NASCAR's next shot at a big race came over the Memorial Day Weekend, probably drag racing's busiest of the year, and it highlighted one of the problems that kept the NASCAR program from getting any bigger in its short run of existence.

"It was hard to get the really big names to come to our shows," said Eveland. "The Garlits,' Prudhommes', the Ivos, all had races that they made every year. We could get good cars, no doubt about that, we had 'the Hawaiian,' and cars like that at the West Salem [NASCAR Summer Nationals], but we had trouble nailing down the big names consistently."

NASCAR's Spring Championships at Richmond Dragway on May 27-29 was the group's second national event and offered a $25,000 purse. A cool $1,500 to the Top Fuel or No. 1 Eliminator and $1500 and $500 respectively going to Handicap and Heads Up Eliminator.

Those prizes compared nicely to the weekend's biggest event, the UDRA National Championships at Great Lakes Dragaway in Union Grove, Wisc. on May 27-30. Their Top Fuel and Funny Car purses were identical to the show in Richmond, but the fields were not.

At Union Grove that weekend were Don Garlits, Don Prudhomme, Chris Karamesines, Marshall & Vermilya, Charlie Proite's "Telstar," Art Malone and Pete Robinson. Funny Car competition was headed by the nation's No. 1 car, "Dyno Don" Nicholson's Eliminator-1 Mercury Comet, Dickie Harrel, Maynard Rupp's "Chevoom" Chevelle, and Arnie Beswick.

Richmond, on the other hand, had a good competitive 16-car show, but Top Fuel winner Val LaPorte and runner-up Tom Raley, along with Bob Whiting, "Skeets" Spanninger, Fausto Marino, and Joe Jacono didn't count as much at the gate. Same for the Grand Stockers of Handicap winner Carson Hyman in Bondy Long's Mustang and Bill Lawton's Tasca Ford in Heads Up.

And Union Grove wasn't the only competition the NASCAR event had. New York National was hosting a three-day Top Fuel show, York U.S. 30 had an all-eliminator Memorial Day program, plus a full slate of best of three Top Fuel and Funny Car match races.

The best show NASCAR produced all year occurred at the aforementioned Dragway 42 in West Salem, Ohio. A huge slate of the touring pros made the Top Fuel, Top Gas, and Grand Stock fields, and it likely was the best event in the organization's history.

The final race, the NASCAR Grand Finale, occurred at Atco Raceway in New Jersey on Oct. 22-23, where Chuck Kurzawa (Top Fuel), Vernon Rowley (Heads Up), and Chick DeNinno (Handicap) took the big event eliminators. Save for two record runs events in Florida, one at West Palm Beach, Oct. 30, and one at Twin City in Tampa, Fla., on Nov. 6, that was the end of the season.

When all was tallied, the 1966 NASCAR world champs were Jacono in Top Fuel and Melvin Yow of Lillington, N.C. in his T.W. Grissom-wrenched "1" Best Dodge Cornet in Grand Stock. (Grand Stock being determined by the Heads Up or Handicap Eliminator racers with the most points).

All in all, a very good first full season for the NASCAR racers. As at almost all events, the Atco show was packed with spectators and full fields, and things looked optimistic for 1967.

The 1967 season showed more growth, although again the fields weren't up to the level of NHRA and AHRA championship events or the big independent races like those at Union Grove and the U.S Fuel and Gas championships in Bakersfield, Calif. Still, we're talking about an organization that was two and a half years old, and as history showed would stay two and a half years old. At the end of the 1967 season, the plug was pulled out and NASCAR's drag race light went out.

Two informed sources pretty much clarify why NASCAR dropped out of drag racing.

"Bill France Jr., was the guy at NASCAR headquarters who ultimately called the shots for the drag racing division," said Weis. "What I heard was that Bill Sr., was going to semi-retire in 1968 and that if his son wanted to run NASCAR, the drag racing program would have to go away. The race program was going great, and, in fact, I had intended to buy out Ed Witzberger until we got the news that it was over."

Xakellis added, "By 1967, NHRA had really gotten its foot in the door in the northeast. The Division 1 office had two years under its belt and a number of new tracks had come into the picture. For those two years we also had been running Divisional points races towards world championships that encompassed the whole country and not just a region. NHRA could provide local tracks with a genuinely coordinated drag race program at all levels, and I think that compared favorably to NASCAR, who was, I think, more testing a market."

Trailblazing, testing a new market, or earning some hardworking promoters a few extra bucks, NASCAR's drag racing involvement, short as it was, rates as one of the sport's more interesting footnotes.

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