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In my life, I've been promised a lot of things. I'm beginning to doubt whether I'm ever going to get the flying car that The Jetsons promised me more than 60 years ago or, for that matter, even the point-to-point transporter from my late-1960s Trekkie fantasies (beam me up, Scotty!), and now I’m also beginning to wonder if we're ever going to see the first all-three-second Funny Car field. 

All of the pieces seemed lined up to finally make it happen at the recent Lucas Oil NHRA Winternationals. Weather and track conditions were what eventual Funny Car winner Jack Beckman called “A++” and, even though the field was just 19 cars, all of them were three-second capable.

We got close, with 15 cars in the threes and only Blake Alexander’s bump-riding 4.01 outside the grouping, but even that wasn’t a record-quick bump. The mark still resides with the 2019 NHRA U.S. Nationals, where we also had 15 cars in the threes with only Justin Schriefer’s 4.005 keeping us from history.

It has been more than 13 years and 300-plus events since Matt Hagan made the first three-second Funny Car pass, Sept. 16, 2011, at zMAX Dragway in Charlotte, so why hasn't this happened?

For the record, it took us just shy of eight years to go from the first five-second Funny Car run — by Don Prudhomme at the NHRA World Finals in Ontario in October 1975 — to the first all-five-second Funny Car field at the U.S. Nationals in September 1983, and seven years and change to go from the first four-second run — made by Chuck Etchells in Topeka in October 1993 — to the first all-four-second field in Phoenix in February 2001.

(For the record, it took just a year to go from Leroy's Goldstein's first six-second national event Funny Car pass at the 1970 U.S. Nationals to the first all-six-second field just a year later, again at the Nationals — Henry Harrison's 6.54, to Richard Tharp's 6.88, and 20 of the 29 entered cars ran in the sixes — but that was an unprecedented period of fast performance gains, so I'm not factoring that in. Even if you count Goldstein's 6.95 at the New York National in June 1969 as the first six (I do), it was a very short period.)

To be fair, the first all-five-second Funny Car field had 33 cars entered, and there were three non-qualifiers who also ran in the fives at that event. There were 22 cars that tried to make the first four-second field in Phoenix, and three of those DNQs also ran in the fours. In Pomona last month, we had 19 cars, so maybe this is more a question of the number of cars rather than the quality of cars?

Let’s take a look back in history and what led up to these barrier-breaking fields.

FIRST FIVE-SECOND FUNNY CAR FIELD

First five: 5.987, Oct. 12, 1975 (Don Prudhomme, Ontario)
First all-five-second field: Sept. 4, 1983 (Indy)
National events in between: 79

There was no real indication that Prudhomme would drop his five-second bombshell on his greatest rival, Raymond Beadle, in the semifinals of the season-ending World Finals. Entering the 1975 season, the best official pass in class history was Dale Pulde’s national record 6.16 set at the 1974 Finals, and Beadle had only slightly improved on it with a 6.14 in qualifying No. 1 at the U.S. Nationals, where he would defeat Prudhomme in the final.

There might have been a hint of foreshadowing after Don Garlits’ equally mind-blowing all-time Top Fuel best of 5.63 in qualifying at the World Finals, where the Ontario Motor Speedway track had been meticulously and liberally coated with VHT Track Bite traction by John Zendejas.

Prudhomme, who had already locked up his first Funny Car championship on the strength of five wins at the season’s first seven events in his Army Monza, qualified No. 1 in Ontario with a 6.15, then ran 6.32 and 6.17 in the first two rounds before lowering the boom on Beadle. “Snake” went on to win the race over Denny Savage and the Chi-Town Hustler, but his 6.15 was nowhere near close enough to back up the five for the national record.

Incredibly, it took nearly three years before anyone else — Beadle — also ran in the fives at a national event when the Blue Max Arrow ran 5.985 to qualify No. 1 at the 1978 U.S. Nationals and two and a half years to fill the eight-car Cragar Five-Second Club field (Tripp Shumake at the 1981 NHRA Southern Nationals) and then two more years to have the first all-five-second field at the 1983 U.S. Nationals. Just a year earlier, a record bump of 6.030 had been set at the 1982 Nationals.

Nineteen cars ran in the fives in Indy ’83. Here’s a look at that field:

Most of the names on that list could have been predicted, but kudos to guys like Gordon, who was driving Dickie Williams' Dodge, Correnti, at the wheel of Larry Coogle's The Sting Camaro, and low-buck hero Norm "Magnum Force" Day, for being part of history.

Among those who also didn't qualify but probably should have were John Lombardo, Paul Smith, Ken Veney, Jim Dunn, Gary Burgin, and Tom Hoover.

FIRST FOUR-SECOND FUNNY CAR FIELD

First four: 4.987, Oct. 1, 1993 (Chuck Etchells, Topeka)
First all-four-second field: Feb. 17, 2001 (Phoenix)
National events in between: 158

The race to break the four-second barrier, broken by Chuck Etchells in his Tim and Kim Richards-tuned Kendall GT-1 Dodge at Heartland Park Topeka in October 1993, was heavily contested in 1992 and ’93. Cruz Pedregon fired the first real warning shot with a 5.07 from the McDonald’s Olds Cutlass at the NHRA Keystone Nationals in September 1992.

At the second event of the 1993 season, John Force ran a trio of 5.0s (5.06 in qualifying, 5.04 to beat Pedregon in the semi’s, and 5.05 to defeat Al Hofmann in the finals) then stormed to a 5.019 during qualifying in Englishtown.

Everyone – especially Force – figured he’d be the first in the fours, especially when the NHRA Sears Craftsman Nationals in Topeka, several months later in the cool fall, welcomed great conditions.

Just before the second qualifying session, Castrol GTX Motorsports Manager John Howell announced that his company had created the Castrol Four-Second Club and would present $25,000 to the four-second barrier breaker. Force got caught up in the excitement of the moment and announced to the crowd that he'd pay half of that $25,000, of course, expecting it to never leave his pocket. Check out the video below ...

Force's Castrol Olds, which had run 5.08 in the first session, was scheduled to run early in the second session – four pairs ahead of Etchells – and this looked like easy money. But …

A left front-brake caliper on Force’s green and white rocket broke during the burnout, and crew chief Austin Coil shut him off. Force's disappointment was doubled 10 minutes later when Etchells rang up his 4.98.

"Well, I picked a great time to shoot my big mouth off,” lamented Force, who two weeks later in Dallas became the second four-second driver.

It took a year and a half for a third driver to get a four-second time slip (Hofmann in Englishtown 1995) and another three years to fill the 16-car Four-Second Club (Tom Hoover, 1998 Dallas), and then another three years for the first all-four-second field.

It's took 158 national events to go from the first four-second qualifier to 16 four-second qualifiers in the same field (about 80 more than it took for the same thing with the fives), but progress was slow but steady in the final year: 5.085 in Gainesville 1999; 5.081 in Indy 1999; 5.074 in 2000 in Atlanta; 5.050 at the 2000 spring Dallas event; 5.024 at the 2000 Memphis event; 5.022 at the fall Houston event in 2000; and 5.013 at the 2001 NHRA Winternationals in Pomona.

The first all-four-second field was set in Phoenix in 2001 at the NHRA Checker Schuck’s Kragen Nationals, and was accomplished in the event’s first two qualifying sessions, the result of a new 660-foot concrete launch pad installed at Firebird International Raceway and cool conditions. Nineteen cars ultimately qualified in the four-second range.

Here's a look at the field, fronted by Dean Skuza, and all of its four-second qualifiers: 

There's only one common name in the first five-second and first four-second fields, and it's probably no surprise that it's the GOAT, John Force. I also found it interesting that Densham, the only driver with more Funny Car tenure than Force, just missed making the five-second field and was No. 16 in the four-second field.

FIRST THREE-SECOND FUNNY CAR FIELD

First three: 3.995, Sept. 16, 2011 (Matt Hagan)
First all-three-second field: Yeah, we're still waiting
National events in between: 311 and counting

Three times in the last eight years, we’ve managed to qualify 15 cars in the threes, the first coming at the 2016 91���� Finals in Pomona, where only John Bojec’s 4.029 kept us from our goal, and then the 2019 U.S. Nationals referenced above, where Schriefer’s 4.005 remains as the record-quick bump and the only four-second car in that field.

This year’s Winternationals looked like an almost sure bet. Ten cars ran in the threes in Friday’s first two qualifying sessions, and four more ran in the threes in Q3. With one session to go and cool air and great track conditions, I edged to the front of my seat, my fingers poised to tap out history. Daniel Wilkerson, who entered Q4 outside the field, became the 15th three-second qualifier with a solid 3.924.

Blake Alexander, who has run in the threes before, and Buddy Hull, whose Jim Dunn-tuned car has also been there, were up next, and both missed with respective runs of 4.011 and 4.348. We still had the very three-second-capable cars of Bob Tasca III and Jason Rupert to finish out the session. Incredibly, Tasca, who had qualified with a three-second run at 19 of his 22 previous events dating back to the start of 2024 and hadn't DNQ'd since the 2015 season, fell short with a 4.055 and didn’t even qualify. Rupert, who ran a career-best 3.91 just months earlier in Pomona at the 2024 Finals, had a chance to make history at his home track but could only muster a 7.38. 

Curses, foiled again!

Those 15-car three-second fields had some common players — Matt Hagan, Jack Beckman, Ron Capps, Cruz Pedregon, and Paul Lee — who were in each (as well as Tim Wilkerson if we fudge the facts and allow son Daniel's Tim-wrenched effort at the Winternationals, and maybe Austin Prock in the car in which Hight had previously driven) and there are enough three-second cars in the class to make this happen, perhaps even this year when we get back to the cool races in the fall, maybe even from Brainerd on.

Let me tell you though, if we get to that magic bump spot, I'm definitely going shopping for that flying car.

Phil Burgess can be reached at pburgess@nhra.com

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