After a one week hiatus from our popular workweek bookend that is Flashback Friday, we’re back at today with more blasts from drag racing’s past, providing our readers more reason to be unproductive before clocking out for the weekend.
Last weekend, the NHRA Full Throttle tour visited the Summit Racing Equipment Motorsports Park in Norwalk, which to longtime fans will forever be referred to as just “Norwalk,” regardless of who holds the naming rights. And although just five years removed, the fact that Norwalk was the literal home of the competing IHRA until 2006 seems already an afterthought for many fans. But for old school followers of the IHRA, the Bader family’s speed palace under NHRA sanction will always feel sacrilege.
Along with serving as the home track for the IHRA and it’s Norwalk-based headquarters, NRP also hosted the annual World Nationals, the series’ crown jewel race and a Woodstock-like happening intended to rival the NHRA’s U.S. Nationals that lasted for the better part of a week. It featured the biggest fields, the biggest purses, the largest crowds, and was the race every IHRA competitor wanted to win. Hillary Will’s first Top Fuel victory at the 2006 running of the World Nationals put a triumphant cap on this great race as NRP turned to NHRA sanction in 2007 and the World’s faded away after an attempt at moving it to a proposed new venue.
On display here is the 12th annual World Nationals in Norwalk, contested in 1989 and televised on ESPN with commentary from Bob Varsha and Bret Kepner. During the late 80’s and even the early 90’s, many of the stars of the sport would cross over and run both of the premier series, thus the likes of Kenny Bernstein, Tom McEwen, Gene Snow, Bob Newberry, Jim Head, Larry Morgan, and others were all there in 1989 for a shot at the World Nationals IronMan.
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