Many will argue that the 1967 NHRA Nationals was the greatest drag racing event ever. For those who attended that memorable meet, few would dispute such an appraisal.

The '67 Indy event had it all. Don Garlits showed up with a lengthy beard — weeks earlier he had vowed not to shave until he recorded his first six-second run. And, in storybook form, he achieved that goal in the most dramatic fashion possible: with a 6.77 win over James Warren in the Top Fuel final.

The A/MSP entry campaigned by Neil Ellis and Dave Kanners, near lane, defeated Sammy Cunningham's Corvette in the Modified final with a 9.47.

Qualifying for the first Funny Car program at Indy was highlighted by the 7.60 of Jack Chrisman's Mercury Comet, a quarter-second quicker than any other Funny Car had gone before. The shocks continued in eliminations when the underdog Chevrolets knocked off Chrisman, Eddie Schartman, Bill Lawton, and the other factory-backed Fords to push blue-collar hero Doug Thorley into the winner's circle with his 7.6-second Corvair.

Add to that Don Cain outlasting the much quicker Freight Train entry of owners John Peters and Bob Muravez for the Top Gas title and Bill "Grumpy" Jenkins' first Indy triumph over the Mopar and Ford ranks in the hotly contested Super Stock category and one gets the idea that this race was, indeed, very special.

The summer of 1967 had been a miserable experience for Garlits, who was in an inexplicable slump that kept him in the seven-second zone long after Don Johnson had broken the barrier with his 6.97 national record at Carlsbad [Calif.] on May 7. Don Prudhomme won the Springnationals with a string of six-second clockings, and skeptics were taking odds on how long "Big Daddy's" beard would grow before he would record his first six.

At the end of qualifying, no fewer than nine drivers in the 32-car field had recorded sub-seven-second clockings, led by Chuck Kurzawa's 6.760 in the Ramchargers entry. Garlits was a distant 23rd with a non-competitive 7.13.

Garlits improved to a 7.06 in the first round to defeat the 7.25 of defending champion Mike Snively in Roland Leong's Hawaiian. He then switched to the new M&H tires that were fast gaining popularity in the pits for his second-round shutoff 9.26 win over red-lighting Mike Sirokin.

The sixes appeared to be closer than ever in round four, when Garlits clicked off a 7.03 to defeat the slowing 7.94 of Jerry Dawson, but he followed with a shutoff 9.89 in the semi's when opponent Tom McEwen fouled.

Before the final, Garlits asked opponent James Warren, who had loaned him his pair of M&Hs, if he wanted them back, but Warren, having run a 7.01 and 7.02 in the last two rounds, declined. Warren put together his quickest run of the day in the final, a 6.95, but he had no chance against Garlits' first six, a booming 6.77 that ended up as the second-quickest run of the event.

Approximately 20,000 fans stormed the track to witness Garlits shave his beard (with shaving lotion but no water) and savored one of the sport's truly most memorable moments.

Bill "Grumpy" Jenkins won the biggest factory hot rod showdown of the year when he outlasted the likes of Sox & Martin, Dick Landy, Don Nicholson, Wally Booth, Dick Arons, Arlen Vanke, and Eddie Schartman for the Super Stock title. Jenkins' SS/C Camaro bested Bob Brown's SS/A Plymouth in the final with an 11.55.

The new M&H tires also produced quantum leaps of performance in Funny Car. Until the 1967 Nationals, the injected Funny Cars had ruled the category with 7.9-second clockings because the rubber could not handle supercharged Funny Car power. Reports of 7.86 clockings by Doug Thorley at Southern California's Lions Drag Strip were met with skepticism, but when Jack Chrisman used the new M&Hs to record his 7.60 on official NHRA clocks during Saturday's qualifying session, the fans realized that they were witnessing the dawn of a new era. Thorley was the next-quickest qualifier with an 8.16, but as additional pairs of M&Hs were strapped onto cars for Monday's eliminations, the times picked up dramatically. Thorley defeated Bill Lawton's Ford, 7.81 to 8.12, in the first round, and Terry Hedrick joined the act with a 7.95 in Pete Seaton's Chevy to defeat Tommy Grove's Mustang.

By the semi's, Chrisman and all the rest of the factory-backed Mercury and Ford entries had been eliminated. Thorley, who turned a 7.69 to defeat Maynard Rupp's Cougar in the quarterfinals, went on to defeat Joe Lunati's Camaro with a 7.83. Within the next few weeks, virtually every top-running injected Funny Car had switched to a supercharger and M&H tires.

Like Chrisman, Muravez (racing under the Floyd Lippencott alias at the time), was not able to parlay a huge qualifying advantage into a Top Gas win. After covering the field in qualifying by more than two-tenths with a 7.44, Muravez ripped off an unreal 7.30 in the first round to defeat Mark Mano. But the Freight Train went up in smoke against Cain's 7.63 in round three, and Cain went on to defeat Bob Pacitto in a 7.65 to 7.70 final.

Gene Snow added to the Funny Car flavor of the event when he drove his injected Hemi-powered '66 Dart, running as a C/FD, to an 8.67 win over Jim Wohfeil's B/FD for the Super Eliminator title. Joe Law followed his earlier Springnationals win with another Comp victory in his A/C Dragster.

Jenkins scored his second career NHRA national event title when his 396-cid, 375-horsepower SS/C '67 Camaro outlasted a Super Stock field laden with factory-backed Ford, Dodge, and Plymouth entries. The other winners were Dave Kanners in Street and Ben Wenzel in Stock.