My Favorite Ride: 'Senior Assassin' 80-year-old couple drag race Monte Carlos

SPENCER — They've been called the "Senior Assassins." A decal on the back window of Carol Nelson's white 1987 Chevrolet Monte Carlo SS is proof.

She glanced over at her husband's car, which is the same as hers except a year older and with T-tops. "Looks like he took his off," she said, noticing his assassin decal was missing.

Carol and Wayne Nelson aren't killers. They are octogenarian drag race drivers who travel the circuit competing with others — nearly all men and few in their 80s — and one another.

"I've beat him a few times," Carol said. "Not in the finals, but in trial runs. He's generally about four hundredths of a second faster."

His 1986 Monte Carlo, with a 421 engine, is faster on the launch, front tires sometimes lifting off the ground.

Hers, with a less-powerful 406 under the hood, picks up more speed midway down the one-eighth or quarter-mile drag strips. She claims a better starting burnout.

The Nelsons drive their cars to the racetracks, where they switch out their street tires for soft-tread racing slicks they bring along.

Terre Haute, Lyons, New Hope: They've raced at these local tracks together the past 20 years or so. Before that, Wayne drag raced a Pontiac Gran Prix when they lived in Minnesota.

"I raced a (Mercury) Cougar to start with, but it was slow, about 10.78 (seconds) on the one-eighth. Then I got this car, and ran a 7.56," he said.

They bought the Monte Carlos, which did not come as a pair, around 2005. Through the years, Wayne has increased the power in each car's engine, so they've gotten faster and faster.

Parked in their front yard side-by-side recently, they were difficult to tell apart. Hers is a more shiny hardtop; it's been repainted. His has the T-tops.

They've come a long way in the drag racing world since the early days when Wayne won driving the family's 1970 Ford station wagon, which was green with wood-grain panels and an unlikely race car.

I don't know if there are any other 81-year-old women out there drag racing, but this one is a serious contender. During a race in Indianapolis last year, she had her best time ever in the quarter mile: 11.96 seconds. She reached 113 mph.

A decade ago, Carol's times put her in the top 20 of the 172 drivers in an National Hot Rod Association division that covers several states. She once lost a race, and a highly coveted NHRA Wally Trophy, to a professional driver by two thousandths of a second, mere inches.

Wayne has won two 12-pound, 18-inch-tall, brass-plated Wallys. Carol figures she'll earn hers eventually.

Carol showed me paper ticket with results from a July 2021 trial run where she beat Wayne by .004 seconds. She keeps it on the refrigerator door. Written in pencil on the top: "Great race."

They are friendly competitors. "My second year racing was when I beat him for the first time," she recalled. Was he upset? Nope. "Just really proud."

Carol said it's not all been smooth sailing. There was the time her throttle stuck at the New Hope track, and she couldn't use her brakes to stop while traveling 80 mph toward the finish line and a tall pile of dirt beyond.

"I was mentally prepared to roll the car," she said, "but I was able to slow it down by putting it in neutral and squealing around a corner."

There was the day her hood flew back and shattered the windshield as she sped down the track. And the time Wayne didn't get all of the lug nuts tightened and her back tire and brake drum flew off the car on an I-70 exit ramp.

The couple used to travel to racetracks about every weekend during the mid-April to mid-October drag season. They race less often now, but are still out there seeking faster, better track times.

Carol wants her own Wally Trophy.

Have a story to tell about a car or truck? Contact My Favorite Ride reporter Laura Lane at llane@heraldt.com or 812-318-5967.