Nitro At Night! Top Fuel Cars Light Up The Sky!

Drag racing as a general rule is a sport full of spectacular moments. For the newcomer rolling through the finish line for the first time, that rush of adrenaline, even if he or she is driving a stock 14-second car, is a truly amazing feelings. Then as they get progressively quicker and learn more about racing, that same feeling returns each time they post a new personal best.

Eventually, for a very lucky few, the reach the pinnacle of the sport and get to drive the most powerful, fastest accelerating cars on the planet, and each pass down the track consists of a few brief seconds of absolutely ridiculous acceleration that I have to assume never gets old.

For those of us relegated to watching these passes from the stands, the spectacle of it all is rarely lost, especially when top fuel cars fire up at night and become their own rolling light source. With 11,000 nitromethane-fed horsepower sending 10 foot flames searing into the sky above the engine, there are very few things in life as awe-inspiring as watching nitro at night. If you ever have the opportunity, make the trip to an NHRA national event. Most events have at least one qualifying session that’s held late in the afternoon, and by the time top fuel rolls into the lanes, it’s dusk and the flames, which are usually washed out pretty badly in the daylight, are much more visible.

In this clip from NHRA’s Facebook page, we see one of our very own team members, world record holder and current #2 points runner Clay Millican blasting to yet another solid qualifying effort. For those who follow Clay, you know he’s been an absolute monster in qualifying, sitting atop the pole at nearly 1/2 of the races so far in 2018.

Tuner David Grubnic and Clay’s talented, tenacious young crew have given Millican a legitimate shot at taking home the season points championship, and with the team laying down passes like this over and over, it should be no surprise he’s nipping at points leader Steve Torrence’s heels.