Drag Week is built to break cars: five days, multiple drag strips, and hundreds of miles of public roads in between. One driver’s twin-turbocharged 1966 Chevy II Nova didn’t just survive the format — it won five years running, and became the first car in the event’s history to post both a six-second pass and a 200 mph run. Here’s how an all-steel, 3,500-pound Nova became the benchmark for what a real street car can do.
Meet 5-Time Drag Week Winner!!
Drag Week is designed to break cars — five days, five different tracks, and hundreds of miles of public highway driving in between, all in a car that also has to run a quarter-mile pass each day. Most builds are lucky to survive one Drag Week without a tow truck. One driver in a twin-turbocharged Chevy Nova didn’t just survive it — he won the entire thing five years in a row. Along the way, he became the first person in the event’s history to run both a six-second pass and 200 mph in the same car. What does it take to build something that consistent, in a format designed to punish consistency?
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Five Straight Wins in a Format Built to Break Cars
Larry Larson won the overall Drag Week title five consecutive years, from 2008 through 2012, behind the wheel of his twin-turbocharged 1966 Chevy II Nova. Drag Week‘s format is as much an endurance and reliability test as a speed contest — the same car has to drive hundreds of miles between different drag strips over five days while also posting a quarter-mile time each day, with no trailer allowed in between.
The First Six-Second Street Car
In 2010, Larson’s Nova became the first car in Drag Week history to complete the week with a six-second pass, eventually running as quick as 6.94 seconds at over 200 mph — remarkable for an all-steel, roughly 3,500-pound car rather than a stripped-out, carbon-bodied lightweight. The same Nova had also been part of the very first drag-and-drive event back in 2005, giving it a claim to being present at the birth of the entire format.
A Nova That Redefined ‘Street Car’
That combination of a stock-bodied, steel Chevy II and quarter-mile numbers once reserved for purpose-built race cars is exactly why the build still gets referenced whenever someone argues about what a real street car should be capable of. Larson has since built a business, Larson Race Cars, around that same drag-and-drive philosophy — proof the Nova wasn’t a one-off stunt but the start of an entire approach to building fast, durable, street-driven muscle.
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