Here’s some classic drag racing video that’ll put a smile on your smacker this Wednesday morning. We’re taking a trip 39 years into the past to Ontario Motor Speedway to watch the final professional rounds of the NHRA season. 1979 was a good year for the sport of NHRA drag racing and this race was the capper on it. You will see some of the biggest names to ever grace a drag strip in action here as well as some guys who were perhaps not as well known but equally loved by the fans.
Rob Bruins was the 1979 NHRA top fuel champion and had it locked up by the time this event came around, Bob Glidden already has his championship handled as well. On the funny car side of things Raymond Beadle locked up his first of what would be three titles in a row in 1979 and the Blue Max legend was in full swing. While those things are cool, someone still needed to win the race, right? Two of the three national champions made the finals. Glidden had to face down Frank Iaconio and top fuel champion Rob Bruins had Don Garlits in the other lane. The funny car final had Tripp Shumake and Canadian Gordie Bonin racing, Bonin driving one of the best looking funny cars of all time in the form of the Bubble Up Firebird.
The one thing you’ll notice mentioned here more than once is the fact that there is a “bad lane” and by the looks of it, there is a bad lane. The right hand side of the track is the one that Dave Mac and the racers viewed as suspect and when you see how the cars react on it, you’ll see why.
The weekend after next will be the 24th Sunday of 2018 where my “work day” has ended with a pair of thundering top fuel dragsters racing off into the afternoon sun. It’s cool to look back 389years and see the same scene, albeit at a different place in space and time.
Brian: I’m probably dating myself, but I was lucky enough to see Gordy Bonin & the Bubble Up FC at the first Drag Race I ever attended, the 1979 Coca Cola Funny Car Nationals (a Divisional Points Race at the old Edmonton track).
Not a bad memory of a first race, and all while still in my senior year of High School:)
WOW, drag racing has been around for 389 years .