The inaugural NHRA Nationals took place in 1955 at the Great Bend Municipal Airport in Great Bend, Kansas, establishing the event as the sport's premier national gathering almost from the founding of the National Hot Rod Association. As the series grew, the event relocated: to the Oklahoma State Fairgrounds in Oklahoma City for the fourth annual running in 1958, and then to Detroit Dragway in Detroit, Michigan for 1959 and 1960. In 1961 the event moved to Indianapolis Raceway Park, where it has been held ever since, following a verbal agreement between NHRA founder and Board Chairman Wally Parks and the track's then-owners. The NHRA purchased the entire Indianapolis complex in 1979.
The venue has carried several names over the decades. In 2006 it was renamed O'Reilly Raceway Park at Indianapolis after auto parts supplier O'Reilly Auto Parts acquired naming rights. Lucas Oil purchased naming rights in 2011, renaming the facility Lucas Oil Raceway at Indianapolis, and in 2022 the name was updated again to Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park.
The U.S. Nationals is traditionally held over Labor Day weekend, with final eliminations originally scheduled on Monday but moved to Sunday in 2020 and 2021 due to the compressed NHRA calendar caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and to accommodate live television on Fox. The event covers all four of the NHRA's professional classes — Top Fuel Dragster, Funny Car, Pro Stock, and Pro Stock Motorcycle — as well as an extensive range of Sportsman classes, making it by far the largest drag racing event in the world in terms of participant numbers.
Winning the U.S. Nationals carries a symbolic weight beyond points. Many champions and drivers have described a victory at Indianapolis as career-defining, in some cases surpassing a season title in cultural prestige within the drag racing community.
Under the NHRA's current broadcast deal with Fox Sports, which began in 2016, the U.S. Nationals is one of four events per season to air on the Fox broadcast network rather than the cable channels FS1 or FS2. The final-round broadcast airs live, reflecting the event's status as the marquee attraction of the NHRA calendar. Fox's involvement helped elevate viewership; in the early years of the Fox contract, the series averaged approximately 600,000 viewers per event, with major events including the Nationals attracting over 1 million viewers.
The U.S. Nationals serves as a barometer of excellence across every level of drag racing competition. Because of its massive Sportsman fields — amateur and semi-professional racers compete in dozens of bracket and index classes — a win at Indianapolis resonates far beyond the professional ranks, representing the pinnacle of achievement for grassroots drag racers as much as for Top Fuel stars. The event's unbroken run at Indianapolis since 1961, spanning every era of NHRA history from the nitro wars of the 1960s through the modern 1,000-foot era, has cemented its place as the heartbeat of American drag racing.