Friday evening qualifying at the 38th annual IHRA Spring Nationals marked the first time since 1971 that a Funny Car hasn’t competed at the traditional spring race hosted by Rockingham Dragway.

Terry McMillen, a front-running Top Fuel racer on the IHRA tour who has raced an alcohol Funny Car at Rockingham Dragway since the 1990s, entered the event with a regretful sense permeating his mindset. This is the first time in over a decade his alligator-themed, Amalie Oil-sponsored Mopar Funny Car was left behind in Elkart, Ind., while he traveled to the race track.

McMillen admits it was as if he left an old friend at home.

“We’re walking around kind of lost, actually,” McMillen admitted. “The most frustrating part is that we’ve had fan after fan walk up and ask us where the Funny Cars are. I nervously try to explain to them and I don’t think they really understand. They believe they are paying for a full show that’s supposed to include Funny Cars.”

Following a financially disastrous 2008 season, where the sanctioning body lost the major backer who reportedly defaulted on various sponsor programs, the sanctioning body dropped all Funny Car racing citing lack of sponsorship as the driving force behind the decision.

McMillen prefers to tow the IHRA’s company line, volunteering numerous times to participate in their media tour, but the decision to eliminate all Funny Cars, both nitro and alcohol burning has him second-guessing the decision making from the top levels.

“It’s really frustrating when you see the money the teams like Rob Atchison and Mark Thomas had invested as well as the other teams who had supported the IHRA as strongly as we did. They had the best pr people who came from the alcohol class and they [IHRA] has lost all of that. It’s a big void. It’s kind of like losing your best friend.”

McMillen believes the Funny Cars inevitably paid the price for being a team player. But one has to ask is there a team concept with the IHRA.

IHRA President Aaron Polburn recently said in an interview with the Fayetteville Observer that outside of Top Fuel, no class is necessary. He added the only thing that is necessary is the IHRA puts on a good show. His comments were made in reference to the IHRA Rocky Mountain Nationals, an event where only one Pro Stock car showed up for the Edmonton, Alberta event. McMillen and several of the Funny Car teams made the 3.000 mile tow to the event.

“Five years ago they [IHRA] came out and told everyone [Alcohol Funny Car class] to clean up their acts and they did that. They were running closer and faster than anyone. The races went down to the end for the championship and to take it away leaves me thinking that maybe we should have boycotted Edmonton like another class did. Maybe we would have been rewarded by getting to stay this year.”

McMillen throws caution to the wind in pointing out that drag racing needs the IHRA, no matter which directions the tour has taken in the last few seasons.

The first major press release on the 38th annual IHRA Spring National was one which showcased an eighth-mile match race between a monster truck and a jet car, a direction the IHRA appears to be eagerly headed.

That direction is one that has McMillen and other staunch supporters of the series concerned.

“We need IHRA and with Feld Entertainment now involved, that may be some of the learning curve involved,” he explained. “IHRA needs to exist because there are some great people here and we are all family. We’ve been racing with the IHRA forever as well as many of these other teams and hopefully we can work together to find a solution to make the IHRA the kind of racing organization that it was five years ago. “

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