3/9/04

The Sport's First All-Star
Race Invitational,

And Not Incidentally,
The East Coast's

First Really Big Top Fuel Extravaganza

Long title, eh?

Fortunately, though, not a real long story.

As difficult as it is to believe for left coasters, up until 1966 Top Fuel was not really that big a deal. And I say that comparatively. There were tracks like Connecticut International Dragway in East Haddam, Ct., New England Dragway in Epping, N.H., and maybe, at the most a half-dozen tracks that ran Top Fuel shows on a bi-weekly to monthly basis. These programs overwhelmingly featured local cars which was not all that bad a deal. The Winward & Jacono, Red Lang & the Dead End Kids, King & Marshall, Phil Miller, the fabulous A&B Speed Shop injected dragsters, and others gave the shows a nice northeast tang, and, of course, down south, you had the Garlits Mafia, featuring "Big Daddy," Art Malone, Pete Robinson, and Connie Swingle. That was all well and good, but these shows paled in comparison when the Pacificos hosted the NHRA Winternationals, the huge Bakersfield extravaganza, the Northwest Nationals in Washington and the AHRA Winternationals in Arizona. These programs dwarfed in size and scope anything on the Atlantic side of the country.

The East Coast was A/FX country, Super Stock, and, of course, one of the two major breeding grounds for the up and coming Funny Cars (the upper Midwest being the other site.) And that was okay with the fans. The Tasca Ford Mustang, Tommy Grove's Ford, the Comets of Nicholson and Schartman, the Ramchargers, Arnie Beswick, and others were stars that for East Coasters that existed on the same level as the biggest Top Fuel stars. Still, when all was said and done, everybody knew that fuel dragsters were the baddest beasts in the barn when it came to brute speed and power.

In 1966, management at Cecil County Drag-O-Way in Rising Sun, Maryland, one of the very best (and busiest) facilities on the Atlantic seaboard, decided to make a bet ... namely that race fans would support a really top-rank Top Fuel show. It's one thing to a draw in 5,000 for a Garlits vs. Chris Karamesines best of three, but would a big dollar Top Fuel extravaganza float? There was some doubt it might not.

Cecil County, along with York U.S. 30, Capitol, and maybe two or three other tracks were runaway successes promoting Funny Cars shows. The fans were used to (then) eight-second Funny Cars and wheelstanding A/FXers. Hey, they might not want to see Top Fuelers. The team decided to give it a shot and in the summer of 1966, race newspaper and magazine ads announced they would hold the inaugural Mr. USA Fuel Eliminator all-star invitational Saturday night at 8 p.m., September 24. The Cecil County team (I think) would pay tow-money and a little boost at the gate, and eight selects (Top ranked cars)would run for a $2,000 to-win, $1,000 runner-up purse.

Historically, this represented not only the East Coast's first really big Top Fuel show, but also the inaugural Top Fuel, i.e., Invitational/All-Star program run on an annual basis.