1988 Seafair Nationals
It takes more than just a solid driver and brute horsepower to win a drag race, and while having plenty of power under the hood is a pretty good start, it's often the ability to effectively harness that power under changing track conditions that separates the winner from the other 15 qualifiers.

In the late 1980s, there was no better combination of those elements than existed in the Budweiser King camp. Crew chief Dale Armstrong not only brewed and then harnessed the power event after event, but Kenny Bernstein was generally flawless behind the wheel, and their coupling led to four NHRA Funny Car championships between 1985 and 1988.

The 1988 Seattle event, which marked NHRA's return to the Great Northwest after an eight-year absence, could well be exhibit A in a string of evidence that probably could stretch to exhibit ZZ.

Kenny Bernstein and crew chief Dale Armstrong teamed up in Seattle in 1988 for Bernstein's 26th career win, closing out a steady performance with a final-round victory over Brad Tuttle's Nitro Bandit.

Don Prudhomme led Funny Car qualifying with a 5.305, the quickest run in NHRA Funny Car competition and a new national record, though several other drivers were within striking distance of not just "the Snake" but also of becoming the first Funny Car pilot in the 5.20s. Mike Dunn was second with a 5.319 at 275.73 mph (top speed of the meet, as usual), followed by Bernstein (5.332) and 1984 Funny Car champ Mark Oswald (5.337).

While that quartet, along with Ed McCulloch (5.383) and Scott Kalitta (5.395), were throwing performance haymakers at the Seattle quarter-mile in qualifying, only Bernstein and Armstrong proved capable of sustaining that pace once eliminations got rolling. Prudhomme dashed off a 5.33 in round one but fried the tires against Richard Tharp, in Raymond Beadle's Kodiak-backed Blue Max, in round two. Ditto for Oswald, who dashed off a 5.34 in the opening stanza but boiled the hides against Bruce Larson in the second frame.

Dunn never made it that far, breaking the driveshaft in the first round opposite Brad Tuttle, who then benefited from Kalitta's tire smoke in round two.

Through all of this smoke and fury came unfazed the Bud King Reatta, as Bernstein roared to a 5.31 in a first-round conquest of Eric Reed, then steamed to a 5.32 to trailer John Force, who at the time was still hunting for just his third career win. The only time that the Bud machine faltered was in the semifinals, where a clogged fuel line led to a burned piston, but even on seven cylinders the red and white Buick recorded a 5.43 to outdistance Tharp's slowing 6.41.

Waiting for Bernstein in the final round was an unlikely crowd favorite, Tuttle, at the wheel of Gerry Hammond's Nitro Bandit Thunderbird. Tuttle has qualified just 10th with a 5.52, then slipped past Dunn and Kalitta with runs of 5.59 and 5.60 before holeshotting Larson in the semifinals, 5.62 to 5.59.

Armstrong, who scored two wins and two runner-ups in Pro Comp at this event's original incarnation, fixed his minor problem and Bernstein stormed to an easy victory, 5.35 to 6.63, to move into second place in the points standings behind Oswald en route to a fourth straight crown.

The victory, the 26th of Bernstein's career and his only one to date in Seattle, was part of a huge Team Budweiser Seattle sweep as for the third time in two years Bernstein was joined in the winner's circle by his Top Fuel teammate, Darrell Gwynn, on the same weekend that Tom D'Eath skippered the Miss Budweiser Unlimited Hydroplane to victory in the Emerald Cup on nearby Lake Washington, part of the city's annual Seafair weekend for which the NHRA national event was then named.