Gene Snow (near lane) at the 1988 U.S. Nationals, just weeks prior to making history at the NHRA Supernationals in Houston.

In celebrating its 60th anniversary of sanctioned drag racing, the NHRA made much ado last weekend about Kenny Bernstein’s historic, barrier-busting 300 MPH blast at the Gatornationals in March of 1992 that’s been earmarked as one of the 60 greatest moments in NHRA history. But what you don’t hear much chatter about from the folks at the NHRA is the breaking of the four-second barrier. And for good reason. That’s because their southern counterpart, the IHRA, gets to flaunt that one.

Opened in 1986, Billy Meyer’s Texas Motorplex just outside Dallas had been the NHRA’s flagship race track the previous two seasons, but in 1988, the track switched sanctioning and played host to two IHRA national events. And on April 9th, during the IHRA’s inaugural Texas Nationals, Hall of Famer Eddie Hill blasted his way into the record books with the first four second pass in the history of drag racing, a 4.990-second clocking, that forever earned him the nickname “Four Father of Drag Racing.”

Meanwhile, a couple hundred miles down I-45, the NHRA was set to christen their new Texas home with the inaugural Supernationals at the brand new Houston Raceway Park that fall. Seven months after Hill recorded the first four-second pass, veteran Gene Snow made NHRA history during qualifying on Thursday, October 6th with a blazing 4.997 to become the first to crack the fours at an NHRA event. Not to be outdone, Hill bettered the mark in the semifinals with a 4.990, and then dropped every jaw in the state of Texas and beyond with a crushing 4.936 in the final round.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zti6yhKz-J0

Eddie Hill’s 4.990 at the 1988 NHRA Supernationals in Houston, recorded 3 days after opponent Gene Snow’s record-shattering 4.997 in qualifying.

With both marks that were expected to the final major barriers the sport would ever see on the horizon, it was an exciting time in the history of drag racing, and in an era when the top racers in the sport still campaigned at both of the premier venues in the sport, the NHRA simply lost out on one half of those historical marks by just a few months and and a couple hundred miles. And while Hill’s pass at Dallas is widely recalled, few seem to remember Gene Snow as the first to do the trick under the NHRA umbrella.