MISSISSIPPI RIVER SHOOTOUT

Story and photos by Jeff Leonard. Notes by Chris Martin

For those of you out there who no longer regard the U.S. Nationals as a be-there-or-die proposition, don't despair. There is a different sort of drag race that happens every year that you can enjoy just as much as any show on earth! It's a little harder to find and get to than Indy, but if you ever make the trip, you won't regret it!

I'm talking about the World Series of Drag Racing, which at 47 years and counting, qualifies as the oldest continuous running meet in the sport. Cordova Dragway Park has seen about everybody and every sanctioning group on the grounds in that time span, but there are some constants. The World Series is always held the week before Indy, the crowd is always large and enthusiastic, and you never know what will happen on the race track. The first World Series of the New Millennium was no exception.

Track operator Scott Gardner booked in a diverse show for the Cordova faithful, lining up front motor Top Fuelers, Nitro Funny Cars, UDRA Pro Stocks, Alcohol Funny Cars and Dragsters, Jet cars, Wheelstanders, Fuel Altereds, and a little match race between Shirley Muldowney and reigning NHRA Top Fuel champ Tony Schumacher. Kids, if you can't get behind that kind of diversity, you need to get the heck out of the sport!

Although many of the fans came to see the Schumacher-Shirley contretemps, the meet is actually anchored by the UDRA regulars who race up and down the Midwest. Although not well known outside their own circuit, these racers can be counted on for a good show any time they get together.

In the featured Top Fuel match race, Shirley Muldowney came into Cordova with a bit of an edge, having run a 319-mph lap at this year's IHRA Cordova event. She was also sporting a new sponsor in goosehead.com and enough fresh pieces to see her through the World Series and, yes, the U.S. Nationals. It was all pretty much for fun at Cordova, but Shirley talked the talk and walked the walk, and the Cordova fans ate it all up!

Just for the record, it was a two straight job for Shirley over Tony Schumacher, with Muldowney's best lap a 4.78/313 mph and Tony's best a 4.87/306 mph try. For his part, Schumacher took the match race rhetoric well, made the fans happy, and got ready for Indy.

Four Nitro Funny Cars were on hand to entertain the folks and, while the times were not particularly newsworthy, the fans stlll loved the action. Gary Densham, Jack Wyatt, Dale Creasy and Tim Wilkerson fought it out, and actually put up some respectable numbers in the process. Friday night, Creasy bested Wyatt in a tire smoker, with Wyatt suffering some minor breakage.

Saturday night, business picked up a bit. Through two rounds of action, Dale Creasy Jr (right) claimed the overall win, besting Wilkerson and Densham. Creasy's runs of 5.31/282 mph and 5.36/290 mph were plenty stout by match race standards, with the 290 mph shot by far the fastest Funny Car run at Cordova, ever! Densham (below) got a little satisfaction by snaring the Cordova FC et mark at 5.27 (at only 234 mph).

In UDRA Alcohol Dragster action, TJ Zizzo Jr lost the battle but won the war. David Weber got the final round win by a 6.05/ 223mto 8.45/ 109 mph margin, but Zizzo scored enough points to lock up the Y2K crown. Marty Thacker nabbed Top Speed and Low ET ( 5.84/ 237mph), but missed the final round.

The Alcohol Funny Car racers got to see something really unusual: Dennis Rotter DID NOT win the World Series! It would have been eight in a row for Rotter, who couldn't be blamed if he had started to pencil this one into the win column at the start of the year. Rotter did grab Low ET and Top Speed (6.24/223 mph) but the final round came down to J.C. Foster and Lance Van Hauen. Foster had mucho problemos and lost to Van Hauen's very respectable 6.38/219 mph run. Next year's World Series will feature another unusual item - Dennis Rotter on the "comeback" trail!

UDRA threw a new wrinkle at their Unlimited Pro Stock racers. For the first time in UDRA history, blowers were legal in Pro Stock. Unlimited really does mean unlimited, guys! But when all was said and done, two nitrous cars were in the final round, with Tom Sherbourne (above) running 6.69/208 mph to best Ted Borowski's 7.86/138 mph try. Sherbourne's 6.69 was also good for Low ET, but Randy Adler's blown Corvette got Top Speed at 208 mph.

The nostalgia Top Fuel match race was taken by Roger Lechtenburg in Dale Suhr's blown Chevy. Lechtenburg ran the best ET of the match at 6/71. His opponent, Fred Bach at the helm of Larry Gould's blown Ford Cammer, suffered through a series of mechanical woes and never did get in a representative run.

Surprisingly, the fuel altered match between Mike Faser (right) and Tom Motrey offered some of the closest racing of all the featured cars. Fuel altereds are not known for side by side runs, but these two put in three good jousts across two days of racing. Faser had the best numbers at 6.10/222 mph and ended up winning the match.

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