For many casual fans, the story of Dean Carter's national Championship in Comp crystallized with his clutch back-to-back victories at the NHRA POWERade Drag Racing Series and Lucas Oil Drag Racing Series events at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, the latter coming in a winner-take-all final-round showdown with fellow title hopeful Santo Volpe. As dra.m.atic as that headlining showdown was, Carter's title tale is much taller than the obvious.

Carter and his team, led by his father, Ray, survived a rash of broken parts early in the season with their Glendale, Ariz.-based front-engine A/Nostalgia Dragster and the best strategic moves of his opponents to outlast them all for the Championship.

While Carter enjoyed early season success at the national event level – including his first victory at the Checker Schuck's Kragen NHRA Nationals and a runner-up at the spring event in Las Vegas – his divisional score was a mess. Broken parts left him with a scorecard marred by first-round divisional losses and seemingly out of the national Championship hunt.

The team fought back, though, and after a disheartening loss at the Fram Autolite NHRA Nationals, where Carter's index also took a .04-second hit, their fortunes took a marked turn with a previously unplanned side trip to the Division 5 event in Great Bend, Kan., which was hosting its first NHRA event since the 1955 NHRA Nationals.

"Rick Watters of Eaton Enterprises, who builds our engines, is from Kansas, and he wanted to go back to the track where he'd raced years ago, and with us having a front-engine nostalgia dragster and the event having a nostalgic feel, it was a natural," said Carter. "Plus, with [SRCA Dragstrip] being an altitude facility, having a high-powered car on alcohol would give us an advantage. That was a great weekend for us. We won the race, I got the No. 1 qualifier money, and the win money.

"Once we won there, we knew we had a lot of [previous race outcomes] that we could better, so we set out to do that. Our goal was to finish in the top 10; we weren't even looking at the Championship."

After a semifinal finish at the Division 6 event in White City, Ore., the Carters attended the NHRA California Hot Rod Reunion, where they competed in the Jr. Fuel class. Carter not only set low e.t. but won the race for the second year in a row.

"It wasn't a lot of money, but there's a ton of prestige,'" he said. "Then, as we were driving home from the race, Craig Eaton told me that if I could win the last two NHRA events I could win the Championship, which was bad news because I'd just won the Reunion, and I've never been able to win two events in a row, let alone three."

But Carter drove well and won the ACDelco Las Vegas NHRA Nationals to complete half of his uphill battle. He had climbed into fourth place in the standings behind leader Doug Engels, David Rampy, and Volpe, the first two of whom had exhausted their points-earning events.

"Volpe needed to reach the semifinals to pass Engels, and I needed to win the event to pass them both," said Carter. Engels red-lighted by a few thousandths of a second to Vinnie Deceglie, who then red-lighted against Carter, as did Steve Wilmoth in the semifinals.

Carter, who had lost just .03-second to the Competition Index Control, then prepared to square off with Volpe, who had lost .24-second in CIC penalty. "Naturally, I felt pretty good about that," said Carter. "I knew that if I could just drive it all the way to the finish line, I'd be the Champion."

Volpe, who had defeated Brian Self in the semifinals, was late getting to the starting line for the final, then broke some clutch fingers and red-lighted away the title to Carter.

"I thought maybe Santo would let Self beat him in the semifinals so I'd have to race Self, who probably could have beaten me, but Self broke, and then Santo broke against me. It was wild."

Carter added a runner-up finish against Deceglie the following weekend at the Automobile Club of Southern California NHRA Finals to complete a wonderful late-season run.

"I was totally relaxed in Pomona and was more concerned with plans for the banquet and getting my family plane tickets out to the banquet than I was the race," he admitted. "But the wins just kept coming, and we almost won that one, too. One of my cockpit blinders came loose in the final and lodged against the shifter, so I couldn't get it into 2nd gear on time, but I can't complain. We had a great season."

Carter thanked his father, Ray, and mother, Carol; his wife, Michele, and children, Kevin and Tiffaney; and Rick Watters, Jeff Hughes, Bill Miller, Todd Movius, Steve Wilmoth, Mike DePalma, the Chrismans, Jim Plummer, Jeff Bellimer, Eaton Enterprises, Quality Floor Covering, Rossler, Autolite, Fram, T&D, Monaco, A-1, Moroso, Harv's Performance, Crower, Royal Purple, Desert Designs, Mach, Desert Sports Center, MGP, and Jeg's.

Carter's 2003 track record
613 points
Checker Schuck's Kragen NHRA Nationals: Won event
Firebird Int'l Raceway (Div. 7): Quarterfinals
NHRA SummitRacing.com Nationals: Runner-up
Famoso Raceway (Div. 7): Quarterfinals
SRCA Dragstrip (Div. 5): Won event
Southern Oregon Dragway (Div. 6): Semifinals
ACDelco Las Vegas NHRA Nationals: Won event
The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway (Div. 7): Won event