Drag racing’s very popular Legends Nostalgia Funny Car (presented by Modern Warriors) circuit was a welcome addition to the event schedules for both the recent NHRA Lucas Oil Winternationals & the NHRA Arizona Nationals.

At Pomona, the event did experience weather issues which both reduced qualifying opportunities and which forced eliminations to be deferred to the Arizona Nationals two weeks later.

The Winternationals final (held at Phoenix) went to defending series champion Bobby Cottrell who raced the very formidable Austin & O’Brien Bardahl-presented Chevy Camaro to victory.

Cottrell, who is based from California, carded a final round 4.718 secs at 240.47 mph to defeat Jeff Arend, driver of the Problem Child Camaro.

Cottrell had defeated Don Knoblach and Nathan Sitko (from Edmonton AB) in earlier competion.  

Sitko (new appointed driver of the Hodgson Racing/Pacemaker/Bubble Up Firebird) had qualified #1 with a career best 4.653 secs

The Phoenix Arizona Nationals title went to another Californian with Geoff Monise wheeling his ’70 Firebird to victory.  Monise outran Cottrell in a very competitive final round pairing taking a 4.755 secs 238.68 mph to 4.810 secs 230.02 mph decision.

Monise’s event victory also included round win lights over Derrick Moreira and Jeff Arend.

R/UP Cottrell was the quickest and fastest car for the Phoenix race – setting both low ET (4.690 secs) and top speed (242.10 mph) during qualifying while securing the #1 seed.  

The Pomona and Phoenix circuit stops featured 10 and 11 cars entered respectively.

Link to more information on the Legends Nitro Series circuit : HERE

Posted by Bruce Biegler

Photos by David Ostaszewski