Clay Millican returns to the site of his first career Top Fuel victory and continues his domination at Grand Bend Motorplex by winning his 5th Mopar Canadian Nationals title. The victory comes just four days following a major team announcement. The potent Werner Enterprises team has been sold by Peter Lehman to NHRA racer/entrepreneur Ken Koretsky. At Grand Bend, Clay is dominating throughout -- he qualifies on the pole with a 4.748 secs and then runs consistently quick during Sunday’s final eliminations. Crew chief Mike Kloeber tunes Clay to low ET of the event in the championship final round at 4.681 secs at 309.98 mph to defeat first time IHRA Top Fuel finalist Todd Paton.

Todd Paton’s R/U finish is a major inspiration to the Canadian-based Tim Horton’s sponsored team which has endured more then its fair share of hard luck in 2005 season so far. They are again dogged by breakage at Grand Bend but finally do benefit from some good fortune when favored opponents Doug Foley and Louie Allison both falter in rounds one and two. Todd gives it a serious ride in the final round when he beats Clay out of the gate (.068 to .080) only to have the car behave much like a bucking bronco with tire shake, wheel stands and fire. Todd somehow manages to keep the car in his lane while producing what was truly the single most exciting run of the event!

Pro Modified class racing produced an unexpected and first time winner when West Virginia’s Burton Auxier prevailed driving his ’53 Corvette. Auxier, who had earlier been the recipient of the DragRaceCanada/Eaton Electrical “Swift 16” Lotto Award, beat popular driver Billy Harper in an all nitrous-injected final round. Auxier won with at 6.322 secs at 222.55 mph while Harper’s strong event effort in his Kentucky-based Dodge Viper ended with a nitrous flash.

Auxier did benefit from strange turn of events on Sunday. In the semi-final round he had apparently been beaten handily by New York’s Mike Janis who powered his Eaton-sponsored Dodge Stratus to an apparent 6.272 secs to 6.746 secs victory. However, in an unlikely twist Janis’s machine failed the post race fuel check and Auxier was reinstated.

Pro Mod racing was a ferocious affair which attracted 23 cars and produced a bump spot of 6.374 secs. A total of 4 Canadian drivers qualified including Al Billes (who set top speed overall at 233.04 mph), Carl Spiering, Rick Distefano and Tony Pontieri. Spierings’ qualifying effort was of particular excitement. His dramatic Saturday night last ditch shot at 6.248 secs 228.96 mph driving the Eaton Cutler Hammer Corvette, moved him from a non-qualified position to #3.

Pro Stock racing saw Virginia’s Robert Patrick prevail for the 2nd time on Canadian soil. Patrick, who drove his Purvis Ford-sponsored Ford Mustang to victory at the ACDelco Nationals last summer, beat Doug Kirk in an all Mountain-motor Ford final round. Kirk, a former 2X IHRA World Champion moved first, but his 6.573 secs at 210.80 mph could not hold off Patrick who unloaded low ET of the event at 6.495 secs at 213.98 mph. Patrick who had qualified on the pole, ran progressively quicker during each round of eliminations while beating Dwayne Rice, Pete Berner and Tony Gillig.

Top speed in Pro Stock was set by Steve Spiess’s new Chevy Colbalt which ran a Grand Bend Motorplex track record 214.83 mph during qualifying action.

Jim Sickles racked up a huge win in the Alcohol Funny Car category as his crew chief Tom Anderson choreographed the all new Meyer’s RV Superstores Chevy Monte Carlo to victory. Sickles ran a final round 5.932 secs at 239.31 mph to beat out Fred Tigges who shook the tires hard driving his Chevy Camaro. Sickles had beaten out Mark Thomas and Terry McMillen in earlier competition and the victory moved him to second in IHRA points.

The much anticipated strong performance by home town favorite and points leader Robbie Atchison fell short at Grand Bend. Robbie got off to a great start with a pole qualifying 5.844 secs but then suffered some very uncommon parts breakage in round one and he lost out to Terry McMillen. John Evanchuk, who had been brought in to drive the 2nd Erickson Manufacturing/Atchison Racing team car also had a serious mechanical failure during qualifying and did not make the field.

Chuck Nagy, from Niagara Falls, gave Canada it’s only IHRA class eliminator win. Driving the KC Auto Parts-sponsored GMC Sonoma GT/TB, Nagy was able to hand Anthony Bertozzi a very rare final round defeat. Chuck had a near perfect .002 RT and combined that with a winning 10.392 (10.38 dial in) at 126.30 mph to edge out Bertozzi who ran right on his (9.35) dial with a 9.350 secs. Nagy, had also won in his truck at IHRA’s World Nationals last year.

Canadian drivers John Ulinskas and Al Kenny did however come close in other Sportsman action. Ulinskas, who won the inaugural Mopar Canadian Nationals back in 2000 was runner-up in Stock and Al Kenny placed second in Super Rod (9.90) driving his Kingston-based Corvette.

Top Sportsman and Top Dragster racing at Grand Bend once again drew strong attended fields. Canada’s Joe Boniferro (from Niagara Falls) qualified his popular Dodge Avenger on the TS pole with a super swift 6.725 secs at 210.11 mph (which was low ET and top speed for the class). It was however Ohio’s Scott Wasko who prevailed over that 41-car field when he drove his Chevy Lumina past the Chevy Nova of Glen Maine in the final round.

The event’s Top Dragster title went to Michigan’s Jeremy McCormick. Jeremy ambushed that field from the #17 qualified slot and ran down Jeff Brown in the final round, 7.288 secs (7.28 dial in) 176.97 mph to 7.506 secs (7.51 dial in) at 179.21 mph.

The Mopar Canadian Nationals which has historically featured strange weather lived up to that reputation. Temperatures for the 2005 version were very heated with highs every day above 30C degrees. The event was bombed by a violent storm on Thursday which ravaged the pit area. Friday’s schedule was affected also when IHRA and track officials were force to address water seepage on the drag strip surface.

The event featured a special exhibition appearance by Canada’s fastest two Motorcycle riders, Dan Butters and Mike Law. The duo made two thrilling side-by-side runs to help close out both the Friday and Saturday Dodge-sponsored “Night of Fire” aboard their nitro-burning Kawasaki machines.

The event featured special ET Tournaments which boiled down to a final round confrontation between Canadians Andrew Stirk (No Box) and Jeff Moser (Box ET) winners. Stirk (from Orangeville) drove his Chevy-powered Mustang past the dragster of Moser (from Waterloo). The first ever Motorcycle ET eliminator to be held during the Mopar Canadian Nationals was won by Ohio’s Joe Novak Jr.