Clay Millican shakes off any residue effects of his recent blowover incident at Milan Dragway to win his 6th Top Fuel title of the season and further enhance his overall 2005 points leading margin. Clay out powers his closest class rival Doug Foley in the TF final round. Clay runs a 4.661 secs at 311.41 mph driving the Werner Enterprises dragster, as Foley shook his tires hard and is forced to shut off driving his Torco Fuels sponsored machine.

Millican had run the quickest and fastest time ever seen at US 131 Motorsports Park in during qualifying at 4.609 secs and 318.09 mph. He defeated Bobby Lagana Jr and Bruce Litton to advance to the championship round.

TF racing featured a strong field of cars with the 8-car bump spot of 4.836 secs being one the quickest programs in IHRA class history.

Event sponsor Torco sponsored numerous Top Fuel machines at the event – six in total. In addition to runner-up Foley, the Torco sponsored cars of Dale Creasy Jr., Rick Cooper, Bruce Litton, Bobby Lagana Jr and T.J. Zizzo all qualified. For NHRA semi-regular T.J. Zizzo, his first career IHRA national event race produced a #2 qualifying effort at 4.710 secs and a round one win over Creasy.

Mike Castellana wows the Pro Mod class world driving his Western Beef-sponsored Chevy Cavalier. The New York based driver is deadly consistent on Sunday as he runs a superb string of “6-teens” to win his second race of the ’05 season. In the final round Castellana runs low ET of the meet at 6.168 secs with a terminal speed of 231.12 mph – which was the fastest mph ever by a nitrous-injected PM car. That fast run defeats Canadian star driver Carl Spiering who had a red-light foul start.

PM action on Sunday had been preceded on Saturday night by the prestigious running of the Torco Race Fuels-sponsored Pro Mod Shootout. Carl Spiering, driving the Eaton Cutler-Hammer Corvette won that 8-car feature also using a string of consistent runs. Carl pockets a cool “$20G” when his final round effort of 6.192 secs 230.65 mph runs down Jim Halsey’s Camaro which ran 6.234 secs at 225.26 mph.

PM class racing includes a number of inspired efforts including Oregon’s Dennis Radford who shows at the event with the former Rickie Smith ’63 Corvette. Radford qualified #11 and went to the semi-final round.

Canada’s Robbie Atchison collected his 15th career IHRA title and his 6th win of the season to continue his domination of the Alcohol Funny Car class. Atchison does concede the class pole position to Jim Sickles, but dominates action on Sunday driving the London-based Erickson Manufacturing Firebird. Rob easily handles surprise finalist Chris Foster in the championship round running a winning 5.825 secs at 240.81 mph. Atchison was also credited with low ET of the meet – at 5.807 secs – which flashed up during his semi final round win over Mark Thomas.

Illinois-based driver Steve Spiess continued his current hot streak in Pro Stock racing. Spiess, who had won in IHRA record setting fashion at the previous event at Toronto Motorsports Park, was once again all-conquering driving his Mountain-motored Chevy Cobalt. Spiess ran the table again at the Michigan event, qualifying on the pole (6.446 secs) and then setting both low ET (6.428 secs) and top speed (217.04 mph) to win. Spiess beat Rick Jones in a relatively rare all-Chevrolet final round pairing. Spiess clicked off a seemingly effortless 6.443 secs at 217.04 mph while Jones shook his tires and aborted.

PS racing included the best finish yet in the class for Canada’s O’Brien Brothers. Driving the only Mopar currently competing in the IHRA category, driver Larry O’Brien had a strong “final four” finish with the Windsor-based Bear’s Performance Products Dodge Stratus. O’Brien used a terrific RT in round one to doom opponent Robert Patrick and then beat out a broken John Nobile in round #2. Larry did however cut things too close in the semi-final round in an effort to conquer eventual winner Spiess and fouled out.

IHRA’s Top Stock class which has seen very low car counts at previous events this season did draw a decent field at US 131 with 9 cars showing for competition. The Saturday night event featured a familiar winner as veteran Paul Mercure (from Michigan) scored driving his Checkmate Camaro. Mercure ran a final round 9.843 secs at 135.29 mph to beat Paul Cambria’s Pontiac Firebird. Another Firebird, driven by Bo Kenny, set low ET and top speed in the class at 9.832 secs and 135.47 mph.

Following their recent setback, Jim Oddy’s Summit Racing Equipment Pro Mod team returned to action at the event – without Al Billes. Now teamed up with Michigan-based driver Steve Bareman and running his former ’54 Corvette, the team got into the Sunday eliminator as the first alternate. Oddy’s team did suffer some engine failures at the event as they worked towards their comeback. Rumors did circulate that the previous partnership between Oddy and Al Billes Racing has been permanently terminated.

Also making a Pro Mod appearance was former 6X IHRA World Champion Scotty Cannon. With his son Scott now at the controls of his familiar ’53 Studebaker, and with his event underwritten by Skull Apparel, the team qualified #8 at 6.300 secs before losing out in round one to Carl Spiering.

Top Dragster and Top Sportsman fields at the Torco Northern Nationals were of typical ferociousness attracting 51 and 62 cars for competition respectively. Troy Williams Jr (TD) and Gary Wojnowski Jr (TS) won the marathon eliminators. Troy Stone paced the TD program with a 6.478 secs (low ET) while Dan Dye got the pole in TS with a 6.703 secs run driving the ex Chuck Peterson supercharged ’70 Chevelle.