The big boys of NZ drag racing came out for the Nationals last weekend at Fram Autolite Dragway in Meremere. The weather was fine and the racing was tight with the smell of burnt rubber wafting through the crowd and a symphony of tyre squeals to entertain all.

NZV8 was there snapping away a few hundred photos so check out all the day’s action in the gallery below and keep an eye out for a full event report in the next issue of NZV8 magazine.

Mantorp, Sweden, 2005

Czech lunatics in a jet-powered dragster

Garlits made his first appearance in organized drag racing in six years in NHRA competition, driving his Dodge Challenger Drag Pak by Mopar into the heat of NHRA Stock eliminations at the Mac Tools U.S. Nationals on Labor Day weekend. His historic first run in the Drag Pak was on Wednesday, Sept. 2, in A/Stock Automatic qualifying at O’Reilly Raceway Park in Indianapolis. Final eliminations are on Monday, Sept. 7.

Garlits retired after Top Fuel qualifying at the U.S. Nationals exactly six years ago in 2003. He last ran a stock class car way back half a decade before Woodstock, in 1963 when he competed in a 1963 Dodge Max Wedge drag package car carrying “Garlits Dodge” graphics. His new Dodge Challenger Drag Pak by Mopar has the same lettering emblazoned on its sides, along with the same Mopar graphics from his historic run last year alongside “Miss Mighty Mopar” Judy Lilly in Drag Pak prototypes at the Mopar Mile-High NHRA Nationals.

“I like my Dodge Challenger Drag Pak much better than a dragster,” said Garlits, referring to the current way Top Fuel dragsters are campaigned. “It takes 25 people to get a dragster to the line these days. All I have to do with the Dodge Challenger is turn the key and take it there. When the light turns green I have a ten-second ride-which is almost three times what I used to get-and I even have time to look at the tach and shift gears.”

Garlits is starting to make a habit of coming out of retirement. He retired for the first time in 1987, but returned for one race at Atlanta in 1992 and made a 300mph run at the U.S. Nationals in Indianapolis in 2001. He then ran a limited schedule of four NHRA National events each year in 2002 and 2003 before he stepped out of Top Fuel at the request of his wife, Pat. “I didn’t want to come home and find my clothes all over the front yard,” he said at the time he acquired his new Dodge Challenger, explaining that he had the home-front green light to run a doorslammer in competition, referring to his Drag Pak vehicle.

Garlits’ statistics:
¢ 17 World Championship Titles and 144 National event wins
¢ Voted #1 Drag Racer for the past 50 years by the NHRA in 2001
¢ Won the prestigious U.S. Nationals eight times
¢ Car Craft Magazine Top Fuel Driver of the Year: 1969-70, 1972-73, 1975-78 & 1986
¢ Car Craft Magazine “Man of the Year”: 1969, 1971-73
¢ American Hot Rod Association “Fuel Driver of the Year”: 1971-74

The drag racing scene over in the states is facing controversial times ahead with the injection of some serious money from an unlikely source. Usually American drag racing success follows a similar storyline: Man loves drag racing since boyhood, comes from a region crazy for the sport, starts off in racing’s lower divisions, and races to win even in the big leagues. But now, like in many sports globally, money is coming in from the middle east in this case via Qatari native Sheik Khalid bin Hamad Al-Thani, all of 22 years old, and with a ridiculous bank balance.

When Al-Thani was ready to start a top-level drag racing team after owning outfits in the lower grades, he called Alan Johnson, who had run the five-time championship-winning Army dragster team. With the aim of turning Qatar into a dragster’s paradise and an estimated $10 million USD per year budget for a two-car team (top fuel dragster and funny car), Johnson not-surprisingly signed up for the challenge.

A top American team spends about $4 million USD and up for the NHRA series, which could put Al-Thani even above the U.S. Army team’s expenditure. Both teams are sixth in the standings right now, with Larry Dixon (dragster) and Del Worsham (funny car) behind the wheels, but with Al-Thani committed to doing — and spending — whatever it takes, it’s going to be tough to prevent him from becoming America’s drag racing kingpin.