Politics, urban sprawl, or change of the guard, city by city we witness the closure of dragstrips and motorsports parks across the country. Joining tracks such as Route 66 Raceway, Old Bridge Township, and Houston Raceway Park is rumored to be Bandimere Speedway, which hosted its final NHRA race in July 2023. In our farewell performance, we saw WELD Racing’s team of daring drivers gunning for a final win to make their mark on the track’s closing history book.
After winning the #2Fast2Tasty NHRA Challenge on Saturday, TSR’s Matt Hagan made it a clean sweep across Thunder Mountain, going 4.135-seconds at 304.25 mph in his 11,000-horsepower Dodge Direct Connection Charger SRT Hellcat to defeat DeJoria. It is Hagan’s fourth victory this season and 47th in his career, as well as his second career win at Bandimere Speedway.
WELD Racing driver Clay Millican worked his way through the Top Fuel class, fighting off fellow WELD Racer Doug Kalitta in the final round. McMillian took home the with a run of 3.872s at 299.60mph in the final round. Mirroring his performance in Chicago, his Bandimere win would be just the second time McMillian advanced past the first round yet the veteran driver has managed to bring home a win in both instances. The Wally would make for his first-ever victory at Bandimere Speedway and moved him to 10th in points.
“When you race Doug Kalitta, you can’t leave anything on the table,” Millican said. “Man oh man, what this group has done. We had not won a single round until Chicago. What do we do? We win the race. So when we won the first round here, I’m like, ‘We’re winning the race.’
An honorable mention goes out to Brittany Force as she blazed a new Bandimere Speedway track record in qualifying with a 3.724-second pass at 337.33 mph.
While NHRA’s long-standing past with Bandimere Speedway is over, the show must go on! The NHRA Camping World 2023 season continues in Kent, Washington at Pacific Raceways for the Flav-R-Pac NHRA Northwest Nationals. Tune in to see our team of WELD Racers in action putting our Delta-1 wheel to the ultimate test.
