Headline: Big Names Who Tried Drag Racing

Over a 20-year span, four racers have attempted to compete in both the Indianapolis 500 and the Coca-Cola 600 on the same day — and three of them have taken a shot at drag racing as well.

Tony Stewart has made the most serious commitment, marrying Top Fuel driver Leah Pruett, forming a two-car nitro team that features her and three-time Funny Car champion Matt Hagan and racing to a runner-up finish in the Top Alcohol dragster class this past October.

But John Andretti — the first to attempt both ends of the IndyCar/NASCAR Memorial Day Double in 1994 — had a no-less-daunting fling in a Top Fuel dragster in 1993.

And Kurt Busch entered his 1970 Dodge Challenger in the sportsman-level Super Gas category in 2010 and stepped up to Pro Stock the following year.

Andretti drove the Taco Bell Express dragster owned by Major League Baseball star Jack Clark.

Clark, who also drove the car and had hired such drag-racing luminaries as Tom “The Mongoose” McEwen and Ed “The Ace” McCulloch to race it, told Sports Illustrated the sport “reflects my personality.”

For his part, Andretti came into the NHRA world less familiar with the drill. He participated in extensive testing at Texas Motorplex, near Dallas, but, as versatile and game as he was, wasn’t initially convinced that he had made a sound decision.

As he sat in Clark’s dragster for an engine warm-up, he started to wonder why he had agreed to such an enterprise. Andretti shared in his autobiography “RACER,” as told to Jade Gurss, that he genuinely didn’t have a clue about this unique type of race car, except that it had four wheels, a steering wheel and an engine.

“I climbed in with the rear wheels jacked up off the ground and they started the engine,” Andretti recalled. “I couldn’t hear anything. And I certainly didn’t know they initially start the car using a (relatively mild) alcohol-based fuel. ‘This thing doesn’t seem that sporty,’ I thought.”

Pretty soon, he said he felt like he was “sitting in a Saturn V rocket. This thing was breathing fire, going chugachugachugachuga like a hell-bound train and rumbling every window in the neighborhood.”

He noticed a boy on a bicycle who had been watching the entire exercise. And the kid asked, “So, how long you been drag racing?” Andretti replied, “I’ve never been.” And the kid said, “So you’ve never done any drag racing? And you’re going to drive that car?” Andretti said yes, and the boy pondered that for a second, then before pedaling away, said, “Huh. Good luck.”

Years later, Andretti said, “I’ll never forget that kid. No wiser words were ever said. I was thinking the exact same thing.”

But Andretti, who lost his struggle with colon cancer on Jan. 30, 2020, at age 56, carved out a brief but remarkable career at the drag strip. In his first race, the Southern Nationals at Atlanta Dragway, he reached the semifinal.

Because of his keen sense of humor and his work ethic, Andretti was popular with NHRA fans. “Everybody loved him wherever he went, because he was such a good, quality guy,” Clark said. As an owner, Clark especially appreciated him as “a guy you could count on. He wasn’t going to beat your stuff up. He was a natural. He got the hang of it right away. He was not afraid of it. He enjoyed the speed. He enjoyed the competition. He enjoyed the G-forces.

“If he had stuck with it, he probably would have been one of the best leavers (at the Christmas Tree). He had a fire – he just had that Andretti fire. It was fun. I knew it wasn’t going to be long term for him, but I hoped it was. He had other obligations and I knew that going in. I was glad to get him for the short time we had him. If he really liked it and wanted to do it, the door was open.”

The NASCAR schedule was open for Kurt Busch a couple of times about a dozen years ago and he filled it by competing at the 2011 NHRA Gatornationals. He rented a car from Pro Stock veteran Allen Johnson, qualified in a tough field of 16 and found himself facing Erica Enders as eliminations began. With encouragement from legend Bob Glidden to “go out there and crack him,” the Houston native who’s now a five-time Pro Stock champion said, “I don’t care if I’m racing Kurt Busch or George Bush. I want to beat him.” And she did. But that didn’t make Busch love the sport any less.