It's 1976 and the nation is celebrating its bicentennial. Flip top Funny Cars are about 11 years old and may be at their peak. Match Racing is huge with shows all over the country, but once a year the racers who think they are the baddest dogs converge on Claremont, Indiana, to prove they belong to the elite. The final that year represented what flip top Funny Cars had become in the previous 11 years. Don "The Snake" Prudhomme, the dominant national event car, squared off with Gary Burgin, who was touring the East Coast for the first time with his "Orange Baron" Mustang. 

Burgin, who had set track records at the big Eastern match race tracks like Old Bridge and Epping now had a chance to demonstrate he could run with the "Snake" in the National Event arena. In the final, "Snake" hazed his tires, allowing Burgin to put a nose out on him and keep it there. To say the win was popular would be an understatement. Not that the fans disliked Prudhomme, but at the granddaddy of them all, the underdog had prevailed. Here is a collage of some of the other contenders that week in ‘76. Can you name them all?

James Morgan
http://www.Motorsportunderground.com