By Nate Van Wagnen

While racing at the 66th annual NHRA U . S . Nationals near Indianapolis over Labor Day weekend , Meyer tuned his daughter , Megan Meyer , to two of her latest major accomplishments . She won the prestigious event for the second year in a row , setting a new E . T . national record in the process . Her 5.097-second pass at 278.81 during the second round of eliminations made her the first driver in Top Alcohol Dragster history to dip into the 5.00s , and her 5.090 at 280.54 in the semifinals became the new national record . The previous record , 5.103 , was set by Bill Reichert in 2007 .

The record performance and win capped off a milestone weekend for Randy Meyer Racing , as the team fielded three cars for the first time ever . Megan , the defending world champion , was joined by her younger sister , Rachel , and Julie Nataas . All three drivers were racing in the JEGS Allstars event . In the week leading up to the race , Megan announced her plans to step away from Top Alcohol Dragster competition after this season .

Drag Illustrated caught up with Meyer after the Big Go to talk about the team ’ s recordsetting weekend .

You ’ ve been the closest to touching Bill Reichert ’ s record over the last few years . How long has that record been on your radar ?

I don ’ t know that it ’ s really been on my radar . We just always run as hard as we think we can . We ’ re there to run fast and win the race . What

happens , happens on the scoreboard . I was thinking with Megan going out , it would be nice to see if we could put her in the record books on her way out . It would be a good wedding present for her .

At what point over the weekend did you realize it was possible to run that quick ?

I knew when we got into the pedalfest first round with Joey [ Severance ] that the thing was responding like I was looking for it to respond , I was just a little bit too aggressive . We backed it down from there , then that ’ s when everything fell into place . We knew we were close . We ran really good when we were up there three weeks prior with Rachel at the Indy regional . Rachel

ran 285 , so we knew if we had decent weather that we could probably get close to it or run deep into the teens .

I think a lot of people were surprised that you were able to repeat and actually run a few thousandths quicker the following day . Is that what you were expecting or were you surprised too ?

I wasn ’ t surprised because I just tweaked some areas I didn ’ t like and just tweaked it a little bit . When it ran the first . 09 , the car was very safe . It wasn ’ t on the edge of doing anything stupid . So I said let ’ s go out and see if we can run in that range somewhere .

It goes back to having good people and good parts and putting the right thing in the car every time . If you don ’ t have a good clutch person or the right people doing their jobs the right way , it doesn ’ t happen . It ’ s not just about me , it ’ s about everybody on the team . Everything fell into place and everybody worked together well . That ’ s why we repeated .

How rewarding was it to get that record and win the event with Megan just a few days after her announcement that she ’ s stepping away ?

It was rewarding . I guess people might think it was easy and you can do it any time you want . I would ’ ve done it a long time ago . But it ’ s not that easy .

I thought the time was right to roll the dice and go for it . The main thing , we were there to win the race . We didn ’ t run as good as we should ’ ve in qualifying . We were behind the eight ball from where I wanted to be . I expected to qualify better and we should ’ ve , but it is what it is .

I think the thing that ’ s really helped this year is the fact that we usually race 28 times a year for the last several years . This year , I ’ ve had a lot more time off so I was able to do a lot of stuff that I wanted that needed to get done that I hadn ’ t got done before . We didn ’ t really have a lot of time to go test , but I had time to make some pieces that I wanted to and go out and run them whenever the time was right . If we ’ d been doing our normal race every weekend and hurried up back and forth , it may not have happened because we just wouldn ’ t have had the time . Everything lined up right , things fell into place and that ’ s generally what it takes to set a record . DI

PHOTOS : COLE ROKOSKY , SHAWN CROSE