Words by Darr Hawthorne
Photos by James Drew, Darr Hawthorne, Paul Schmitz, and Bob Snyder

Years ago, Southern California drag fans had a Saturday night home at our local dragstrips, places where we raced and watched nitro cars late into the evening with a winner determined that night. With the rise to prominence of today’s nitro funny car class, Blake Bowser at Auto Club Famoso raceway saw an opportunity to restart a SoCal tradition, of a summer night nitro show that would be completed in one day.  Famoso Raceway’s Saturday Night Nitro was ready for prime time.

After the invitation went out for “Everything Nitro” and a test and tune session Friday evening, the trailers started filling the pits and newly paved staging lanes along with the racers from the West Coast Hot Rod Association.  By Saturday noon there were over a dozen nitro funny cars, a handful of front engined dragsters, a couple of new rear engined dragsters, fuel altereds, a jet car, and grandstands full of eager nitro hounds. The vibe was electric!

Just minutes prior to the first call to the lanes for the nitro cars, there was lightning directly overhead, a whirling top end dust storm moving through the pits, and finally rain squalls descended on the track.  With hopes of pulling off Saturday Night Nitro now dashed, the event moved to Sunday for the Chicago-style shootout for the remaining seven-nitro funny cars.

Mike Halstead, driving Mike McCain’s “Nitro Angel” led the quick seven with a first round 6.033 elapsed time at 242.06 MPH pass getting to the finish line before newcomer Kurt Cruise in his Spike Gorr-tuned “Beach Bomb” Mustang with a 6.864 ET.  (Bob Snyder photo)