NHRA Top Fuel veteran Clay Millican stunned the crowd at Pomona, California’s Auto Club Raceway on Saturday afternoon when he recorded the quickest 1,000-foot, wheel-driven run in drag racing history with a 3.628-second pass at 322.04 mph to reset the national record and position himself atop the raceday ladder for the Lucas Oil NHRA Winternationals presented by Protect The Harvest.

For Millican, who experienced a dream season a year ago wherein he captured his first career NHRA Top Fuel Wally — fittingly, on Father’s Day, no less — the national record pass and No. 1 qualifying position represent a promising start to what he hopes is an encore to 2017.

“My crew chief David Grubnic runs this car differently than anybody else out here and he is just one of a kind,” Millican said. “I knew it was a special run at the 330-foot mark, and I even shut the car off a bit early so we know we can improve upon those numbers at some point.”

Impressively, Millican was .809-seconds to the 60-foot mark and 2.89-seconds to the 1/8-mile — believed to be the first sub-2.90 clocking in Top Fuel history.

Millican recorded a career-best five No. 1 qualifiers one year ago, and has earned 11 overall in his NHRA Top Fuel career. The Drummonds, Tennessee native was the incoming national record holder, after he and Grubnic clocked an incredible 3.631-seconds at the NHRA Midwest Nationals at St. Louis last September.