Back on July 19, the last thing on Shawn Reed’s mind was when he was going to win his inaugural NHRA Top Fuel Wally.
That’s because during the second qualifying session of the Northwest Nationals in Seattle, Reed’s 11,000-horsepower dragster lost the right rear tire, and his car careened across the centerline and smashed into the wall.
Reed was examined by NHRA medical personnel before being transported to an area hospital. In addition to two fractured ribs, the Washington native sustained injuries to his left hand, resulting in the loss of his left index finger and requiring that a pin be placed in his thumb.
Well, he made his return to NHRA competition at the 40th annual Reading Nationals presented by Nitro Fish at Maple Grove Raceway near Reading, Pennsylvania.
And it was a weekend for the memory books.
In the finals, Reed clocked a 3.844-second elapsed time at 326.63 mph to defeat Doug Kalitta’s 4.717 at 202.12 to capture his first Wally. The victory came one week after his return to competition at Hebron, Ohio, where he won an IHRA-sanctioned event.
“No, not really,” Reed said when asked if he could describe how this feat unfolded. “I mean, you know, things just happen, and they just keep going on throughout the day. I didn’t think about it or talk about it. What a storybook, really.”
Reed’s win came on the heels of his substitute driver Jordan Vandergriff competing for his Shawn Reed Racing team in Brainerd, Minnesota, and the U.S. Nationals in Indianapolis.
Reed then made the decision to return to the cockpit at the IHRA Outlaw Nitro Series event at Darana Raceway last weekend, hoping to prove he was ready to return to full-time competition after being injured.
The multi-time boat racing champion aced that test with flying colors.
Reed qualified third in the eight-car field and dispatched Todd Paton and Jasmine Salinas in the Sept. 10 eliminations, and finished the job Sept. 11 finale. He sped down the Ohio dragstrip at 3.819, 327.75 to beat NHRA legend Larry Dixon and secure a $50,000 victory.
Cleared medically to return to NHRA competition, he fulfilled his goal to race all six Countdown to the Championship events—and won Sunday’s playoff opener.
“You couldn’t even write it any better,” Reed said. “I mean, for what happened to me in Seattle, what happened to the team in Seattle … really. Then, Jordan stepping in and keeping our crew going on queue. This car’s been good. I’ve been telling everybody for a long time. This car’s been good, and we’re going to surprise a lot of people.
“We just have to get our Sunday morning thing down a little bit better. We get out of [first-round eliminations], and we get into kind of where we’ve been qualifying and stuff like that. But that early Sunday morning thing’s been tough on us for a year and a half, and we probably broke through … car’s been qualifying [well]. Jordan was third in Brainerd, second in Indy, you know, and [we were] fourth here. I mean, we got a great car, man. We got a great team, and they’ve been busting their butts, and I’m real proud of them.”
Reed scored wins over Kyle Satenstein, Shawn Langdon, Clay Millican and then Kalitta. With all the stars aligned for him of late, Reed had a sense of humor about his good fortune.
“I don’t have to take any money out of my [Reed Trucking & Excavating company] this week,” Reed said with a chuckle. “So, the last week over there, and this week over here, it’s really cool, man. I don’t have to take any money or steal any money from my other company to make this. I got to make payroll. I’m going to be happy to sign [those] checks.”
When Reed was in the hospital seven weeks ago, he wasn’t thinking about anything except getting a drink of water. Then when he went into a deeper mental dive, he knew his race team had plenty of promise.
“When I was laying there, I mean, when I was kind of getting my wits back about me … I know what this car can do,” Reed said. “Last year, at the end of the year, we just had a couple of issues that cost us. We didn’t qualify here, and then we went to Charlotte. Then, we still had some Sunday morning bad luck.”
Despite his adversity and setbacks, Reed still believed he had a championship-caliber team.
“After last year, I said, ‘I’m going to do everything I can to be considered in the talking [for a championship], when we get to Vegas [the second-to-last race of the year, people will be you know, Shawn Reed may be … an outsider, but we can come up and get this thing. That’s my goal. We’re going to Charlotte, and I’m not stopping, man.”
Reed moved up from 10th to a tie for fifth in the season points standings with Clay Millican only 67 points behind Kalitta.
The NHRA Four-Wide Nationals is set for Friday-Sunday, Sept. 19-21 in Charlotte. N.C. That event will be the second race in the six-race Countdown to the Championship.
“This crew is wound up, and I’m just proud of these guys, man, to put this car together. There are so many things that can go wrong, so many things that can go wrong. And these guys have really stepped up and they did a great job,” Reed said.
Considering how bleak things looked for him and his team after his Seattle crash, it would have been easy for Reed to be Capt. Negative, but he had other ideas by always believing the glass was half full.
“I’ve said it a lot, and … it makes it easy when you know God doesn’t want you,” Reed said. “So, you know, if He wanted me, He would have taken me.
“So it was easy to get back in the car and hit the throttle, to tell you the truth, because just through all that, man, just something good had to happen. I’m so happy for my guys, and I’m happy for me, too, but, man, when you get older, you just get thankful for what everybody’s done for you and with you.
“You know, I’ll remember this forever. It’s awesome.”
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