he Goodguys have always put on a fantastic Rod n Custom event at the Pomona Fairplex, but this year they got the okay from NHRA to add a full Nostalgia Drag Race to celebrate this 6th annual West Coast Happenin'. It was especially great for all the fans and racers with the air filled with nitro fumes at night. Special additions to this great show were the incredible exhibition machines. The fans were treated to the likes of Bob Riggles in the famous "Hemi under Glass" wheelstander, along with the Nostalgia Fuel Funny Cars of Randy Walls' "Super Nova", Bob Godfrey in the Godfrey & Close "Flamed Fortune" 1963 Corvette, Jeff Gaynor's brand new '74 Plymouth Barracuda, and Nate Bugg's "Lil Nate" Dodge.

The altereds NOT in Tucson for the Fuel Altered Nationals included Larry Pettit's beautiful candy blue with flames "Hellfire." It is a true Nostalgia type AA/FA as were all the AA/FA's on hand. Pettit definitely woke everyone up on his quarter mile blast of 6.31 at 226 mph! That's right on the record for this type of Fuel Altered.

Next up was the father and son team of Dave and Joel Gruzen and their "Merciless Mouse" small block powered Chevy/Fiat that also has a powerglide behind it on nitro! The Mouse was basically testing as they had only been able to run this nice piece a couple of times before. How about a great pass of 6.86, 158 mph for the cheese-eating Fiat that definitely is a one of a kind.

Now comes the run of the night, as Mike Boyd straps himself in the most famous Fuel Altered of them all, "The Winged Express" of Marcellus, Boyd, and Borsch. Just off of a very successful tour back from Goodguys at Indy and NHRA at Bowling Green, and what a show they were about to perform for the Pomona crowd. On the burnout Boyd hammered the throttle on the Winged Express and huge flames towered over the awesome T roadster for about 500 feet. Then he backs up and laid down a beautiful 7 second run. It was just like Willie was still here!

TOP FUEL

Almost always a five-second machine is the team of Tedford & McGee, with Rick McGee at the wheel.

In Southern California when you think Goodguys and the FED, normally this type of event will draw 25-30 Top Fuel dragsters for a 16-car field, but for some reason only 16 cars made it to Pomona. All of the T/F cars were great quality machines, and the good news for the racers, at least, meant that all the cars would return on race day.