Clay Millican has always dreamed of being the quickest man in NHRA history.

Friday night at Gateway Motorsports Park, Millican’s dream finally came true.

With near perfect conditions and a bad-fast hot rod that has produced four low qualifier awards already in 2017, Millican, crew chief David Grubnic, co-crew chief Mac Savage and the entire Stringer Performance team raced to a new NHRA national elapsed time record of 3.631 seconds at 330.39 mph, taking the provisional top spot at the sixth annual AAA Insurance NHRA Midwest Nationals.

“That run is 100 percent David Grubnic doing his thing. He is the baddest dude out here right now and I don’t think anyone can argue that,” Millican said. “We just set the national record and he does it all his way. There is no shared information. It is done with a group of young guys that the only way they know how to put that car together is David Grubnic and Mac Savage. I don’t have anything to do with this. I get to do the fun part. I get to come up here and talk to you guys and I get to stomp on that loud pedal.”

And stomp on the loud pedal he did. Millican produced the quickest run in NHRA history behind the wheel of the Parts Plus/Great Clips/UNOH dragster, bettering the previous record of 3.640 seconds set by Leah Pritchett in August, while also producing the quickest 330-foot and half-track times along the way.

“When I left the starting line it picked the front end up and it makes its way over by the wall and I’m like, ‘man this thing is hauling, but it’s still stuck. Let’s just ride down through here and see how it is,’” Millican said. “I did scoot it back over and it was still straighter than my first run. What an incredible job by Grubby, Mac, all those guys working on the car. They are amazing.”

In addition to topping the session and setting him up nicely for his fifth green hat of the year, Millican also topped Q1 with a 3.707 at 327.90, giving him valuable bonus points in his chase to get back in the Top Fuel championship picture.

“All points are hugely important right now. And that is Grubby’s goal. I said something about the national record after Q1 and the first thing he says is, ‘do we get points for that? No? I don’t care.’ All he wants is those bonus points,” Millican said. “To me, I wanted the national record. I wanted to be the quickest guy in the history of the NHRA. And, right now, we are.”

Last week’s race winner Brittany Force is currently qualified second with a 3.714 at 329.58 mph, while Steve Torrence is qualified third with a 3.721 at 325.37 mph. Tony Schumacher (3.729) and Doug Kalitta (3.753) round out the top five.

So with two more qualifying passes on the schedule for Saturday, is there anything left for Millican and the team?

“To be honest, I didn’t think we could do it today, so who knows,” Millican said. “I said in the media conference that I thought we could set the national record and I truly believed that we could set the national record for a while, but the weather forecast I thought was going to be cooler than this. I really thought we would set the record in Reading. But this was really good, I just didn’t think the weather was good enough for a 63. There’s more there. If we catch a race where you’ve got a sweatshirt on outside, this car will go quicker than that.”