Photos courtesy of NHRA, AB Motorsports, Whit Bazemore
The measure of a champion is the ability to win regardless of the setting. When it came to winning, Hall of Famer Mark Oswald could win whether he was inside or out of the car.
Oswald ended his storied career, which began over five decades ago outside of Cincinnati, Ohio, just as he dreamed – with a national event victory and NHRA series championship.
Oswald announced his retirement heading into the In-N-Out Burger NHRA Finals, and along with Brian Corradi, they tuned Antron Brown to his 64th career Top Fuel win and his fourth NHRA championship.
“I’ve been doing this for a long time now, and I knew midway through the season it was time to get off the road and spend more time at home,” Oswald said. “What I enjoy most is the R&D and engineering side of the sport, and the rules have tied your hands in how creative you can be. I love the racing. That passion hasn’t fallen off at all, but the travel has gotten very old. The back and forth; always in a rush. Airports and the inconsistencies in flights. I’m just looking forward to slowing down and not being in a rush all of the time.
“Pomona was a storybook ending, and it would be hard to ever top that. Everyone keeps saying I need to come back, and I don’t think you can after that. It was an unbelievable year and season with Antron and this Matco team. Winning a Top Fuel race is an accomplishment, given how stout the competition is. We won six. That final Sunday at Pomona, we beat everyone in the hunt for the title and we definitely earned it. It’s very satisfying to win and go out like that.”
As dominant as Oswald has been as a tuner, his Hall of Fame (2012) career as a driver is legendary. He gained his most success as a driver for the famed Candies and Hughes team by winning 20 NHRA national event wins, and as a regular on the IHRA series, he scored another 19 victories. He won only one NHRA championship as a driver and four in the IHRA’s Pro Funny Car division.
None of his championship seasons could compare to 1984 when Oswald swept the major series simultaneously with an NHRA, an IHRA, and an AHRA title.
Additionally, Oswald is credited with being the third driver to win NHRA events in Top Fuel and Funny Car.
Oswald retired from driving in 1997 and put his machining skills to use in the years that followed by making plastic injection moldings in his Houma, La.-based shop. He returned to the drag strip in 2000 to tune for John Lawson.
In 2007, Oswald joined Corradi to produce one of the most potent tuning combinations, guiding rookie Funny Car driver Mike Ashley to three national event victories and then Melanie Troxel to her lone Funny Car win in 2008. They moved to Top Fuel in 2009 and made quite the statement when Brown swept the Western Swing in a six-win season.
Corradi described Oswald as a best friend and admitted he had learned many valuable lessons from the veteran.
“Working with Mark has been like working with my best friend, like a brother I never had,” Corradi said. “He’s always there for you, always had your back, always willing to listen, and we just worked so well together. He’ll be missed for sure, but he’s just a phone call away. He won’t be at the races, but he’ll always be there for us and to help Antron and the team. Mark taught me a lot. He taught me how to win, and great racing and life lessons. When Mike Ashley put us together, he knew what he was doing. Mike was spot-on. It’s proven to be a great combination like it was meant to be. Just like at Pomona last month.”
Oswald grew up outside of Cincinnati, Ohio, and while early on, he was enamored with baseball and its players. By the time he was 11, this interest had transitioned to the automobile. Credit his friend up the street, Jim Tuefel, lighting this new fire.
Tuefel’s older brother had a Corvette, and while it could easily have been his flagship daily driver, he didn’t always take it. The car’s idle time provided Oswald and Tuefel the opportunity to use it as a play prop, where they’d spend lots of time pretending behind the wheel of the stationary sports car.
“I got very eaten up with drag racing very quick,” Oswald admitted.
The Corvette quickly became a thing of the past as the boys took note of the AA/Altered roadster under construction in the family’s basement. It was as if this full-sized car was just like one of their plastic model car kits.
“He never completed the car, but had all of the parts laid out in the basement,” Oswald recalled. “As a kid, I thought that was the neatest thing ever. We’d be down in that basement looking at all of those parts from morning until night. It didn’t take long before his brother took us to the race track. When you’re 11 years old, and a drive takes 45 minutes, that’s a big trip. It was a big trip for me.”
It was a big trip for the impressionable Oswald in so many ways. He couldn’t seem to get enough of the drag racing, and on those times when the friend’s brother didn’t go, Oswald would high-hike there and back, sometimes catching a ride home from an event that ran well into the wee hours of the morning.
“That’s how bad it was,” Oswald said of his passion for the sport.
Oswald, the oldest of five children, admits it was easy to get lost in the shuffle of a big family, adding, “I doubt I ever missed a weekend from the time I was 12 years old.”
The time growing up built the foundation for what will go down as one of the greatest drag racing careers, both in and out of the car. He left an indelible mark on Brown, considered one of drag racing’s best natural driving talents.
“Mark will be missed, that’s for sure,” Brown said. “Mark is just an awesome person, a wonderful human being. He truly was the Robin to Brian Corradi’s Batman, the Yin to his Yang. They balanced each other so well. We had so much success and I couldn’t think of a better group to spend the last near two decades with than Mark and Brian. And away from the track, Mark is such an amazing fabricator, engineer, designer and builder.”
Oswald’s departure will lead to veteran Brad Mason stepping into his role, with Chris Watson taking over as car chief for the Matco Tools team. The championship team remains largely intact for 2025, with the addition of one new crew member.
In the end, Oswald plans to spend his retirement days doing what he loves the most.
“I want to tinker and build things,” Oswald said. “That’s what I enjoy doing.”
