Film of the Week: 1961 NHRA Nationals at Indianapolis Raceway Park

How have I ignored this one? An unbelievable movie at the ’61 NHRA Nationals, shot in colour. Previous that 12 months, officers on the Nationwide Sizzling Rod Affiliation introduced that the seventh annual championship drags can be held on the newly-constructed Indianapolis Raceway Park, only a few miles down the street from the Indy 500 Speedway circuit, and it was once large information certainly. Drag Racers have been excited to compete at this most sensible notch facility, and the central U.S. location intended that extra Midwestern and Southern entrants may just take part within the Nationals than ever prior to. In truth, an unknown engineer from Georgia named Pete Robinson (aka ‘Sneaky Pete’) took the highest E.T. prize of the weekend, laying down a blistering 8.92 at 169.5 mph within the Most sensible Eliminator elegance. Drag racing was once actually in its heyday at this level, with Sizzling Rod mag dedicating 16 pages to the development, and an estimated 12,000 spectators gazing 900 automobiles race over the massive weekend.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8frlyrPWB0&ab_channel=supertubr