Don Garlits’ trip to the 55th annual Mac Tool US Nationals as a racer has come to an end. After qualifying his 2009 Drag Pack Challenger in the Stock Eliminator field, he was felled in a heads up battle with Sportsman racing legend Dan Fletcher.

Here’s the great part. The 77-year-old Garlits strapped a .007 light onto Fletcher (although Fletch was acting himself and went .010 on the tree). Both men were racing in the A/Stock Automatic class and unfortunately for Garlits he was outgunned. Fletcher ran 10.332/127 mph to Garlits’ losing 10.489/127-mph shot.

As per usual at Indy, the Stock and Super Stock fields are very stout. Fletcher was more than a second and change under the index and qualified 113th! Garlits qualified 0.84 of a second under the 11.30 index and was in the 146th qualifying spot.

This was his debut in the car and it is quite ironic that he would face Fletcher, a man whose stature among Sportsman racers rivals Garlits’ among the professionals. We wish we could have been in the staging lanes hearing those two chat before their match up. Two of the greats!