What a race!

Words by Jeff Burk
Photos by Michelle Simmons, Todd Bessee, Matt Schramel and Jeff Burk

The 60th annual World Series of Drag Racing at Illinois’ historic Cordova Dragway Park featured the Mickey Thompson Tires DragRacingOnline.com AA/FC Challenge presented by COMP Cams. To put it simply, it was the best AA/FC race in the history of the five year old DRO series and certainly one of the best in the long history of the World Series of Drag Racing.

In the end Cruz Pedregon, racing in his first DRO race, won the biggest race of the series beating the iconic “Chi-Town Hustler” and third generation driver Mike Minick is a classic final round.

To say the field was big and strong is
an understatement. You have to go back
to the 1981 World Series to even find
a 16-car field. The DRO race at this year’s
World Series attracted 17 AA/FC teams from as far
west as Los Angeles, as far east as Pennsylvania, as far
south as Texas and as far north as Minnesota. Among the entries
were defending DRO National Champ John Hale from Dallas, Texas; IHRA defending champ
Peter Gallen, occasional “Big Show” shoe James Day driving Gary Turner’s “Pedaler” and NHRA drivers Cruz
Pedregon and Jon Capps. Also on hand was Maple Grove DRO AA/FC Challenge winner Mike Smith in the Gutierrez family Texas “Jungle Jim” Vega with dad Paul Smith tuning.

The largest Friday night crowd in the 60-year history of the World Series of Drag Racing knew they were going to see something special. There was a full moon under a clear sky. Air temperature was in the high 70’s instead of the 100+ days August in Illinois is famous for and the track was prepped perfectly.