NHRA - National Hot Rod Association

Two weeks ago, we took a wonderful trip back a few decades to look at the history of the Popular Hot Rodding Championships, one of the premiere match races of the 1970s, which was held at U.S. 131 Dragway, which this year will get its first NHRA national event, the NHRA Great Lakes Nationals.

We didn’t have a lot of scanned photos from the 1970s, but Steve Reyes, one of drag racing’s all-time-great photographers, sent me dozens of images he’d shot when he worked at PHR. I included a bunch in the story, but there were so many prize pics that I wanted to share more, so here they are. Enjoy!

It’s not a Midwest Funny Car match race without the Chi-Town Hustler. Pat Minick lost the 1969 final on a holeshot to Fred Goeske but hustled to the win the following year.

This photo tells you everything you need to know about Top Fuel in 1971, with a crewmember pouring bleach beneath the tires of 1969 event winner Steve Carbone’s slingshot while “Big Daddy” Don Garlits waits in the other lane in his revolutionary rear-engine Swamp Rat 14. Garlits won the final over Carbone, who paid him back a few weeks later in the famed “burndown final” in Indy.

More front versus back-motored cars from the 1971 race, with “Big Daddy” taking it to “Kansas John” Wiebe, who was one of the longest slingshot holdouts.

Don Prudhomme unveiled his Hot Wheels Wedge in June, and although the thing looked great, performance suffered due to weight, and “the Snake” shelved it after the season.

Man, I love this photo of 1970s Top Fuel great Clayton Harris! It’s not just that it’s in color, but that the cockpit cowl is off, so you can see how he sat in the car and that bright yellow firesuit. Harris won the race in 1972, besting Garlits in the final.

After opening the 1972 season with a win at the NHRA Winternationals, followed quickly by a runner-up at the March Meet, the Southern California duo of Carl Olson and Mike Kuhl took their act on the road, which included a trip to U.S. 131, where Olson squared off with (but lost to) Garlits.

Great, moody shot of “the Mongoose,” Tom McEwen, ready to launch in front of a full house at night at the 1972 race.

Vintage 1970s Funny Car stuff right here: Richard Tharp and the Blue Max taking on Pat Foster and the Barry Setzer Vega at the 1972 race. Tharp was runner-up at the PHR race twice, in Top Fuel in 1970 and Funny Car in 1971.

Ronnie Martin took quite a tumble in his Top Fueler after a moonshot wheelie. This is before the modern era of aerodynamic-caused blowovers, but rather the result of too much traction and not enough throttle lift.

Everyone who was anyone in the Funny Car ranks came to Martin, Mich., for this event, including the late, great ‘Jungle Jim” Liberman, who was never able to win the race.

Here’s Gordie (not yet “240”) Bonin behind the wheel of Roland Leong’s Hawaiian Charger in 1973. Leong had hired Bonin not long before to replace 1972 Pop Rod winner Leroy Chadderton, who decided he had had enough of the road and quit after Leong’s operation had been stolen from the parking lot of a Holiday Inn in Gary, Ind.

Rare color shot of Jack Hart’s Kentucky-based Golddigger Top Fueler with Austin Myers at the wheel.

A number of drivers wheeled Charlie Proite’s Pabst Blue Ribbon Charger over the years, including greats like Russell Long and Doc Halladay, but no one spent more time behind the butterfly for him than Vic Cecelia, shown here at 1972 event.

1974 NHRA Top Fuel world champ Gary Beck, cackling the pipes of the Export A entry at the 1975 race.

Dueling fire burnouts at the 1974 race with Shirley Muldowney and “the Greek,” Chris Karamesines, going all pyrotechnic.

In the late 1970s, just before he landed what would become a decades-long sponsorship with Budweiser that would spawn the long line of Budweiser King entries, Kenny Bernstein’s Funny Car was still called the Chelsea King, named after a sandwich at his line of Chelsea Street pubs in Texas.

Alexis DeJoria was just 3 years old, and Ashley Force Hood wasn’t even born yet when Michigan’s own Della Woods was the queen of Funny Car racing in 1980.

Who is this? Exactly! Marvin “Who” Graham got the fans on their feet with this one-wheel wheelstand in Marc Danekas’ TR-3 Resin Glaze entry at the 1980 event but landed it safely.

Roland Leong was one of the busiest match racers in the 1970s. Here he’s guiding Mike Dunn and the King’s Hawaiian Bread Dodge Charger back into their burnout tracks at the 1981 race. Damn, I miss Ro …

It wasn’t just nitro cars that starred at the PHR race, as the alcohol burners were also featured, and here’s two of the Midwest’s best in a classic Pro Comp battle, with Fred Mandoline and his Wheeler Dealer Corvette taking on “the Wizard of Wadsworth,” Ken Veney, in his dragster.

Here’s an angle you never see from that race, an elevated photo in the traps, capturing 1981 Top Fuel winner Jeb Allen at speed.

It wouldn’t be a 1980s match race without the great Bob Motz and his fan-favorite jet-powered Kenworth blowing hot down the quarter-mile.

Three-time NHRA Funny Car world champ Raymond Beadle also never won the PHR race in the Blue Max, coming close in 1982 in his Ford EXP before losing the final round to Frank Hawley and the Chi-Town Hustler.

The PHR race ended in the early 1980s, and here’s a great parting shot looking downtrack with Midwest match racer George Tolon, left, and “Mr. C,” Gary Cochran, in Jim Thomas’ Genuine Suspension rail staging up for a nighttime ride in 1982.

OK, that’s been a fun trip down memory lane. Thanks again to Reyes for generously sharing these images. We all can’t wait to get back to U.S. 131 to continue the wonderful history of this great track.

Phil Burgess can be reached at pburgess@nhra.com

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