Next weekend I’ll be a yellin’ and a screamin’ at Heartland Park Topeka one of the finest drag strips in the country. This is a place that came back from literal death a couple of years ago and each time the NHRA tour swings through town the records get decimated in one way or another. The 1993 event at this track was among the most epic ever held and in the funny car category it may have been the most epic. Why? It was the scene of the first four second and the first 300mph funny car runs and they were not accomplished by the guy who had won seven out of the first 10 races that year. They were accomplished by two hard-nosed racers who ran their junk at the limit and etched their names into drag racing’s eternal history book.
If the drag racing world had a betting window, everyone would have been lining up and sliding their cash behind John Force when it came to breaking the 4-second barrier in a funny car and being the first man to smash through the 300mph window as well. Why? He owned the record at 5.01 coming into the race. He had ripped off a bunch of high 290mph runs and he was the most dominant funny car driver and team owner the sport had ever known to that point.
With 65-degree temps, dry air, and Heartland Park’s famed traction John Force was going to roll in, already having locked a championship, and put the icing on the cake with even more accolades. But then a funny thing happened on the way to the history books…he didn’t.
Today we’ll show you the video of Jim Epler’s barrier breaking 300mph run made in the Rug Doctor funny car with Mike Kloeber as the crew chief. He then burned the car to the ground on his next pass. Force would make his first 300mph and 4-second runs soon after the race but to this day, if you ask him it bugs him that he’s not the guy with those marks. Funny how drag racing works, right?
Glad I was there.The trunk area of Eplers car did not fit NHRA spoiler template after that run at first.Kloeber proceeded to crawl under the car and punched upward raising the trunk area.Then it fit.LOL.