Thursday I make a break for Gainesville, Florida to be part of the announcing staff at the 2017 NHRA Gatornationals. The weather is looking iffy which stinks but it certainly isn’t the first time (nor will be be the last) that race officials have had to shuck and jive to get the job done and the race completed during the weekend. In fact, 1977 was one of those years where rain slowed the event and jacked up the schedule, especially on Sunday and that is where we pickup the story of the final rounds of that race with Dave McClelland calling the action.
On the funny car side, there was little drama because Gordie Bonin ran unopposed in the final. Roger “Color me gone” Lindamood was unable to get to the starting line for the finals after destroying an engine in the semi-final round. Because of rain delays, the sun was setting and being that the track had no lights, race officials were likely way less accommodating than they would have been otherwise to his situation. Benin’s top end interview is great when he tells the reporter that they can keep running now that they have some money!
The real story of this one was the top fuel final, especially when we look at it from today’s perspective. The race was set between Pat Dakin and Don Garlits. Dakin can still be found competing at about half of the NHRA races in his top fuel dragster each year and he is still going strong. Garlits was technically retired before this event and like most sporting legends, retiring was not something he was very good at. The car he is shown driving here was actually on display in his museum for TWO YEARS before they dragged it out, tuned it up, and he started going rounds. Great story!
The historical perspective comes in when we consider what the winning elapsed time and speed in the final was. Those numbers were 6.00/243. This coming weekend, pro mods will be dipping into the 5.70s at best and low 5.80s regularly with speeds at or exceeding 250mph. Lots of stuff changes in 40 years! One thing that does not change? Just how cool this video is.
Brian: we must be looking at different weather apps. Weather Channel app has sun everyday and 62 71 77 73. Was the weather part of the story fake news?