With a 6 day race schedule, 27 entries in Top Fuel, 21 in Funny car, 31 in Pro Stock and an overall car count of over 800 the 58th Us Nationals aka the Big Go already impresses before you attend them. When you enter the facility you already get the feeling you’re walking on holy ground. It took us half a day to walk trough the whole sportsman pits and still one hasn’t seen everything. Gearheads, racers, and car enthusiasts all around, sticking their heads into the carburetors, making their hands dirty and, doing warmups, cleaning and other preparations. The whole place is like the inside of a beeyard except the buzzing comes from high horsepowered V8 engines. So 2 days of sportsman action wheelies and close heads up racing like on a conveyor-belt. Stunning cars from the early sixties up tot he newest Camaros and mustangs duking it out from early morning till late after sunset. Finally Friday evening it’s time for the first dose of nitromethane as Bob Frye demands: „Top Fuel and Funny Cars tot he lanes please!“ And what a wonderful flame throwing night session it was! The Al-Anabi Racing cars really strong in the first outing, but in the end, the friday crown had been taken by the sarge, Tony Schumacher, tearing up the track with a blistering 3.814 at 324.67 mph right out of the trailer. In Funny Car „Fast“ Jack Beckman stealing the pole away from Johnny Grey with a strong looking 4.051 at 302.62 mph. And of course in Pro Stock Erica Enders, who seems to be on a hot strike right now, running a 6.624 at 208.84 mph. But these numbers were supposed to fall during the next couple of sessions. The weather forecast for saturday and the rest of the event didn’t looked good as the remnants of Hurricane Isaac continued to drift into the Brownsburg area. As the light, but persistent rain showers finally stopped at 3 pm on Saturday, racing resumed and in 2 further nitro sessions the poles were set. Shawn Langdon ran a blistering track record of 3.740 at 326.48 mph. While the funny car legends daughter Courtney Force stormed the Funny Car pole with a 4.049 at 317.27 mph, Erica Enders improved her time to a 6.550 at 210.80 mph to stay number one. The crowd went wild. Two females in 2 Pro categories leading the fields at a nhra event never happened before. Unfortunately the rain washed out what surely had been another 2 exciting rounds of qualifying and the eliminations on monday of course. The race got postponed to the next weekend but our plane to good ol Germany went of on tuesday noon. Maybe next year we get the chance to enjoy the Big Go in it’s whole beauty…
Photo and Text by David Beitler
