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Watch The Truly Great NHRA Pro Stock Final From Houston ’94 – The WJ/Scott Geoffrion Battle!


Watch The Truly Great NHRA Pro Stock Final From Houston ’94 – The WJ/Scott Geoffrion Battle!

As I’ll be at the NHRA national event in Baytown, Texas in a few weeks.  I am working on my notes and prep stuff this week so I am locked and loaded to go down there. It is impossible to think about or talk about this race without remembering one of the best moments in the history of the pro stock category, the infamous starting line battle between Warren Johnson and Scott Geoffrion. The 1994 season was an insanely pitched battle between the Oldsmobile teams and the Dodge teams and there was absolutely not a droplet of love on either side of it. Everyone hated each other and no one made any big secret about it. It was awesome and as a 14 year old kid, I could not get enough of it.

Tensions continued to rise through the season as the two teams traded blows back and forth but the moment at what is now Royal Purple Raceway is one that will go down for the ages because it has all the elements in place. The track was packed to the gills with people, the fans all had picked a side about who they were rooting for, the scene involved big Buster Couch controlling the starting line like a warden, and the crowd was so animalistic you can actually hear them over the cars at points.

We have seen video of this incident that was shot in the stands and it is crazy. We’re not talking about a few people whooping and hollering, we’re talking about people who were on the verge of tearing the stands down. The longer they sat there the crazier the crowd got.

We dig this video because it runs exactly as the TV audience at home saw it. Big Mac is on the call, Evans is at the top end, and it is like a time machine to watch it now. It takes me right back to seeing it as a kid in the living room of the house. We were a GM family so you can guess who’s side we were on.

I can’t wait to get down to Houston and ask Greg Anderson to relive that moment. You can see him giving a little fist pump on the starting line in this video. Awesome.


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7 thoughts on “Watch The Truly Great NHRA Pro Stock Final From Houston ’94 – The WJ/Scott Geoffrion Battle!

  1. Orange65

    My favorite round of pro stock took place I think a Topeka. One racer, I believe it was Joe Lepone got to where he would do a burnout, immediately back up and fully stage- making the other driver have to rush. He did that a few times until he lined up with Frank Iaconio. Iaconio matched him and when the light went green, Lepone just sat there- he did not realize what Iaconio had done. That ended the hurry up staging.

  2. Gary

    Even in victory, WJ comes off as a poor sport. Brilliant man, he should have been better than that; the whole time he was racing…

  3. 69rrboy

    That was the day he went from being WJ to W-Dick to me. Well it might’ve been a little before then but those comments at the end of the track and his whole attitude in general sealed that one.

    When he came to Maple I walked up to him with my Alderman shirt on and said “Your car’s running good. It’s a shame you keep getting left on. Maybe you could hire Scott to drive for you again?!”. He just mumbled to himself. Man I hated those cars.

  4. ratty

    I didn’t ‘grow up’ in drag racing back in those days, so I’m no drag racing historian, but I’ve watched WJ enough times over the years to both have tremendous respect for his obvious mechanical mastery of the PS car, but have always shook my head in disbelief at his perpetual snobbish fat head and bad attitude towards his competitors. If I was him at that post race interview at the big end of the track, I would’ve been laughing and would’ve had nothing but big smiles, expressing how much I loved drag racing for situations just like what had just happened… having too much fun with the other lane, pissing off Buster (and not getting our asses beat down by the man as he’s not exactly a little guy), and still winning the race even though I had my ass handed to me at the tree… They gave the crowd a great show, had a blast against each other, and he still won the race. I mean, if you’re not having fun, why even do it? Winning isn’t everything… No, really, it isn’t.. But it sure should make you smile if you did.

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