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He was nearly as devastating in NHRA competition as well. Along with snapping up the Winternationals title, Garlits swept the Le Grandnational Molson, the U.S. Nationals and what many claim as the greatest pro drag race in history, the 1975 NHRA Supernationals World Finals. In 1975, NHRA hosted an 8-event national event schedule, so winning half of the events was no mean feat.

His Supernationals event effort represented the single greatest performance in Top Fuel history. Gary Beck ran a 5.69 in Ray Peets' Export A dragster for the distinction of being the first racer in the 5.6s, but after that it was all Garlits.

Garlits' total run count that weekend consisted of the following elapsed times: 6.01/235.60; 5.88/249.30; 5.71/249.30; 5.63/250.69; 5.79/232.55; 5.65/249.30; 5.67/249.30; and 5.74/247.93. The 5.63/250.69 was both ends of the NHRA record with the e.t. remaining unsurpassed until March of 1981. Most regard this run, his final qualifying effort on Saturday, as the greatest single run in Top Fuel history.

When 1975 ended, Garlits was the first NHRA Winston and the IHRA Top Fuel world champion.

LARRY MINOR/GARY BECK - 1983
The best performing drag racer (not necessarily winning drag racer) of the early 1980s was transplanted Canadian Gary Beck. In 1980, he hooked up with multi-millionaire potato farmer and racer Larry Minor of San Jacinto, Calif. and began a partnership that would go down in drag racing history as one of the greatest for elapsed time producing racers.

Beck was phenomenal throughout his career as a record buster. For example, he was the first in the 5.6s, but when he joined with Minor became the first Top Fuel racer to run in the 5.5s, 5.4s, and 5.3s.

Beck's greatest performance year was 1983. In 1982, he had the best running car or close to it, rattling cages with the first 5.4-second run in a 5.48 first-round winner over Jack Ostrander at the '82 U.S. Nationals, but the '83 season was totally different. When he showed at a track, a reporter confidently could write in advance, "low e.t. (almost always) and top speed (usually) were set by Gary Beck."

In 1983, Minor and Beck's dark blue Al Swindahl-chassied dragster won the NHRA Winston world title and did it through plain brute strength. At the NHRA Winternationals, Gatornationals, Southern Nationals, Cajun Nationals, Springnationals, Mile-High Nationals, North Star Nationals, U.S. Nationals, Golden Gate Nationals, and Winston World Finals, Beck set low e.t. and new track records. That's phenomenal considering he only missed low e.t. at just the Le Grandnational Molson and the Summernationals. At the Gatornationals he set the new NHRA e.t. mark with a 5.44 and then bettered it with an unbacked up 5.42 at the Southerns.

In October at the Golden Gate Nationals in Fremont, Calif. Beck crunched Gary Ormsby in the final with the first 5.3-second blast (a 5.391) and then followed up at the next race with a backed up 5.391 at the World Finals event at Orange County Int'l Raceway. He won just four races that year, but when the end of 1983 came, Beck had run 17 of the quickest 18 runs in history. No single Top Fuel racer, certainly of the modern era, could claim such dominance.

GREER-BLACK-PRUDHOMME - 1962-63
The Kent Fuller-chassied, full-bodied 125-inch Top Fuel dragster of Tom Greer, Keith Black, and driver Don Prudhomme debuted on June 17, 1962 and it did so in high style, winning an 8-car Top Fuel show at Pomona Dragstrip.

Almost a year later, Schiefer Manufacturing, a maker of clutches and cams and various items, ran an ad on May 18, 1963 in Drag News, the country's leading weekly newspaper, that made the incredible claim that this same G-B-P team had a 236-7 win-loss record in that period. Brilliant research on the part of a minor league drunken reporter revealed that the mark was closer to 81-8, but by either count, an incredible feat nonetheless.

It would be very believable that this car had over 200 round wins because it was seemingly invincible. Prudhomme was just 21 years old when he got behind the wheel of this car, but had already established himself as a star in the making by winning the 1962 Bakersfield March Meet aboard Dave Zeuschel's dragster. Greer, a successful machinist, and Black, the premier drag boat engine builder, proved the perfect compliment to their young lightning-quick Van Nuys, Calif. driver.

In the period from June 1962 to May 1963, Prudhomme won 21 Top Fuel titles in Southern California and did it over the best names in the sport. He beat Don Garlits in the Top Fuel finals of Feb. 3 and Feb. 24 at San Gabriel and Lions respectively, and on March 10, beat "T.V. Tommy" Ivo in two straight rounds at San Gabriel in a match that featured the first side-by-side seven-second runs.

On January 20, 1963 Prudhomme ran and backed up a 7.77 for the quickest legit e.t. in the sport and had a best speed of 191.48 mph. There had been a few 200-mphs, or so it's been reported, but the soon-to-be-"Snake's" best speeds were unchallenged.

Prudhomme lost just two match races from the May date to the end of 1963. He lost a best of three to Gary Gabelich and the "Valkyrie" jet dragster at Lions during the summer and in December, dropped a two out of three also at Lions to Chris Karamesines' "Chizler," which was No. 1 on the Drag News Mr. Eliminator 1320 list at that time. Other than that, it was all carnage and mayhem for the first truly feared West Coast Top Fuel dragster.