For all the people who don’t care a bit about motorsports in general and drag-racing and the National Hot Rod Association in particular, it’s not a bad idea to pause and look back at last weekend.

The Twins are in the midst of what I said was their most entertaining season in two decades, and making a seemingly determined - if off-and-on - bid to make the playoffs, so they deserve all the fans they can attract to Target Field. The Vikings are a huge draw, and they also deserve their big crowds, even at exhibition games.

But what would happen if the Twins and Vikings decided to play their next home games 130 miles away? And to attend, fans would have to buy a three or four day ticket, find a hotel room, and pay for all their meals? My suspicion is that their attendance might take a serious hit.

And yet, when the NHRA circus pulled into Minnesota for its annual BIR weekend, the Twin Cities news media pretty well ignored the races. They got better coverage in Duluth, where a lot of us are vitally interested in following the fantastic story of Greg Anderson and Jason Line, teammates on the Summit Racing Pro Stock team. Anderson, from Duluth, and Line, who is from Wright, race matching Camaros and have had phenomenal careers, with Anderson winning four Pro Stock national championships and Line winning three.

Both drivers did well in the fiercely competitive Pro Stock battles, reaching the semifinals before both losing to ultimate finalists, but staying high in the point standings for the season. Pro Stocks are fun, because you have to use gasoline and you have to shift, which lowers speed capabilities to the 6-second range from the awesome 3-second runs of the thundering nitro-burning engines of Top Fuel and Funny Car.

 Line went up against Tanner Gray, while Anderson took on season points leader Bo Butner. The irony is that Butner is affiliated with the Summit Racing team, getting his cars from Anderson and Line, and running in the field as a sort of insurance to possibly block other top contenders from getting too many points. Butner, however, keeps winning. In this case, he was set to go, and Anderson, veteran though he is, was bitten by the immense pressure to cut the starting lights as close as possible, because a tenth of a second or even a hundredth at the start can get you a victory at the far end, when the result might be separated by only that much.

But Anderson jumped the start by just an eyelash, breaking the starting lights for a dreaded “red-light” disqualification and putting Butner in the final that Anderson wanted so badly. Line, facing Gray, got his engine and himself loaded up for a mighty run, buit it turned out to be overload, because when Line started, he had too much power, which shook his big drag slicks violently -- just for a moment, but that’s all it takes to decide a big-time drag race. Gray went on and beat Butner in the final.

As far as we can figure, the NHRA Lucas Sports Nationals drew over 100,000 fans to BIR for the four days. Some camped, most of them filled hotel and motel rooms throughout the area. But we can’t be sure how many attended, because there was precious little news and information coming out of the weekend, primarily because the Minneapolis and St. Paul newspapers didn’t even staff the event, instead trusting to call-ins or whatever the Associated Press could generate.

The Duluth News Tribune’s Jon Nowacki went over and did a fine job, although he was primarily covering Lines and Anderson, and their tough luck in the semifinals.

Meanwhile, Top Fuel and Funny Car made enormous national news. Years ago, when I covered every race at BIR and Donnybrooke, its predecessor, drag racing went from a barely tolerated event to the mainline headline event, and started drawing huge crowds. A qualifying run on Friday would be followed by more qualifying Saturday, as it remains, with all classes running eliminations on Sunday.

The Brainerd track had a mediocre reputation, because the asphalt was laid for road racing, and it often got slippery in the August heat when the drag racers ran, so times weren’t great, and racers muttered, even though they loved the clean, clear air and the Northern Minnesota lakes. It was something of a vacation for the racers, with high entertainment value.

But a foul, rainy Friday on one of those weekends put the NHRA up against it. If they didn’t get in at least one qualifying session, the whole weekend could be fouled up. The forecast was for the rain to subside, and it did, but barely. The overcast was still a thick, heavy grey, and track officials worked feverishly to try to dry out the track as an early darkness was certain. They flew media helicopters over the straightaway, and used every drying trick in the book. Finally, they decided to go for it.

When they lit up the Top Fuel cars, it was like nothing any race crowd or racer had ever imagined. The heavy, dense air caused the engines to produce unbelievable power, and the flames shot 8-10 feet out of the exhaust headers pointing upward toward that grey sky. The rumbled to the starting line, and because of all those elements coming together, the track record was shattered in Top Fuel. Then it was broken again. Track and NHRA officials who figured the track would never hold such incredible runs, scurried to keep track. When the night was over, the Top Fuel record was broken on something like 11 straight runs, and even a national record was established.

It was the same in Funny Car, and Pro Stock. But the big effect was that the NHRA, often wise in its promotional ideas, realized the fantastic appeal of the late, dark qualifying just witnessed, and established a rule that called for a late Friday session. The idea spread to other meets at other tracks.

There also was the other, more subtle benefit, because of the cooler late afternoon or early evening air making more power. At BIR, there is no chance that the times run late on Friday will be beaten by the same drivers in the same cars in the heat of the sun Saturday.

Many races are run in locations at sea level, and other places more conducive to record runs. But history repeated itself last Friday at BIR, when Leah Pritchett ran the quarter mile from a standing start in 3.640 seconds, hitting a top speed of 330.63 miles per hour. No one before Pritchett has ever covered the quarter mile that quick. In fact, Pritchett ran a 3.640 in a February event to set the previous record. This gal can drive!

But it’s mind-boggling to think of how many Top Fuel runs have been made in all the NHRA meets through the years...Would you guess a million? Most of them have been run at tracks more conducive to record-setting than BIR, and yet Pritchett’s run set the record as the all-time quickest ET in NHRA Top Fuel history.

  In addition, Friday’s Funny Car qualifying saw Robert Hight run a 3.793-second burst, hitting 338.0 mph -- and his elapsed time was also the NHRA record.

   The drama may have been missed by all but the thousands of fans at BIR, but while the media was focused on baseball, football, or trends in other stick and ball sports, the NHRA drag-racing circus made its 36th annual stop at Brainerd, and all that they left behind were the all-time records in the two fastest categories in drag racing, as well as 100,000 or so highly satisfied fans at Brainerd International Raceway.