pro Bike Dash title.
• 1996: Blaine Johnson qualified No. 1 in Top Fuel at the ’96 U.S. Nationals and was killed at the end of the run when an engine explosion cut a rear tire and he hit the wall. Cory McClenathan, who had spun the tires and shut off next to him, won the event over Tony Schumacher, who was racing in Top Fuel for the first time. Top Fuel Motorcycle pioneer Elmer Trett was killed the next day after he lost control of his bike at the end of an exhibition pass.
• 1997: Winners of the 43rd annual U.S. Nationals were Jim Head, Whit Bazemore, Kurt Johnson, and John Myers. Kenji Okazaki scored his second upset of the year by winning the Big Bud Shootout, and Matt Hines captured The Wax Shop Pro Bike Dash title. ...The usnationals.com Internet site recorded nearly 2.5 million hits in Indy's final two days.
• 1998: Two years after his retirement, Bob Glidden, the sport's winningest driver, returned to Pro Stock competition at the U.S. Nationals, where he drove a Steve Schmidt-powered Pontiac. Glidden did not qualify despite a best of 7.07. Dan Baisley recorded NHRA's first seven-second Harley-Davidson run when he rode Bill Hannon's Ultraglide-bodied bike to a 7.99. Pro winners in Indy were Gary Scelzi, John Force, Mike Edwards, Matt Hines, and Larry Kopp.
• 1999: Ron Capps rebounded from a first-round fire that destroyed the team's gold Indy-edition body to become only the second driver in the 17-year history of the special Big Bud Shootout at Indianapolis to win back-to-back titles. Matt Hines continued his domination of the Holley Pro Stock Bike Dominator Duel by claiming his fourth straight victory and Cristen Powell became the ninth female to compete in Funny Car when she qualified at IRP.
• 2000: The highlight of the race was the Top Fuel duel between Shirley Muldowney and Doug Kalitta, nephew of her longtime nemesis Connie Kalitta. Muldowney ended up in the field on the bubble while Kalitta grabbed the No. 1 spot, giving the fans just what they were hoping for. Kalitta's dragster went up in smoke about 200 feet into the run, raising a loud cheer from the partial fans. The cheer wasn't the only thing on the rise, as the front tires of Muldowney's dragster cleared the tarmac and kept on going up. The gutty and experienced pilot rode it for as long as prudent before lifting, but upon return to terra firma, the right front wheel snapped off and Muldowney fought valiantly - but ultimately, fruitlessly - to keep her pink dragster in her lane. With fans in the stands throwing optimistic body English into the fray, she crossed first her boundary lane and then Kalitta's, her left tires several inches into his lane before center-punching the top-end lights with Kalitta, whose dragster took a blow on the nose from the disembodied tire, coasting in just feet behind her. Awesome!
• 2001: The NHRA celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2001, and one of the greatest moments of that year’s U.S. Nationals was the meeting between drag racing icons Shirley "Cha Cha" Muldowney and "Big Daddy" Don Garlits. Muldowney and Garlits raced for the title of the U.S. Nationals in 1975, with Garlits taking the victory as a nationwide television audience looked on. That race was the first time the two met in the finals of a national event and was just the second final round of Muldowney's burgeoning career. Garlits went on to realize his longtime goal of recording a four-second lap at 300-plus mph during the fourth round of qualifying in 2001, powering Gary Clapshaw's dragster to a mark of 4.720 seconds at 303.37 mph.
• 2002: For the second time in three years, Tony Schumacher took the Top Fuel win in Indy, driving around Larry Dixon in the final. John Force took his fourth career U.S. Nationals victory, while Jeg Coughlin, Jr and Angelle Savoie went on the claim the Pro Stock and Pro Stock Bike title respectively.
Recap of the 2003 edition of the “Big Go” - The 49th running of the Mac Tools U.S. Nationals added considerable history to the event's already flowing legacy, more than making up for a five-day delay — just the second major postponement in the event's annals — caused by unrelenting rain on its original Labor Day weekend date.
Reggie Showers backed up his victory in the K&N Filters Pro Bike Klash with a U.S. Nationals Pro Stock Bike win, Tony Schumacher joined elite company after scoring his third Top Fuel title in Indianapolis, and Tim Wilkerson became NHRA's 500th Funny Car winner. In a titanic Pro Stock showdown, points leader Greg Anderson defeated second-place Kurt Johnson in the final round.
As if to make amends for the rainout the previous weekend, Mother Nature provided clear skies and pleasant fall-like temperatures for the completion of the sport's oldest race.
Schumacher's victory was his second straight and third in four years at the event, making him one of only five Top Fuel drivers — along with Don Garlits, Don Prudhomme, Joe Amato, and Gary Beck — to have accomplished both of those feats. A third of his career wins have been in Indianapolis.
Schumacher had low e.t. of each round and defeated Darrell Russell in the final, 4.498 (low e.t. of the event) at 328.54 mph (track record) to Russell's 4.613, 290.19. The class' record-quick field was anchored by Mitch King's 4.683. In round two, tire spin marred the runs of POWERade points leader Larry Dixon, who lost to Kenny Bernstein, and first-time No. 1 qualifier David Baca, who lost to Russell.
Six years after losing the U.S. Nationals Funny Car final to Whit Bazemore, Wilkerson made the most of his second opportunity with a 4.84 to 4.90 final-round victory over Johnny Gray.
Wilkerson, whose final-round appearance here in 1997 was the first of his Funny Car career, followed his runner-up finish in Brainerd three weeks earlier with just his second win in seven final-round appearances since turning Pro in 1996.
After qualifying 15th with a 4.860 in the quickest Funny Car field in history, Wilkerson ran a 4.829, his quickest run of the weekend and the second-quickest of eliminations, to defeat No. 2 qualifier Gary Scelzi. Wilkerson slowed to a 4.99 in taking a second-round victory over a tire-smoking Scotty Cannon, then ran a 4.86 to beat a tire-spinning Dean Skuza in the semi's.
Anderson's eighth Pro Stock victory of the year was almost a replica of his Brainerd victory three weeks earlier: He overcame runner-up Johnson's performance advantage in qualifying and beat him in the final. K.J., who had lost lane choice by running a 6.831 against Anderson's 6.820 in the semi's, nearly closed the gap with a 6.808 to Anderson's 6.803 in the showdown, but the effort was negated by a -.010 foul.
Though Anderson was adamant that his 176-point margin over Johnson was still razor thin with six races remaining on the schedule, he was closing in on Darrell Alderman's all-time Pro Stock record of 11 victories in a season, which Alderman recorded during his 1991 championship campaign.
Showers, who had never won since making his Professional debut in 1996, recorded a historic and emotional sweep at NHRA's biggest and most prestigious event. After riding his Prosthetic Design Inc. Suzuki to victory in the K&N Filters Pro Bike Klash on the first weekend of the event, Showers claimed the event title a week later with a final-round victory over Shawn Gann.
Ten red-lights were recorded in 15 Pro Stock Bike eliminations pairings, but Showers avoided them even though he was aggressive at the starting line. Following a holeshot win over reigning NHRA national champ Angelle Savoie in round two, Showers left on Gann in the final
With so many stirring highs and devastating lows, the history of the U.S. Nationals reflects the history of the great sport of drag racing itself, and just as the fastest sport in the world continues to grow and flourish, so will the greatest drag race of the all, the “Big Go” – the U.S. Nationals.
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Funny Car Line-up
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Super Stockers at IRP
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| One of the greatest moments of the 2001 U.S. Nationals was the meeting between drag racing icons Shirley "Cha Cha" Muldowney and "Big Daddy" Don Garlits. Garlits went on to realize his longtime goal of recording a four-second lap at 300-plus mph during qualifying, powering Gary Clapshaw's dragster to a mark of 4.720 seconds at 303.37 mph. |
The First Lady of drag racing – Shirley Muldowney in action at the “Big Go” in 2001. |
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