(Words and photos by Joe Grippo) – Memorial Day Weekend here in the Northeast is traditionally the weekend all the hitters from the NHRA Division 1 region come to duke it out at Maple Grove Raceway for the Lucas Oil Drag Racing Series. This event is the longest running Divisional Race on the NHRA circuit with the Grove hosting D1’s finest for the 45th straight year! Usually late May means it’s time to bust out the shorts in preparation for the kick-off of the hot Summer season but Mother Nature tossed a rather chilly monkey wrench into Bob Lang’s plans this weekend with rain, wind and cold temps forcing him into making loads of schedule adjustments including losing most of Friday and pushing the Alcohol Cars into Sunday for their eliminations. However, the 400 plus racers in the house followed Lang’s lead and everyone was eating burgers and hot dogs on Memorial Day Monday!
Some great on track action from the Stock and Super Stock classes, Top Sportsman and Dragster, Competition Eliminator, all the Super classes and the Top Alcohol Cars combined with the cool air and killer Maple Grove traction made the weekend a smashing success. Check out the gallery for cool Pit Area shots of classic Muscle Cars along with the new school COPO Camaros, Drag Pak Challengers and Cobra Jet Mustangs. Insane Tube Chassis Door Car creations, Dragsters and Altereds of varying sizes and shapes plus Fantastic Flip-Top Funny Cars rounded out the rest of the entries. Checking them out up close is almost as good as watching them blast down the quarter mile! Great Stuff!
Winners by class….
Top Alcohol Dragster: Dan Page
Top Alcohol Funny Car: Frank Manzo
Competition Eliminator: Frank Aragona
Super Stock Eliminator: John Armstrong
Stock Eliminator: Donald Pires
Super Comp: Lee Ream
Super Gas: Mike Sawyer
Super Street: Casey Grubb
Top Sportsman: Michael Cerro
Top Dragster: John Taylor
DRAG GALLERY: 
Grippo rocks.
Who would look at a 1969 Chevrolet Kingswood and say “That looks like it would make a good race car.”?
Very hapy to see John Armstrong win!