Last week’s “Name a random racer” column drew an avalanche of emails that will be fodder for a feature column, but, as promised, this week I’m talking about my random guy: Top Fuel driver Yuichi Oyama.
Unless you lived in Japan, where he competed in Top Alcohol Dragster and Top Fuel, you’d probably never heard of him until his debut at the 2002 Winternationals, but by year’s end, everyone from Don Garlits to Kenny Bernstein had felt the sting of his brief eight-race appearance on the tour that season.
Oyama, who hailed from the Shinagawa ward in Tokyo Japan, purchased turnkey the ex-Don Prudhomme dragster owned by Southern Californian Robert Reehl and hired Reehl and his crew to run it for him.