It's not often that the champions of the two major series for racing Nostalgia Funny Cars get the opportunity to race in the final round of the last race of the season. 

Jason Rupert entered the California Hot Rod Reunion having won the IHRA Funny Car title a little over a month ago. He was the No. 1 qualifier from start to finish.

Kris Krabill earlier in the day clinched the NHRA Heritage Series Funny car crown. 

In the clash of the Titans,  Rupert never lost his vision as he laid down a 5.592, 250.32 to beat Kris Krabill, who smoked the tires and lifting, slowing down to 7.494, 116.19.

"It meant everything to win this," Rupert said. "I mean, those guys are tough racers. I knew they were going to stand on it. Basically, Bakersfield’s always been a really hard race for us to do good at. We’ve qualified well, went to the final round once, went to the semifinals. But it’s an awesome feeling."

Rupert battled his way to the final round by beating James Day, John Weaver and Rick Rodgers. For Rupert, the victory marked the first time his father was able to witness his son at work.

The elder Rupert is an ex-Top Fuel drag racer who lost both legs in a racing accident back in 1979. 

"That means a lot," said Rupert. "I wish my Mom would have been here, but she had to stay home with the dogs. Actually, my Dad has some friends down that he grew up with from Spokane, so that was pretty special that they were there. Richard Bays, just a big family operation pretty much."

Rupert is undecided in regards to his 2017 racing plans.

"I’d like to do the same thing next year as we did this year," Rupert admitted. "But we’re still waiting on scheduling. I just hope there’s no overlapping scheduling for the March Meet, because I’d really like to come and try to win that one. But, you know, that’s a hard question to answer because I really don’t know what’s going on."

Rupert said his team's key to success this weekend were simple. 

"We pretty much just took the same car, same combination and just kept going the way we’ve been going," Rupert said. "We tried some different things we’ve wanted to try, and it really worked out good. We were able to run the car a little easier. Basically, kind of take it easy until we had to stand on it. And obviously, you saw all the smoke come out of the headers. We stood on it that time. 

"It had actually the best numbers, the early numbers here were actually better than the .52 in Martin. It was just wicked up a little bit too much in high gear. The pistons didn’t like it very much, so it slowed down."