The Big Bud Shootout started the ball rolling for the race-within-a-race events in 1982. With the support of Budweiser, the NHRA's Funny Cars accumulated points during the season based on qualifying, and on the grand stage of the NHRA U.S. Nationals in Indianapolis, battled it out in a shootout staged on Sunday for a $25,000 grand prize. The purse eventually doubled to $50,000.
The specialty event would last for ten years before Budweiser stepped away from the program. We have been in our video archives and found the first five years of the program for your entertainment.
Some call these years - 1982 through 1986 - the glory days in drag racing. This video is a reminder of the aura Funny Car projected back then. You'll see all the big names and even a few up and comers.
Got spare time this today? We have just the present for you. Our ace YouTube.com scavengers uncovered this priceless gem -- the 1979 NHRA U.S. Nationals at Indianapolis Raceway Park. This event will take you back to a time when drag racing's corporate demands on the sport were limited and nitro cars still did dry hops.
The 1979 NHRA U.S. Nationals was the 25th anniversary of the storied event.
Sit back and enjoys the likes of Don Garlits, Richard Tharp, Don Prudhomme, Gordie Bonin and Bob Glidden just to name a few.
It's a new season for The Ron Capps Experience. We ended Season 1 early because of the pandemic. Now we are another enlightening episode of The Ron Capps Experience, the exciting series created out of boredom. This time the NAPA Auto Parts-sponsored icon chats with Top Fuel champion Steve Torrence.
Capps wants to know how Torrence is handling life as a father, and how it's changed him. He also wants to know how his team has managed to stay in championship form for some years now. They cover. a lot of ground, but there's still more to go in the future.
There's always enlightening tidbits revealed, so tune in to see what gets revealed in this episode.
Storytellers, the popular drag racing videos telling of days gone by, returns with another episode; this one told by Ed "The Ace" McCulloch.
In this video, Ace tells the story of the day a disagreement with the late "240 Gordie" led to unintended consequences. The legendary Scrapper never made a threat he couldn't back up. However, one time he made a threat he never intended to follow through on.
There was a time when the IHRA was a bona fide threat to the NHRA's throne as the leader in drag racing. Thank Winston for the help in leveling the playing field with it's huge points fund.
While NHRA largely ruled the roost, the IHRA Winston Drag Racing Series provided professional drag racers with an opportunity to pick up extra racing time on "off" weekends, and because there was a large purse and points fund, it became a serious venture.
This time, the IHRA's ten-race tour rolled into Edgewater Motorsports Park, located just outside of Cincinnati, Ohio, for an honest to goodness showdown between the top professionals. NHRA had dropped Top Fuel in 1984, putting more prestige into the Funny car division.
This was one of the first broadcasts on ESPN, which IHRA had become a regular feature long before NHRA migrated over, and the storyline was on two drivers who had amassed quite a record of four-straight wins - Dale Pulde and Bruce Allen.
In a career spanning five decades, Dale Pulde drove more than 70 different nitro Funny Cars in NHRA and IHRA tour events, in match races and in the Hot Rod Heritage Series. Considered by many one of the greatest natural driving talents in history, he also was a capable tuner whose cars were known for their reliability and good looks as well as their performance.
In this episode of Legends, the Series, season four, Pulde talks about lessons learned from the late Mickey Thompson, about the death of close friend and mentor Joe Pisano on the day Pulde was to begin driving for him, on “valley fever,” the disease that almost killed him, and on his legacy.
Perhaps the best gauge of Pulde’s success in the old IHRA series is not that he won a record 20 races and three championships (1977, 1982 and 1985) but that he won them against Raymond Beadle, Kenny Bernstein, Mark Oswald, Billy Meyer and Ed McCulloch.
On the NHRA side, he went to the final round of the 1972 Winternationals at the tender age of 21 driving the Steve Montrelli-tuned, 429 Shotgun-powered M/T Ford Pinto, won his first national event in 1978 at Gainesville and won his last at Dallas in 1996 while subbing in the “Smokin’ Joe’s” Ford Mustang for an injured Whit Bazemore.
Most of all, though, Pulde is associated with the “War Eagle” name he and partner Mike Hamby applied to the series of Pontiac, Buick and Dodge Funny Cars they campaigned in the 1970s and 1980s.
So, sit back, buckle up and enjoy a ride that began in quarter midgets and ended in the International Drag Racing Hall of Fame.
Idle hands are the devil's workshop, and for one Top Fuel team those idle hands brought out the devil himself in the form of alcohol and dynamite. Nicky Boninfante, a former storyteller champion, tells the story of a former teammate who brought out hellfire via a toilet.
Cruz Pedregon joins Joe Castello on WFO Radio "Live" to discuss his Funny Car victory at the Summit Racing Equipment NHRA Nationals. Cruz will go into detail about his round wins, especially the final round against Bob Tasca III.
Got spare time this today? We have just the present for you. Our ace YouTube.com scavengers uncovered this priceless gem -- the 1979 NHRA U.S. Nationals at Indianapolis Raceway Park. This event will take you back to a time when drag racing's corporate demands on the sport were limited and nitro cars still did dry hops.
It's a new season for The Ron Capps Experience. We ended Season 1 early because of the pandemic. Now we are another enlightening episode of The Ron Capps Experience, the exciting series created out of boredom. This time the NAPA Auto Parts-sponsored icon chats with Top Fuel champion Steve Torrence.
Storytellers, the popular drag racing videos telling of days gone by, returns with another episode; this one told by Ed "The Ace" McCulloch.
There was a time when the IHRA was a bona fide threat to the NHRA's throne as the leader in drag racing. Thank Winston for the help in leveling the playing field with it's huge points fund.
Idle hands are the devil's workshop, and for one Top Fuel team those idle hands brought out the devil himself in the form of alcohol and dynamite. Nicky Boninfante, a former storyteller champion, tells the story of a former teammate who brought out hellfire via a toilet.
Cruz Pedregon joins Joe Castello on WFO Radio "Live" to discuss his Funny Car victory at the Summit Racing Equipment NHRA Nationals. Cruz will go into detail about his round wins, especially the final round against Bob Tasca III.
