The return of Nitro-powered Funny Car and multiple on-track incidents grabbed the attention of a capacity crowd during the IHRA’s season-opening event at San Antonio Raceway.

California’s Gary Densham, who has 8 career wins on the NHRA POWERade tour to his credit, became the first Nitro Funny Car winner in IHRA competition in 14 years. Driving his Racebricks-sponsored Chevy Monte Carlo, Densham was a picture of consistency during Sunday’s final eliminations with consecutive runs of 4.874 secs, 4.844 secs and 4.850 secs to take the title. Densham outgunned surprise FC finalist Paul Lee.

Nitro FC competition was paced by Cruz Pedregon who, driving the Advance Auto Parts Chevy Monte Carlo set both low ET and top speed (4.765 secs and 321.12 mph) during qualifying. Pedregon however overpowered the race track in round two while racing Gary Densham.

Paul Lee’s runner-up finish in FC during his first ever IHRA event start, was dogged by numerous oil downs and black flag runs. Despite his overall second place event finish, Lee’s current standing in the Torco Nitro Funny Car points category is 10th (3 points!) following the assessment of infraction points penalties.

In Top Fuel Doug Foley earned an impressive event win, the 6th of his career. Driving his Torco-sponsored machine, Foley managed to outclass perennial and 5X defending World Champion Clay Millican in the final round. Foley carded a superb 4.585 secs at 321.27 mph (low ET/top speed) in the final round while Millican struck his tires driving the Werner/Nitro Fish car.

Foley, who qualified #1 at 4.610 secs, beat Louie Allison and his racing teammate Rick Cooper in earlier competition. His win came over the quickest assembly of TF cars in IHRA history – 4.755 secs bump.

Pro Modified racing was highlighted by a huge win for Canadian Glen Kerunsky who wheeled his immaculate Alberta-based ’57 Chevy to victory lane. Kerunsky qualified #3 with a career best 6.084 secs before mowing down the competition. In the final round Glen ran 6.191 secs at 230.69 mph to win his 2nd Amalie Oil Texas Nationals event title in 3 years.

PM racing was a super swift affair. Another Canadian driver, Rick DiStefano, earned the pole with a 6.062 secs (career best) to pace the 16-car field which had a record quick bump spot of 6.195 secs. A total of 33 drivers made qualifying attempts for the very competitive PM field.

Class racing also included two of the event’s scariest incidents, involving star racers Scott Cannon and Carl Spiering. Cannon flipped his all new Skull Gear-sponsored Chevy Monte Carlo during Saturday’s final qualifying session and did major damage to the car. Carl Spiering, just after winning his second round match over Winnipeg’s Kenny Lang, went for a wild ride when his Eaton Cutler-Hammer ’63 Split unexpectedly darted right in front of Lang and made heavy contact with the wall. Carl did receive a rib injury and was taken to hospital for observation and unfortunately his popular Corvette will likely never see action again. It should be noted that Kenny Lang did a terrific job driving his car as he was able to avoid the errant Spiering preventing what could have been a much worse accident.

Maryland’s Frank Gugliotta earned his second straight IHRA event win in Pro Stock. Gugliotta, who won last year’s season-ending World Finals at Rockingham was a late entry for the event driving the Ford Escort owned by Charlie Taylor to victory. For Taylor, the event victory was his second straight at San Antonio. Dan Seamon had driven his car to a win here in 2005.

Gugliotta secured the event title when final round opponent Rob Mansfield wasted a superior 6.421 secs at 218.48 mph driving his Chevy Colbalt on a blatant -.165 foul start. Gugliotta’s event winning time was 6.490 secs at 216.55 mph.

Pro Stock racing was also a thrilling affair. Brian Gahm recorded the quickest ET in class history when he clocked in at 6.354 secs on Friday night to earn the pole. In fact the first 9 qualified cars all in the 6.3’s and the bump spot ended up to be an all time quick 6.457 secs.

In Alcohol Funny Car, Ohio’s Mark Thomas drew first season blood when he won driving his all new Ethanol Performs-sponsored Chevy Monte Carlo. Thomas was able to defeat 3X World Champ Robbie Atchison in the final round after he earned what proved to be all-important lane choice in the semi-final round. Thomas skipped to a winning 5.897 secs at 242.80 mph while Atchison, who had tire shake problems during the San Antonio event, aborted to a 7.294 secs at 132.79 mph.

Rob Atchison, driving his new Erickson Manufacturing Chevy Monte Carlo, had earned the pole at 5.813 secs however Thomas took that potential low ET mark away when he won with a 5.811 secs in round one.

Numerous other racers had difficulty negotiating the San Antonio Raceway track shutdown area. Mike Bruno damaged his great looking new GTO in a top end incident on Saturday and Dale Creasy, Rob Atchison, Kenny Lang and Gary Goforth all went into the sand at various points. New York’s Vince Arcadi provided the biggest starting line spectacle with a violent motor explosion in his nitro Funny Car during Saturday’s “Night of Fire” final qualifying session.