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Art Gallant

When Jack O'Bannon parked his Rick Santos-driven dragster after the season-opening K&N Filters Winternationals, there was plenty of speculation as to who would assume Santos' vacated throne. Not surprisingly, Arthur Gallant wasn't among the favorites.

Since resurrecting his alcohol career in 1996, the 54-year-old Boxboro, Mass., racer had won only once. This year, Gallant won seven times in 16 races, becoming the first A/Fuel Dragster driver to win a national championship since Dave Settles upset Dale Armstrong in the Pro Comp final of the 1977 World Finals.

"It has been a very, very satisfying season," said Gallant. "By now, most people know how difficult it is to get these cars to go down the track. There are guys who have been doing this a lot longer than I have and have never gotten to this plateau.

"We were able to repeat, and that was the biggest difference," Gallant added. "I would venture to say that half of our runs this year were 5.3s, and I don't think we aborted more than two or three runs all year. The car did what it was supposed to."

Thanks to partners Paul Wenclawiak and Steve Weiler and sponsorship from Pep Boys, Gallant finally had the wherewithal to compete on the national level in 2002.

"Paul and Steve came up with the funds for us this year," said Gallant. "Before, when I stepped on the throttle, I had to worry about how much it was going to cost me if I blew up the engine. This year, I was able to separate the tuning and driving from the financial part of it. That made me a better racer, and those guys made it happen.

"In the previous three years, we ran eight to 10 races because that's what our budget dictated," Gallant added. "We never even thought about being competitive nationally, but this year we had enough budget to run all the races, and I convinced my partners that if things went well, then that's what we should do."

Prior to this season, Gallant's only national event victory came in Richmond, Va., in 1999, 18 years after losing to Joe Amato in Montreal, Que., in his first and only other national event final. The victory was a longtime coming for Gallant, who has drag raced on and off for more than 30 years.

Gallant, who builds custom airplanes for a living, held the national record in D/Gas briefly in 1966 and raced Jr. Fuelers in the late 1960s and early 1970s. In 1975, he built his first blown alcohol car, a small-block Chevy-powered dragster, which he campaigned through 1981. He enjoyed his best season in 1979, finishing third in Division 1 in Pro Comp.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Gallant raced jet cars, becoming the first jet Funny Car driver to break the five-second barrier and the first to run 260, 270, and 280 mph. He then returned to alcohol racing in 1996 and raced a blown alcohol dragster for two years before switching to A/Fuel in 1998.

"In 1999, we were a little more competitive but not very consistent," said Gallant. "We ran pretty well last year, but we didn't get the breaks. When the car ran well, I had problems driving, and when I left on time, the car didn't run well."

After finishing 29th nationally last year, Gallant opened the season with a win at the Division 2 Lucas Oil Series event in Gainesville. Then, after a first-round loss in Orlando, Fla., Gallant returned to Gainesville and won the Mac Tools NHRA Gatornationals, the first of three national event victories.

Gallant won only two rounds in his next three starts before runner-upping to Las Vegas racer Duane Shields, who would lead the points chase for much of the season, at the Matco Tools SuperNationals in Englishtown.

"After our first eight races, we reviewed things and felt we had a really good chance to finish in the top 10," said Gallant. "But I never even thought about winning the championship at that point."

After a second-round loss at the Division 1 race in Reading, Gallant kicked off the second half of his season with back-to-back Division 1 victories in Atco, N.J., and West Lebanon, N.Y.

"We made a bunch of changes to the car before going to the Atco divisional, and we happened to hit on something that worked really well," said Gallant, who followed his back-to-back wins with an excruciating first-round loss at the Division 1 event in Englishtown, a race that Shields won.

"I remember considering not going to any more divisional races and just running the races that I wanted to go to," said Gallant. "But my brother [Gene] said, 'Hey, it's only one race. Let's just continue like it never happened.' And that's what we did."

Gallant bounced back with his second national event win, at the Lucas Oil NHRA Nationals in Brainerd, capitalizing on Shields' second-round loss and cutting Shields' lead to just 16 points.

"That was probably our best race performance-wise," said Gallant, who qualified No. 2 with a 5.37 and ran 5.32, 5.37, 5.34, and 5.31 in eliminations. "We really didn't get any breaks like we did in Gainesville, where we stumbled in the first round. We ran well in every round."

Gallant scored again a week later at the Division 1 finale in Rising Sun, Md., defeating Shields in the final, then won his third straight, the Lucas Oil NHRA Nationals in Reading. That victory, combined with Shields' first-round loss, gave Gallant the points lead for the first time all season, a lead that he would never relinquish.

"We wanted to go to Indianapolis simply because everybody is there," said Gallant. "But the A/Fuel cars tend not to run very well there, so we decided to go to [the O'Reilly Fall Nationals in Dallas] instead, but by the time Dallas came around, it didn't matter."

Gallant's first-round loss at the Craftsman 75th Anniversary NHRA Nationals in Chicago left Shields with a glimmer of hope. Shields needed to win his final two divisional races to have a shot, but when he lost in the first round at the Division 2 race in Darlington, S.C., it was over. As it turned out, even if Shields had won Darlington, Gallant still would be champ because of his semifinal finish in Dallas.

"I was honored that Duane would come back here and chase me around," said Gallant. "For him to think that I was that much of a threat was pretty neat.

"We recently had a pretty good meeting with Pep Boys, and we're waiting to see what happens," said Gallant about next year. "I don't think they could find anything better than they've got, so I hope that they'll be back next year. If not, we'll probably just run a limited schedule like we used to."

Gallant's 2002 track record 745 points
Gainesville Raceway (Div. 2)	Won event
Mac Tools NHRA Gatornationals	Won event
Matco Tools SuperNationals	Runner-up
Maple Grove Raceway (Div. 1)	Semifinals
Atco Raceway (Div. 1)	Won event
Lebanon Valley Dragway (Div. 1)	Won event
Lucas Oil NHRA Nationals	Won event
Cecil County Dragway (Div. 1)	Won event
Lucas Oil NHRA Nationals	Won event
O'Reilly Fall Nationals	Semifinals