Monday, July 21, 2008
Favorite Race Car Ever voting: Early Funny Cars
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In April 1966, NHRA announced its first Funny Car classes, proposed to run in the Experimental Stock (XS) class, an outgrowth of the Factory Experimental classes that NHRA unveiled in 1964 to further Detroit’s interest in the sport. But the first “funny-looking cars” had been around before that as the factories tried to one-up one another with stock-appearing bodies hiding souped-up powertrains and sporting offset wheelbases and more in the class’ formative years, which led to the first supercharged factory experimentals (Super Factory Experimental, in NHRA’s lingo), which is where today’s Favorite Race Car Ever poll comes in, covering Early Funny Cars from 1964 through roughly the end of the decade.
As always, the readers of this column supplied the nominations (stop yelling at me for “forgetting” your favorite!), and there was no shortage of them, including several that surprised me in their popularity. So let’s all don our aluminized firesuits, strap on those breather face masks, and fire ‘em up.
Many call our first entry, the Jack Chrisman-driven Sachs & Sons Mercury Comet, the first real Funny Car and Chrisman “the father of the Funny Car,” and with good reason. Although the car did not have a full flip-top body as we know today’s Funny Cars, it did have a supercharged, nitro-burning engine and certainly opened the imagination box for what could be and was a huge fan favorite.
Chrisman was still mending after a painful 1963 accident in Pomona in the Yeakel Bros./Vince Rossi Spaghetti Benders slingshot and working at NHRA, where he met Ford’s Fran Hernandez and, through Helen Sachs’ Lincoln-Mercury dealership in Downey, Calif., which had been sponsoring FX cars for a couple of years, changed the sport. Chrisman enlisted the help of engine ace Gene Mooneyham and noted fabricator Bill Stroppe to shoehorn a blown nitro-burning 427 into a fiberglass-bodied ’64 Comet. The car did smoky burnouts and ran low 10s at 150 mph to wow the fans in Indy that year, and the installation of a rearward-mounted SOHC later pushed a lightened version of the car into the nines at more than 160 mph while all the time retaining a relatively stock appearance; the fans ate it up.
Bob Chrisman, Jack’s nephew, admits to being a little partial but still calls it his all-time fave. “A real stock-bodied passenger car, a blower, and a little nitro, and smoke those M&Hs almost the entire quarter-mile. A plain white two-door hardtop, a few decals, a little lettering, and that was it, but the seed was planted, and look where we are today.”
Jim Liberman began his Funny Car career as a hired gun wheeling a number of cars but really made his mark with the 1966 introduction of the first “Jungle Jim”-branded car, a steel-bodied, Chevy-powered Chevy II. After a national tour in 1967, “Jungle” became so popular with this car that by 1968 he hired Clare Sanders to drive a second similar entry.
Like many Funny Car pioneers, Gas Ronda was a former Super Stock racer who caught the wave early on. The Southern California driver began racing Funny Cars in 1966 and retired in early 1970 after a very nasty Funny Car fire at the 1970 AHRA Winternationals, but he left his mark on the scene with his Russ Davis-sponsored Mustang floppers, the first of which was built by Holman-Moody and featured a cool, flip-front clip, the early predecessor to the flip-top body. Ronda never won an NHRA national event with his cars but won several times at the prestigious OCIR Manufacturers Meets.
David “Scooter” West reminisces, “I saw this race car make many runs in SoCal during the early days of drag racing. I would hang out at OCIR and Lions on all the big race weekends. My most memorable memory of Gas Ronda was when I went to my local hobby shop and purchased the Revell model of the famed flopper. I hurried home to start building this plastic masterpiece. To my surprise, when I opened the box, there was a cardboard 45 rpm record in the box. The record had a picture of Gas Ronda on it, so this was going to be good! I hurried into my brother’s bedroom and played the record. It was a recording of the car doing a burnout with the announcer talking in the background, then the sound of the car making a pass. When I finished building the model, I took it back to the hobby shop where it sat on display in their front window for a couple of weeks. I had even put shredded cotton balls behind the rear tires to simulate the smoking burnout that Gas Ronda was famous for.”
Pontiac fanatic Arnie Beswick’s Tameless Tiger GTO was a match-race terror in the mid-1960s and has been credited in some corners with the first nine-second Funny Car run and, in a more modern and lighter form, eventually went as quick as 8.30s. Beswick, too, got his start in the Super Stock classes and was a participant at NHRA’s first “Winternationals,” a meet co-hosted by NASCAR in Florida, and his Tempest-body FX cars laid the groundwork for the GTO, which he built from a ’64 frame.
Recalls reader Dow Bancroft, “Here was a local guy, an independent, with a Pontiac no less, beating up on a lot of big-name cars. Arnie always had time for fans, and every run was a showpiece, win or lose. A real down-to-earth guy who loved to race.”
Another Pontiac stalwart team was that of the Gay brothers, Don and Roy, whose Texas-based machines ran out of the family Pontiac dealership in Dickinson, Texas (a fact that held true even through Don Gay Jr.’s short stint in the nitro ranks in the late 1980s), and ruled the Southwest. Don was just a teenager when he first began racing the family Pontiacs in Stock, then transitioned into altered-wheelbase cars and finally Funny Car, where they fielded a series of cars under the Infinity name; Roy took over the wheel of the nitroburner after a few years, and the car nominated here is their unique rainbow Infinity III Firebird from 1967.
The Corvair holds a special spot in American automobile history as the target of Ralph Nader’s scorn, but on the dragstrip, it’s fondly remembered under the reins of Doug Thorley as a car that ran as well as it looked. The Doug’s Headers Corvair won the 1967 U.S. Nationals with a stunning 7.69-second pass and ran well into the 190-mph range. Pat Foster built the car, which had tinted Plexiglas windows, a lace paint job, and gold painted Halibrand mags. “ ... the poster child of late-‘60s fads,” noted Danny White of 60sfunnycars.com. While it was not the only Corvair Funny Car – Terry Hedrick (Seaton’s Shaker), Hayden Proffitt, and others also wheeled Corvairs – it seems to be the most revered, at least among our readers. “Period-correct psychedelic paint scheme and amazing performances,” summarized reader Terry Spencer.
In the history of Funny Cars, there seems to be no more synonymous with the term “bad luck” than the fabled Beach City Corvette. Funny Car builder and painter Don Kirby fielded this topless Corvette with the backing of Beach City Chevrolet, but the cars, despite hosting a series of top-name shoes, repeatedly crashed or burned, including a particularly memorable incident that left the BCC burning on the interstate past the end of the Orange County Int’l Raceway shutdown area. Regardless, the car is fondly remembered for its sharp looks.
In 1966, Funny Cars were still trying to figure out who and what they were, and many body styles were tried for their ability to grab attention more than their ability to perform; chief among those was a line of Jeep-bodied floppers. And none was more famous than Roger Wolford’s and Ed Lenarth’s Secret Weapon. Despite being known for its inconsistency, the car actually won a few match races and ran low eights, but the Jeeps later were outlawed by NHRA.
Said James Williams of the car, “It was outrageous and loud, with Army green colors, high-gear only (unique for the era), and feared by its competitors.”
Funny Cars took a quantum leap forward with the 1969 debut of a pair of Mustangs – one red, the other blue -- built by Pat Foster for Mickey Thompson, one of which he drove and the other shoed by Danny Ongais. Built lighter and with narrower framerails and fitted with a dragster-like roll cage and zoomie headers, the cars revolutionized the class and ran into the sixes at more than 215 mph. Foster’s red mount was ill-fated, but Ongais’ blue bomber won the 1969 Springnationals and U.S. Nationals.
Opined Bob Nielsen, “I do not think Ongais knew how to lift his right foot off the accelerator once he left the starting line. Many times the car would be completely sideways, and one would think that he was going to hit the trackside rail for sure, but he would not lift and drive back to the middle of the lane and usually secure the win. I am sure that there were many trackside photographers that were given a little scare more than once when Ongais did this and needed to visit the dry cleaners afterwards!”
The car that Ongais defeated in that 1969 Indy final is another of our nominees, the Barracuda of “Big John” Mazmanian,” driven by his nephew, Rich Siroonian. The car, like all of “Big John’s” rides, sported his trademark candy-apple-red paint scheme and gold-leaf lettering; it was hot off a big win at OCIR’s Manufacturers Meet in 1968, but Siroonian red-lighted to Ongais in the final.
Win or lose, Alan Davidson still loves that car. “I went to my first drag race, Bakersfield March Meet in 1969, and that was my first exposure at actually seeing these cars go,” he recalled. “I had just read the mags before. That 'Cuda was gorgeous, candy-apple-red paint job. Siroonian had just won an event in SoCal and put on a great show. Burnouts, spectacular! The sights, the sounds, the smells just made me a fan forever. I go to each of the Pomona events and have for years, but that car sticks in my mind.”
Roland Leong’s Hawaiian entries had long been established as winners in Top Fuel, having accomplished an amazing feat of winning the Winternationals and U.S. Nationals back to back with different drivers (Don Prudhomme and Mike Snively) in 1965 and 1966, and the winning legacy continued into Funny Car. The first Hawaiian, a Logghe-built car with a full-size Charger body, kited in Pomona in a memorable, high-flying top-end accident at the 1969 Winternationals and was replaced with what was a dubbed a “mini Charger” body and a car that proved quite successful.
Twenty years before he would win the NHRA Funny Car world championship, Bruce Larson already was a star in 1969 with his USA-1 line of race cars. Larson had been racing since he was a teenager and had set national records in NHRA A/Sports and AA/Sports with a ’64 Cobra, but his Logghe-chassised, Chevy-powered ’68 Camaro Funny Car was truly a strong runner, especially on his native East Coast, where he recorded unprecedented elapsed times for the era, including a 7.41 that earned him national attention.
Recalled Texas reader Terry Barnes, “I received my first issue of Hot Rod Magazine in the fall of 1969, [which] had a picture of the USA-1 Camaro Funny Car ... it was love at first sight. I graduated from high school in May of 1972 and in August of the same year, I bought my Camaro, a 1969 Indy pace car version hardtop. In 1975, I started running a USA-1 license plate on the front of the car, our daily driver for many years. At the 2008 Hot Rod Reunion in Bowling Green -- and, yes, we drove the Camaro from Lubbock, Texas, and, yes, it had a USA-1 plate on the front-- I was walking in the pits, and there it was, the car that I had fallen in love with so many years ago. I was overcome with emotion; I just had to reach out and touch the car (sorry, Bruce). I couldn't believe that I was finally getting to see the car. I bought a silver Sharpie and took the glove compartment door off the car and took it back down in the pits, where Bruce graciously signed it for me. After 39 years, the circle was complete.”
The famed team of Paul Candies & Leonard Hughes fielded a lot of winning cars over the years, won a handful of championships, and with Hughes and team driver Larry Reyes, created the first all-team Funny Car final way back at the 1970 Gatornationals, and the car in this poll is the car that didn’t win -- their sleek fastback Barracuda driven by Reyes. Before Reyes drove it, Hughes powered the Logghe-chassised machine to low e.t. and top speed honors at Indianapolis in 1968 and top speed at the 1969 Winternationals and U.S. Nationals.
“I grew up in Houma, La., and lived near Leonard Hughes,” says Lance Peltier. “I remember before those guys built their shop, Leonard lived in a small house with no garage, only a carport. He would have that '69 ‘Cuda on jackstands under his carport, the body would lay in his front lawn and the ramp truck parked in the ditch along the street. At night he would just cover it up under the carport. It was extremely fast and won every race it entered at the new Houma track, Southland Dragways. C&H ended up campaigning many, many beautiful cars, but their ’69 is the one that really has a place in my heart.”
Nelson Carter's Super Chief Dodge Charger was one of Southern California’s most colorful Funny Cars, sporting a myriad of eye-catching paint schemes, many of which included the dreaded color green and was shoed in its inception by another guy with green in his blood, Dave Beebe. Later versions were driven by the likes of Gary Burgin, Tom Grose, Ron O’Donnell, Bob Pickett, Steve “Okie” Bernd, and others.
Say “Blue Max” to most Funny Car fans, and they’ll quickly answer back with “Raymond Beadle,” but Harry Schmidt’s blue monster flew long before the gregarious Texan powered it to three world championships in the late 1970s. Jake Johnston and Richard Tharp wheeled early versions of the Max in the late 1960s and early 1970s and were big winners on the match-race trail and helped build the foundation for what was to come.
And last, and certainly not least, is the famed Chi-Town Hustler of John Farkonas, Austin Coil, and Pat Minick, whose '69 Dodge Charger wowed late-1960s fans with incredibly long and smoky burnouts. Coil, now of John Force fame, of course, was the tuner back then and Minick the driver, and although the car ran hard, in the sixes at over 200 mph, it’s best remembered for its showy burnouts.
Many thanks to Bob Plumer/Drag Race Memories for the use of some of the photos here and to Danny White’s site for the research. Okay, there you have it … the 16 entries for our Early Funny Cars ballot. The floor is yours!
| Final results for all-time favorite early door car/roadster/altered | ||
| Stone, Woods and Cook Willys | 1030 | (27.06%) |
| Sox & Martin Barracuda | 646 | (16.97%) |
| Bill Jenkins '68 Camaro | 574 | (15.08%) |
| Mooneyham & Sharp 554 coupe | 367 | (9.27%) |
| “Ohio George” Montgomery Willys | 235 | (6.17%) |
| Don Carlton Motown Missile | 202 | (5.31%) |
| Gas Ronda Thunderbolt | 176 | (4.62%) |
| Prock and Howell "F" Troop Willys | 152 | (3.99%) |
| Dick Landy Dodge Dart | 131 | (3.44%) |
| Ratican-Jackson-Stearns Fiat | 95 | (2.50%) |
| Danny Townsend bantam roadster | 81 | (2.13%) |
| Shores & Hess Anglia | 52 | (1.37%) |
| Hugh Tucker '28 Chevy AA/SR | 37 | (0.97%) |
| Terry Hoard Samurai Warrior Mazda | 28 | (0.74%) |
Total Votes: 3806 | ||
Stone-Woods-Cook ran away with the voting early and never looked back and advances to the next round, but it’s interesting to note that the next four entries – the Sox & Martin 'Cudas, Bill Jenkins’ '68 Camaro, the Mooneyham & Sharp 554, and “Ohio George’s” Willys -- all received more votes than the third-place finisher in the Exhibition Cars voting. Whether or not those votes are enough to advance them as well to the next round remains to be seen until the results from the remainder of the polls are tallied.
In case you haven’t voted yet in our Early Dragsters poll below, there’s still time, but it, too, soon will be closing. After an early neck-and-neck fight with the Beebe & Mulligan Fighting Irish Top Fueler that went on for days, the Freight Train has forged comfortably ahead into the top spot, and there’s a pretty good battle being waged for third between the Greer-Black-Prudhomme dragster and Don Garlits’ Swampt Rat VI, separated by just six votes as I write this.
Okay, that’s it for today … thanks for playing so far. We’re making some serious headway. Next up: 1970s Top Fuelers, probably Thursday.
Friday, July 18, 2008
Voting recap, making it up as I go, and your stories
| Final results for all-time favorite exhibition car! | ||
| "Winged Express" fuel altered | 1394 | (36.53%) |
| "Little Red Wagon" wheelstander | 1109 | (29.06%) |
| " L.A. Dart" wheelstander | 217 | (5.69%) |
| "Nanook" fuel altered | 150 | (3.93%) |
| "Jolly Rancher Candyland Stage" | 149 | (3.90%) |
| "Shockwave" jet truck | 137 | (3.59%) |
| Potter's Chevy-engined motorcycle | 124 | (3.25%) |
| "Green Mamba" jet dragster | 124 | (3.25%) |
| "Vanishing Point" rocket Funny Car | 109 | (2.86%) |
| Capt. Jack's rocket go-kart | 66 | (1.73%) |
| "Hell on Wheels" tank wheelstander | 65 | (1.70%) |
| "Oxygen" rocket dragster | 62 | (1.62%) |
| "Backup Pickup" wheelstander | 44 | (1.15%) |
| Terminal Van Lines Top Fuel Bike | 31 | (0.81%) |
| Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Top Fuel Bike | 20 | (0.52%) |
| "Age of Aquarius" rocket dragster | 15 | (0.39%) |
Total Votes: 3816 | ||
As you may see if you here (and if you scroll down), the first poll, for Exhibition cars, is now closed to voting, which I did yesterday. My original plan was to keep voting open in all polls until the end, but as I boiled down the “rules” for the contest, I realized that I needed to have some apples-to-apples comparisons to decide who goes to the next round, so I decided that each poll should have a finite life span, which I determined was 3,800 votes, since voting had begun to taper off in that first poll and that was the closest milestone. I apologize for making this up as I go, but initially I wasn’t sure how the voting would go (e.g., would some only vote in certain polls?).
My first thought was to advance the two top vote-getters in each of the seven polls and then add two wild cards based on the results to get a 16-car final field (I know, a smarter man would have eight categories). But what if second and third place (and perhaps even fourth) in a poll were more popular than number two in one of the others polls?
For example: In the Exhibition poll, Willie Borsch’s Winged Express fuel altered and Bill “Maverick” Golden’s Little Red Wagon wheelstander gobbled up respective chunks of 36 and 29 percent of the votes, each with well over 1,100 tallies, yet Bill Shrewsberry’s L.A. Dart wheelstander was the next closest with just more than 200 votes and only about 6 percent of the votes. By contrast, although the Stone-Woods-Cook Willys was the clear leader in the Early Door Cars/Roadsters poll, there was a helluva battle for second place between the Sox & Martin Barracuda, Bill Jenkins’ ’69 Camaro, and the Mooneyham & Sharp 554 and the Early Top Fuelers poll has numerous battles for position going (the Fighting Irish started out fast with the leas but were flagged down yesterday by the Freight Train) it just doesn’t seem fair to pick only two to advance.
So, by capping the votes at a selected point, I can at least determine the relative support of each car to help round out the final field, which will now work as follows: Each winner of each poll will advance to the final vote, and nine others will round out the field based on their relative popularity among all other non-winners. If I don't get 3,800 votes in a poll, I can whip out my high-school slide rule throw some fancy math at it to extrapolate the results. That’s the plan; if you have a better or more scientific plan, I’d love to hear it.
No one ever said this job would be easy.
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Curtis Bosarge also dropped me a note to correct the description of Terry Hoard’s awesome rotary-powered Samurai Warrior Modified-class Mazda. Bosarge, who has been around drag racing since 1965, haunting Louisiana tracks such as Southland Dragway, LaPlace Dragway, State Capitol Dragway, and No Problem Raceway Park, says that the car actually ran a two-rotor powerplant (a dual distributor 12A) and not a four-rotor.
Mike Collins, who runs the American Autoparts News Web site in England, passed along this picture of one of our poll candidates, the famed Glass Slipper, which was part of last weekend’s three-day Goodwood Festival of Speed in West Sussex, England.
The Wally Parks NHRA Motorsports Museum presented by Automobile Club of Southern California was responsible for getting the Slipper and some other pretty famous iron (some of it visible in this shot) to England for the cricket pitch display, including two more of our poll candidates, the Beebe & Mulligan car and Tommy Ivo’s Showboat, plus Art Chrisman’s 25, Chrisman’s Hustler I, Ivo’s Barnstormer, the Howard Cams Rattler, The Addict, and the Over The Hill Gang car.
“It was a blast sitting in front of the Glass Slipper as it fired whilst sitting on the oldest cricket pitch in the world,” said Collins, “and then strolling slowly between the cars with the nitro blasts getting bigger and better. My stroll ended between the Howard Cams Rattler and Over the Hill Gang cars where the horsepower was hot and heavy. Wow!”
One of the questions I’ve received so far is “Why didn’t you include [pick a car]?” and the answer is simple. I only placed into the poll cars that were nominated by the readers of this column and also only those that received more than one nomination. I could see obvious omissions as I charted them, and I guess I could have manufactured nominations for them, but I decided to keep it as pure as I could. Among the most noted omissions were Bob Motz’s groundbreaking Kenworth jet truck and the Hemi Under Glass wheelstander (seen here racing the Little Red Wagon in Pete Gemar's great shot); both were such egregious oversights that I even felt compelled to mention them in the original column.
The historic Chrisman & Cannon Hustler dragster also was overlooked, as was Roland Leong’s mid-‘60s Hawaiian Top Fueler. Roland himself even wrote to me to ask about the omission. “The car made my career and jump-started Don Prudhomme's career,” he pointed out, “and was the first dragster to win Top Fuel at the Winternats and Nationals the same year and repeated the feat with a different driver the following year.” Excellent points for sure and would definitely make the car a must-include for famous cars (as opposed to favored cars), but Roland was happy to hear that the ’69 Hawaiian Funny Car did make the ballot for the Early Funny Cars poll (coming soon!). He’s also agreed to share with me the tale of those two amazing seasons for a future column here. Mahalo, Roland!
Also, for you Keeling & Clayton fans (including Jerry Clayton himself) who wanted to know why the California Charger was not included in the Early Dragsters poll, it’s because I have them both (front- and rear-engined) in the upcoming ‘70s Top Fuelers poll. Man, the fun is just beginning.
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Michigander Cecil Kain recalls being at Martin Dragway, Mich., in the mid-1960s and seeing the L.A. Dart and Golden’s Little Red Wagon going head to head. “The L.A. Dart drifted off center, and ‘Wild Bill’ kept it going too long. He smashed into the wall, spun around, hit the wall again. Destroyed the car. He got out and walked to the microphone and said, ‘How did you like that $10,000 trick?' We were all so glad he wasn't injured. Of course, Golden went straight down the track the whole quarter-mile, on his tail and sparks flying! It was just great.”
Steve Ojard from Washington remembers an event in Seattle where Shrewsberry was racing Richard Schroeder’s Bad Bossa Nova. “The pre-race mayhem was incredible,” he wrote. “Schroeder put two guys on each side of the green Nova’s trunk for stability and BURIED the whole east end of the track, the tower, the pits in smoke from about a three-minute burnout, so ‘Wild Bill’ answers, leaving the starting line wheels up, goes all the way downtrack that way, then a few hundred feet past the top end. He sets it down, spins out, then without stopping, the angry Dart does a 180 pirouette right up into another wheelie, coming back to the starting line, bouncing almost to a stop behind the Tree and whips back around again to stage. OMG … brought the house down!”
Mick Michelsen said he had a tough time in the first poll picking between “Slammin’ Sammy” Miller’s Vanishing Point rocket car and the Green Mamba jet car, both of which were visitors to his local Florida dragstrip in the late 1970s. “The run I’ll never forget was Miller giving Shirl Greer in his Chain Lightning Mustang a one-and-a-half-second head start. He then laid down a 4.11 at 308 mph. Shirl said he still had the lead [at the mile-per-hour light] when Miller came by and had the chutes out before Shirl got to the finish line. One word: Unbelievable.”
Ken Flitsch, who calls Great Lakes Dragaway his home away from home, says his greatest memories are of the jet cars such as the Green Mamba in the pits. “The Grove had this steel post sunk in the ground at the very end of the pits, and the jet guys, believe it or not, would take a chain and attach it to the car and the other end to this post,” he wrote. “They would fire up the car and hit the afterburner several times. They had this dial gauge in the chain link, and this as I was told was how they tuned the car. We would stand behind the car (off to the side) and watch this totally awesome display. As far as Capt. Jack McClure goes, this guy had gonads of steel. We would stand behind him at the start line. He would launch that kart and shut it off early and still snap off sixes at 200 plus; man, what a ride laying on his back six inches off the ground.”
Bill Carrell has his own unique memories of one of our favorite dragsters, Swamp Rat 6.
“Back in 1969, I was working at Thompson Drag Raceway and heard on the PA that a local was in the hospital after flipping his rail in the lights at Dragway 42. His name was Al Goodman, and he was in the county hospital. I decided that I would pay him a visit and wish him well. I actually baked a small sheet cake with a dragster on it and hitchhiked all the way out there with that thing. I went to his room, and ... oh … broken back, black and blue, and not looking real good. After I caught my composure, we had a nice talk, and he gave me his contact information and took mine. He said after he got well he wanted me to come out and see the car. I was thrilled. A few months went by, and I got a phone call and directions and again thumbed it out to his place. The car still had clods of dirt stuck in it, but overall not too bad. The roll bar was sawn through where it had scraped on the pavement, and the four-hole Hilborn injector had the corner scraped off, too. He told me that he bought this digger from Don Garlits and it was the first over 200 mph. I was in shock and had no way to dispute what he told me, but I remembered what he said. A few years ago I wrote to Don and asked him about that car. He wrote back and told me that yes he did sell that car to Al and then proceeded to tell me how he got it back. He said he called Al, and Al said that he still had the car ... he buried it as it stood in his backyard. Don said ‘Dig it up; I'd like it for the museum’; when I read that, I cracked up.”
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And here’s one really early dragster that didn’t make this round of Favorite Early Dragsters but could well be on the ballot next time. Jeff DeGrandis, a member of the ultracool Standard 1320 mailing-list group (to which I recently was accepted; thank you, guys) and a supervising producer at Nickelodeon Animation Studios, drew up this little gem – the Fred Flintstone-driven Rockmaster Dart -- a few years ago to supplement a conversation the group was having.
Among his many charges are the ultra-popular Go, Diego, Go! and Dora the Explorer shows, big favorites of my grandson Jaden.
I e-mailed DeGrandis for permission to share this drawing with you all and mentioned Jaden’s obsession with Diego, and the next thing I know, we’re talking on the telephone, he’s offering to make a special drawing for the little guy, and I’m blown away.
Turns out that in addition to his Nick work and editorial cartoons for DRO, DeGrandis is among those charged with keeping alive the artwork of Ed “Big Daddy” Roth and recently was named the 2008 Ed “Big Daddy” Roth Artist of the Year. His gearhead inclinations go beyond the drawing board; he’s also just about wrapped up the reconstruction of a Dragmaster Dart dragster (the drawing above is an obvious salute to his predilection for the car), similar to the famed car on display at the Wally Parks NHRA Motorsports Museum. He spied the car on eBay “for a song” and, despite a non-original roll cage, recognized its value and snatched it up. Original Dragmaster Dode Martin rolled new bars for DeGrandis, and he restored it from the dash back and has a ’67 327 Chevy with three deuces ready to plop in. He hopes to have the new piece ready for this year’s California Hot Rod Reunion.
You can see more of DeGrandis’ work on his blog, including a nice tribute to Scott Kalitta and some of his Rat Fink work.
Here’s a picture of J-De (ha! I just met the guy and already I’ve given him a nickname) on the right with another of our poll honorees (and fellow Standard 1320 member), Norm Weekly, of Frantic Four fame, at the 2007 Winternationals.
Okay, that's all for this week. Look for the Early Funny Cars poll Monday. Thanks for playing!
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Favorite Race Car Ever voting: Early Dragsters
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I’d wager that a fair portion of the regular readers of this column got their introduction to the sport courtesy of front-engine Top Fuelers and Top Gassers and that many of those early machines still hold a fond spot in your hearts. Looking over the list of nominees, there isn’t a weak dog in the batch; all are truly memorable, wonderful machines from an amazing era in our sport, and, luckily for today’s fans, many have been re-created so that they can once again be ogled.
So, in no particular order, here are the entrants in the Early Dragsters portion of our Favorite Race Car Ever poll. Pick wisely -- you only get one vote!
Perhaps one of the sport’s earliest streamliners is the fabulous Glass Slipper entry of Ed and Roy Cortopassi and Doug Butler. Built in 1954, its streamlined fiberglass body and enclosed canopy was a head-turner wherever it went and was named
Although memorable in its design to anyone who saw it run, anyone who ever heard the Speed Sport Roadster run will never forget it, either. Dubbed "Ol' Noisy" due to a unique exhaust system that channeled eight open pipes underneath the body, the Tucson, Ariz.-based car, campaigned by "Red" Greth, Lyle Fisher, Joe Bush, and the late Don Maynard, was a true crowd-pleaser. With a unique rear-engine shape that sandwiched a '23-T Ford body between a fiberglass nose and rear canopy that hid a carbureted Hemi cackling 100 percent nitro, the car ran 160.14 mph at the 1957 ATAA World Series to set a world record and ran as fast as 169 mph later that year. The car was retired in 1958 and a newer version built, but the original is still revered by fans everywhere.
The Arfons brothers campaigned a lot of cars in their time, from early dragsters to land-speed cars, but the cars on this list are their early Allison-powered Green Monster dragsters. Their first race car, so the story goes, was a six-cylinder-powered three-wheeler with an ugly green paint job that the announcer at their local track began referring to as a “green monster,” and the name stuck. The brothers experimented with the Allison engines, piston-powered, 2,000-horsepower monsters originally used in fighter planes, due to their post-war abundance, cheapness, and reliability, and their Green Monster 6 was the first to exceed 150 mph at the 1956 Nationals in
More than 30 versions of this next car have been built, but for some fans, it’s the original that sticks out the most. Swamp Rat I, built in the mid-1950s in a home garage by a young Floridian named Don Garlits, launched him on his path to fame and glory. Garlits was setting records and winning with this car almost from the start, running 176.4 mph in November 1958 in Brooksville, Fla., and he later was the first to exceed 180 mph with an eight-Stromberg carbureted 454-cid Chrysler engine. Garlits eventually traveled west with this car, winning a big meet in
Recalls reader William Tickle, “As a 14-year-old kid just getting interested in cars, I was wondering what all the guys in high school were talking about when they were discussing drag racing and in particular a Mr. Donald G. Garlits. ‘What did he run? How fast did he go?’ One day I noticed a cardboard sign tacked to a phone pole in our neighborhood advertising said Mr. Garlits appearing at Golden Triangle Drag Strip in
Not surprisingly, Garlits has multiple cars on the list; the second is Swamp Rat VI, the 392-powered Wynn’s Winder that was the first car to top 200 mph, at Island Dragway in New Jersey in 1964, and the car with which later that year he won his first of eight U.S. Nationals titles. Lifelong Floridian Jim Hill was there and among those who nominated this car.
“In late August 1964, I finagled my way into ditching the start of my senior year in high school at Hialeah High, in
The week started with NHRA’s official tech inspections. In those days, tech was held in the parking lot of the shopping center at the corner of
“Qualifying and class runoffs were nothing short of incredible, beginning with the first pair of cars at 8 a.m. to the last pair at 6 p.m. It was wall-to-wall, back-to-back drag racing action featuring a never-ending variety of race cars!
"For the first time in many years, nitro fuel dragsters were again welcomed at the Nationals. There was a dizzying turnout, and all the 'names' were there ... Garlits, The Hawaiian, Prudhomme, Ivo, Ongais, The Guzler, Frantic Four, ‘Sneaky Pete’ Robinson, Eddie Hill, Joe Schubeck, Crossley-Williams-Swan, Tom Hoover, The Ramchargers, Connie Swingle, Logghe Bros., Dick Vest, Gordon Collett, Connie Kalitta, and so many more. On Sunday, the fuelers ran round after round for the AA/FD class trophy and the chance to sit out until the final round, and all e.t.s counted as qualifying numbers. On Monday, Garlits was the man, the first Top Fuel winner at the IRP-hosted Nationals.
“In winning Top Fuel, Garlits was awarded a set of Craftsman tools, a few other merchandise awards (I seem to remember a Sturdevant torque wrench, a P&G valve gapper, and a few other trinkets), and, of course, the Nationals Top Eliminator trophy. He had other race dates to keep, so we volunteered to bring home to
“With that said, my all-time favorite has got to be that long, black 392 Hemi-powered Wynn’s Jammer, the one, true icon of Don Garlits’ lengthy, storied drag racing career. To this day, whenever I see a photo of that car, my memory eases me back to those days and the1964 NHRA Nationals.”
If Garlits can have two cars on the list, it’s only fair that drag racing’s other great Don, Don “the Snake" Prudhomme, would have two as well.
Arguably the car that made Prudhomme a star was the fabled Greer-Black-Prudhomme Top Fueler. The short-wheelbased yellow killer, built by Kent Fuller for Tommy Greer and tuned by the legendary Keith Black, racked up a reported (and relatively undocumented) 236-7 win-loss record from June 17, 1962, through the end of the 1964 season, primarily at Lions but also up and down the West Coast and even in occasional forays across the nation. Just based on the info that is available, the car won well over 90 percent of its head-to-head races. With high sevens at 190 mph, it was the dominant car in those years and provided a perfect résumé that catapulted Prudhomme into the saddle of Roland Leong’s Hawaiian in 1965.
After leaving Leong at the end of 1965 and going it alone for a year, Prudhomme teamed with Lou Baney on a very successful Ed Pink-tuned Top Fueler that’s the second of his cars on the ballot, the Baney & Prudhomme SOHC Ford-powered dragster that not only won the 1967 Springnationals in Bristol, Tenn., but also recorded the class’ first six-second run in national event competition, a first-round 6.99 that he later bettered with a 6.92 in the final. He also came within one round of winning his first world championship that year but lost in the final in
What can be said about the next entry that I haven’t already said in a number of my columns published in May? The John Peters & Nye Frank dual-engine Freight Train Top Gasser was an iconic car of drag racing’s 1960s that ran as hard and as often as any car could be expected and won most of the time.
Arthur Trim, like many Train buffs, is vocal in his support. “Hands down, easiest answer to your question: the most all-time favorite, most-bad-ass, go-get-'em, run-what-you-brung, drag race car ever is the Freight Train! John Peters, almost by accident, worked very hard to be competitive wherever, whenever he unloaded his racer. John also had the knack of picking the right driver. Considering all of the phases and modifications, clutches, tires, engine locations, wheelbase length, blower drives, engine couplings, and on and on. The Train was always competitive out of the box, off the trailer, always!”
Next on the multi-engine hot parade is the twin-engined, dual-rear-tired Double Dragon dragster of “the Texan,” Eddie Hill, whose tires literally dug holes in the starting line at the 1961 NHRA Nationals in
If two is good, then four must be better, right? “T.V. Tommy” Ivo once called his four-engined, four-wheel-drive Showboat dragster, which debuted in 1960, “the car that really made my career.” Although the car, powered by a quadruple-header of injected Buick engines, finished its life as an exhibition car clad in a station wagon body, Ivo initially built the car as a serious race car. Instantaneous four-wheel smoke and speeds of 170 mph made it a crowd-pleaser, win or lose. There’s some great footage of the car in action here, with Ivo explaining how the car worked (the two right engines, joined at the crankshafts, drove the rear wheels; the left engines, mounted backward in the chassis, drove the front wheels through a reverse ring and pinion … genius!).
Reader Mike Bockius remembers Ivo’s car well, “its four drag slicks smoking up everything so bad that you couldn't see anything.”
Another of the symbolic West Coast Top Fuelers of the early 1960s, the Stellings & Hampshire entry was also built by the era’s master, Fuller, for Larry Stellings and driver Jeep Hampshire. The beautiful full-bodied candy-red and metal-flake-silver car was one of the region’s strongest in 1963-64, running down into the 7.60s, and was the epitome of what a fuel dragster should look like in those times. The car also was featured in the 1964 Annette Funicello/Frankie Avalon film
Wrote Mark Wales, “My favorite car for not only its performance but also for its ‘drop-dead’ looks is the Stellings & Hampshire beauty. The bodywork was perfect, with lines that defined the ultimate design for a Top Fueler for many years to come, plus the thing ran like gangbusters, setting several track records for e.t. and speed. It had a distinctive deep-throated sound out of the trusty 354 Chrysler engine that told you that it not only had the pretty looks, but that they also meant business.”
Back in the day, a couple of pals could pool their resources, their skills, and their wiles and have a pretty successful Top Fuel operation, which is exactly the case of the famed “Frantic Four” – Norm Weekly, Ron Rivero, Jim Fox, and Dennis Holding – who fielded one of the most popular Top Fuelers of the early to mid-1960s. Their small-block Chrysler-powered dragster, with “Stormin’ Norman” at the wheel, set track records up and down the West Cast and made them a household name among drag racing aficionados.
Offered Terry Spencer, “My number-one favorite car, for sentimental reasons, was the Frantic Four dragster with the ‘little’ 354 motor, running against all the 392s of the day and beating most of them. The most glorious day for me and this car came at
A lot of cars got a lot of nominations, but no car/team seemed to have as many reasons supplied by the nominator than that of the popular Surfers Top Fuel team of Tom Jobe, Robert Skinner, and wheelman Mike Sorokin. The trio, who ran on a shoestring budget and built their first car to a wheelbase that had to fit into the garage where they quartered the car at Skinner’s mother’s hotel, were always a handful at SoCal tracks on a weekly basis from 1963 through 1966 and won major meets such as the 1966 March Meet and Fontana’s 200-mph Club event. The team split up after the 1966 season, and Sorokin was killed the following year while driving for another team.
“Three guys having a great time and winning against much bigger names,” summarized Wayne Brunmier. “It might not have been pretty, but when Surfers fired up, running near 100 percent nitro – that sound, the smell of nitro – you knew it was the Surfers.”
Added Jim Elliott, “If I had to pick just one car, it would have to be the Surfers' Top Fuel car, not because it was a radical new design or the greatest money could buy. I love that car because it was built and raced by low-dollar guys who did it just to see if they could.”
To which Heath Powell added pointedly, "The baddest and most functional slingshot of its time.”
If you’ve followed the narrative above, you’ve no doubt deduced that Kent Fuller was quite the chassis builder and never lacking for ideas, many of which manifested themselves in the Magicar dragster. A unique ladder-bar arrangement supported the entire drivetrain that, in theory, would better plant the rear end, and a flexible front suspension accommodated for engine torque. Brothers Ron and Dennis Winkel teamed with photographer Kaye Trapp, and veteran wheelman Gary Casaday was tapped as the driver, but the car’s performance proved as inconsistent as the car was beautiful. In 26 events, it had three different drivers – Casady, Jeep Hampshire (the most successful of the trio), and future Top Fuel champ Gerry Glenn – but won just three times and ran mid-sevens at more than 200 mph. Originally painted in gold leaf and then red, it appears regularly at Cacklefest events in its original color.
Speaking of color, there may have been no more colorful character on the early landscape of early dragsters than “Flaming Frank” Pedregon. The father of current nitro Funny Car racers Tony, Cruz, and Frank Jr., his fuel-burning coupe would literally light the rear tires on fire during a run. (Because of its dragster-like extended-wheelbase appearance, I’ve included it here rather than with the door cars/roadsters.) The car was homebuilt yet ran like all get-out, and Pedregon was a great innovator and master showman.
Last and certainly not least is the Fighing Irish Top Fuel dragster of driver John “the Zookeper” Mulligan and partner Tim Beebe. Based on the mutual Irish heritage of the duo and painted with a memorable striped-green scheme, the car was simply one of the quickest cars of the late 1960s. During the 1967 season, they recorded three of the year’s 13 quickest e.t.s, and in 1968, they set low e.t. with regularity and the national speed record at 229.59 mph. They were runner-up at the 1968 Springnationals and, like Prudhomme before them, came within one round and one Bennie Osborn of winning the world championship, setting low e.t. and top speed along the way. Mulligan won his only NHRA national event the next year at the Winternationals. After running a stunning 6.43 during qualifying at that year’s U.S. Nationals, Mulligan’s mount suffered a horrendous top-end fire, and he succumbed two weeks later to his injuries. The loss was felt sportwide and is just another reason why the car is so fondly remembered.
Okay, there’s the list. Get to voting.
Friday, July 11, 2008
Favorite Race Car Ever voting: Early Door Cars/Roadsters
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| Final results for all-time favorite early doorcar/roadster/altered | ||
| Stone, Woods and Cook Willys | 1030 | (27.06%) |
| Sox & Martin Barracuda | 646 | (16.97%) |
| Bill Jenkins '68 Camaro | 574 | (15.08%) |
| Mooneyham & Sharp 554 coupe | 367 | (9.27%) |
| “Ohio George” Montgomery Willys | 235 | (6.17%) |
| Don Carlton Motown Missile | 202 | (5.31%) |
| Gas Ronda Thunderbolt | 176 | (4.62%) |
| Prock and Howell "F" Troop Willys | 152 | (3.99%) |
| Dick Landy Dodge Dart | 131 | (3.44%) |
| Ratican-Jackson-Stearns Fiat | 95 | (2.50%) |
| Danny Townsend bantam roadster | 81 | (2.13%) |
| Shores & Hess Anglia | 52 | (1.37%) |
| Hugh Tucker '28 Chevy AA/SR | 37 | (0.97%) |
| Terry Hoard Samurai Warrior Mazda | 28 | (0.74%) |
Total Votes: 3806 | ||
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Welcome, race fans and column readers, to the next round in our Favorite Race Car Ever balloting. We kicked off this ambitious project a few weeks ago with a call for nominees, and I was not disappointed. The width and breadth of your selections has been breathtaking, as have the memories you have shared.
On Wednesday, we began the first voting with Exhibition Cars, and as I prepare this Friday morning, more than 2,600 votes have been cast. Some clear favorites have emerged, but because balloting will continue in all of the categories until the last one is posted, there’s still time to rally your pals to vote for your faves.
Okay, on to today’s poll, which probably is the one with which I most struggled. There’s such a variety of cars that were nominated that finding a home for some of them was difficult as I wanted to have polls of about 16 each time. I’m calling this one Early Door Cars/Roadsters, and it covers everything from early Pro Stockers to A/Gas Supercharged cars and more. It’s quite an eclectic mix.
One of the most nominated teams in this category was the fabled
Christine and Steven Wilhelm raved, “Great paint scheme, always butt-kickin' cars, and the best Super Stock/Pro Stock driver of the era. I was a big Mopar fan, and Sox & Martin were top of the heap.”
Tom “Fasthair” Scott added, “Does it get any more American than a Hemi in a red, white, and blue car? That baby was classic street rod, and 'Mr. 4 Speed' was the best of the best. Nuff said.”
David Parsons agreed. “The simplicity of the red, white, and blue paint scheme applied to their super-sanitary ’70 ‘Cuda was only surpassed by Ronnie Sox’s stellar win record. Watching Ronnie row through the gears was poetry in motion.”
Dave Cornelius heaped on the love. “First, you have one of the all-time-greatest production race cars ever turned out. Then you had Ronnie Sox, arguably the greatest four-speed driver ever. The professionally run team with the snappy attire, factory car clinics, and slick-looking rigs topped it all off to make for an impressive package that helped advance the sport of drag racing into a full-time profession. They were a class act from top to bottom, and they performed!”
R. Kovacs said that his favorite memories revolved around the annual Fourth of July Pro Stock show put on by one of his local northeast
From the same era came some serious votes for Bill “Grumpy” Jenkins’ ’68 Camaro. Count Chuck Garlits among its biggest fans. “Why? Because it helped launch the Pro Stock class and promote the wars between brands. The Mopars were sweet and are still a classic today, evidence the AH/SS Westcott and other '68 'Cuda Hemi cars, but Jenkins beat those guys with this rather simple showroom car with Cragar mags and a big box on the hood!”
More Mopar accolades were hung on the Motown Missile machines of the late Don Carlton.
Wrote Paul Schack, “I had been following the development of the Motown Missile from the start with the original ‘70/’71 Challenger. It was the ‘72 Barracuda Missile that blew me away. I was in the Navy and stationed in
Paul Cuff’s ties also are of an emotional nature. “When I was in my teens, in western
Going back a few more years, the A/Gas Supercharged machines also proved a fan favorite, with the Stone, Woods & Cook Willys fronting the pack and “Ohio George” Montgomery right on their bumper.
“The Stone, Woods & Cook '40 Willys coupe was one of the most classic blown doorslammers from the '60s,” opined Mike Bockius. “With its wheels in the air, launches were a photographer’s dream for classic drag racing photos."
Reader Fred (no last name given) remembers seeing S-W-C take on K.S. Pittman at his local track, whose two lanes of racing were separated by a grassy area. “We were sitting behind the starting line when K.S. and S-W-C staged for their last run. It was just after dusk on a beautiful summer evening. The track lights were on, and a light mist was coming off the
Chip Kregel resides solidly in the
Dave Wallace of
Charlie Arford summed up his appreciation for the gassers of all flavors with a colorful description of their fuel-burning brothers for good measure. “Fuel altereds; how cool were those cars? The short little wheelbase. The little coupe of a body (if you could call it that) that just barely fit on the car's frame. That would be like putting a little tiny bikini bathing suit on Miss Hurst Shifter, Linda Vaughn, that was five sizes too small. Then, of course, out front of it all was a massive Hemi pointed at the sky ready to blast off into orbit. These cars didn’t leave anything to the imagination, just like that bikini would have done on Miss Linda. You just knew it was going to be a VERY wild ride; driving the car that is. Then you have the Gassers, the full-body cars with big honk’n motors in them. The straight-line bodies as I called them like the Chevy Nova II and Ford Comet had the rear wheelbase moved forward 18 inches with a straight axle front end moved forward six inches and a nose-high rake to them. But best of all were the eight velocity stacks sticking out of the hood and none of them seem to fit right. The shade-tree engineering that went into these cars was something else, too. The only speed shops around were one-off stores. You didn’t order online and have it shipped out next-day air. You had to get in your car and drive down there and hope they were open and had what you needed, and if they didn’t, it was off to the junkyard to find something that you could make work. When you got to the speed shop (and they were open), that’s where the engineering part comes in. Not a lot of experience to draw from back then ‘cause everybody was learning at the same time. You sat at the counter and benched raced with everybody there and hoped you could come up with a setup that wouldn’t kill you, then it was off to the track to see if the theory worked like it did back at the shop. Ah, it was the best of times.”
Before fuel altereds became characterized by the now-familiar T-roadster look, the famed 554 ‘34 Ford coupe of the late Gene Mooneyham was a quarter-mile star in the late 1950s and early ‘60s. Originally a dry-lakes entry with a ‘34
In the unblown category are two
The Ratican-Jackson-Stearns team – tuner Don Ratican, chassis guru Bill Jackson, and driver Ron Stearns – was three high-school buddies who won A/A class at the Nationals two years running, 1960 in Detroit and 1961 in Indy with their Fiat-bodied A/A, and were a huge SoCal favorite. They only raced together for three years but left an indelible impression.
The Shores & Hess Anglia was a regular at places such as Lions, Irwindale, and
Hugh Tucker's
NHRA’s Stock and Super Stock classes of the 1960s embraced Detroit and welcomed them with open arms. The manufacturers in turn embraced the "Win on Sunday, sell on Monday" philosophy, and for Ford, its main weapons were the Tasca Ford team, Les Ritchey, and a Southern California dance instructor and racer named Gas Ronda, who did battle against the Chevys, Dodges, and Pontiacs. One of the most memorable cars of that era for Ford lovers was Ronda’s Thunderbolt. Designed at Ford and built around the 427 Fairlane, the Thunderbolts hit the strip in 1964. Although only 50 cars were required to run in Factory Experimental, more than 100 were built and sold (at just $3,900!), making them eligible to run in Super Stock rather than in Factory Experimental, and Ronda won the 1964 Winternationals, defeating Butch Leal’s Thunderbolt with an 11.78 at 123.40.
Another
“The first time I saw him race was when my brother took me to the drags at the old
The final two entries from a more recent time: Terry Hoard’s Samurai Warrior Mazda RX3, which was a terror in NHRA’s Modified ranks in the 1970s, and Danny Townsend’s A/A, which tore up Comp in the 1980s.
Hoard’s rotary-engined wonder won the 1979 Springnationals and Mile-High Nationals and the 1980 SPORTSnationals and Fallnationals.
According to Bret Kepner, “Hoard's RX3 originally fit into the C/Modified Compact classification but quickly proved to be much more than a second quicker than the index. The Modified Compact classes included a variety of foreign four-cylinder powerplants. However, NHRA knew revising the index to fit Hoard's performance would simply obliterate every other car in the C/MC class, so they simply moved the four-rotor RX3 combination into B/MC, one class higher. Hoard destroyed the index in that class, too, so NHRA moved him to A/MC. He bombed the competition again. Eventually, they put Hoard in the AA/MC class, in which he was forced to run against turbocharged four-cylinders, (Buddy Ingersoll's turbo Pinto was the killer at the time), but Hoard had to run without a blower. He still romped.” When Modified was eliminated in 1981 and the classes assimilated into Comp and Super Stock, Hoard’s hard-to-regulate combination was eliminated.
Said Bill Hite of Hoard, “When he was on the line ready to launch, there was no other sound like it. My friends and I would drop everything else to be on the starting line to watch and hear that car leave. I can’t at this time compare anything else to the sound of that Wankel rotary motor upstairs.”
Townsend has run many cars in his all-star career, from a ’48 Fiat to Top Alcohol Funny Cars, but his A/A Bantam roadster was perhaps his greatest winner. With it he won Comp at the 1982 Cajun, Summer, and NorthStar Nationals and was runner-up at that year’s World Finals at OCIR. He also won the 1985 Gatornationals and Southern Nationals while partnered on the car with Dennis King, when the car was known as Asian Flew … and it did.
Okay, so there you have it … today’s choices. Pics, as always, are at left with the poll. Have at it! I'll probably leave this column intatc through Tuesday instead of my normal Monday column since traffic seems to decline a bit on the weekends. Tuesday's column may be another favorites vote -- which woul dbe the early dragsters poll; some tough choices to be made there -- or something else I cook up.
Wednesday, July 09, 2008
Let the voting begin!
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| Final results for all-time favorite exhibition car! | ||
| "Winged Express" fuel altered | 1394 | (36.53%) |
| "Little Red Wagon" wheelstander | 1109 | (29.06%) |
| " L.A. Dart" wheelstander | 217 | (5.69%) |
| "Nanook" fuel altered | 150 | (3.93%) |
| "Jolly Rancher Candyland Stage" | 149 | (3.90%) |
| "Shockwave" jet truck | 137 | (3.59%) |
| Potter's Chevy-engined motorcycle | 124 | (3.25%) |
| "Green Mamba" jet dragster | 124 | (3.25%) |
| "Vanishing Point" rocket Funny Car | 109 | (2.86%) |
| Capt. Jack's rocket go-kart | 66 | (1.73%) |
| "Hell on Wheels" tank wheelstander | 65 | (1.70%) |
| "Oxygen" rocket dragster | 62 | (1.62%) |
| "Backup Pickup" wheelstander | 44 | (1.15%) |
| Terminal Van Lines Top Fuel Bike | 31 | (0.81%) |
| Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Top Fuel Bike | 20 | (0.52%) |
| "Age of Aquarius" rocket dragster | 15 | (0.39%) |
Total Votes: 3816 | ||
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The list again is as follows: Early Dragsters, Early Funny Cars, Early Door Cars/Roadsters, ‘70s Funny Cars, ‘70s Top Fuelers, The 1980s, and Exhibition Cars. It wasn’t easy to assign them to classes, but I’ve done my best. All of the finalists in all of the classes each had more than one nomination, so if you don’t find your favorite on any of the lists, it’s not because they weren’t special but because the competition here was so keen. So much for disclaimers.
We’ll kick off the show with the exhibition cars, and it’s a mighty impressive list. I’ve seen practically all of these run in person, but not all of them by any means. It’s a healthy mix of rocket and jet cars, wheelstanders, motorcycles, and fuel altereds. I could have put the Awful-Awfuls in with Early Door Cars/Roadsters, but I thought they fit here better. Hey, it’s my contest.
Here’s a brief rundown on each of them, along with comments from the nominators.
“Wild Bill” Shrewsberry was loved up and down the West Coast – and around the nation -- for decades for a string of wheelstanders such as the Hemi Under Glass and the Knott’s Berry Wagon, but his red-and-white-striped Dodges were the favorite. Pat “Ma” Green, who knew “Wild Bill” from her years working at tracks in the Golden State, wrote, “Not only was he a master showman, but he was certifiably CRAZY! You never knew what he was going to do next.”
Robert Maushund never knew. “I was young but as I recall at Orange County Raceway back in what I guess was around 1972 at one of the all-Funny Car shows," he recalls, "and there was a major water leak about midtrack that actually rained on the track and shut down the racing. During the cleanup, they fired up the L.A. Dart, and ‘Wild Bill' did a wheelstand right through the middle of the mess. Does anyone else remember these two moments?”
Not surprisingly, “Slammin’ Sammy” Miller made the list twice, with his hydrogen-peroxide-fueled, rocket-powered Oxygen dragster, which ran an astonishing 3.58 in England (and a U.S. best of 3.74) and his equally cool Vanishing Point Vega rocket Funny Car. Miller was killed a few years ago in an oil-field explosion in
English reader Glenn Foster remembers him well. “Sammy would line the car up at the start line. The [announcer] would go through his intro, then you would all count down, 5-4-3-2-1, and Sammy would launch, and I mean launch. All you heard was a pop like a champagne cork firing, and he was gone. I used to always stand about two-thirds of the way along the strip to get a feeling for the top-end speed and to have a good view when the chutes came out. The day that I saw Sammy, it was a wonderful sunny day. He did two runs. The first run may have been a fraction over four seconds, still way, way faster than the Top Fuel and Funny Cars of the day.
"As he was lining up for the second run, I did not expect it to be as fast. On top of the banking where I was standing, I could feel quite a bit of crosswind, which had not been there for the earlier run. Sammy didn’t disappoint the crowd, though. This time it was in the region of 3.68 seconds at something like 350 mph. A new record. The amazing thing was that I could see the car slowing down from midtrack as it battled through the air pressure. He must have been going way over 400 mph to be able to go through the timers at 350ish at the top end. From where I stood, all you could hear was the initial pop and then a wind-like sound as the car cut through the air. Then the chutes were out, and it was all over. I was absolutely stunned.”
As wild as Miller’s Oxygen dragster was, it certainly shares the memory banks with the rocket-powered go-kart of Capt. Jack McClure, who rode his lay-down-style machine to speeds in excess of 215 mph. McClure’s driver’s suit was fitted with its own parachute in case driver and kart became separated during one of those wild runs.
Another rocket car, the Age Of Aquarius driven by onetime nitro tuner and NHRA fuel-racing honcho Ray Alley, got a nod from Steve Milovich and others. Remembers Milovich, “I'm thinking back to my Fremont Raceway days, circa 1978. It was just amazing; it would sit at the starting line and ‘percolate,’ then BAM, the afterburner whoosh, stage, then POW! He'd rocket down the track with a trail of hydrogen-peroxide vapor a quarter-mile long. When he hit the chutes, the car would become airborne for a brief moment.”
Milovich also was among those stumping for one of the iconic jet dragsters of all time, Doug Rose’s Green Mamba. The car ran for five decades all across the United States, then was stolen in November 2006 and recovered in pieces, then lovingly resurrected.
"The Green Mamba jet car, I loved to watch the old plywood barrier/fence, behind the bleach boxes, rattle and shake with pieces of plywood flying off and the cows in the nearby pasture flinching with each afterburner pop.God, I loved the jet cars."
Les Shockley for years drove his own Shockwave jet dragster that was a staple at NHRA national events and got one vote, but his triple-engine Shockwave jet Peterbilt, now driven by his son,
As Steve Evans would say … “Wheelstanders? We got ‘em!”
In addition to Shrewsberry’s L.A. Dart, three other wheelstanders made the top 16, led by Bill “Maverick” Golden’s iconic Little Red Wagon, and followed by Bob Perry’s Hell on Wheels tank and the Dick Harding’s Backup Pickup. (Surprisingly, no votes for Hemi Under Glass.)
Golden’s wagon, a Dodge A-100 compact pickup with a scant 90-inch wheelbase and a thumping 426 Hemi for power, prowled the nation’s dragstrips between 1965 and 2003, when Golden retired, and even has been featured in Dodge television commercials. There probably isn’t a hard-core fan who hasn’t seen it at least once.
Perry, who passed away in July 2004, drove a lot of wheelstanders, but none got him more ink than the Hell on Wheels tank, complete with faux treads, the name no doubt inspired by the legendary 2nd Armored Hell on Wheels tank division that fought in World War II.
Harding’s unique machine, driven by George Tuers, was a Ford Econoline cab-over truck with the body mounted backward on the chassis that never failed to surprise first-time race-goers. Remembers reader Michael Moore, “It was hysterical to see the driver's arm hanging out the passenger-side window facing the wrong way.”
Moving on to fuel altereds ….
“Who could forget 'Wild Willie' Borsch going through the lights at over 200 mph with the front wheels in the air and one hand on the steering wheel,” asks Bill Holland, somewhat rhetorically, as the famed Winged Express fuel altered was a popular nominee.
Scott Frymoyer was another to pick legendary fuel altered of Borsch and “Mousie” Marcellus. The wily Willie powered his wild machine through unbelievable gyrations, steering all the time with only one hand, and almost always made it to the other end under power. He epitomized the word “showman” to many, and even after his passing, with Mike Boyd at the wheel, it remains a mythical car.
“I never saw it until the first National Hot Rod Reunion when in pulls 'Mousie' and the Wing with Boyd. The 392 was apart, and it didn't look as though the car was going to run. Over the next day or two, I'd watch as people donated parts and helped get it back together, but they were still not sure whether it was going to fire. Later that night before the Cacklefest, I'm sitting in the stands and hear a nitro motor fire, but I didn't know which car.