At age 21, we all have boundless energy, so after being up all night, and walking the pits all day, we went to the huge car show at the Shrine auditorium in central Indianapolis.

With only five Eliminator positions offered in 1961, the prestige of each was enhanced compared to the 12 plus positions offered in 2015. The Gassers might have had the largest stage, and the class of the field was ‘Ohio’ George Montgomery with his all steel ’33 Willys Coupe. Not only was the car unusual and started a trend, it was powered by a blown Cadillac motor. Geo. certainly made use of NHRA’s long forgotten motto: Ingenuity in Action!

My attraction to the 2015 U.S. Nationals was a lot more focused than just watching several broadcasts of qualifying and eliminations. Many of these were not aired by ESPN anywhere close to the announced time frame. I suspected that ESPN was not too interested in fan feelings after losing the contract for the TV show to Fox Sports. But I did try and caught quite a bit of it. Some highlights for me was the push forward in Funny Car performance by Jimmy Prock and Jack Beckman; and the fact that when Fast Jack did not out-run his final round opponent, he out-drove him.

And as much as I have championed Butch Leal’sdriving ability, he is from my era and we did not have the electronic equipment to know true reaction times. What I do know and must acknowledge is Erica Enders not only won 2015 Indy Pro Stock, she did it with four consecutive holeshots against the best of the best!

Not only was Erica dominant at Indy, she reeled off three NHRA races in a row starting with Brainerd, Minn., where she stopped arch rival Jason Line with another holeshot.

The closest class to Pro Stock in ’61 was A/Stock which was officially won by ‘Dyno’ Don Nicholson driving a ’61 Chevy Bel Air complete with power accessories. Say what? The car was prepared by GM for the race at Bill Thomas’ Race Cars in Anaheim.

At this point the story has two versions. Version 1: The body in white was late being shipped from Michigan to California, so Mrs. Thomas’ family car was called into service. Version 2: In their zeal to be as lightweight as possible, the body was ‘over dipped’ at Aero Chemical in Orange, Calif. and could not be used. There is one fact: Mrs. Thomas did not approve using her car for this project.