(Photos by Brad Klaassen) – It was a first for the world of nostalgia drag racing last month in Tulsa. Never before had women won both top fuel and nitro funny car at a Heritage Series event and it could not have happened to a pair of more deserving woman. Mendy Fry won top fuel in the High Speed Motorsports car and Tera Graves took the nitro funny car title driving John Hale’s awesome “One Bad Texan” Camaro. Both teams had to claw hard for the win as there was lots of talent on the grounds at Tulsa Raceway Park.
Mendy defeated pal of BangShift Adam Sorokin in the finals taking both the reaction time advantage and the elapsed time across the stripe. Graves was set to face off against Paul Romine in the final round but the team had issues in the pits warming the car up and could not answer the bell. It was a career weekend for Graves who made her first five second runs, her first runs over 250mph and racked up her first career nitro funny car win. At 27 years old Graves is one of the most accomplished young drivers in the sport having wheeled (and continuing to wheel) a bad fast slingshot dragster in vintage competition along with more and more frequent forays into the nitro world. She and her husband Chris are great people and we look forward to talking about them in the sport of drag racing for many decades to come.
Click the images below to expand them and then scroll to see ’em all – nitro time!
