149 Washington State’s Rob Bruin and teammate/car owner Gaines Markley hold the honorable distinction of being the only Top Fuel team to win an NHRA world championship without winning one of the season’s national events. Coming off back-to-back wins at the 1978 Fallnationals and World Finals to finish third in points, Bruin and Markley were optimistic about 1979. They attended six points meets in 1979 and seven national events, finishing runner-up at the Winternationals, Mile High Nationals, and the World Finals to earn enough points to bring home the crown. In 2008, Eddie Krawiec accomplished the same feat in Pro Stock Bike.
150 One of the prettiest Top Fuel cars ever has to be the gold-plated, gold-anodized, and gold-painted car of Wisconsin’s Tony Ruffalo and John Ehlen. It was reported in 1979 that the car received $25,000 in gold plating. That works out to $82,000 in today’s dollars. Everything that was steel, from the front axle and blower on back, was covered in 18-karat gold. Although not a top performer, the car did win the Best Appearing award at Indy in 1979 and ran a best of 5.97 in 1981.
151 Lucille Lee’s career behind the wheel of a Top Fuel car was short, but long on memories. Her first national event was at Indy in 1981 where she ran a 5.74, becoming the quickest woman in drag racing. In 1982, she met and defeated Shirley Muldowney at Bakersfield in the first all-female Top Fuel final.
152 Big Daddy Don Garlits unveiled his radical sidewinder Top Fueler at Orange County in January 1982 during a match race against Shirley Muldowney. Muldowney, driving her new Pioneer dragster, put away Garlits’ experimental rail in a best-of-three match race. Don was hitting 6.40s while Muldowney clocked 6.0s. Garlits’ sidewinder featured a Sikora chassis and was built with the help of SCS Gear in Bellevue, Ohio, the same company building boxes for all those monster trucks and tractor pullers.
153 I could go on and on about Garlits’ innovations, but I’ll stop with his Swamp Rat 28, an Arfons-inspired turbine car that was mired in the mid-6s in 1983 while everyone else was running mid-5s. So much for that inspirational moment. Today, Garlits is looking to be the first to crack 200 mph in a battery-powered dragster.
154 Good things come to those who wait. At the NHRA Grandnationals in 1982, Connie Kalitta won his first Top Fuel title since downing Gene Goleman at the 1967 Winternationals. Kalitta, the Bounty Hunter, beat the ex–Bounty Huntress, Shirley Muldowney, in fine fashion with a 5.75 at 241.28 to Muldowney’s 5.85 at 220.58. Shirley had the last laugh, though. At season’s end, she walked away with her second world championship.
155 The Grandnationals at Sanair, Quebec, in June 1984 is one race Shirley would love to forget. During a qualifying run against Gary Ormsby, Shirley’s dragster blew a front tire, leading to steering loss and a near-fatal crash. She barely survived, suffering two broken legs, a broken pelvis, a broken hand, and broken fingers. She endured months of grueling operations and recovery. But she wasn’t about to give up. In January 1986, she once again took the seat in a Top Fueler. The epitome of guts and determination? You bet!
“Diamond Dave” Miller lights the hides in his shorty rail at Indy in 1986. Interesting thought: What if Garlits or Amato toyed with the idea? Could it have caught on? (Photo Courtesy Allen Tracy)
156 Former Top Alcohol driver Diamond Dave Miller joined the Top Fuel ranks in 1984 and ran an R&B Engineering chassis car that really flew in the face of tradition. Miller’s car sported a short 200-inch wheelbase as opposed to the more conventional 280 inches (or so), which most Top Fuel cars of the day rode on. Miller raced the car through 1989, and even though he failed to win any major events, he regularly qualified well. According to nhra.com, the best times for the shorty were 5.37 at 260 mph.
157 NFL star quarterback Dan Pastorini isn’t the only pro ball player who has competed in NHRA action (think NBA players Tom Hammonds and Larry Nance), but he is the only one to have won a national event. Dan came out on top in 1986 at the Southern Nationals. He qualified in 8th position and held off Gene Snow in the final with a convincing 5.56 at 256.70 mph to cover Snow’s 5.64 at 244.16 mph. Pastorini began his football career in 1971 and retired in 1983 after playing for the Houston Oilers, Oakland Raiders, Los Angeles Rams, and Philadelphia Eagles.
158 You could say that Don “the Snake” Prudhomme had come full circle by December 1989. To the delight of the Funny Car fraternity, he returned to Top Fuel after a 17-year absence. Sponsored by Skoal, Don was making his first full pass in his new United Racing Club (URC) rail at Bakersfield when a wing support broke free as he approached half-track, sending him on his first, but not last, blow over. Miraculously, Don escaped with little more than bruising while the car only required minor repair. Welcome back to Top Fuel, Don!
Dan Pastorini, an adrenaline junkie, had a memorable NFL career before climbing into a national event–winning Top Fuel car. (Photo Courtesy Allen Tracy)
159 In the late 1980s, Don Arivett, with the help of his brother Gerald, built the first fully wind tunnel–developed dragster. The fully enclosed rear-engine dragster featured a carbon-fiber shell and appears to be the last true Top Fuel streamline effort. The body had a coefficient of drag (Cd) of .20, the lowest of any automotive shape ever built. Funny Cars of the day had no better than 0.60 Cd. The Arivett streamliner also spent time on the salt, where it clocked 265 mph.
160 It was a tragic day in Santa Pod in April 1990 when Darrell Gwynn and his Mike Kase Top Fueler ended up in a guardrail at approximately 240 mph. The wreck ended the driving career of Gwynn, one of drag racing’s young stars. Between T/AD and Top Fuel, he had 18 national event wins in 10 years, but he suffered paralysis in the accident and lost his left arm. A determined man, Gwynn fought to overcome his injuries and became a team leader.
161 In a show of real love and appreciation, Gwynn’s former crew chief Mike Gerry built Gwynn a custom dragster, which Gerry presented to him as a 40th birthday gift at the 50th anniversary of the NHRA U.S. Nationals in 2001. The custom rail featured hand controls, which Gwynn manipulated on an exhibition run down the track.
162 Blaine Johnson won four NHRA Alcohol Dragster World Championships between 1990 and 1993. He stepped up to Top Fuel in 1994 and won his first national event in 1995, the World Finals. He was well on his way in 1996, winning the Winternationals, Gatornationals, and the Autolite Nationals. He held the record at 4.59 and was leading the points race before his untimely death at the U.S. Nationals. Eventual winner Cory McClenathan, who was in the lane opposite Johnson at the time of the crash, gave his winning Wally (NHRA award named after Wally Parks, given to national event winners) to Blaine’s crew chief and brother, Allan.
163 Not only has Top Fuel racer Tony “the Sarge” Schumacher won 77 NHRA national events, he’s won 8 NHRA Top Fuel World Championships. In 1999, Tony became the first to top 330 mph in quarter-mile. In 2012, he became the first to accomplish the feat in 1,000 feet.
164 Kenny Bernstein cracked the last great barrier in drag racing, the 300-mph run, in 1992. Kenny ran a 301.70 mph in 4.82 seconds during the second round of qualifying at the NHRA Gatornationals. In a bangshift.com interview, crew chief Dale Armstrong credited (among other things) a reworking of the magneto with helping to break the barrier. It was a discussion with Ron Armstrong regarding magnetos