NHRA - National Hot Rod Association

Less than a year after we celebrated the 1,000th Top Fuel race at last spring’s four-wide race in Charlotte, we’re ready to celebrate the 1,000th Funny Car race at this year’s Lucas Oil NHRA Winternationals. It will be a star-studded affair with winners from the 100th races (100, 200, 300, 400, 500, 600, 700, 800, and 900) saluted on the starting line and presented with commemorative NHRA National Dragster covers, just like we did last year in Charlotte. And, just like we did in Charlotte last year, the winner of the 1,000th race will be presented with a replica of the first Funny Car winner trophy, again artfully reconstructed by Tom Patsis of Cold Hard Art.

Even though Top Fuel made its debut at the first race of 1963, the Winternationals, and Funny Cars first roared down the national event track at the season finale in 1966, the NHRA World Finals in Tulsa, Okla., it will be just 18 races between Charlotte 2025 and Pomona 2026, a testament to the single-digit national event calendars of the mid-1960s. (And, if you remember, it was just 10 years ago that NHRA celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Funny Car class.)

After Eddie Schartman won the 1966 Finals, there were five more Funny Car races (below) held over the 1967-69 period before it became an official championship-eligible class in 1970, where Larry Reyes won the opener in Pomona.

• 1967 Springnationals, Bristol: Tommy Grove winner
• 1967 Nationals, Indy: Doug Thorley winner
• 1969 Winternationals, Pomona: Clare Sanders winner
• 1969 Springnationals, Dallas: Danny Ongais winner
• 1969 Nationals, Indy: Danny Ongais winner

The 1970 season had seven races, 1971-76 had eight, 1977 and 1978 had nine, and we finally reached double digits in 1979, sending us cascading to the 100th race in 1981.

Let’s take a quick look back at the first Funny Car racer and the milestone races on the hundreds that will be celebrated in Pomona.

1. Eddie Schartman, 1966 World Finals, Tulsa

“Fast Eddie” Schartman, driving Roy Steffy's Mercury Comet, became Funny Car's first world champ when he defeated Don Nicholson in the final round at the NHRA World Finals at Southwest Raceway in Tulsa, Okla.

At the time, the new “funny cars” were classed mainly as Experimental Stockers and had begun life in the Optional Super Stock class in the early 1960s and then Factory Experimental (FX) starting in 1962.

Schartman, who rose through the Stocker ranks, was one of the Mercury-backed drivers who got the new flip-top Comets to run in 1966 — the others being Don Nicholson, Jack Chrisman, and the Kenz & Leslie team. Schartman was teamed with Roy Steffey, though the partnership would be short-lived over “creative differences.”

I talked to Schartman 10 years ago, and he told me that he took his first ride in the car in December 1965 at Motor City Dragway. Mercury Racing’s Al Turner had called him to the track, telling him only that his new car for 1966 was ready.

“I walked in there, looked at the car, and said, ‘What the hell is this?’ " he recalled. “It was a dragster with a body on it and the driver in the back seat and not the front seat, where you belong. I told them, ‘I can’t drive something like that.’ My car would run 125 [mph], but these things would do more than 160. He just said, ‘Well, that’s your baby. Get in.’ They were a handful; they never wanted to go straight. On my first pass, I went 166 mph and took out the [finish-line] lights. It took me several runs to get the hang of it, and, like any drag racer back then, you got used to the speed and loved it. Those cars weren’t like anything else out there, and once we got out there, the demand from the tracks and fans to see those cars was incredible. The phone was always ringing off the hook.”

The 1966 NHRA Nationals in Indy featured dedicated classes for “funny cars” running in S/XS, A/XS, and B/XS. Schartman and his yellow Mercury clinched the S/XS trophy with an 8.28 at 174.41 mph over Nicholson.

Only six cars/drivers were ready for the 1966 Finals: Schartman, Nicholson, Chrisman, Kenz & Leslie, plus Maynard Rupp in his wild Gratiot Auto Supply Chevoom Chevelle and Larry Reyes in Bill Taylor’s Kingfish Barracuda.

In round one, Schartman took down Reyes with an 8.674, Nicholson advanced with an 8.699 on the red-light by Mercury teammate Ron Leslie, and Rupp trailered Chrisman with an 8.679. Schartman got the semifinal bye for the six-car field and powered to low e.t. of 8.60, while Nicholson ran 8.69 to beat Rupp, who broke.

In the final, Schartman ran away and hid with a stout 8.38 at 174 mph, while Dyno Don” struggled to a 10.60. Schartman would later switch to Pro Stock but never reached the NHRA national event winner’s circle again.

100. Tripp Shumake, 1981 Southern Nationals, Atlanta

Born James William Shumake III, he got the “Tripp” from his mother, who called him “Lil Trippy" because he was the third generation with that name.

In the late 1960s, he worked and raced for Chuck's Speed Center in Phoenix and got a real taste of Funny Car in 1971, when he went on tour with Dickie Harrell. After Harrell suffered fatal injuries in his race car, Shumake returned to Phoenix and ran mostly match races for a number of Arizona-based teams in Randy Efros’ Smokin' Sun Devil, John Powers’ Mustang, and Dennis Fowler and Don Green’s Rat Trap Satellite before teaming with Phoenix’s Dennis Fowler and his Sundance team in 1974.

Shumake made his NHRA Funny Car debut in spectacular fashion at the 1976 Winternationals by qualifying No. 2 in Fowler’s new Sundance Monza with a 6.13, more than a tenth behind polesitter and eventual winner Don Prudhomme’s 6.02. He beat Bob Pickett in round one but lost to Ed McCulloch in the next frame.

In 1977, he took over the ride in speed shop operator Johnny Loper’s Little Hoss Arrow, the car that would take him to glory in Atlanta four years later.

The inaugural Southern Nationals had just eight-car nitro fields, and Shumake was not favored to even make that, especially after barely making the 16-car Winternationals show on the bump and qualifying just 14th at the Gatornationals. But there was magic in the air as Shumake and Loper combined to not only qualify No. 2 behind Raymond Beadle’s field-leading 5.96 but did so with a 5.98 that shockingly made them the eighth and final members of the Cragar Five-Second Club. (Shumake also would become the fourth of eight members of the Crane Cams 250-mph Club the following year in Fremont, Calif.)

Shumake bested Paul Smith in round one with a 6.08 and got past former world champ Shirl Greer in the semifinals with a 6.20. Kenny Bernstein, who had defeated Billy Meyer in round one and Don Prudhomme — who had knocked out Beadle in the opening stanza — was in the semifinals with a 6.07 to earn final-round lane choice.

The final was a razor-thin finish, with Shumake eking out the victory, 6.078 to 6.087. It was Shumake’s first of two wins; he’d win the 1982 World Finals in Meyer’s car the next year.

Shumake, who was inducted into the Arizona Racing Hall of Fame in 1996, will be one of the few 100th-win champs not on hand. He was killed in November 1999 by a wrong-way, hit-and-run driver while riding his Harley-Davidson near his Chandler, Ariz., home. Loper died in September 2006. Shumake’s son, Travis, who competes in Top Fuel; his sister, Heather, who wrote a book about her father; and their mother, Susie, will be on hand in Pomona to accept for Tripp.

200. Bruce Larson, 1989 Winternationals, Pomona

Bruce Larson was one of Funny Car’s original heroes, launching his nitro career in the mid-1960s after great success in a 289-powered AA/SP Cobra that won class at three events in 1965. The following year, he took possession of an injected (first alcohol, then nitro) red, white, and blue Chevelle bearing the USA-1 name he’d make famous across the land.

He made his NHRA national event debut at the 1969 Nationals in Indy, where he went to the semifinals, a feat he would repeat in 1970, then DNQ’d in Indy in his only 1971 appearance. After DNQing at his next event, the 1972 Summernationals, and a nasty fire at Maryland International Raceway, he suddenly switched to Pro Stock. He only stayed there through the end of 1974 and never won a round in five races before returning to Funny Car, but mostly as an in-demand match racer, though he never stopped dreaming of a return to national event competition.

Other than regular one-off appearances at the Summernationals from 1976 through 1979 that all resulted in DNQs and a similar DNQ at the 1977 U.S. Nationals, Larson didn’t return to the national event stage until the 1985 Keystone Nationals, where he teamed with fellow Pennsylvanian Joe Amato and qualified with his first major sponsor, Sentry Performance Tachs & Gauges. He and crew chief Maynard Yingst, a former sprint -car driver with limited intro experience, DNQ’d at four of eight races they attended in 1986 and didn’t win a single round at the other four, then got his first national event win light in 17 years in Gainesville in 1987.

In 1988, he scored his first NHRA national event win, defeating Kenny Bernstein in the final round of the 1988 Cajun Nationals, setting the stage for a surprising 1989 campaign that kicked off with a win at the Winternationals and ended in Pomona nine months later with Larson as the world champion.

After qualifying fourth in Pomona, Larson and Yingst took down Don Prudhome — who was just starting his final year in Funny Car — local hero “Jam-Air John” Martin, and Jim White in Roland Leong’s Hawaiian Punch Dodge, then beat tire-smoking Kenny Bernstein in the final.

Larson would win five more times that season en route to the championship, concluding with another Pomona win at the World Finals, then never won another national event.

300. John Force, 1994 Western Auto Nationals, Topeka

With 157 career wins to his credit, the sheer odds figured that John Force had to win one of the 100s, right? This win was just No. 36 of his great career and his fourth of a then-record 10 wins that season that carried him easily to his fourth of 16 world championships.

Although Force barely outqualified 1992 world champ Cruz Pedregon for the top spot by just a thousandth of a second (5.049 to 5.050), the difference was much greater once eliminations got rolling, and the Austin Coil-tuned Castrol Olds steamrolled the competition.

Force ran 5.07, 5.02 (low e.t.), and 5.12 to defeat Ronny Young, Dean Skuza, and Al Hofmann to meet “the Cruzer” and the Joe Gibbs-owned McDonald’s Olds in the final. Pedregon’s best lap after qualifying had been 5.14 in the semifinals after K.C. Spurlock broke, and Force hammered him in the final with a 5.10 while Pedregon went up in smoke.

The win had extra significance for Force as it broke the tie with his lifelong hero, Don Prudhomme, for most career Funny Car victories, a title that Force has now held for the last 32 years and will likely never relinquish.

400. Tim Wilkerson, 1999 Route 66 Nationals, Chicago

Tim Wilkerson’s first of 24 nitro Funny Car wins fortuitously fell on the 400th Funny Car race and at the event that is less than three hours from his Springfield, Ill., base.

Wilk had already claimed his first career Wally five years earlier in Topeka in Top Alcohol Funny Car and had launched his nitro career in 1996. Ironically, in his first nitro race, he lost in round one in Gainesville to his current assistant crew chief, Richard Hartman.

He quickly became a consistent top-half qualifier and round winner and reached his first final round about a year later at, of all places, the U.S. Nationals, where he lost the final round to Whit Bazemore. Two more runner-ups followed in 1998 before he finally got his winning kicks on Route 66.

Wilkerson didn’t get off to the greatest of starts, qualifying his JCIT Pontiac just 14th with a troubled 5.10 best, far behind John Force’s field-leading 4.85.

Wilkerson’s 5.06 revenge shot on Bazemore in round one was the fourth-best pass of the frame, and his 4.96 to set down Cory Lee in round two was second behind only Force’s 4.950 as all four winners in the round ran in the fours.

In the semi’s, Wilkerson ran 5.04 against tire-smoking Dean Skuza to reach the final, but Force ran 5.00 on the other side of the ladder to beat Randy Anderson’s similar-but-later number.

Based on their previous e.t.s, Force was the heavy favorite, but both cars lost traction early in the run. Force’s Mustang smoked harder and heavier, and Wilkerson expertly pedaled his way to victory, 5.97 to 7.35.

500. Wilkerson, 2003 U.S. Nationals in Indy

What are the odds that someone other than John Force’s name would appear twice on a nine-item Funny Car winner’s list, but here’s where it gets really unbelievable: Wilkerson’s win at the 500th Funny Car race was his first since his win at the 400th, which means a whole lot of frustration in between.

Between 1999 Chicago and 2013 Indy, Wilkerson only reached three final rounds and lost them all, and one of them — the 1999 Columbus race, the event after his breakthrough Chicago win — was lost to first-time winner Phil Burkart Jr.

2003 was a real mixed bag for Wilk. He qualified No. 1 in Pomona and No. 3 in Gainesville, but won just one round at the year’s first three races, then DNQ’d in Las Vegas, then stacked on first-round losses in Houston, Bristol, and Atlanta (that’s one round-win in seven races if you’re keeping score). He got just one win light each in Englishtown and Topeka, lost in round one in Chicago and Columbus, won a round each in St. Louis and Denver, and lost in round one in Seattle and Sonoma. In case you’ve run out of fingers and toes, that’s just five round-wins in 15 races.

But Wilk had qualified No. 1 in Denver, shining a hopeful light, then three races later battled his way to the final round in Brainerd. Even though he lost there to Gary Densham in John Force’s AAA Mustang, he must have had an inkling that the tide had turned.

Like his win in Chicago four years earlier, Wilkerson had a tough time in qualifying, slotting into the No. 15 spot, more than a tenth behind Force’s polesitting 4.75, but Wilk’s 4.82 round-one conquest of Gary Scelzi was the round’s second-best pass. An off-pace 4.99 was still enough to get him past Scott Cannon in round two, and a semifinal 4.86 over Dean Skuza earned him final-round lane choice at the Big Go over Johnny Gray, who had clocked a 4.89 in the Worsham family’s second Checker-Schuck’s-Kragen car in defeating Densham.

Gray left on Wilkerson by a smidge (.052 to .059), but Wilk powered past to claim a solid 4.84 to 4.90 win, just the second of his career and his first in more than four years.

600. Jack Beckman, 2008 Checker Schuck’s Kragen Nationals, Phoenix

You might think that “Fast Jack” Beckman’s nickname relates to racetrack speed, but I can easily make the argument that it stands for a fast learner. After racing in Super Comp (and winning the world championship in 2003), it took him just four races to win his first nitro Funny Car Wally in 2006. Beckman took over the controls of the Todd Okuhara-tuned Don Schumacher Racing Matco entry in Dallas and won in Las Vegas.

Fourteen races later, he won his second crown, in Denver in 2007, then won in Seattle the following weekend. That’s three wins in less than 20 starts. After what must have seemed like ages — but actually was just 11 races later — he won again, at the second race of the 2008 season, Funny Car race No. 600, the car now branded with Valvoline colors.

In what was a bit of a crazy trend started by Wilkerson’s wins from the 14th and 15th spots in winning Funny Car races 400 and 500, respectively, Beckman qualified just 15th in Phoenix, his troubled 5.03 best well behind No. 1 qualifier Wilkerson’s 4.77

Beckman and Co. found the fours on Sunday morning with a 4.87 romp over Mike Neff and a 4.88 to defeat Don Schumacher Racing teammate Gary Scelzi before defeating Jim Head despite an off-pace 5.61. Robert Hight, who was in just his fourth season in the class but already owned eight wins, had final-round lane choice after a 4.80 pasting of Tommy Johnson Jr., but smoked the tires against Beckman in the final.

700. Johnny Gray, 2012 Englishtown

Johnny Gray first made NHRA headlines in 1993 when he powered his A/Dragster to Comp eliminator’s first 200-mph pass before spending some years in the Top Alcohol classes (where he won three times) and Pro Stock.

Gray started running in Funny Cars in the late 1990s and was part of the Worsham family’s two-car Checker-Schuck’s-Kragen tea, in the early 2000s and spent some time at Don Schumacher Racing, where he won his first race in Brainerd in 2011 and his second at the 2012 E-Town race, where he captured Funny Car race No. 700 in the Service Central/Tire Kingdom Dodge.

Justin Elkes tuned the New Mexico oil billionaire to the No. 3 qualifying spot with a 4.02 behind Ron Capps (3.96) and Robert Hight (4.01).

In eliminations, Gray took Jim Head, John Force, and Robert Hight in the first three rounds with a 4.11 and a pair of 4.09s for the right to race Capps in the final. Capps’ NAPA machine had fallen well off of its qualifying pace in besting Bob Bode, Jack Beckman, and Courtney Force, and was no match for Gray’s strong 4.07 in the final. For what it’s worth, Capps also had been Gray’s final-round victim in his first Funny Car win in Brainerd.

800. Force, 2016 Denver

As previously mentioned, it’s no surprise that John Force’s name would appear twice on this list, as this was win No. 145 out of an eventual 157 he’d win before retiring at the end of last year.

Force’s Denver win was his first of four that season in the Peak Chevy in his second year back with Chevrolet and came in the weird camouflage edition of the car repping the Realtree clothing brand, which he ran on the Western Swing that year.

Force qualified No. 2 behind daughter Courtney’s Traxxas Camaro, 3.93 to her 3.91, and the duo ended up in the final together. John defeated Jeff Diehl, Matt Hagan, and Del Worsham with a pair of 4.00s sandwiching a 4.03, while Courtney took down Jim Campbell, Tommy Johnson Jr., and red-lighting teammate Robert Hight, the latter with a wild 3.93, making her the heavy favorite in the final.

But, as it turns out, this time father knows best, as the GOAT beat his daughter on a 3.963 to 3.963 holeshot. Force would go on to win Sonoma the next weekend to complete two-thirds of a Western Swing sweep, but lost in round one in Seattle to Johnson.

900. Cruz Pedregon, 2021 Summit Racing Equipment Nationals, Norwalk

Cruz Pedregon broke a three-year victory drought with his win in Norwalk in the Snap-on Tools machine, ending a painful period that stretched from the 2018 Charlotte event to Norwalk 2021.

The win was the 37th in Funny Car for Pedregon — on top of four Top Alcohol-class wins — and he’d also won the fall Las Vegas event en route to a fourth-place championship finish, his best since 2013.

Pedregon qualified mid-pack (10th with a 3.99, more than a tenth of a second behind Ron Capps’ field-leading 3.88) and carved his way past Tim Wilkerson, Robert Hight, and Alexis DeJoria with a trio of mid-3.90 clockings to face off with Bob Tasca III in the final. Tasca had run a pair of 3.92s in eliminations and had final-round lane choice, but “the Cruzer” zapped him in the final on a monster holeshot (.053 to .100) to win on a 3.958 to 3.913 count.

So there you have it, a look back at the milestone Funny Car races leading up to No. 1,000 in Pomona. As I mentioned earlier, it was just 10 years ago that we celebrated 50 Years of Funny Car, and this column was almost exclusively focused on the flip-top crop that year. Here’s a look at some of those stories.

Early Funny Car History 101

NHRA created the class in 1966, but there was a whole lot of "funny business" going on long before that

Funny Cars: Who's on first? I dunno ...

Who had the first Funny Car? Jimmy Nix? Jack Chrisman? Dick Landy? Ron Pellegrini? The debate begins

Indy's Funny Car heroes

From Ed McCulloch and Raymond Beadle to John Force, Cruz Pedregon, and many others, a look at the top Funny Car performers at the U.S. Nationals

NHRA Funny Car champs over the years

From Gene Snow (1970) to Ron Capps (2016), a look at the top flops of the years

Funny Car Breakfast of Champions

NHRA’s annual SEMA Breakfast Wednesday saluted the yearlong 50 Years of Funny Car celebration' panelists included Don Prudhomme, Tom McEwen, and more

A 'fiberglass forest' in Indy

Restored and recreated Funny Cars of yore were on display at the 2016 Chevrolet Performance U.S. Nationals

Seattle 64 Funny Cars, 1976

A look back at one of the Northwest's greatest events

More Seattle 64 Funny Cars stories

More memories from the Great Northwest

I also created a fan poll for readers to vote on their favorite Funny Cars on all time ...

Top 20 Funny Cars: Let the debate begin

Opening the debate on the top cars in Funny Car history

Top 20 Funny Cars: We have a list!

Don Prudhomme has three, Kenny Bernstein has two, and 15 other drivers and teams each have one name on our list of Top 20 Funny Cars

Top 20 Funny Cars

A spotters guide to the famous cars on the soon-to-be-famous list

Top 20 FCs: The Insider Nation weighs in

Feedback from the fans on how and why they voted

Deconstructing the vote: 18-20

The first results are officially in; here's a look at the list

Deconstructing the vote: 14-17

The next batch of tabulations in the Top 20 Funny Car list are in

The top three

The Top 20 Funny Car list is whittled to just three cars; comparing the Insiders' vote to the fan vote; capsule look at Don Prudhomme's 1976 season

The top three: Pulde

 A look at the career of Dale Pulde

The top three: Force

Drag racing's 16-time Funny Car champion has had a career for the ages

The top three: Liberman

Making a case for "Jungle Jim," with memories from "Jungle Pam" and Pat Foster

The final showdown: 'Jungle' vs. Force

Comparing the careers and charisma of the two finalists on the Top 20 Funny Cars list

Farrrrrr out ... it's 'Jungle Jim's' Vega

 And the winner is ... "Jungle Jim"!!!!

And, of course, there were a ton of features on historic Funny Car drivers and teams ....

Barry Setzer, Pat Foster, and their amazing Vega

At long last, the tale behind one of Funny Car's most-feared machines, and the men who made it so

Frank Oglesby and the Mello Yello Mustang

Long before Mello Yello became the title sponsor of the NHRA's premier series, it backed Southeast Funny Car racer Frank Oglesby

Kirby's Funny Car 'supermarket'

From fabrication to bodies to paint, Don Kirby's shop could do it all for you

New England Funny Cars

A look back at some of the region's most famous Funny Cars

My Favorite Fuelers: Ed McCulloch

A look at the cars that helped drive the legendary career of "the Ace"

Al Segrini

The popular East Coast driver felt that one or more of his cars should have been on the Top 20 list. Here's a look at why

The Mystery of the Blue Mustang

Mickey Thompson's Danny Ongais-driven Mustang was a groundbreaker, but whatever happened to it?

Vintage Funny Car videos

After writing about cool old Funny Cars, it’s time for a little video to give new fans a better taste of what we’re being all nitro-teared nostalgic about

Female Funny Car pioneer Paula Murphy

Paula Murphy was the first woman to be granted a license to drive a nitro-fueled car of any kind – in her case, a Funny Car.

1970: A 'Super' season for Funny Car

The Funny Car class got its first taste of full integration into the NHRA season in 1970, NHRA’s vaunted “Super Season.” 

The Hawaiian, 1969-71

From a spectacular crash at the 1969 Winternationals to back-to-back wins in 1970, the Hawaiian has a star-crossed history in Pomona

'Jungle Clare' Sanders

Sanders reminisces about driving "Jungle Jim" Liberman's Funny Car to victory at the 1969 Winternationals

'Fast Eddie' Schartman

NHRA's first Funny Car champ recalls his historic season

 Phil Burgess can be reached at pburgess@nhra.com

Hundreds of more articles like this can be found in the DRAGSTER INSIDER COLUMN ARCHIVE

Or try the Random Dragster Insider story generator