The 1971 Winternationals was a great event not only because of Don Garlits' Top Fuel win with his new — and supposedly unworkable — rear-engine dragster but because that car proved that the safer design was competitive. Within two years, the front-engine dragster, in which the driver was in line for possible injury when any part of the drivetrain malfunctioned, was extinct in Top Fuel.

Don Garlits rocked his Top Fuel competitors when he made the rear-engine dragster design a winner in its NHRA national event debut at the 1971 Winternationals. By 1973, the front-engine design would be extinct.

Garlits' car wasn't the only unique winning dragster at the event. Walt Stevens, driving Ken Theiss' Odd Couple Top Gas dragster, won that eliminator in its last year of existence with a small-block Chevy engine and Hemi engine mounted in tandem.

Jim Busby won the Best Engineered Car award for his twin-engine, naturally aspirated dragster powered by fuel-injected DOHC Ford Indy Car-style engines. Hank Westmoreland, the 1969 Springnationals Top Fuel winner, drove the car but was unable to qualify in what would be its only race.

Barrie Poole, whose win in Super Stock at the 1970 Winternationals made him the first Canadian to win an NHRA national event, again won Super Stock with one of two Sandy Elliot-backed Mustangs.

Sadly, at the same event where Garlits was helping make Top Fuel safer, 1961 Nationals Top Eliminator winner and innovator "Sneaky Pete" Robinson was killed Saturday when his Top Fueler crashed on a 6.77-second qualifying run. Current Funny Car owner and tuner Jim Dunn took his place in eliminations as the first alternate.

Garlits had already received a clue that his rear-engine dragster might be competitive. Just days before the Winternationals, Garlits runner-upped at the same AHRA event at Lions Drag Strip at which, one year earlier, the two-speed planetary transmission in his Swamp Rat 13 front-engine dragster exploded as he left the line in the final round, cutting both the chassis and his right foot in half. Garlits attributed his late leave in the 1971 final to, understandably, a strong sense of déjà vu.

Road racer Jim Busby accepted the Best Engineered Car trophy from then-NHRA President Wally Parks after running two naturally aspirated Ford DOHC Indy Car-style engines in his Top Fuel dragster. New-car bugs prevented driver Hank Westmoreland from qualifying the 64-valve dragster.

In Pomona, Garlits, running without the rear wing he would soon add, qualified No. 9 in the 32-car field with a 6.8. He then got progressively quicker in each round up to the final, running low e.t. in three of the five rounds. Garlits defeated Tommy Allen, 6.85 to 6.89; John Nichols, 6.72 to 6.85; Carl Olson, 6.72 to 10.61; Jim Dunn, 6.70 to 7.58; and, in the final, spun the tires to an uncontested sixth NHRA national event victory at 7.03 over a broken Kenny Safford. Henry Harrison ran both low e.t. and top speed of the event, 6.61 and 223.32 mph, driving the Ewell-Bell-Goodwin dragster.

Roland Leong, still active in the sport as an occasional tuner of Funny Cars, won Funny Car for the second straight year with his Hawaiian entry. It was the second time Leong tuned a fuel car to two straight wins at the Winternationals, and each win was with a different driver. Don Prudhomme and Mike Snively won Top Fuel in 1965 and 1966 in Leong's Hawaiian Top Fuelers, and Larry Reyes and Butch Maas won Funny Car in 1970 and 1971. The bump e.t. in the 16-car field, a 7.30 run by current Top Fuel team owner Don Schumacher, was the low e.t. of the previous year.

Stevens' and Theiss' Top Gas win was their first and, like Garlits, Stevens made a single run in the final after Bill Mullins broke one of his two Hemi engines. Mullins would be one of the first racers to use the now common direct-drive method of power transfer when he raced in Top Fuel in the 1980s and 1990s. Larry Van Unen was the No. 1 qualifier and ran low e.t. of 7.25 in eliminations with his twin big-block Chevy-powered dragster. Walt Rhoades, driving the Freight Train, ran top speed of 204.45 mph.

Don Enriquez drove another notable car of the period to the Competition win over Steve Woods. Enriquez ran low sevens in Gene Adams' early Hemi-powered injected-nitro A/FD to top a field that included twin-engine straight-six-cylinder-powered D/Dragsters, AA/Fuel Altereds, and Woods' supercharged Hemi-powered BB/Gas Anglia. Woods took a two-second head start in the final and lost with a 9.41. Enriquez, running quicker and faster than many of the supercharged, twin-engine Top Gas dragsters, won with a .01-over 7.34 at 199 mph.