Mopar Canada and Grand Bend Motorplex present the Mopar Canadian Nationals for the 20th time….
The weather was picture perfect and the fan and racer response was impressive last weekend for Eastern Canada’s iconic Mopar Canadian Nationals — held near the scenic shorelines of Lake Huron. Event memories were many — but here are just a few from this milestone 20th anniversary edition.

The two-car Paton Racing/PDS Top Fuel racing team was front and centre at Grand Bend with Canadian’s Todd Paton and recently licensed Jeff Chatterson wheeling those machines side by side X3. Todd Paton ran the quickest and fastest time of the weekend — 4.798 secs 297.91 mph (1/4 mile).

Quebec’s Daniel Mercier made quite an impact at the event. While match racing Jeff Veale — Daniel recorded a 5.298 secs at an astounding 285.71 mph! According to our records — that is second fastest in history for injected nitro cars — placing only behind fellow Canadian Don St. Arnaud’s 285.83 mph NHRA national record set in 2016.

A very nice win was recorded in the event’s PSDS Pro Mod eliminator with Al Martorino prevailing. Al, who had crashed his 2006 Mustang at Cayuga last month, ran a final round 5.901 secs at 246.23 mph to defeat Chris Brohman’s Camaro and pick up his Pennzoil pay check.

The 2019 version Mopar Canadian Nationals did include on Saturday a pretty cool event for some street legal Challengers, Demons and Hellcats — that “HellRaiser Hellcat Shootout” had participants from both Canada and the USA.

Grand Bend Motorplex brought in the “big show” Dodge bodied fuel Funny Cars raced by Jack Wyatt and Dale Creasy — who faced one another twice on Saturday evening.

Wes Goddard was quite possibly the most popular winner last weekend overall when he scored in the PSDS Top Sportsman class. Goddard drove his fan favorite and turbocharged “Hellbilly” Nash to victory when his final round 6.951 secs ET defeated Rob Gray.

The weekend race featured a 6-bike Top Fuel Motorcycle eliminator which was won by the most unique entry there. Driven by Ohio’s Jason Pridemore – the “Gunslinger” is in fact a “supercharged” nitro burner.

Ontario drag strip regular — Western New York’s Gary Krause — won the event’s Nitro Nostalgia FC eliminator. Gary took the “Pony Up” Mustang to a final round 5.855 secs at 250.97 mph to win that 4-car feature. He was also the #1 qualifier at 5.516 secs.

Some Top Alcohol cars were also part of the event with Ken “Iceman” Perry (Markham ON) staging his TAD against the Kardiac Kids/Harman HVS TAFC – driven (this weekend) by Ryan Stack. Both cars ran well — Perry’s best was a 5.459 secs at 259.06 mph and rookie racer Ryan ran (a personal best so far) 5.699 secs at 239.10 mph.

Greg Jacobsmeyer ran rewarding math in Nitro Nostalgia FC too at Grand Bend – he was credited with a sensational/career best 5.552 secs at 266.35 mph (!) in his cool 1970 Dodge Challenger-bodied car.

Cambridge’s rising talent Austin VanDerGeld was the event winner in PSDS Top Dragster class racing. Austin drove his Lowdown Hot Rods car past an impressive field — beating the dragster of Ed Smith in the Championship round.

Legendary lady Shirley Muldowney played a very major role in the event’s weekend festivities. She signed a ton of autographs at the impressive Mopar display and was also the event’s grand marshall.

Toronto’s Mike Yedgarian clobbered the track record for Pro Mod cars when he qualified #1 at 5.855 secs and 262.85 mph in the Speedwire-sponsored Firebird. We are firm believers that may very well be Canadian record terminal speed for Pro Mod racing (?)

The weekend did include some great exhibition machines – not the least of which was Russ Lethbridge from Ontario. Russ continued to hone his skills in “Hellfire” – the world’s fastest Freightliner Jet Truck.
Photos by Bruce Biegler – Brennan Shortall – Darwin Kent
To view many more photos from the 2019 Mopar Canadian Nationals – link to our LMLCMedia event photo gallery >> HERE