Never in drag racing's glorious past has there been such an array of performances in the Professional categories such as those that were witnessed at the fifth annual Castrol GTX Keystone Nationals. Drama, excitement, and the thrill of 12 four-second passes in Top Fuel paved the way for one of the finest single days in quarter-mile racing. At this event, the number of four-second runs ever recorded increased by more than 50 percent.

Though the fuel cars shined in performance, the biggest story of the event involved Bob Glidden, who picked up the 75th victory of his career by winning Pro Stock.

Glidden persevered through massive carburetor problems in his Ford Probe and finally attained the diamond mark in victories that eluded him at the previous three events.

Darrell Gwynn backed up his 1989 Indy victory of two weeks earlier by defeating Joe Amato with his Coors Extra Gold dragster in one of the best finals of the year.

By all indications, it appeared that Glidden was going to have a difficult time for the fourth straight race when Warren Johnson led the pack after the rain-shortened sessions.

Johnson drove his '89 Cutlass to the No. 1 mark with a 7.333 — a thousandth better than Indianapolis winner Larry Morgan and nearly two-hundredths better than Glidden's 7.352, which placed him in the No. 4 spot — but his demise came in the opening frame when "the Professor" bulbed a .000 red-light and wasted a 7.32 effort against Don Beverley.

After advancing on Lee Dean's foul in the first frame, Glidden, who with the help of his family discovered that the carbs were the source of his problems earlier in the event, answered the call in the second round with a .426 light and a 25-thousandths-quicker run to defeat Beverley, 7.359 to 7.384. Glidden continued his driving prowess by stopping Darrell Alderman's low e.t. and top speed of the meet (7.31, 188.04 mph) with a .415 light in the final four.

In the final, Glidden squared off against Bruce Allen and the Reher-Morrison Chevy Beretta. He rose to the occasion once again when he took the lead at the line by seven-thousandths and went past the finish line by a mere eight-thousandths.

Coming off a victory in Indy, where he recorded his first sub-five-second pass and reset the national e.t. record, Darrell Gwynn kept his roll of success alive by winning his second consecutive Keystone Nationals and resetting the e.t. record once more.

Gwynn, who used up just three valves and one bearing all weekend, qualified his Coors Extra Gold dragster No. 2 with a 4.982 and only got better as the weekend progressed. He reeled off successive times of 5.003, 4.968, 4.951, and 4.952 in respective wins over Frank Cook, Jim Head, Dick LaHaie, and, in the final, Joe Amato.

The second round of Top Fuel marked the first time in the sport that every winner of the round advanced by running a four-second pass.

One of the bigger moments of Top Fuel competition — and perhaps of the event itself — was Shirley Muldowney's record-setting charge (4.974, 284.99) for the No. 1 spot. Muldowney was also part of the history-making second round, where she paired against Amato, to whom she lost, 4.967 to 4.975, in the quickest side-by-side confrontation ever.

Early in the event, it didn't appear that Bob Glidden and his Ford Probe would nab a 75th victory, but after fixing carburetor problems, Glidden used a string of superb lights and defeated Bruce Allen in the final to claim his diamond title.

In qualifying, the 22 Funny Car racers were given notice that Don Prudhomme was not giving up on chasing down Bruce Larson in the points race. Though Prudhomme set the standard with a No. 1 qualifying blast (5.17 at 274.72 mph), other members of the plastic-fantastic brigade stole the show.

Mark Oswald made one of his strongest showings of the 1989 season when he powered the Candies & Hughes Motorcraft Ford Probe to both ends of the national record. Oswald hit a 5.214, 283.10 in qualifying, then backed it up with runs of 5.297, 265.09 and 5.238, 279.50 before smoking the tires in the semi's.

Ultimately, Castrol GTX driver John Force had the last say. Before the event, Force decided that a shot at the 1989 Winston championship was unlikely, so he changed his focus and entered Reading wanting to have fun and win rather than making winning an obsession.

Force came from the middle of the pack — he qualified No. 8 with a 5.335 — to hit three consecutive 5.34s and a 5.339 in the final, disrupting Larson's attempt to widen the gap over Kenny Bernstein and Prudhomme in the Winston points chase.

In the final, Larson was tardy at the starting line with a .575 light and tried to make up for it by running a 5.28, but Force won after cutting a .438 light and running a 5.33.