Greg Lair wins 2nd Straight Mile High Nationals Title

Greg Lair claims his second straight Top Sportsman title at the NHRA Mile High Nationals at Bandimere Speedway.

DENVER – A year after winning Top Sportsman at the Mile High Nationals, Greg Lair repeated the feat on Sunday. The win, his fourth in national event competition, came in the same Jerry Haas, manual transmission, Chevy Camaro.

That’s right, Lair has a somewhat unconventional Top Sportsman ride. While it looks very much like other cars in the class, Lair chooses to go a little different path. Instead of a powerglide transmission, Lair utilizes a Lenco manually shifted transmission.

In addition to the clutch pedal, Lair’s Camaro is powered by a naturally aspirated 900+ cubic inch motor. While others in the class choose to use power adders such as pro-chargers and nitrous, Lair sticks to an all-motor diet.

With short field at Denver, Lair only needed four win lights to claim the Wally. In round two he faced DragChamp pre-race pick to win Allen Firestone. The two Division 4 racers put on a show with Lair’s .021-pack holding off Firestone’s .027-package by .006-second.

Lair’s .047 dead four was enough to earn his a second straight final round appearance after Jim Thorp ran .068 over his dial in the semifinals. In the final round, Lair paired against another fellow Division 4 racer in Monty Weaver.

Weaver fell behind off the line after Lair took a .006 to .025 advantage. At the big end, Weaver drove around Lair taking .025 stripe to go -.005 under his 6.68 dial-in. Greg posted a .039 over 6.999 to claim the Top Sportsman Wally for the second year in a row.

Congratulations to Greg Lair on his back-to-back Top Sportsman victories at the NHRA Mile High Nationals.