DRAGSTERS
I almost hesitated in calling this the Dragster section. In my day we used to call them "diggers", don't ask me why.
Dragsters in the 1950's and in the 1960's were truly unique, as in, each one was somewhat different from all the others. We used to have front engine dragsters, rear engine dragsters, dual engine dragsters, three engine dragsters and even four engine dragsters. Some of the dragsters had four wheel drive. Some of the multi-engine dragsters had the engines mounted side-by-side, some mounted in-line. We even had some with the engine mounted sideways. Some had full bodies, some had partial bodies and some had no bodies at all.
As far as the engines, we had dragsters with Ford engines, Chevy engines, Pontiac engines, Chrysler engines, Buick, DeSoto, Cadillac, Packard, Lincoln, GMC, Oldsmobile, you name it. I don't think you could name an automotive engine that wasn't mounted in a dragster at one time or the other. We even had dragsters with aircraft engines.
In the early 1950's when drag racing was still something new, the media called the dragsters "rail jobs". This was because the early dragsters were not much more than a car with an engine mounted on the frame rails. Get a car, remove the body, fenders and pretty much everything else, and you had a "rail job".
Sometimes it's hard to remember that before we had 18-wheeler "transporters" with tool cabinets that cost more than a house, we had single axle open trailers and a tool box that we could carry with one hand. Our "transporter" was usually a trailer hitch on the back of the family station wagon or pick-up truck. It was a different time, but it was our roots and it is our heritage.
In honor of these dragster pioneers, many of whom paid the ultimate price, I'm going to devote this section to these racers.
Dragsters in the 1950's and in the 1960's were truly unique, as in, each one was somewhat different from all the others. We used to have front engine dragsters, rear engine dragsters, dual engine dragsters, three engine dragsters and even four engine dragsters. Some of the dragsters had four wheel drive. Some of the multi-engine dragsters had the engines mounted side-by-side, some mounted in-line. We even had some with the engine mounted sideways. Some had full bodies, some had partial bodies and some had no bodies at all.
As far as the engines, we had dragsters with Ford engines, Chevy engines, Pontiac engines, Chrysler engines, Buick, DeSoto, Cadillac, Packard, Lincoln, GMC, Oldsmobile, you name it. I don't think you could name an automotive engine that wasn't mounted in a dragster at one time or the other. We even had dragsters with aircraft engines.
In the early 1950's when drag racing was still something new, the media called the dragsters "rail jobs". This was because the early dragsters were not much more than a car with an engine mounted on the frame rails. Get a car, remove the body, fenders and pretty much everything else, and you had a "rail job".
Sometimes it's hard to remember that before we had 18-wheeler "transporters" with tool cabinets that cost more than a house, we had single axle open trailers and a tool box that we could carry with one hand. Our "transporter" was usually a trailer hitch on the back of the family station wagon or pick-up truck. It was a different time, but it was our roots and it is our heritage.
In honor of these dragster pioneers, many of whom paid the ultimate price, I'm going to devote this section to these racers.
The time is 1958, and this Chrysler engined Digger (a one of a kind Dragster for the times) is in the lanes at a NHRA National event, and ready to go. The driver and owner is Leo Caldwell, from Ohio...
The final (and probably the best iteration) of the AA/Gasoline burning "Freight Train"...
Warren & Coburn ran this short wheelbase rear engine dragster, as one of the dozens of dragsters the team built...
At the conclusion of WW-2, engines like this Alison aircraft engine (from a P-51 Mustang) were available in salvage yards all over the country. And you didn't need to hop them up, they already produced 1,040 horsepower, at only 2,800 RPM. No "stroker kit" was required either, they already had 1,7010 cubic inches...
The original "Sidewinder" Dragster, with a supercharged Hemi behind the driver, with Jack Chrisman in the seat. The photo was taken in 1959 at the NHRA Summer Nationals. Due to the NHRA fuel ban at the time, all the diggers at that event were running on gasoline...
I'm not familiar with this Dragster. But Sidewinder style drag racing cars were becoming popular and were springing up around the nation...
What makes this Sidewinder style Dragster a little different is that the chassis (built by Kent Fuller) was fabricated out of magnesium. Dubbed as the Magwinder, here it is during early testing with Super Stock legend Hayden Proffitt in the driver seat. The engine was still the Hemi Chrysler...
Talk about a "bare bones" Dragster, this could be it. The engine is a supercharged Ford Flathead. Note the fuel tank just behind the roll bar...
This is Jack Moss, from Texas, with his home built early Dragster. Jack was very detail oriented and created a very clean race car. The engine may look like a Chrysler, but it's actually a Dodge Ram Hemi, probably around 291 cubic inches...
All I know about this Dragster is that it has a big Allison aircraft engine behind the driver. Note the dual drag slicks in the rear...
After Tom Ivo sold his Buick powered Dragster to Don Prudhomme, Don wasted no time in replacing the engine with this blown Hemi...
An early Dragster, fabricated by parts found in a local scrap yard most likely. Power comes from a Ford flathead engine...
The original "Hawaiian" Dragster with the Snake leaning on the roll bar and car owner Roland Leong leaning on the Keith Black Hemi engine...
This is the forerunner before the first "Freight Train". Two Small Block Chevys and a single 6-71 puffer...
The original Dragster as the one above, before the wheelbase was stretched, and the driver's cockpit was extended. That's John Peters on the left, and Nye Frank on the right. Nye Frank was my partner on the Pulsator Dragster. Both of us were working on Craig Breedlove's Spirit of America LSR jet car at the time...
During the late 1950's, this dragster was one of the best running gasoline diggers on SoCal tracks. The team was comprised of Mickey Brown (the driver), Nye Frank and Dave Harryman. The big Olds engine put out the ponies. Note the supercharger drive system, a half dozen V-belts. This was before the advent of the cogged belts...
During the infancy of drag racing, it was the racers themselves that created the Dragster Class. Here was a race vehicle that almost anyone with some hand tools could put together in your garage at home, or in your driveway. Most of the parts were available at the local salvage (or junk) yard. There were no rulebooks that needed to be followed. It did not matter what kind of frame you could use, or what kind of engine you had to use, or where to mount it, or where to mount the driver's seat. Racers created the Dragster Class because (A) if you were a "car guy", it was fun to build a race car, and (B), it was fun to drive a real race car. The amount of money you could win never was a part of the equation. You raced for a trophy. As you can see, this guy above with the penny loafers won three of them...
Back in the day, most dragsters were home made race cars, as was this one. It may not have been a cookie-cutter design, but it was a Dragster...
Could this be the first streamlined Dragster? Dudley Stauffacher drove the former Charles Scott's Ardun powered belly tank, here running a Chrysler engine. Chuck Raymond owned the car, seen here at Saugus. It ran in the low 130s. (Thank you David Sorenson)
Lefty Mudersbach and his first multi engine dragster...
Although I never saw this digger in person, it did race in the NHRA Nationals in 1958, according to Dragster Historian David Sorenson. It was purchased from a fellow racer which at the time, had installed a Ford Flatehad engine. The Twisters Car Club (the new owners) out of Vista, CA (near San Diego) wanted some more horsepower, and so they teamed up with the Dragmaster team to modify the car so it had room for the supercharged Chrysler engine...
The date on this photo is 1956. I have no clue as to where this photo was taken, or who the Dragster belongs too. Looks like no bleachers for the fans. In Dragster infancy, racers tried front engine Dragsters and rear engine Dragsters, as far back as we can remember. As we can tell, the rear engine Dragsters of today were not invented by Don Garlits in the 1970's, he just figured out how to make them work. Anyway, this one is powered by a straight-8 Buick engine and has an acceptable roll bar for the driver... (This photo was submitted to me by Dennis Friend, who has his own website catering to multi-engine Dragsters. Check it out at http://twotogo.homestead.com/index.html)
I love this photo, a Front Engine dragster lighting up the drag slicks (or at least, the left one). I know nothing about this dragster, who is driving it or who owns it. However, I can identify with many of the fans in the bleachers, holding their hands over their ears (I am partially deaf for never having done that myself). Niagara Dragstrip (also known as Niagara Raceway Park and/or Niagara Int'l Raceway) was a popular drag strip “back in the day”, located near Niagara Falls, NY. The track was first opened in June, 1961, and survived at least through the 1974 season...
Photo taken at pretty much the end of the "Beautiful Dragster" era. Once the rear engine era took hold, all the dragsters looked exactly the same, other than the sponors name, in extra large letters...
One of the most significant race cars of all time, the Yates-Mikkelesen dragster. The time was 1954, and this car set the record by running 144 mph in 8.9 seconds at the Santa Ana Drag strip, driven by Don Yates. It became known as the "World's fastest accelerating car." The car weighed in just under 1200 pounds with driver. The engine was a 284 cubic inch Mercury flathead with Ardun "overhead valve conversion" cylinder heads, and rated at an unbelievable 400 horsepower. Fuel was 80% nitromethane and 20% methanol. The car builders and owners were Don and Ray Yates and Verne Mikkelesen, from Inglewood, California. (Thank you Jaimon Durham for the caption)
Here is another dual engine Dragster, featuring the "in-line" engine concept. Some dual engine dragsters ran the engines side by side, and some ran them in-line. Over time, the in-line concept seemed to work better. Chet Herbert, the famed cam grinder sponored this Dragster, and Zane Schubert was the one in the driver's seat. It is very simular to our own AA/FD, the "Pulsator", with injected Small Block Chevy engines, most likely running on straight nitro...
Manuel Cohelo's twin engine, four wheel drive dragster. The engines are both Ford flatheads, each with it's own transmission. The front engine runs the front tires, and the back engine runs the rear tires. Both front and back rear-ends are equipped with quick-change rear ends. I was told that Manuel would run the flatheads on one weekend, and then swap them for Chrysler hemis on the next weekend. The car ran 152 mph at Santa Ana Drag Strip...
Somewhere along the line, Cohelo's dragster above became Mickey Thompson's. Mickey made a few modifications to the frame rails, moved the cockpit from between the engines to the rear of the car, and moved the Chrysler engine that used to be behind the driver, to where the original cockpit used to be. In this format, and with a fibergass body, Mickey took the car to the Salt Flats in Utah for some top speed record attmpts. He also raced the car at the drag strip...
Ah yes, a supercharged Ford Flathead powered dragster. In the days when I was growing up, if you didn't have a hopped up Flathead engine in your Model-A, you were not a Hot Rodder. In the days before the advent of the overhead valve V8's from Oldsmobile and Cadillac (introduced in 1949), the Flathead was king...
Eddie Hill, from the great state of Texas, shielding his eyes from the son. One of his earliest dragsters, with a Pontiac engine featuring six carbs. This is a very interesting dragster. The lower frame rails are aluminum channel. The engine is bolted to the lower frame rails, but Eddie uses the engine as a way to strengthen the chassis. The angled upper tubing constitute the top frame rails, which bolt to the engine. A pretty neat idea in my opinion. Note the very small front wheels. Looks like they are about the size of a dinner plates. The only negative I can find on this digger is that Eddie needs to extend the push bar, either that or there is going to be a permanent dimple in the Buick push car's hood...
One of the pioneers of drag racing, a winner of the first AHRA championship in 1960 and the 1957 NHRA Championship, Lefty Mudersbach was killed in a solo qualifying run at Irwindale Raceway in 1966, at the age of 34, after blowing a tire near the end of the quarter mile run. A twenty year veteran of drag racing, before either of the major drag racing associations was formed, Lefty was best known for his twin engine dragsters, but also built Dragster chassis.
Mudersbach was a resident of Pico Rivera, California, and operated Lefty's Speed Shop in Whittier, California. He had the first gas dragster to record a sub-10 second e.t., accomplished in July 1957 at Lions Drag Strip with a 9.93 run. He teamed up with Chet Herbert. They ran twin Chevy engines on gas, setting a world mark of 195 MPH with an 8.53 e.t. They won Bakersfield in 1961. Mudersbach and Herbert split up their partnership in 1963-64…
Mudersbach was a resident of Pico Rivera, California, and operated Lefty's Speed Shop in Whittier, California. He had the first gas dragster to record a sub-10 second e.t., accomplished in July 1957 at Lions Drag Strip with a 9.93 run. He teamed up with Chet Herbert. They ran twin Chevy engines on gas, setting a world mark of 195 MPH with an 8.53 e.t. They won Bakersfield in 1961. Mudersbach and Herbert split up their partnership in 1963-64…
Speaking of Lefty, Don Prieto is a California Roadster member and all around drag racing expert and race car collector. Here is a photo of Don Prieto, in one of the dragsters he has been involved with, the “Smythe/Prieto” dual engined dragster, with a chassis by Lefty Mudersbach. Two, 265 cubic inch small block Chevies on fuel. This photo was taken at LaPlace Drag Way, outside of New Orleans LA, in 1960.
Don “The Wavemaker” Prieto is unique to the sport in that he is a racer (owner and driver), a journalist, a historian, and a catalyst between the sport and many of the OEM automotive companies, and is (I hate to admit it) truly a stand-up guy...
Don “The Wavemaker” Prieto is unique to the sport in that he is a racer (owner and driver), a journalist, a historian, and a catalyst between the sport and many of the OEM automotive companies, and is (I hate to admit it) truly a stand-up guy...
Somewhere there is a Model-A Ford up on milk cartons (why buy jack stands when you could scrounge some milk cartons), wondering what happened to its front wheels. Regarding the engine, I'm guessing its an Oldsmobile mill...
Darryl Greenamyer was an American aviator. He started his flying career in the US Air Force Reserve. After leaving the Air Force, he worked at Lockheed where he eventually became an SR-71 test pilot at the Skunk works. While working at Lockheed he met engineers who would later help him make modifications to future race planes. He won his first victory in the Unlimited Class at the Reno Air Races in 1965. He is the third most successful competitor in Reno Air Race history.
He was also the owner of what many believe was the best looking Dragster of all time…
He was also the owner of what many believe was the best looking Dragster of all time…
This is such a cool photo I just could not resit uploading it. Probably shot at some airport drag strip in the 1950's. It looks to me as if the driver was concerned with safety, based on the roll bar and the fact that he is wearing a long sleeved shirt and gloves. What that is under the driver's seat, I have no clue...
Shame on me, I have been neglecting one of the most popular Dragster classes that ever existed, "Jr. Fuel". As Top Fuel Dragsters evolved over the years, Top Fuel drag racing became more and more expensive. Big engines, big superchargers, and a lot of nitro fuel. Some of the early dragster guys that began racing dragsters during the 1950's dropped out of sight during the 1960's. The manager of Lions Drag Strip at the time, CJ Pappy Hart, decided to address the issue. Through his efforts, the Jr. Fuel Dragster class was created in the middle 1960's. It was a simple class and became VERY popular at Lions and at other tracks in SoCal. The rules were ultra simple. The engine displacement could not exceed 304 cubic inches. Superchargers were not permitted. You were permitted to run nitromethane. And there was NO minimum weight. Most of the Jr. Fuelers used the small block Chevy, with fuel injection. Most of the racers ran the nitro right out of the can (as in 100%). These were the days before NHRA and SFI mandated the minimum wall thickness of the chassis tubing. These cars were LIGHT, the average Jr. Fueler weighed in at about 950 lbs. Many ran at 900 lbs, and I have heard of some that got down to not much more than 800 lbs. I believe that a 300 inch small block Chevy pushing up to 8,000 RPM was probably capable of 900 HP, and maybe a little more...
I swiped this photo and the one below off the H.A.M.B. I have no info as to who these Diggers belonged too, or anything else about them other than they were from another era and were both powered by carbureted Chrysler engines. Both photos were posted by Dennis Friend, who has a great website featuring twin engine drag car histories... (twotogo.homestead.com/index.html)
This one used some large diameter tubing for the frame. These Diggers were built long before light weight wheels were available. Note the small slice of a tire fastened to the push bar, probably to keep from scratching the front bumper of the push car...
A pretty well thought out and interesting Digger for "back in the day". A Flathead Ford engine and what looks like 3-71 or 4-71 GMC supercharger on top. Note the fuel tank behind the driver's seat. It looks like some kind of pressure vessel was used. Also note the radiator in front, tilted back for "aerodynamic" reasons no doubt. My only issue with this race car is that the roll bar probably would not be of much help in a roll-over...
What does it take to create a winning Top Fuel Dragster? Let's take a closer look at "The Surfers" Dragster. The three amigos, Tom Jobe, Bob Skinner, and driver Mike Sorokin. The Dragster itself is pretty much standard for the era, with a chassis by Race Car Specialties, wheelbase at 153 inches, Goodyear 11:00x16 drag slicks, a 1953 Oldsmobile rear end (with 3.23 gears), Halibrand mag rear wheels, and dual Simpson 'Chutes. With the engine and driver, the car weighed 1,385 lbs. The engine was a cast iron 1957 Chrysler 392 inch Hemi. With a clean-up bore, the displacement was 395 cubic inches. Rods were from Mickey Thompson, cam was from Engle, Hilborn injection was on top of the 67-1 supercharger. Nothing exotic, just a good car with a good engine and Tom, Bob and Mike...
There are a couple of interesting things to note on this dragster. First, note that there is only one upright tying the lower and upper frame rails together from the engine forward (located a few inches behind the fuel tank). This was said to provide a little more flexible chassis, which some felt provided a little better weight transfer on the launch. And then there is the strange looking front wheel. It appears that there is aluminum foil interlaced through and around the spokes. The staging lights on some drag strips were sometimes mounted a little higher off the ground, which could cause a shorter distance for the front wheels to roll through the lights, and bringing up the red bulb. Some kind of a disk would prevent that from happening. I don't know which drag strip this is, but based on the spectators in the grand stands, it must have been a big meet...
Joe Travis, in the Olds powered dragster on the left, goes off against Don Garlits in the far lane, at Lake Wales, Florida, 1955. Probably nobody realized it at the time, but this was the first of many, many top eliminator runs for Garlits. The meet was held under the auspices of the NHRA Safety Safari, who would not let Garlits run until he added a roll bar to his dragster… (Text provided by David Sorenson, NHRA photo)
A Top Gas Dragster wherever it raced. It was owned by George Adriance and driven by Lee Drake, and features a Chassis Research TE-440 Chassis and a supercharged Chrysler Hemi running on gasoline. A chassis like this could be purchased already welded together or in kit form, where it could be welded together by the owner to save money...
The Cook & Bedwell Dragster. There was a time with this Dragster was considered by many as the ultimate Dragster in the world. A Hemi Chrysler with a hand fabricated intake manifold and six carbs, and Nitromethane... (photo by Bob Gunnet)
Ike Icano's Staright-6 GMC Dragster. Ike hailed from San Pedro (the harbor area of Los Angeles), and was a regular at Lions Drag Strip. This Dragster put the hurt on many V-8 Dragsters in it's day. Ike had a really neat '32 Ford Roadster, and also a very nasty '34 Ford Coupe, all powered by GMC Straight-6 engines. The attention to detail on all of Ike's race cars had to be see to believe...
I couldn't let this go without a photo of the GMC engine in Ike's Dragster. The engine has a 12-Port Cylinder head, 6 Exhaust ports on the right side of the Dragster, and 6 Intake ports (each with individual Hilborn Fuel Injection inlets) on the left side of the engine...
In the beginning days of Dragster design, guys tried many different ideas, using different engines, and different engine locations. It was a time of “trial and error”. Some things worked and some things didn’t. But little by little, a basic design evolved. A longer wheelbase, an engine in front of the rear tires, and the driver located aft of the rear tires. The Dragster engines went through this evolution too. In the Gasoline Dragster ranks, many used a verity of brands, Buick, Oldsmobile, Pontiac, etc. Many used dual engine combinations, some side by side, some in-line. Nitromethane Dragster engines finally settled on the Hemi Chrysler as the defacto standard, with an Single Overhead Cam Ford engine (also a hemi design) thrown in occasionally.
The two Top Fuel Dragsters above are almost mirror images of each other, at least under the skin. The one on the top in the photo has a front body covering the frame rails, a great place to have the owners name in big letters, or possibly a sponsors name. The other one is open in front of the engine. Maybe he didn’t want to pay for the added body part, or maybe he didn’t want the hassle of removing and replacing the body between rounds in the pits, to deal with adding fuel, or maybe he didn’t want the extra weight on the front of the Dragster (he did add a lead bar strapped to the front axle to deal with wheel stands, which probably weighed more than the added body would have).
In any case, this was IT. This is what Top Fuel Dragsters looked like in the “Glory Years” of Drag racing in the middle 1960’s...
The two Top Fuel Dragsters above are almost mirror images of each other, at least under the skin. The one on the top in the photo has a front body covering the frame rails, a great place to have the owners name in big letters, or possibly a sponsors name. The other one is open in front of the engine. Maybe he didn’t want to pay for the added body part, or maybe he didn’t want the hassle of removing and replacing the body between rounds in the pits, to deal with adding fuel, or maybe he didn’t want the extra weight on the front of the Dragster (he did add a lead bar strapped to the front axle to deal with wheel stands, which probably weighed more than the added body would have).
In any case, this was IT. This is what Top Fuel Dragsters looked like in the “Glory Years” of Drag racing in the middle 1960’s...
Pancho González was an American tennis player. He won 15 major singles titles, including two U.S. National Singles Championships in 1948 and 1949 and 13 Professional Grand Slam titles. He also won three Tournament of Champions professional events in 1957, 1958, and 1959. He was ranked amateur world No. 1 in 1948 and 1949. Pancho was a prominent professional champion in the 1950s and 1960s, winning world professional championship tours between 1954 and 1961; he was ranked No. 1 in the world between 1952 and 1961. Gonzales was a determined competitor with a fierce temper. He was often at odds with officials and promoters. However, he was a fan favorite and the spectators loved him.
He also owned and drove this supercharged Cadillac engine dragster when he wasn’t hitting tennis balls, and was almost a regular at San Fernando Drag Strip in the 1950's…
He also owned and drove this supercharged Cadillac engine dragster when he wasn’t hitting tennis balls, and was almost a regular at San Fernando Drag Strip in the 1950's…
Not exactly in the same league as Don Garlits' first rear engine dragster; more like a Go-Kart on steroids...
Dating back to the late 1950's, Suladie & Garrett's short wheelbase digger running in the B/Dragster class, on gasoline. Power comes from a 348-inch Chevy engine. The team hales out of Ridgecrest, California...
Bob Alsenez, in the Lakewood Auto Parts sponsored car, leaves the Santa Ana starting line. This was a former Bean Bandits car, here running Clarke Cagle's Ardun. The man holding the flag is track manager, C.J. "Pappy" Hart...
Eddie Hill out of Texas dumps the laundry after another fast pass. This is a home-built Dragster, built by Eddie himself, and features dual supercharged Pontiac engines and four drag slicks, for traction. The parachute is a real parachute, not an actual drag racing "drag chute", and most likely purchased from an Army-Navy surplus store...
Jim Nelson in the seat of this super clean, small block Chevy powered dragster. It was built by the team of Jim Nelson and his partner, Dode Martin, who went on to build hundreds of dragster chassis and chassis kits. Their shop was in the San Diego, CA area...
Another early dragster, not quite as spiffy as the Nelson & Martin digger in the above photo. This one is Olds engine powered, with three carburetors. The funny thing is that both this Dragster and the one above have round steering wheels, kind of rare on Dragsters. The car is an entry by Fred Brown, from El Centro, CA...
Bruce Norman's "Big Wheel" Dragster, powered by a naturally aspirated hemi Chrysler. Racers from the Suthern California area probably didn't realize how lucky they were, to be able to race every weekend. In Minnesota, once the snow starts falling, the drag stirps close up until after the Spring thaw...
Both this Dragster above and the one below have something in common. Although they are early Dragsters, they are not crudely put together. They are clean and nicely laid out. The digger above is powered by a naturally aspirated Oldsmobile engine.
This Dragster is powered by a naturally aspirated Cadillac engine. Both this car and the one above have simple bodies, and would draw looks from the spectators at the track, in the pits, or in a car show somewhere. It appears to me that both of these cars were photographed at the same drag strip, maybe even at the same time (the street lights are the same). Fremont Drag Strip maybe...
A notable dragster from "back in the day". The engine is a supercharged Olds built by Dick Harryman. Note that the blower drive uses multible V-belts. The Gilmer "toothed" belt had not been invented yet. The driver was Mickey Brown, a great Dragster shoe over the years. The chassis and body were fabricated by Nye Frank, who went on to his involvement with John Peters in the Peters & Frank "Freight Train" gas Dragsters, as well as the "Pulsator" AA/Fuel Dragster. Nye was a master craftsman, and was also the crew chief on Craig Breedlove's "Spirit of America" Land Speed Record cars, while I was working for Craig. Nye and I shared an apartment together, and he was my Best Man at my first marriage.
As far as what made this Dragster "notable" is that it broke the MPH barrior as the first gas Dragster to exceed 150 MPH, by running 152 MPH at San Fernando Drag Strip...
As far as what made this Dragster "notable" is that it broke the MPH barrior as the first gas Dragster to exceed 150 MPH, by running 152 MPH at San Fernando Drag Strip...
Art Arfons was a good friend of mine. To my knowledge, Art never built a race car that used an automobile engine, not when he could scrounge up a 1500 horse power aircraft engine, as with this supercharged Allison engine. I don't know if this is one of Art's dragsters, or his brother Walt's, or if it belongs to somone else. At any rate, note the square tubing used for the frame and rollbar, and the dual drag slicks.
Drag racing began in the very late 1940's (1948 or 1949) and really took off in the 1950's. There are many photos on this site of the early Dragsters, when they were not much more that a set of frame rails with an engine and a seat for the driver. At the time, they were usually home built and many of them were downright crude. But like everything else in life, Dragsters evolved. In the middle 1960's, the front-engine Dragsters had pretty much setteled into a "standard" design, with the majority being built not by the car owner, but by craftsmen that built the chassis and bodies for a living. The days of the home-built Dragsters were few and far between. The diggers pictured above represent the epitomy of Dragster technology by the middle 1960's, and as it happens, all of the chassis on the cars pictured above were built by Don Long, a renound Chassis builder in SoCal. That's Don in the orange shirt, kneeling in the grass. I don't know just how many Dragsters Don put together in his shop, but it would probably be in the hundreds...
Not as "ultra vintage" as the Dragster pictured below, and not as "sophisticated" as the Tommy Ivo Dragster pictured below that one. This Dragster was somewhere in-between. I'm guessing it was from the early 1960's era. The chassis on this one, a TE-440, was professional built. It used the "dog sled" design roll bars, which did not go up high enough to protect the drivers head above his ears. This was apparently rectified with the hoop rising behind the driver's head, and was probably added at some point after the chassis was originally built. This Dragster is the Hunt & Mabry gas dragster from Arlington, TX. The engine is a 354'-392" era Chrysler Hemi, with the two hole Hilborn injection system. The smiling partially bald guy with one hand on the roll cage is driver Vance Hunt...
A Dragster in the infancy of the very early 1950's. I'm not sure where to begin. The engine (a Ford Flathead with 4 carburetors) was jacked up so as to create additional weight transfer, to aid traction. That handle alongside the driver's left arm activates the rear wheel brakes. And it has a roll bar for safety. Actually, this digger meets all the safety requirements in the Dragster Rulebook, primarily because there were no saftey rules in the Dragster Rulebook, primarily because there was no Rulebook. Racers built what they wanted to build, and raced what they built. This driver at least has a helmet, even if the helmet was probably designed for someone that played polo. No gloves, a T-shirt and no shoulder harness, it was "hang on and pray". Over the years, the safety rules evolved, however the safety rules usually followed after the death or maiming of a dragster driver, and not before...
The "One and Only" in his long wheelbase Top Fuel Dragster. Like every dragster that Tommy Ivo ever owned, they were all immaculate and fast...
Sunday afternoon at San Fernando Drag Strip, sometime in the late 1950's or early 1960's. Just to the left in this photo is the return road from the top-end of the track. This neat short wheelbase C/Dragster is being pushed back into the pits. Like most dragsters of the time, it was entirley home-made, chassis, body, the whole 9-yards. The engine is a Chevy Small Block featuring a 6-carb manifold (called a Log Manifold) with six 2-Brl. carbs. I loved this track. Unlike Lions Drag Strip, it was a down-home, laid back place to be on Sundays. Like most of the drag strips in the L.A. area, it was eventually closed down due to neighbors complaing about the noise...
A nice looking dragster from Canada, our neighbor to the North. Power comes from a Ford SOHC supercharged engine. I don't know if it's set up for gasoline or nitromethane. I really don't know anything about this car but must assume that it's owned by Scott Wilson. It's neat that the dragstrip is located close to a road, looks like fans don't need to buy a ticket to watch the races...
Mickey Brown, Ed Weddle & Nye Frank put this Digger together. Note the small diameter space-frame chassis. A big crank-driven blown Olds makes the noise. The car also features a training wheel in the stearn...
This is Dean Moon's state of the art "taxi cab yellow" dragster in Jolly Old England. In 1963 and 1964, several well known drag teams, along with their drag cars were shipped of to England, to do demo runs for the British drag racing fans, usually at large airports. At the time, I'm not even sure that there was a drag strip anywhere on the British Isles, but the whole idea was to create interest in drag racing in England. This "tour" was repeated again in 1965, where this photo was taken. Racers like Bob Keith (the tour captain) along with Tony Nancy, Danny Ongais, Gary Casady, Chuck Griffith, Nich Colbert, Buddy Cortines and Merek Chertkow were there with their drag cars, making demo passes for the fans. It was a raving success...
There was a time, long ago, when drag strips did not exist, and hot rodders had to take their cars to the Salt Flats in Utah, or to the Dry Lakes in SoCal, to find out how fast they could go. Straight line racing, land speed runs. Eventually, as drag strips started to spring up, some racers migrated over to the local drag strip with their "land speed hot rods" to see how they ran from a standing start, and whether they could beat the car in the other lane. Pretty soon, there was a lot more racing going on at the drag strips than at the Dry Lakes and the Salt Flats. The car above looks as if it was bult for drag racing, and he wants to give it a try on either the Salt Flats or one of the Dry Lakes. A pretty neat dragster, if you ask me, with a big Cadillac engine and a tube frame chassis. Change the rear end gears and the rear tires, and it's back to the drag strip...
Drag Racing comes to Hollywood. Well, not all the way to Hollywood, it stopped in Pomona first. In case you are not familiar with the Bikini Beach Drag Strip, that's because there wasn't any, except on the silver screen at your local movie palace. Tommy Ivo in the near lane and the Greer, Black & Prudhomme dragster in the far lane, the engines are lit as they pull to the starting line (I believe they were only running on alky) but it was still loud enough to have most of the crew, cast and hangers on (like me) to have our fingers in our ears. Anyway, the Flagman is getting ready (played by Don Rickles in the orange jump suit) to flag them off. This was 1964, at the Pomona Drag Strip, and they were filming a movie about girls in bikini's, guys that liked to see girls in bikini's, and especially liked to see Annette Funicello in a bikini. Oh yes, Frankie Avalon was in the movie too. The studio put out the word and a bunch of drag cars showed up to create "authenticity" to the movie. I spent a whole day there. Watching a a movie being made is like watching grass grow, it takes hours between shots. It's boring to watch, but there were a bunch of racers to hang out with, and there were a few girls in bikini's to watch too. This was not a high budget movie, and although the actual budget has never been posted anywhere, it was rumored to be somewhere between $175,000 and $500,000. But, as dumb as the movie was, it pulled in $4,500,000 in U.S. Box Office.
A couple of gas dragsters off and running at San Fernando Drag Strip. On the left is Tony Nancy and his 426 Plymouth wedge engine dragster and in the other lane, George Bolthoff with a blown Small Block Chevy. Based on the start it looks like this one could be anyone's race...
The Frye Brothers twin Buick powered dragster, running on gasoline...
The famed "Bean Bandits" car club, out of the San Diego area, in about 1950. This is one of the first dual engine dragsters, running two Flatheads on nitromethane. This club raced numerous drag cars, most of them powered by Flatheads. It appears that these engines may be from different race cars, as both the intake manifolds and headers are not identical. The front engine looks like it might have been fuel injected. Some folks believe that this may have been the first sling-shot dragster, with the driver seated behind the narrowed rear end (which also may have been a first). Front wheel brakes helped insure that they could get this beast stopped at the far end...
Not one of "Big Daddy's" favorite dragsters. He complained about the handling at the top end, which may have been caused by aerodynamic lift pulling weight off the drag slicks at speed...
The "Frantic Four" dragster, Weekly, Rivero, Fox & Holding. This SoCal digger kicked ass everywhere it went. The photo reminds me of days gone by, when pit space was just a big field full of weeds next to the drag strip or unused airport runway. These were simpler times, when nobody complained about not having a paved pit area. Drag racing in "yesteryear", and in my opinion, it was the Best of Times...
The "Snake" packing the 'chutes for another run. This era, starting in the middle 1960's, saw some of the most beautiful Top Fuel dragsters ever built...
Kindred & Arteagua's very well thought out early dragster, sponsored by SoCal Speed Shop. The Ford Flathead block equipped with the Ardun cylinder head conversion, and crank driven supercharged engine belongs to Alex Xydias, a legend in the word of hot rodding...
Art Malone made the long tow from Tampa, Florida to Long Beach, California to lay down some numbers at Lions Drag Strip...
Rodney Singer’s supercharged '54 Cadillac-powered AA/Dragster from Houston at the 1958 NHRA Nationals, held at the Oklahoma City Fairgrounds. Notice the solid-mounted front end and the aluminum U-channel frame construction. The Caddy engines, like the Oldsmobile engines, had a siamesed port for the 2nd and 3rd exhaust port in the center of the cylinder head. On the Olds, it was pretty easy to add another primary tube to form a more efficient exhaust system with four primaries on each side of the cylinder head. I had never seen that done on a Cadillac cylinder head before this photo…
The classic Dragmaster chassis. Pretty much a production piece, particularly in the driver's compartment and roll cage area. The wheelbase could be the racer's choice when ordering his chassis. Not a lot of pizzazz, just a well designed dragster...
A classic "Rail Job", owned by Lee Woolley from Pocatello, Idaho, so named in the media as "frame rails with an engine on it". A 1950's era dragster, powered by a straight-8 Buick engine...
This is just a reminder for any of you Millennial types. These dragsters are NOT doing burn-outs. The light is green and they are booking it toward the finish line. I don't know the car in the close lane but in the far lane, I think it's the famed "Surfers" dragster, the yellow scoop is a clue...
Dusty Rhodes, dumping the laundry going through the lights at Pomona. A beautiful car with a unique shape to the body around the cockpit...
There were three important things that really put Hot Rodding and Drag Racing on the map, "back in the day". First was the formation by Wally Parks of the National Hot Rodding Association (NHRA) in the early 1950's. Second was something known as the NHRA Safety Safari, a few guys affiliated with the NHRA touring the nation and visiting drag strips around the country. One of the guys on that tour was Hot Rod Magazine's photographer Eric Rickman. And finally, Hot rod Magazine itself, which published photographs and stories accumulated during the tour, like the photo above. The date, some time in 1955. The event, a drag race in Lake Wales, Florida (probably an unused air strip loaned to a car club on a Sunday afternoon). The competitors, Joe Travis on the left in his Oldsmobile engine powered dragster, and on the right, Don Garlits in his Ford flathead powered dragster. I don't know who won this event, but this was the first time for Garlits to get some exposure in a national magazine...
The original "Sidewinder" dragster was a success, no doubt about it. It came up to the final round at the NHRA Nationals of being the Top Eliminator one year, and had to settle for Runner-Up. Several other racers gave the Sidewinder concept a try, but most had only limited success. This one was the brainchild of Chet Herbert and driver Zane Schubert, and featured both the dual-engine design and the Sidewinder style layout. Two side by side injected Chevy engines, mounted sideways, on nitro. Like most of the other Sidewinder dragsters, it never lived up to expectations...
Here is a site we don't see anymore. Two dragsters that don't look the same as each other. If you get a dozen dragsters together today, it looks like a dozen chocolate chip cookies in a bag, you can't tell one cookie from any other cookie. The twin engine car on the bottom has an interesting history. This twin Buick, in-line engine dragster was built by Kent Fuller for Tommy Ivo, as a replacement for Ivo's side by side Buick dragster, which had also been built by Fuller. Both of Ivo's dragsters were built for the Top Gas Dragster Class, because NHRA had banned the Nitro Dragster classes at the time. But by the time this car was finished, NHRA reinstated the Nitro Dragsters classes and Ivo was quick to sell this car (to Ron Pellegrini) and build a Top Fuel Dragster. This dragster went through other owners after Pellegrini, and there is some contention that "TV Tommy" never actually drove this car in competition...
"Big Daddy" Ed Roth's one of a kind Top Fuel dragster, "Yellow Fang". Owned and driven by George Schreiber. The incredible aluminum body was created by master craftsman Tom Hanna. This photo was taken in 1963 at San Fernando Drag Strip...
Zane Shubert and his twin engine dragster, running on nitromethane. The engines are tied together at the crank shafts with a dual-roller timing chain. It's the superchargers drive system that makes this digger interesting. The supercharger on the front engine is turned around and faces backwards. A single cogged-tooth blower belt spins both blowers, which means that the front supercharger is turning in the opposite direction. As it turns out, a GMC roots style supercharger pumps the same volume of air in either direction...
In the beginning, there was no specific "standard" when it came to building a dragster. Everyone was on their own, some designs worked, some didn't. Today of course, all dragsters look the same. Although it's possible that some racers would like to try other options to get an "edge" over the competition, the class rules and the safety requirements usually forbid much of any "new or different ideas". In the beginning, if you had an idea you tired it and if it worked, other people copied your ideas for themselves. It didn't take too long before racers could see that mounting the two heaviest items (the engine and the driver) performed bettter if they were near the rear of the chassis. Thus began the trend of the driver in the back. In this digger, the driver is seated over the rear end housing. The trend to mount the driver behind the rear end had not taken place yet. Note the roll bar attched to the rear end housing rather than the frame. It may look kind of iffy, but there were no rule books back then. The engine is a carbureted Cadillac. The body sure appears to have been formed by a professional. Either that or this dragster racer (Bobby Langley) found a ballistic missle in some military scrap yard...
A photo from another era, another time. Before there was drag racing, there were the Dry Lakes in SoCal or the Salt Flats in Utah. And before there were drag strips, there were the unused or abanded air fields. No buildings to get in the way of the view, no housing tracts and no interstate highways. People were less inclinded to build their house next to an airport (and then complain about the noise) than they are today.
It was not unusal in the early days to pair up the two fastest cars at a meet and run them off together, to established the Top Eliminator Trophy. On the right is Jim "Jazzy" Nelson's fuel buring Flathead powered Fiat Coupe, and on the left, Lloyd Scott's twin engine dragster going head to head. Lloyd's digger had an Oldsmobile engine in the front and a Cadillac mill in the back. It looks like Jazzy has a lead out of the hole (he beat many dragsters in his day with this coupe), but the dragster is no slouch and has two engines. Did he catch the coupe? Maybe, maybe not...
It was not unusal in the early days to pair up the two fastest cars at a meet and run them off together, to established the Top Eliminator Trophy. On the right is Jim "Jazzy" Nelson's fuel buring Flathead powered Fiat Coupe, and on the left, Lloyd Scott's twin engine dragster going head to head. Lloyd's digger had an Oldsmobile engine in the front and a Cadillac mill in the back. It looks like Jazzy has a lead out of the hole (he beat many dragsters in his day with this coupe), but the dragster is no slouch and has two engines. Did he catch the coupe? Maybe, maybe not...
The famed "Greek", in the pits at Lions Drag Strip, checking his drag 'chute. This has to be, in my opinion, the best looking nose on any dragster ever built. The big guy on the right in the black jacket with the white stripe is Jack Carter, the proprietor of Carter Safety Equipment, who made some of the best drag 'chutes in the nation. Jack built all the safety equipment for Craig Breedlove's jet powered Land Speed Record vehicles...
Automobile racing began in the very early 1900's. Some say that Henry Ford was one of the earliest racers with his home-built car. Indy car racing began in 1911. I wasn't around for those races, but I was around when hot rodding began. It seems that WWII was barely over (1945-1946), and the GI's were returning home, dropped off their duffel bags and and headed to the Dry Lakes in SoCal with their hot rods. A couple of years later (1948-1949), drag racing began, and by 1950, drag strips (usually unused airports) were starting to hold drag races. At first, guys raced their street driven hot rods, but it didn't take long before "the Dragster" was created. The car above was not the first Dragster but it had to be an early edition. The frame is a cut down passenger car frame. The engine of choice was the Ford or Mercury Flathead V8. The layout of this Dragster is very well laid out, engine and driver to the rear, and it even had a roll bar. And showing some class, Baby Moon hub caps...
Joe Tucci's blown Chrysler powered dragster sits in the pits at Atco waiting for the call to the lanes. This photo was taken in 1960. Joe was a legend in the East and was a very competitive racer. This car came out of the Lyndwood Eliminator shop in Wilkes-Barre, PA. These were the days when the engine blocks and cylinder heads were still cast iron, as delivered by the factories when the new Chrysler automobiles were built. A far cry from the billet aluminum engines in today's dragsters, in which not one single part in the engines are produced by a production automobile factory...
An interesting dual engine dragster, using the Buick "nailhead" in-line engine configuration. Each engine is equipped with six carburetors and are most likely running on gasoline. The car looks pretty stout and well designed, probably from the late 1950's or very early 1960's generation, based on the leaf spring front suspension system. The photo was taken at Atco Dragway in New Jersey, that much seems to be certain. Other than that, there is an air of mystery about this dragster as to who built it, who owned it and who drove it. If anyone has some information about this dragster, please send me an email at geoklass@yahoo.com and I will edit the caption...
Jim Minnick's super nice Hemi powered dragster. The engine looks like one of the new 426" Chrysler's, which had recently become available. This car took home the Top Eliminator title in the Gas Dragster class at the 1966 NHRA Summernationals...
In the 1950's and even into the early 1960's, Top Eliminator Trophies frequently went to gasoline powered dragsters. Many racers at the time preferred to run gasoline rather than nitromethane or even methanol. Although hemi engines were the first choice with nitro, a lot of other engines worked well on gasoline. Ford, Lincoln, Oldsmobile, Cadillac, Chevy, Pontiac and Buick engines all were frequently the engines of choice for the gasoline racers. This supercharged Buick dragster (with a Lyndwood Eliminator chassis) was campaigned by Don Raleigh, out of his Metutchen, New Jersey Speed Shop...
Drag racing began shortly after WWII. I'm not sure when the first "Dragster" was built, maybe in the late 1940's or most likely, in the early 1950's. These cars were scrounged together using junk yard parts, and using frames from production cars, like Model-T Fords. At some point, racers realized the advantages of building the frames out of lighter weight material, like steel tubing. These early Dragsters were all home-built cars, built in someone's garage or in their back yard. Many of the racers were not exactly "experts" when it came to fabrication, many of these cars were downright crude and poorly welded. The material they used was usually whatever they could find in scrap yards. Some Dragsters were built out of exhaust pipe tubing. These poorly designed and fabricated Dragsters were all too often death traps. What was needed were people that knew what they were doing, knew how to design and weld a Dragster chassis that both "worked" and was also relatively safe to drive. In the West, in California, Scotty Fenn opened up "Chassis Research", and began producing complete Dragster and Altered chassis. His Model TE-440 dragster chassis took off, racers liked the fact that they could now buy a complete Dragster chassis, instead of trying to build one themselves. This was in about 1957. At the same time back east, Patrick Bilbow began the production of Dragster and Altered chassis at his Wilkes-Barre, PA shop, Lyndwood Welding Co. Like Scotty Fenn did in the West, Pat Bilbow did in the East, building and selling complete Dragster and Altered chassis. He called his chassis, "Lynwood Eliminators". These cars were very successful, and hundreds of well know drag racers picked up Top Eliminator trophies driving equipment built by Pat Bilbow. He turned out around 400 chassis between 1957 and 1971, when he finally closed his shop, at least to building Dragsters. It's still the place to go if you want excellent welding or fabrication done.
This yellow beauty above is one of Pat's Lynwood Eliminator Dragsters, the "Crane Cam Special", owned by Dave Smith. It ran in the B/Dragster class, an injected Chevy Small Block engine, on gasoline...
This yellow beauty above is one of Pat's Lynwood Eliminator Dragsters, the "Crane Cam Special", owned by Dave Smith. It ran in the B/Dragster class, an injected Chevy Small Block engine, on gasoline...
This dragster is going to catch some people by surprise. It was built and raced by Pete Robinson. I believe it was built after his early supercharged Chevy powered Dragmaster chassis dragster, with which he won Top Eliminator at the NHRA Nationals in 1961, in the A/Gas Dragster class. This car was also an ultra lite Dragmaster Chassis, only it's powered by a Small Block (289) Ford engine. Pete switched to the Small Block Ford engine because it was 50-pound lighter than his Chevy engine. He retained the stock bore but used a 5/8" stroker crank, to get 352 cubic inches. Weight (or the removal of it) was very important to Pete (he was an engineer by trade). Pete was a fanatic about reducing weight on his cars, and there is nothing mounted on this dragster that does not absolutely need to be there. Until drag chutes were mandated on dragsters by NHRA, Pete chose to leave them off the car (as in this photo) in order to save a few pounds. I'm pretty sure this dragsters also ran on gasoline...
During the Golden Years of Drag Racing, this was a Top Fuel Dragster. No wings sticking out, no wings sticking up in the air, no sponsor name in big letters, just a beautiful aluminum body, a fire breathing, fuel burning Hemi engine, and a driver in an aluminized fire suit. The matching paint on the helmet is a nice touch. This is a Top Fuel Dragster, this is the way they looked at one time in the past. This is the way they should still look, in a perfect world...
This photo (by Chan Bush) is for those too young to remember. The PDRA (Professional Dragster Association Championship) in 1967 brought 80 Top Fuel dragsters together from all over the nation. A Top Fuel meet for the ages, a 64 car qualified field. All 12 lanes at Lions Drag Strip were full to the brim, with nothing but 6-second fuelers. This photo shows the front row, preparing for the first round of qualifying. Behind them, nothing but Top Fuelers and their push cars, all the way to the back of the lanes. To my knowledge, this had to be the largest all-fuel dragster event ever held anywhere. There was so much nitro fumes in the air that the thousands of fans in the stands had headaches and watery eyes for the next several days...
A very interesting dragster. It looks like an early rendition of Eddie Hill's digger out of Texas, the Pontiac engine, the center steering system, and the low roll cage, although I have never seen that front end set-up before. I believe the body, which looks like it was formed out of corrugated metal, was most likely temporary, until a new one could be formed...
Dragster builder and legend, Woody Gilmore, sitting in a new dragster he built for Paul Sutherland. This is one of the earliest examples of Woody's dragster innovations. An injected 387 cubic inch Chrysler for power. Paul turned 156 MPH the first day out with this car. If you look closely, you can see the nose of Hank Vincent's "Top Banana" right behind Paul's new ride. This photo was taken at Vaca Valley Drag Strip, in 1958...
The "Ramchargers" Top Fuel 426 Chrysler Hemi dragster comes storming out of the gate. The Ramchargers were a club of about a dozen guys, Chrysler engineers mostly. They started out with an early hemi powered Plymouth, running in the Altered Class. From that they jumped into Super Stock, Factory Experimental, Match Racing and then stepped up to a Funny Car and eventually, Top Fuel dragsters, such as this one...
Don "Big Daddy" Garlits leaving the starting line at the NHRA Winternationals in Pomona, CA. Don added the roof over the engine in order to keep the engine dry in the event of rain. Okay, just kidding, it's actually a "wing" (airfoil) turned upside down to create down force. The engines had enough horsepower to overcome the tires ability to get traction, even as the car was down the track past the half way mark. Airfoils like this work, however, they also cause increased drag, sticking up in the air like this. Don was experimenting, trying to see if the increase in traction toward the finish line was enough of an advantage to overcome the added wind resistance...
When I first started going to the drags every week, even if I was going to run my '40 Ford Coupe, there was always time to just wander around in the pits. I hardly ever sat in the stands, I wanted to be near the race cars. When they called a class to the lanes, I wandered around in the staging lanes, just looking around, talking to racers, just loving every minute of it. Imagine you're walking around in the lanes and you come upon this dragster. This photo tells me a lot. Everyone is wearing a jacket so it must have been getting chilly. The engines have already been warmed up in the pits, and so they throw a blanket over the engines to keep them warm. I really don't know this car, other than it has one of Don Long's first dragster chassis, and the car is owned by the team of Marshall & Vermillien. And just look at that body. The craftsmanship is truly stunning. I don't know which track this was or where it was located, but I can remember so clearly being at Lions Drag Strip on a Saturday afternoon, and 50 Top Fuel Dragsters would be trying to qualify for a 32 car Top Fuel Show, or if it was a big event, 80 dragsters from all over California and other western states would show up for a 64 car Top Fuel Show. Think about that for a minute. 32 pairs going down the track in Round #1, 16 pairs in Round #2, 8 pairs in Round #3. 4 pairs in Round #4. 2 pairs in Round #5, and the Finals in Round #6. And between rounds in the Dragster classes, Gassers, Altereds, Super Stockers, Street Roadsters and Modified Sports Cars were in competition...
The famed blown Chrysler powered "Sidewinder" dragster. Actually, I believe there were two of them. The first one was built by Paul Nicolini and Harry Duncan. I think this is the second one, of the team of Jones, Reed & Mailliard. Both cars were nearly identical and both were driven by Jack Chrisman...
Dragsters leaving the starting line in the very early 1950's, and a flagman in mid-air. These racers, two of the best in the SoCal region, were both from the San Diego area, south of L.A. On the near side is one of the "Bean Bandit's" dragsters (one of several their club members had). Flathead powered. typically running nitromethane fuel. On the other side is the Dode Martin car, I think it was flathead powered also, can't remember for sure. This photo was purported to have been taken at one of the first drag events held at Pomona...
Someone always had to be the first. I have always believed that Henry Ford was technically the first person to ever build a hot rod, which was about 1901. But hot rodding as we know it began right after WWII, when the boys started to return home from Europe, which would put it about 1945. Hot rods were built from production street cars. And even though there was far less traffic on the streets back then, the streets were really not a great place to find out how fast your hot rod could go. In the SoCal area, hot rodders drove out to the numerous Dry Lakes, to run in the various speed contests held each year. Now, at least, the hot rodders could find out how fast their cars could go. Then, in the early 1950's, drag strips started popping up, first in the SoCal area, and then to other parts of the country. Many hot rodders that normally ran on the Dry Lakes, showed up at the drag strips to find out how fast their Dry Lakes cars could go in the 1/4 mile. And soon enough, they started building cars for that purpose alone. The all-out drag race cars were known as "dragsters". Most were bare bones cars, an engine, a frame of some sort, and a place for the driver to sit. But some racers went further than that, such as Bob Rounthwaite, who built and raced the car in the photo above. Bob's dragster, which was built in the 1950-1951 period, was called "the thingie", an appropriate name to be sure, and based on the body design, was slightly ahead of it's time. Power came from a Ford flathead engine. Henry would have been pleased...
Of the "Big 3" American automobile manufacturing companies (GM, Ford, & Chrysler), only Ford ever actually built a dragster. Dubbed the "Super Mustang", it was used as a promotion piece for the company. I doubt it was ever raced in competition, although I could be wrong. On the occasions when it did go down the track on an exhibition run, Tom "The Mongoose" McEwen was in the seat...
I can't quite place the digger in the far lane, but the dragster in the near lane is the Mooneyham & Sharp A/FD machine, a couple of drag race legends in the SoCal area. Gene Mooneyham and Al Sharp forgot more about drag raring than most guys will ever know. This photo is from 1961, and probably taken at a Riverside Raceway event. Ron Decicco is in the seat, and already has a half car lead out of the hole. No Zoomie headers yet, that will come soon...
A couple of Top Fuelers smoking the hides at the "Winternationals", in the early 1960's. For those of you that have been to Pomona, I know what you're thinking. You are wondering where that nice grassy area is at the Pomona Drag Strip, and how come you never noticed it before? Well, it's because although this is the Winternationals, it's not at Pomona, California, it's "down under", at Surfers Paradise Raceway, in Queensland, Australia...
The Coachmen Car Club dragster along side their very striking trailer. This club was founded by a few guys in High School in 1956. The trailer is one of many built by "Mr. Ed", a one piece fiberglass trailer body built in a mold like a fiberglass boat. Very popular, too...
Donn Griffin's gasoline powered, Small Block Chevy, running in B/Dragster at Indy, at the NHRA Nationals in 1961...
The very sleek Ward & Ware "Longshot" dragster. Chassis by Woody. John "Zookeeper" Mulligan drove this car...
Norbert Locke's dual supercharged flathead powered dragster. Dual engine dragsters were pretty common in early dragsters in the 1950's and into the 1960's, and there are many photos of different combinations on this site. If you are as fascinated with multi engine dragsters as I am, be sure to check out "Two To Go". Site owner Dennis Friend has compiled a great website focused on twin engine diggers, going back to the very beginning. www.twotogo.homestead.com/
The well built and super neat Nesbitt Orange Special Dragster. It was built by Bob Armstrong and driven by Maurice Richer. The team was out of Santa Maria, CA...
Losinski & Duncan injected Chrysler dragster...
I don't know what the deal is here, neither driver is wearing a brain bucket. On the far side is Jesse Lopez and on the near side is Fritz Voigt...
As far as I'm concerned, the great state of Colorado is known for three important things. It's the home of Coors Beer, the home of the late John Denver, and the home of Kenz & Leslie Racing. This team has been into racing every where, including the dry lakes, the Salt Flats and the drag strip. They have been racing before the letter "R" was incorporated into the alphabet, and ALWAYS with Ford power, and always a class act....
You couldn't ask for a more beautiful body on an early dragster than this one. This digger was campaigned by Richard Hubbard, Romeo Palamides and Jack Friedland, out of Northern California. Power comes from a fuel injected hemi DeSoto engine...
A nasty looking supercharged Olds power plant. At some point in time, some track or some sanctioning body (maybe NHRA) required the owner of this car to raise the height of the roll bars. It looks like they did, they welded on some additional tubing above the original roll bars of the Chassis Research TE 448 chassis. Maybe they should have gone a little higher, everything above the ears of the driver, Lloyd Scott, is still vulnerable. Lloyd's dragster, the "Sleepwalkers Special" was built after an earlier dragster he ran, the famed "Bustle Bomb", the one with the two engines, a Caddy and an Olds. The Olds engine in this car was the same engine he had in the "Bustle Bomb"...
Romeo Palamides exquisite dragster (a word you don't hear very often when describing dragsters). This is from the 1950's. An unsupercharged hemi (could have been a Chrysler or a DeSoto, they both looked almost the same) sits in the magnificent body. I don't know who fabbed that body but he was a craftsman. This dragster won the "Most Beautiful Competition Car Award" at the Oakland Roadster Show...
Not quite at the same level of craftsmanship as the car above but it's clean, neat, and to the point. Power comes from an early Ford engine with overhead valve conversion cylinder heads. This dragster is campaigned by the team of Don Fancher and Bill Bonebrake, and was from Gresham, Oregon... (Thank you Marty Strode)
There are several ways to get your competition car to and from the drag strip. You could drive it there and back (many early Gassers were driven to and from the track). Another way was to hook it up to a street car with a tow bar and pull it there and back. Or, you could use a trailer for the task. This guy decided to tow his first dragster to and from the strip with a tow bar behind his every day vehicle. By the way, the "guy" was Don Garlits. He wasn't known as "Big Daddy" yet, but he soon would be. If I'm not mistaken, both of these cars are displayed in his awsome museum in Ocala, Florida....
http://garlits.com
http://garlits.com
Jim Crooke's fantastic AA/FD dragster, the "Assassin". Jim hailed from the Great Northwest (Seattle if I recall) and came down to SoCal to get a dragster built. It was 1967. He went first class all the way. First stop was Ed Pink's to order a SOHC Ford engine, just like the one in the red-white & blue Baney-Prudhomme car. Next was a stop at Don Long's shop to get a chassis ordered, and then over to Tom Hanna's place to get on the list for a body. None of these things were "over the counter" items, so I offered to store some of the parts he had with him at my apartment. I had a shop that built dragster trailers, and offered to build him one. I also introduced Jim to Bob Muravez, who was a partner and driver for our own AA/FD, "The Pulsator" and also drove the "Freight Train" dragster. Bob offered to do some initial shake down runs after the car was finished. That's Bob sitting on top of the front of the tandem axle trailer in the white shirt. Jim's story is great, copy and paste the link below...
http://www.wediditforlove.com/Assassin.html
http://www.wediditforlove.com/Assassin.html
In the beginning and throughout most of the 1950's, dragster chassis were usually home made. In the later part of the '50's and into the '60's, there were a few companies that offered custom built draster chassis. Four that I can think of off the top of my head were Chassis Research, Kent Fuller, Don Long and Don Garlits. Some of these designs were almost considered "production" chassis and some were weld-it-yourself kits. Chassis Research probably came the closest to offereing a production dragster chassis, but the idea for a real production chassis should be credited to drag racer Dode Martin and his partner, Jim Nelson. Together they created Dragmaster Chassis in 1959, located in Fallbrook, California (near San Diego). This company pumped out dragster chassis for over 35 years. Some were for their own use (factory cars) but most were for customers. The two cars above were so-called "factory cars". The one on the foreground featured a supercharged Chevy engine (and the optional roll bar hoop), and the one in the rear was powered by a flathead Ford engine. At one time or the other, every engine combination (including dual engines) was bolted into a Dragmaster chassis. They had a distictive drivers cage area, and were very easy to identify at the drag races. Below are a few examples...
Lee Christian, from Lubbock, TX stuck a supercharged Olds engine in his Dragmaster chassis...
A couple of dragsters with Dodge Wedge engines (supercharged). The second car does not appear to be a Dragmaster chassis, although it looks like the owner purchased a Dragmaster roll cage hoop to augment the original hoop over the driver's head...
The optional roll bar hoop could be the same height as the standard hoop, or raised up as shown in this photo, at the customer's request. I believe that Dragmaster was the first company to offer an actual "roll cage design" instead of just a roll bar for dragsters. Note that this car was built prior to dragsters being equipped with motorcycle front wheels and tires as the defacto standard.
There are many other Dragmaster cars sprinkeld into the Dragster Section on this website...
There are many other Dragmaster cars sprinkeld into the Dragster Section on this website...
Ron Pelligrini's twin injected Buick dragster. This car was built by Tommy Ivo. Ivo had been touring the nation with his record setting twin side-by-side injected Buick A/Gas dragster, kicking butt and taking names. At some point, Tom decided to build an in-line dragster using the same engines. This is the car. But as they were putting the finishing touches on this car, NHRA decided to rescind the Nitro Ban that had been in place for a few years, and Tom built a fuel dragster ("The Barnstormer") with a blown Chrysler engine. I don't know if Tom ever made a pass in this car before selling it to Ron...
"Hot Rodding" has always been part of our American culture, from the very beginning of the automobile. It may be safe to say that Henry Ford himself may have been one of the first "hot rodders", since his first car was a race car, prior to the introduction of the Model-T. By the second half of the 1940's (and the return of the troops following WWII), hot rodding really took off. There is no dispute that the engine of choice for the early hot rods of that era was the Ford flathead engine (first produced in 1932). By the 1950's, the first of the overhead valve engines (Cadillac and Oldsmobile) were beginning to make inroads but many still relied on the Ford flathead engine.
The fuel injected flathead powered dragster above was built in 1960 and raced from 1960 through 1963, in the D-Dragster class. A perfect example of a home-built race car. The chassis was a Chassis Reserach TE 448 kit, welded up by the owners, Sam Buck and Bob Thompson, out of Lockport, IL. This car won the D-Dragster class at the World Series of Drag Racing held at Cordova Illinois in 1961. In 1962, the car won the D-Dragster class at the U.S. Fuel & Gas Championships at Bakersfield, CA. It is currently (or has been) on exhibit at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, MI...
The fuel injected flathead powered dragster above was built in 1960 and raced from 1960 through 1963, in the D-Dragster class. A perfect example of a home-built race car. The chassis was a Chassis Reserach TE 448 kit, welded up by the owners, Sam Buck and Bob Thompson, out of Lockport, IL. This car won the D-Dragster class at the World Series of Drag Racing held at Cordova Illinois in 1961. In 1962, the car won the D-Dragster class at the U.S. Fuel & Gas Championships at Bakersfield, CA. It is currently (or has been) on exhibit at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, MI...
The Scrima & Adams superchrged gasoline powered Oldsmobile dragster. The year, 1960. Ronnie Scrima had been around since the beginning of drag racing and engine builder Gene Adams knew his way around the Olds engine. Just another dragster team, in search of a driver. I'm not sure exactly how they picked Leonard Harris as their driver. He was not a "car guy" (in High School, Leonard was an All-City gymnast) but the team tried Leonard out in their Olds powered Altered, and he did pretty well. So when the team got tired of the Altered, they built this dragster and Leonard was the natural choice to drive it (look at the upper body build on Leonard sitting in the seat on the return road somewhere; Leonard had no problem performing the "Iron Cross" as a gymnast). The first time out with the car at San Fernando Drag Strip, Leonard broke Tommy Ivo's track record with a 9.30 ET, set Top Speed of the meet (163.33 mph) and won the event. The next weekend, the team showed up at Lions Drag Strip, and Leonard won that event too. The next time out for the car was at Inyokern Raceway, and Leonard won that event also. He won Top Eliminator at Pomona and Riverside Raceway. In one period at Lions, Leonard won 12 Top Eliminator Events in 12 weeks. These were not small events, unless you consider 16 events as small. Lions regularly held 32 car Top Eliminator events, and usually with the best dragsters in the county. 12 in a row anywhere in the nation would be front page news in Drag News, the official drag publication at the time. Then the team decided to take the car to the 1960 NHRA Nationals held in Detroit. Leonard won Top Eliminator at the event. All of this took place in a space of six months, from the beginng to the end. At Lions, Leonard volunteered to take another dragster down the track on a test run, to see if he could identify the reason for the handling issues that the regular driver, Mort Smith (who was my next door neighbor) was having. It was Leonard's last run down the quarter mile, the car crashed and Leonard was killed. October 22, 1960. Some people thought that the front axle broke, others that it was the steering arm that came off. No one knows for sure.
I have always considered Don Garlits to be the "best" that ever raced a dragster, and Don did more than drive. He built the cars and built the engines. But in my opinion, I feel that Leonard was the best "pure" dragster driver that ever lived...
I have always considered Don Garlits to be the "best" that ever raced a dragster, and Don did more than drive. He built the cars and built the engines. But in my opinion, I feel that Leonard was the best "pure" dragster driver that ever lived...
Bob Muravez in the twin supercharged Chevy powered Peters & Frank "Freight Train" out on the Frye Brothers twin injected Buick dragster. Bob won this round and ultimately, the event (Top Eliminator at the 1961 NHRA Winternationals). Bob raced under the alias, Floyd Lippencott, Jr., so his dad would not know he was driving a dragster. Standing behind the dragster in front of the white Pontiac is Nye Frank on the left, and John Peters on the right. This was an early iteration of the "Freight Train" dragster...
A very clean looking, hemi powered (DeSoto engine) dragster. This photo was taken at the 1958 NHRA Nationals. Looks like the car was from the New England area. There are some neat details to look at in this photo, such as the hand brake lever on the outside of the cockpit, and the full size steering wheel. And the car has a tube chassis, which was not always standard with the very early diggers. Another detail that caught my eye was the '55 Chevy in the background. Do you see the little "V" shaped badge under the tail light? This denoted that the car was equipped with the new Chevy V-8 engine (265 cubic inches). As a kid and driving my 1940 Ford (hopped up flathead engine) around town, looking to do a little street racing, I learned (through experience) to avoid choosing off '55 Chevys with that little "V" under the tail lights...
I must have a lot of photos of Tom's twin Buick digger in this section, but I don't care. I have always loved this dragster. I could look at photos of this car for hours. Kent Fuller chassis and Tom's usual attention to detail. I was at Lions the night that Ivo broke the world ET record for gasoline powered dragsters, the first gas digger to run quicker than 9-seconds flat in the quarter mile. It was either 8.98 or 8.95, I can't remember which...
A lot of people believe that the first rear engine dragster was built by Don Garlits. Well, he usually gets the credit for turning the rear engine dragster design into a defacto standard for NHRA Top Fuel racing (starting in 1971), but there were many other sucessful rear engine fuel and gas dragsters before that. Many racers were running rear engine dragsters in the 1950's and 1960's.
Although this car may not be bringing home any trophies on the car show circuit, it was ahead of it's time with a tube chassis. I really don't know anything about this car, but I do know one thing for sure, it was cold when they took the photograph...
Although this car may not be bringing home any trophies on the car show circuit, it was ahead of it's time with a tube chassis. I really don't know anything about this car, but I do know one thing for sure, it was cold when they took the photograph...
When you talk about a drag car that has stood the test of time, you have to put the Santos-Vincent-Govia fuel dragster, "Top Banana", at the top of the list. The team was out of Hayward, CA, and driven by Hank Vincent. It held the fuel record in B/F and C/F at various times, and used a small block injected Chevy, sometimes naturally aspirated and sometimes supercharged. When you look at this car, the workmanship and symmetry was simply awesome. This car was built about 1955. On May 29, 1960, at Fremont Drag Strip, Hank was nearing the finish line on the final elimination run when the dragster went off the track, traveling at an estimated speed of 170 mph. Hank tried to ease the car back on the track, but the car jumped into the air and cartwheeled end over end for over 300 feet before coming to a halt. Hank was rushed to the hospital but died in route...
Swamp Rat III leaving the line. Don Garlits raced at a lot of tracks, he was typically booked in for either match racing or just making runs for the fans. While Don was healing from a bad fire at one of the tracks, Connie Swingle filled in for Big Daddy in order to make already committed dates. Connie worked for Don at the time, building dragster chassis, including this one....
This may be my favorite Top Fuel dragster of all time (with or without the front half of the body attached), Lou Baney's Ford SOHC Cammer engine killer car. Engine by Ed Pink, and always driven by great drivers (Snake, Mongoose, etc.). I don't know who was in the seat in this photo. One of Jack Carter's "Tri-Form 'chutes" out in the breeze. This car competed at the highest level. Lou was such a great guy, and so important to the drag racing community. He ran the Saugus Drag Strip from 1951 to 1957, he was one of the founders of the Speed Equipment Manufacturing Association (SEMA) and was elected President of that organization. He was the owner of a Speed Shop. He owned several Automobile Dealerships (both Ford and Chrysler-Plymouth) and sponsored many race cars. And he was a "hands-on" guy, always a gentleman and always fun to be around, and truly missed in the drag racing world...
Looks like one very large 6-cylinder aircraft engines...
So, you're gonna build a dragster. Is it going to have one engine or two? If it's going to have two engines, are they going to be side by side, or in-line, one in front of the other? And the driver, is he going to be seated in front of the engines or behind the engines, or maybe in between the engines? Decision, decisions, decisions, Emmett Cull from up in the Bay Area of CA made his choices...
Building a dragster, if it was easy, anyone could do it. Well, in the 1950's and early 1960's, it was that easy. Today, there are probably less than 30 fuel burning dragsters in the entire world. In the later 1950's and early 1960's, almost every town in America with at least eight traffic lights had that many...
From the always innovative mind of Mickey Thompson comes this dual-engine, 4-wheel drive dragster. Power is derived from two supercharged Pontiac engines. The engine on the left drives the rear tires, and the engine on the right (which is facing backwards in the car) drives the front tires. I saw the car run at Lions and it spun all the tires pretty much the length of the track. Although I don't think this digger ever lived up to what Mickey had hoped, it was built at a time when dragster racers were trying all kinds of ideas to see if they could gain an advantage, before the "coockie cutter" dragsters that all looked the same had been invented, and for that alone, we have to appreciate the endeavor...
A bare bones dragster. Note the flexible tubing used to form the "headers". The ironic thing was that it was easier and cheaper to build a dragster in the early 1950's than a car for just about any other class...
Above and below, a couple of full body dragsters, from the late 1950's or very early 1960's era...
The "Howard Cams Twin Bears", dual supercharged Chevy engine dragster. This car had gone through several iterations in it's life, and it was ultra competitive in each and every one of them. Of course, having Jack Chrisman in the seat didn't hurt...
Hoyt Grimes and one of his several dragsters. This one is a very well proportioned and neat full-body digger with supercharged Chrysler power. Note the rounded extension added to the top of the roll bar. This addition was probably mandated at some point, maybe by NHRA, as the original roll bar only protected the bottom half of Hoyt's head, and it was deemed safer if the entire head was protected. Hoyt had been racing dragsters since the 1950's and is in the Georgia Racing Hall of Fame...
Feast your eyes on drag racer Manuel Gonzalez and his magnificent "Californian" dragster. The chassis was fabricated by Lefty Mudersbach, the body by Bob Sorrell, and ran a 283-inch supercharged small block Chevy engine. Manuel was very well known and popular at SoCal drag strips, especially at Lions Drag Strip. He owned a restaurant not far away, in Wilmington, CA, called "Cinco de Mayo", a popular hang out for racers after Lions shut down for the evening. This dragster was awarded a 1st Place Trophy at the 1961 Winternationals Rod & Custom car show. Manuel was known for always having great looking cars, check out his Modified Roadster called the "Californian 2" in the Roadster Section of this site...
It looks like standing room only, with all eyes on the "rail job". Actually, this is the Saugus Drag Strip (opened in 1951) and to be honest, I can't remember if they even had any bleachers there. As far as this "dragster", it looks like it's powered by a straight-6 engine. The driver's uniform appears to be a Hawaiian shirt, Levis and Argyle socks...
Serop Postoian (better known as "Setto") was one of drag racing's first Eastern heroes, hailing from Michigan. Setto came along about the same time as Don Garlits did in Florida, and they raced against each other many times. Before being drafted into WWII, Setto worked in the engine division of Ford Motor Company. After serving for 3 1/2 years overseas, the young veteran returned and opened a gas station in Farmington, Michigan. Setto loved cars, even served as a pit-crew stint at the Indy 500, where he met Jack McGrath, a racing mechanic from Los Angeles. Setto was invited to visit McGrath's hot rod shop in L.A, where he stayed for six weeks. While on the West Coast, Setto met Joe Pisano and Ed Iskenderian who both had dragsters. That was in 1950.
When he returned home to Michigan, Setto opened Farmington Speed Shop, and built a flathead roadster for drag racing. The roadster led to a dragster, powered by an unsupercharged DeSoto Hemi. Setto returned to the West Coast with the dragster and raced it at Riverside, CA, where he won several events in a row. After switching to a supercharged Chrysler Hemi, Setto won back-to-back Top Fuel titles at the Wolrd Series of Drag racing in 1957 and 1958. At that point, Setto became a "touring pro" and received top appearance money at drag races all over the country.
In 1960, Setto was seriously injured in a crash at Detroit Dragway, and never raced again. For many years, Setto was as well known as Don Garlits in the fuel dragster ranks, and had over 250 Top Eliminator wins before he retired. Setto passed away in 1995 at 73 years of age...
When he returned home to Michigan, Setto opened Farmington Speed Shop, and built a flathead roadster for drag racing. The roadster led to a dragster, powered by an unsupercharged DeSoto Hemi. Setto returned to the West Coast with the dragster and raced it at Riverside, CA, where he won several events in a row. After switching to a supercharged Chrysler Hemi, Setto won back-to-back Top Fuel titles at the Wolrd Series of Drag racing in 1957 and 1958. At that point, Setto became a "touring pro" and received top appearance money at drag races all over the country.
In 1960, Setto was seriously injured in a crash at Detroit Dragway, and never raced again. For many years, Setto was as well known as Don Garlits in the fuel dragster ranks, and had over 250 Top Eliminator wins before he retired. Setto passed away in 1995 at 73 years of age...
No, the airplane is not trying to land at a drag strip, the drag strip is really part of the airport, usually an unused taxi way.
It's probably safe to say that all (or at least most) of the dragsters built in the 1950's were home-built cars. This extended on into the 1960's too, many racers built their own cars, starting with the chassis, the engines, and even the bodies. It wasn't actually that tricky to do. Engine placement was an important ingredient in the process. How far back should the engine be placed? If it was too far to the rear, the car would suffer wheelstands, which would require adding ballast to the front end, and nobody wanted to add weight to the car if they didn't need to. On the other hand, if the engine was too far forward, the car suffered from traction issues. The car in this photo had the engine pretty much centered front to rear. Maybe the driver had very long legs and needed the room, or maybe that's just where they stuck the engine...
It's probably safe to say that all (or at least most) of the dragsters built in the 1950's were home-built cars. This extended on into the 1960's too, many racers built their own cars, starting with the chassis, the engines, and even the bodies. It wasn't actually that tricky to do. Engine placement was an important ingredient in the process. How far back should the engine be placed? If it was too far to the rear, the car would suffer wheelstands, which would require adding ballast to the front end, and nobody wanted to add weight to the car if they didn't need to. On the other hand, if the engine was too far forward, the car suffered from traction issues. The car in this photo had the engine pretty much centered front to rear. Maybe the driver had very long legs and needed the room, or maybe that's just where they stuck the engine...
It's debatable as to which is the better looking car, Eddie Hill's bright purple fuel burning Pontiac dragster or his bright red 1962 Pontiac Grand Prix push-car...
This is not an AA/Fuel Dragster. There was no law that mandated that every Chrysler Hemi dragster had to be supercharged or even run on nitromethane fuel. This neat naturally aspirated Hemi, with it's "weed burner" headers and Algon fuel injection was owned, built and driven by Don Tuttle, who went on to found the California Chassis Engineering company. Probably very competitive in one of the lower dragster classes... (thanks to David Sorenson for the information)
Racer Lee Wooley from Pocatello, Idaho may not have known that he was driving a dragster when this photo was taken. The "media" referred to drag cars like this as "rail jobs", primarily because it was not much more than frame rails with a motor in it. As far as "the motor", it looks to me as if it's a Buick Straight-8 (I counted the spark plug wires). It also looks like the driver is actually seated on the "driver's side" of the chassis, unless my eyes are deceiving me...
Back to the 1950's, and probably the early 1950's. Any spectator in the background watching these two cars race that was at least 21 years old at the time this photo was taken would be over 90 years old today (assuming they were still alive). In the near lane was the "Bean Bandit" dragster and in the far lane, it was Dode Martin, who went on to be one of the founders of the Dragmaster company. Both of these racers were from the San Diego area...
This is a perfect little Flatty powered dragster, with three 2-brl. carbs and the "dog sled" style roll bars...
What an awesome photo, two blown Chevy Dragsters, smoke rolling off the hides, and the front ends of both cars not touching the tarmac. I would rather watch a single run like this one than watch twenty runs with the new fangled, high tech Dragsters that are out there now...
A couple of clean supercharged Chevy powered dragsters, probably gasoline fueled cars. An interesting frame on the car in the foreground. While I'm sure it functioned okay, it would not be NHRA or SFI legal today...
Over the years, racers in the Dragster classes tried many different things in an effort to "get an edge". They were willing to experiment to see what worked and what didn't. Fenders over the rear tires were one of those things that never seemed to provide an advantage...
A group portrait. A supercharged Chrysler powered dragster, an injected Chevy, and Eddie Hill's blown Pontiac digger. That's Eddie on the right, before his hair turned silver. Notice the aluminum channel frame rails on Eddie's car, probably an airplane wing spar...
Lions Drag Strip and Irwindale Raceway got a lot of notoriety in the SoCal area with their big events, but my favorite track was San Fernando Drag Strip. San Fernando (alias, "the pond") always felt more like a "down home" track, more laid back, more easy going. But that did not mean that they didn't have some kick-ass races, no sir. Here is the final elimination in the Top Gasoline class. TV Tommy Ivo on the right (in the left lane) in his injected Buick up against Jack Chrisman in the blown Chrysler powered "Sidewinder" in the near lane. San Fernando Drag Strip was Ivo's home track, so he had "home field advantage" but on this run, he was the runner-up. He ran a 9.26 @ 151.00 MPH, and Jack ran a 9.21 @ 156.66. As Don Garlits once said, "some days you eat the bear, and some days the bear eats you"...
Another racer running on his home track. Tony Nancy never had an ugly race car, and this Plymouth wedge engine dragster is no exception...
The "Blue Angels" dual engine dragster. Dragster racers were not quite the Prima Donnas we have seen in the 21st Century. If they had a place to race, pitting in the weeds was not an issue. Note the tool box. Today, you need a lot of special tools to go dragster racing, enough to fill up a large trailer. Back in the day, all the tools you needed would fit in a box like this, about what it would take to fix a leak in your rain gutters or nail up your back porch. If you want to see the definitive website focusing on dual engine drag cars, check out:
Ahh yes, the way it was. Ernie Hashim and his supercharged flathead Ford powered dragster. Toothed blower belts were not yet invented, so multiple V-belts were used. Frame looks like it was from a Model-T Ford. No roll bar. Ernie was from Bakersfield, CA and was known as "Mr. M&H Drag Tires" because when you needed some, you had to call Ernie. Ernie was a true pioneer is this sport and was one of the founders of the "Smokers" car club, the organization that hosted the "Fuel & Gas Championships" every year, held at the Famosa Drag Strip...
"Sneaky" Pete Robinson in the lanes at the 1960 NHRA Nationals. These Dragmaster built cars were state-of-the-art in the early 1960's. Looks like Pete lengthened the wheelbase about 8-inches or so. The flat pieces on the front of the chassis appear to be bolted on rather than welded, making me think they may have been fabricated out of aluminum. Pete was a fanatic when it came to weight, he trimmed every ounce of weight off his cars. Notice how he machined off the base of the 6-71 supercharger on top of the blown gas Chevy engine...
A legend, Jim "Jazzy" Nelson and his dual engined dragster. Jim's flathead powered, Fiat bodied, Competition coupe put the hurt on many dragsters in the "early days". Jim was one of the pioneers when it came to running nitromethane. This dragster used two nitro powered flathead Ford engines, each driving into their own rear-ends, one for each engine. At one point in the life of this car, Jazzy swapped the flathead engines with a pair of Ford's new (in 1954) Y-Block pushrod engines. You can see the rear-end (Halibrand Quick-Change) for the left engine just to the left of the body. This was duplicated for the right engine. Like all dragsters during the beginning of drag racing, they were all "home made" race cars...
Jack Moss, out of the great state of Texas, and his twin supercharged Chevy engined dragster, named "2-Much"...
A nice looking Chevy powered digger, a little on the naked side for me, however. Bare Bones would be what I would have called it...
Zane Shubert's twin Chevy dragster. This car kicked everyone's butt for several years, "back in the day". It was one of the most successful dual Chevy engine dragsters ever built. Note the long rear overhang on this digger, perhaps to allow more space for the sponsors name (Herbert Cams). Speaking of Herbert Cams, the gentleman in the wheelchair is Chet Herbert himself, a good friend to the drag racing community and a super friend to anyone running small block Chevy's on fuel. Chet sponsored many cars in his day. He was not your typical hot rodder. Although he was a racer at heart, he contracted polio at the age of twenty (the polio vaccine had not been discovered yet). The resulting paralysis kept him from driving in competition, but not from driving his very fast hot rod (a fender-less Ford sedan with a GMC straight-6, 12-pot head, and a Buick Dynaflow transmission). He relied on an automatic trans and hand controls to wheel the car around. He was among the first to engineer a dragster to run on nitromethane fuel. He was also one of the first to develop "zoomie-style" headers for dragsters. He also built a drag bike in 1950, called "The Beast", that outran many dragsters in it's day, a feat that created controversy among racers that felt that his two-wheeler should not be allowed to run against a dragster (and beat them). He designed and built several land speed record cars that ran on the dry lakes and Salt Flats. He built these cars while being in a wheelchair. His real claim to fame were the innovations he created in the development of camshaft design, not the least of which was the introduction of roller lifters for hot rodders. He was a friend, he provided tons of support to our own dragster team over the years. Chet, a member of the International Drag Racing Hall of Fame, passed away in April, 2009...
All the rage now at a couple of tracks, 4-wide drag racing with dragsters. Big deal, we were doing that in the 1960's. This track is the Fresno Dragway, up in the middle of California. I have seen photos of 4-wide drag racing with jet cars, although not in person. Fresno Dragway opened in 1962 and closed 1974... (Photo by Don Andresen)
A nice little dragster, with a Dragmaster chassis and a small block injected Chevy engine. But this photo is not really about the race car, it's about the times in the early 1960's. Simple homes, and single car garages. And an open flat-bed single axle trailer. This dragster "transporter" was a far cry from what we see today, a 53-foot air conditioned trailer and a diesel powered, 10-wheel tractor. Got to have room for all the gear and pop-up tents and golf carts and huge tool boxes and BBQ's. In the 1960's, you hooked up your little trailer to the family sedan (usually not as nice as this '62 Chevy 409 Bubble Top), stuffed the hand carried tool box in the trunk, and went drag racing, sometimes just you and your wife and the kids (or a buddy if you weren't hitched). Like I said, it was a different time...
Warren & Coburn's dual engine gasoline powered dragster. A blown Chrysler in the back and a small block Chevy in front for a little more oomph. Fifty eight years ago (1960), this digger took home the Top Eliminator Trophy in the Gas Dragster division at the famed Bakersfield Fuel-Gas Championship March Meet...
How many of you knew that in the beginning of drag racing, the term "dragster" did not exist, there was no Dragster Class? This car ran in the Open Gas Class. This racer must have been realistic about safety, he had a stout roll bar (at least it looks stout), with roll bar supports. He even used a shoulder harness of some sort, anchored to the roll bar..................using muffler clamps...
The Champion Speed Shop small block Chevy fuel dragster. This photo was taken at Cordova, Illinois, in August 1962, a long way from South San Francisco. The event was the World Series of Drag Racing. But it was what happened a month before, on July 22, 1962, at the team's home track that put the drag racing community on it's ear. The home track was Half Moon Bay, just south of San Francisco. On that date, the Champion Speed Shop team, Jim McLennan, Don Smith, driver Sammy Hale and a Gary Rowan prepared 364 cubic inch engine with a unique injector system by Bruno Gianoli, took on Don "Big Daddy" Garlits in a match race. Don brought his best car and a 454 cubic inch Chrysler Hemi to do battle. In the seat of the black car from Tampa was my ex-room mate, the late Connie Swingle.
Half Moon Bay was a great track, but like Lions Drag Strip in SoCal, it was tough to tame. Because both tracks were so close to the ocean, the dew or moisture in the air could give dragster drivers fits. Anyway, Connie came out of the gate with the tires smoking but by half track, both cars were even, and at the big end, Sammy Hale had the little Chevy ahead by more than a car length. The local fans went nuts, I can still hear the cheering. Don was not happy.
I think it was Mark Twain that one said, "It's not the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog."
Half Moon Bay was a great track, but like Lions Drag Strip in SoCal, it was tough to tame. Because both tracks were so close to the ocean, the dew or moisture in the air could give dragster drivers fits. Anyway, Connie came out of the gate with the tires smoking but by half track, both cars were even, and at the big end, Sammy Hale had the little Chevy ahead by more than a car length. The local fans went nuts, I can still hear the cheering. Don was not happy.
I think it was Mark Twain that one said, "It's not the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog."
Carl Gratz and Norm Walker's Oldsmobile dragster (396 cubic inches) holds the distinction of being the Top Eliminator of the first ever Nevada State Drag Racing Championship, held in 1957. The event was held at the "Highland Drive Drag Strip". Based on the curb on the side of "the track", I'm betting that it was a public street blocked off for the event. This dragster was pretty advanced for the 1950's, with a longer wheelbase, zoomie headers, the sling-shot driver location behind the rear axle, and a nice full body...
Here's the deal about this Oldsmobile powered dragster; I've never seen it before. According to what I read somewhere on the internet, it was reportedly owned by the great engine builder and tuner, Gene Adams, an updated dragster after the famed "Albertson Olds" digger. Tom "the Mongoose" McEwen was said to be the driver. The interesting chassis was built by Kent Fuller, it is said. This photo was taken at Lions Drag Strip...
Some of my older buddies used to say, "square tubing is for trailers, round tubing is for dragsters". Or, if you had enough square tubing laying around, you could build your dragster out of the stuff, like this old rear engine, flathead powered, digger...
Vance Hunt, a name synonymous with Texas drag racing. Vance got his driver's license at age 14, and most likely started drag racing that very day. By 1959, he was already into dragsters, and had several different dragsters prior to this one, which was built in 1962. Vance had several different drivers over the year, this car was driven by Ted Arnold, one of Vance's friends from grade school. This car was built by Don Garlits for Vance and held records all over the country...
If they awarded trophy's for looks, this car would have one that would have been 5-feet high. This is Tommy Ivo's "Videoliner" dragster. Tom has had many dragsters in his day, and anytime he was not 100% satisfied with the way they ran, he had no qualms about selling the car to someone else. In this case, he sold the car to Jerry Norton. Tom said that the aerodynamic shape had a tendency to lift the rear enough to lose traction at the top end. Good-by "Videoliner"...
An interesting body on this small block Chevy dragster. The driver is giving us the "thumbs up" sign, which could mean (A) that he is "off and running", or (B) that he has a hot date with the trophy girl after the event (and we have not seen her body)...
George Paynton, out of New York. Maybe he invented the Zoomie Headers? And, maybe not...
Tony Nancy was an artist, he always had an eye toward mechanical and visual perfection. From his flawless roadsters to his many dragsters, each one showed impeccable taste, including this beautiful Plymouth Wedge powered digger...
The craftsmanship and detailing of this dragster is so immaculate, I had to show more than one photo. These photos were taken around 1956, at Minter Field, which later became Famosa Drag Strip, near Bakersfield. Owned and driven by Howard Stamp, who had the unfortunate distinction of being the first fatality at that drag strip, in 1957, in this car. Apparently the throttle jammed wide open and the car crashed on the top end...
State of the art in dragster design, in 1953. Carlos Ramiriz on the left and Andrew Ortega on the right, both diggers powered by Ford Flathead engines. This photo was taken at Paradise Mesa Drag Strip (opened in 1951, closed in 1959), near San Diego, California. I was 14 years old in 1953...
It looks to me as if this dragster uses the front half of a WWII belly tank for the body. The engine is either a Cadillac or a Packard V8. Note the four 2-barrel carbs on the intake manifold. If you look carefully you can see the "Y" shaped adapters on the dual 4-barrel intake manifold, allowing the four carb set up...
There was a time when "Big Daddy" Don Garlits and fellow drag racer, Art Malone, partnered up on a dragster. This was one of those times. The three smiling people in the photo are (left to right) Art Malone, Ray Giovannoni, and "Big". This car was the "worlds fastest dragster" at one time (March 19, 1960) having just set a record at 187.10 mph...
At some point after Tommy Ivo took delivery of his new dual engine Buick powered dragster, he sold the single engine digger (less engine) to his buddy and fellow Road King Club member, Don Prudhomme. A Dave Zeuschel built blown hemi was installed...
For whatever reason or illusion, a Straight-6 powered dragster always seems to look so simple. The photo of this GMC powered digger with the 12-port cylinder head was submitted to me by John McDuff, and taken in 1967 at Rocky Mountain Dragway...
"The Pond", San Fernando Drag Strip on a smoggy Sunday. This is at the end of the shut-off area where the diggers pull off to re-pack their 'chutes and push back toward the pits. In the foreground is John Wendersky's "Black Beauty" hemi powered dragster. Directly behind is Tony Nancy's Plymouth wedge powered dragster. On the right in the striped pajama shirt and the boots is track manager, Harry Hibler. I've always loved going to 'Fernando, it had a nice laid back atmosphere. It was never the safest track but it had character. If you went off the track in the left lane, you had a good chance of dropping down about 25 feet into a drainage canal. And if you lost your 'chute and continued on past this point in the track and went under that bridge, you found out that the pavement turned into boulders and rocks, and your continued survival rate was not good....
Big Jim Kamboor in the seat of Todd "Doc" Rawleigh's twin blown, alky fueled Olds powered dragster. An interesting compound supercharger set-up on this car. A crank driven 6-71 blowing into a 4-71 on top, which in turn was blowing into the Olds engine...
An interesting Buick powered dragster. Note the radiator and what looks like a small front mounted battery. I'm thinking that the tank in front of the radiator was for the fuel. There are most likely several good reasons as to why this dragster has a front mounted license plate....but I can't think of any...
A cross between a dragster and a tractor. Actually, there was nothing wrong with gussets, some of the tubing that racers built their chassis out of was kind of thin (like exhaust pipe tubing). Gussets would definitely stiffen things up a bit. Actually, this dragster has some history. It was the creation of Scotty Fenn, who went on to be one of the important early dragster chassis manufactures. The car was run by the Spaghetti Benders and had Cadillac power. At some point, Nick Arias ran his GMC-six engine it. Later still, the team of Cook & Bedwell reworked the car and broke the 160 MPH mark at an astounding 166 MPH at Lions Drag Strip... (Thank you Manuel Maldonado for the information)
Not many folks will recognize this dragster. This is Hank Vincent's "Top Banana" when it was powered by a Flathead Ford engine, and prior to the addition of the full body...
Two racing legends hail from Tampa, Florida. Don "Big Daddy" Garlits and Art "The Colonel" Malone. This is one of Art Malone's many dragsters. Art was known primarily for having been a drag racer and was the 1963 AHRA Top Fuel World Champion. In 1959, while Garlits was recovering from burns, Art took over the driving duties. He set the Standard 1320 speed record of 183.66 mph in '69. But dragsters were not the only cars Art raced. He was the first to attain 180 mph driving a modified Indy Car (blown Chrysler for power) at the Daytona International Speedway.
Art also raced in the USAC Championship Car Series in the 1962-1963 seasons, with 10 career starts, including the 1963 and 1964 Indianapolis 500 races. Art's best finish at Indy came in 1964, where he started the race in 30th position, and finished a very respectable 11th...
Art also raced in the USAC Championship Car Series in the 1962-1963 seasons, with 10 career starts, including the 1963 and 1964 Indianapolis 500 races. Art's best finish at Indy came in 1964, where he started the race in 30th position, and finished a very respectable 11th...
Mel Heath, from Rush Springs, OK. Chrysler Hemi engine, Model-T frame, and the fuel tank strapped to the rear of the body. Mel was Top Eliminator at the 1956 NHRA Nationals...
Back to our roots, Bob Frock from Akron, OH. Power comes from a 411-cubic inch 6-cylinder Ranger aircraft engine. Safety gear consists of a clean white T-Shirt and a seat belt (but no shoulder harness)...
For those unfamiliar with the drive system used on the typical sidewinder style dragster, this is a good photo to study. The gentleman on the left with the light colored hair is Kent Fuller, who built this car (the "Magwinder"). Bolted to the engine is a clutch housing, not much different than on any car. As this is a high gear only dragster, there is no transmission, only a housing containing a short shaft that slides into the clutch on one end, and a small chain sprocket (actually, dual sprockets on this car) on the other end. Then there is the rear axle, which is usually a heavy wall steel tube with hubs on both ends, something for the wheels to bolt on to. And of course, the rear chain sprocket (or two sprockets in this case) are connected to the axle with flanges welded to the axle. The axle is held in place by a "pillow block" on both ends, which bolts to the dragster frame. The Pillow Blocks have stout axle bearings inside of them. It's actually a simple system. You might think of this set-up as a Go-Kart on steroids...
A pair of VERY early rear engine dragsters. The car on the left is the "Bronson Special", and was owned by Bill Bronson out of Tipton, IN. Bill's grandson (also named Bill) still owns the car today. It was built some time between 1948 and 1949, in Elwood, IN, at Lilly's Garage, by the Lilly family and Bill Bronson. Originally flathead powered, it was eventually (1958) re-powered with a 1953 Chrysler Hemi. The body for the front of the car is part of a WWII fighter plane belly tank. It is believed to be the first vehicle in the state of Indiana built specifically for drag racing. The car on the right, the "Stinger", was built by the Lilly family shortly after Bronson's dragster was built...
Clean and simple, the Joe Umphenour & Frankey dragster. This neat GMC Straight-6 engine is fitted with a "12-port head", 6 intake ports and 6 exhaust ports. The chassis is a Chassis Research TE 448. A pat on the driver's head and he is ready to go.
The photo was taken at Continental Divide Raceway in Castle Rock, Colorado. The track opened in the very late 1950's and closed in the early 1980's. Thank you John McDuff for the information...
The photo was taken at Continental Divide Raceway in Castle Rock, Colorado. The track opened in the very late 1950's and closed in the early 1980's. Thank you John McDuff for the information...
Buddy Sampson's "Money Olds Special", the Top Eliminator at the 1957 NHRA Nationals. Although the body looks a little bulky, this dragster (built by Lefty Mudersbach) was well proportioned and ahead of it's time...
How about another Sidewinder? This is another Paul Nicolini design, the "Sidewinder II". It was owned by Jim Cambior and Chuck Jones. The engine was built by Joe Maillard and Jack Chrisman drove the car. The wheelbase was stretched out to 108-inches and the engine was lowered 4-inches for more stability as this car ran nitro for fuel...
A small block Chevy sidewinder dragster seen here running at the 1958 NHRA Nationals. How about the no-fuss, no-muss body? Owned by Oscar Taylor out of Drumright, OK. This neat dragster weighed in at 1050 pounds...
Built in 1957, Lowell Lister's "Crossfire" sidewinder dragster from Pennsylvania. The gas powered engine (I don't know if it was a Chrysler or a Chevy) ran a best of 9.7 at 156 mph...
A blown Ford flathead dragster, all is right with the world. The blower is an early McCulloch centrifugal supercharger. Note the front tube axle and also the front spring mounting point. Something a little different, interesting...
Before the Buick V-8 was offered to the public, in 1953, they made a very beefy Straight-8 engine. This one featured side-draft carburetors, which was a little unique. Some other observations in no particular order. Prior to Mr. Moon introducing his "Moon" fuel tanks, racers used whatever they could find, such as this canister. Regarding the driver's safety equipment, it did have a roll bar and a seat belt but other than that, good luck back there. Oh, and front wheel brakes. The wooden trailer served it's purpose, and the good news about wooden trailers is that they did not rust when you left them out in the rain. And finally, before someone invented the hold-down straps that everyone uses today to secure the race car to the trailer, people used something called "rope". But all kidding aside, for all we know this car could have been the first dragster to use a tube frame and have a butterfly steering wheel...
The one common denominator for dragsters from the 1950's and early 1960's was that there was no common denominator. The goals were the same, to get to the finish line before the guy in the other lane, but how you did it was always on trial. Trial and error was the name of the game. Every conceivable engine was tried at one time or the other. We saw dragsters with one engine or sometimes multiple engines. We saw dragsters with engines in the front and drivers in the rear. We saw engines in the rear and drivers in the front. We saw engines mounted both in the front and in the rear, with the driver in the middle. We saw engines mounted sideways. It was called DIVERSITY, something that is missing today where all the dragsters look virtually identical. It's all part of the evolution of the dragster. In the photo above, the black dragster (the Postonian Brothers) have the driver (Setto Postonian) seated directly over the rear axle. The blue dragster (Cook & Bedwell from San Diego, CA), a little later design in the evolution, have the driver seated behind the rear axle. This eventually became the defacto standard for basic dragster design and lasted into the 1970's.
It has been reported that this photo was taken in 1957 at the World Series of Drag Racing, at Cordova, IL (Cordova Drag Strip opened in 1956 and is still in operation). This was a big event. As it turned out, Setto Postonian was the Top Eliminator while the runner-up was some guy out of Florida, Don Garlits...
It has been reported that this photo was taken in 1957 at the World Series of Drag Racing, at Cordova, IL (Cordova Drag Strip opened in 1956 and is still in operation). This was a big event. As it turned out, Setto Postonian was the Top Eliminator while the runner-up was some guy out of Florida, Don Garlits...
Neat and clean, and probably flathead powered. A 1950's era photo for sure. I know it's a long time ago, based on the background, trees had not yet been invented...
The owner, builder and driver of this dragster hailed from New Baltimore, MI. You can tell that he had safety in mind just by looking at the stout roll bar. But racing while wearing a T-shirt, no gloves, no facemask, no protective jacket and hardly any firewall tippify the lack of safety requirements of the period. Oh, by the way, the racer's name is Conrad Kalitta...
T.V. Tommy Ivo's "Videoliner". This neat dragster was designed by Steve Swaja, a dragster artist/designer in the early to mid 1960's. The chassis was built by Frank Huzar and the aluminum body was hammered out by Bob Sorrell. This was one of those cars that looked super on paper but didn't work that great on the drag strip. It had several issues, the most prominent was that it tended to lift at the top-end causing the rear tires to break loose. Tom tried several fixes but in the end, it was just one more design that didn't make the final cut...
A popular dragster in the SoCal area, Bill Martin's "400 Jr.", out of Burbank, CA. The engine of this B/Fuel Dragster is a 362-inch Small Block Chevy (Keith Black block). Chassis is by Roy Steen. Various drivers included Jeep Hampshire and George Bolthoff...
The "Head Hunters" dual Cadillac engine dragster. Built and driven by Don Jensen, this car was built using some of the ideas from the "Bustle Bomb" dragster, such as mounting one engine in front of and one behind the rear end housing and using a swing axle set up. At first glance, it may appear to some that the car name is in reference to the driver missing his head. Such is not the case, the driver's head is tucked into the body area covering the roll bar. The 1950's were the true "innovative years" in drag racing. Racers were trying new ideas, all aimed at getting more traction in a period when drag slicks were not very effective. This car was able to top 150 mph in the quarter mile, something that many dragsters were not able to accomplish. The car was built in late 1955 and eventually crashed in 1958, do to a tire failure with one of the slicks. Don walked away with only a chipped tooth...
There is a special drag race culture in the great state of Texas. In the dragster ranks, Eddie Hill is in the Top 10 in both NHRA's and Draglist.com's Top 50 Drag Racers of all time. But when I think of dragster pilots from Texas, I think of Bobby Langley first. Bobby and his many "Scorpion" dragsters were always well put together and ran fast as hell. Note the frame on this one, some type of channel. Might even have been aluminum channel, might have been an aircraft wing spar for all I know. Texans were always innovative...
It's not really about "back to basics". In the beginning, the basics was all there was. This digger is nicely laid out and very neatly done...
An interesting dragster, a collaborative effort of several drag racers, not the least of whom was Chet Herbert. Chet never met a dual engine dragster he didn't love, especially one with in-line engines and Small Blocks for power. This one has very small blocks, the all aluminum, 215 cubic inch Olds F-85 engines originally designed for compact cars. An interesting feature is the supercharger drive system, with a single pulley mounted where the front and rear engine are connected. One blower belt drives both blowers. If I remember correctly, that's Chet's Chrysler 300 behind this one of a kind digger...
A few things to note on this dragster. First, the roll bar is much better than most for the period, it's higher than the driver's head and has some sort of back brace. The driver is also wearing shoulder restraints. This was somewhat rare for early race cars. I can remember when there was no rule requiring race cars to even have seat belts, let alone a shoulder harness. The Pontiac Tri-Power engine is most likely stock, other than the neat headers built out of flex tubing and tied together with metal plumbers tape. Race cars were built from parts scrounged out of junk yards (called Salvage Yards today). Cruising through automotive junk yards was a wonderful experience for hot rodders back in the 1950's. It was like Christmas for your eyeballs, all those great parts to see and touch. I equate the experience as to what happens with your wife or girlfriend when they visit the mall...
From across the pond, Bud Barnes and his "Ultra-Sonic" dragster. Just because the Brits drive on the wrong side of the street doesn't mean that they don't know how to mount the steering wheel in the center of the car. Santa Pod Raceway, located in Podington, Bedfordshire, England, is Europe's first permanent drag racing venue. It was built on an unused WWII air base, once used by the U.S. 92nd Bomber Group. The drag racing venue opened in 1966, and it is now the home of European drag racing and has grown substantially over its 40-year existence. It hosts both the first and last round of the European Drag Racing Championship, along with the British National Drag Racing Championships.
Santa Pod remains the fastest all-asphalt dragstrip in the world since most U.S. tracks are partially or entirely concrete in construction. Santa Pod was named after Santa Ana Dragstrip in SoCal, and the local village of Podington.
http://www.santapod.co.uk/
Santa Pod remains the fastest all-asphalt dragstrip in the world since most U.S. tracks are partially or entirely concrete in construction. Santa Pod was named after Santa Ana Dragstrip in SoCal, and the local village of Podington.
http://www.santapod.co.uk/
The racing world lost another racer and contributor in 2014 when legendary mechanic Fred “Fritz” Voigt passed away at the age of 92. Voight served as chief mechanic and engine builder for Mickey Thompson's Bonneville land speed efforts and Mickey's stock block Buick powered Indy car driven by Dan Gurney. He also maintained his own specialty garage in Maywood, California for many years.
Fritz was a regular competitor at the dry lakes back in the day, campaigning a '32 flathead roadster and a Hemi powered pickup along with several cars where he partnered with Leland Kolb. The well liked Voight was also veteran drag racer, campaigning an injected hemi gas dragster (above) and building engines like the unique Pontiac Hemi that powered Jack Chrisman to U.S. Nationals win in 1962.
Fritz was a regular competitor at the dry lakes back in the day, campaigning a '32 flathead roadster and a Hemi powered pickup along with several cars where he partnered with Leland Kolb. The well liked Voight was also veteran drag racer, campaigning an injected hemi gas dragster (above) and building engines like the unique Pontiac Hemi that powered Jack Chrisman to U.S. Nationals win in 1962.
How much would you pay to be able to go back in time for one weekend at the drag strip to watch this?
The body and chassis of this dragster (Stecker, Golden & Cobb) was built by Bob Sorrel. The engine was a Chrysler and used a crank-driven supercharger. I knew Bob pretty well and can say that he was one of the most talented and creative designers and "body men" that ever existed. He was also clearly from another planet. For one thing, he collected cats. At the time I knew him he must have had over 100 cats running around in his place, in every size, shape and color, and no, they did not go outside to "do their business". The smell inside was not pleasant to say the least...
A Mickey Thompson owned, supercharged Pontiac dragster. Early short wheelbase Dragmaster Chassis...
Black and white does not do this digger justice, you had to see it in it's bright red and pearl white livery. Owned by Romeo Palamedies and driven by Pete Ogden. In 1958, this dragster was awarded "Best Competition Car" at the Grand National Roadster Show, in Oakland, CA...
Jack Chrisman in the original Sidewinder at "The Beach" (Lions Drag Strip), 1959. This car was originally built by Paul Nicolini and Harry Duncan in Orange County, CA. It was eventually sold to Joe Maillard, in neighboring Long Beach.
Plenty of drag racing history in this photo. The "Brand Ford Special". with an Ed Pink Ford cammer engine and Tom McEwen in the seat. Tom "The Mongoose" was a great driver, in my opinion. He raced Exhibition cars, Match Race cars, Funny Cars, and of course, Dragsters and was successful with all of them. He raced his own cars and also drove for other owners (like Gene Adams and Lou Baney to name just a couple).
Lou Baney was a giant in the hot rod and racing industry. He started out building engines for others, went on to race his own car on the dry lakes of SoCal, had his own speed shop, owned his own drag strip (Saugus), became one of the early presidents of SEMA, owned automobile dealerships (Brand Ford for one), as well as this dragster above...
Lou Baney was a giant in the hot rod and racing industry. He started out building engines for others, went on to race his own car on the dry lakes of SoCal, had his own speed shop, owned his own drag strip (Saugus), became one of the early presidents of SEMA, owned automobile dealerships (Brand Ford for one), as well as this dragster above...
In the beginning, dragsters were not much more than an engine and frame rails. Most had almost no body and those that did, the bodies were usually pretty crude. That was not the case with this early dragster, it has a very pleasing body. The tin bender who built this body had some talent with the hammer...
The backbone engine for dragsters in the 1950's was the Chrysler Hemi, which first appeared in 1951. Did you ever wonder what Chrysler installed in their big sedans prior to that? It was a Chrysler straight-6 or straight-8 flathead. Here is a straight-8 Chrysler (maybe the only one) installed in a dragster owned and driven by Dave Dozier. I have heard that Dave is the expert on all flathead Chrysler engines, straight- 6's and the straight-8. Now, about those fluted front wheels. Stock wheels from an early '30's Willys sedan...
Contrary to popular belief by some, Don Garlits did not invent the rear-engine dragster (in 1971). Racers had been building and racing them since the early 1950's, maybe even earlier. This digger is nicely detailed...
A pretty nice body for an early dragster. Power looks to be a carbureted Caddy engine. Note the drag slick, about a 6-inch tread width. Many (or most) of the early drag slicks were re-caps. You can't help but notice the big hole in the front of the body. A lot of dragsters had that hole in the front. I suspect that it was not that tough for a decent body man to build the body, but it took a higher level of skill to fabricate the nose piece.
Kent Chatagnier's supercharged Pontiac fueler (punched out to 430 cubes), out of Beaumont, TX. On June 19, 1960, this car ran 201.78 MPH, the first 200 MPH run at the Houston Drag Strip. Note the engine placement, about midway between the front and rear axles...
I don't recall this very early dragster, however, I do remember when dragsters had hubcaps...
Always the innovator, this is Mickey Thompson's twin engine dragster. There are photos of this car without the body in this section. It was built in the late 1950's, and it could rightly be called a "preview of coming attractions". Enroute back to the mid-west for the NHRA Nationals drag race in 1958, Mickey decided to stop off at the Salt Flats in Utah and give it a try. The car ran 294 MPH, just a tick under 300 MPH. He never made it to the Nationals, he headed back home to Long Beach instead and started building the 4-engine Pontiac powered "Challenger", which became the first land speed car to run over 400 MPH in one direction. Unfortunately, something in the drive train broke on the return run which kept the attempt from holding the Official Land Speed Record...
This is Leo Dunn & Rich Brunelli's twin injected Big Block Chevy dragster. I believe this team was from the Northern California area...
If you love twin engine drag cars as much as I do, you need to visit this website: http://twotogo.homestead.com/index.html
If you love twin engine drag cars as much as I do, you need to visit this website: http://twotogo.homestead.com/index.html
Oh yeah, two dragsters with four engines between 'em. In the near lane is Zane "the beard" Shubert and in the far lane, Lefty Mudersbach...
It might be considered bad karma to name your dragster "The Mummy's Cage". Never the less, this is a neat looking naturally aspirated digger...
A flathead powered dragster with the "dog sled" style roll bar. The rubber doughnut type front suspension was fairly popular in the old days, basically just a fat rubber biscuit with a bolt through it...
Lions Drag Strip. How close could the spectators get to the track? Very close. So close in fact that when you went home that night, you were covered with millions of tiny pieces of tire rubber from head to shoes. It was wonderful...
Zane Shubert launches the Shubert & Herbert fueler at Lions Drag Strip, in 1965. The Small Block 283 Chevy engine was bored and stroked out to 402 cubic inches. As it turned out, the Chrysler 392 Hemi, even with a .030" overbore, was still under 400 cubes and strange as it seems, this Small Block powered fuel dragster frequently had the biggest engine in the class.
For more history and stories about this amazing dragster, visit: http://bigyohnsracing.com/
For more history and stories about this amazing dragster, visit: http://bigyohnsracing.com/
Why are these guys smiling? Probably because they are having a good time. They are having a good time because they most likely won again. Winning races was what these guys did, on the SoCal dry lakes, at the Salt Flats in Utah, and on the drag strips. These are some of the famed "Bean Bandits", a loosely knit club founded in San Diego by the legendary Joaquin Arnett in the late 1940's. Arnett was one of the first racer to experiment with nitromethane. His preferred mix was 50% nitro to 50% methanol. Or in his own words, "I like to keep it simple, a gallon of this and a gallon of that."
This dragster is worth some discussion. Hot rodding in the beginning was all about the Ford (or Mercury) flathead engines. They were cheap, easy to build or work on, and if you knew what you were doing, you could run some nitro in them. Plus, high performance parts were available everywhere. The flathead Ford engines became the defacto standard power plant for hot rodders, for the street, the dry lake beds, Bonneville, and the drag strips.
But of course, drag racers being who they are, were always willing to try something different in the hopes of getting an edge. This early dragster used a Buick Straight-8 engine. On paper, it had possibilities. The engines were big and powerful and reliable. Between 1936 and 1952, they had a stock displacement of 320 cubic inches. Just an 1/8th inch overbore would give you 344 cubic inches. The Mercury flathead on the other hand had a stock displacement of 255 cubic inches. Boring and stroking could give you 296 cubes, maximum. And the Buick had five main bearing journals compared to the flatheads three. Plus, the Buick had an overhead valve cylinder head. The problem was that all that was only on paper, but in real life, the Buick weighed a ton compared to the compact flathead, about 750 lbs. compared to 525 lbs.
But, it was worth a try at least...
But of course, drag racers being who they are, were always willing to try something different in the hopes of getting an edge. This early dragster used a Buick Straight-8 engine. On paper, it had possibilities. The engines were big and powerful and reliable. Between 1936 and 1952, they had a stock displacement of 320 cubic inches. Just an 1/8th inch overbore would give you 344 cubic inches. The Mercury flathead on the other hand had a stock displacement of 255 cubic inches. Boring and stroking could give you 296 cubes, maximum. And the Buick had five main bearing journals compared to the flatheads three. Plus, the Buick had an overhead valve cylinder head. The problem was that all that was only on paper, but in real life, the Buick weighed a ton compared to the compact flathead, about 750 lbs. compared to 525 lbs.
But, it was worth a try at least...
Hank Vincent's iconic "Top Banana" dragster, at Fremont Drag Strip...
Does anyone remember when the Arfons Brothers (Art or Walt) built a dragster powered by an automobile engine? Me neither...
Back in the 1950's, the chances of seeing two dragsters that looked exactly the same (like they do today) were few and far between. This short wheelbase Buick powered digger used a VW front end assembly...
"Back in the day", building a dragster didn't cost very much money, probably a lot less than building a street rod. You didn't even need to fabricate a spiffy body, you could just steal a hood from a 1940 Ford and drop it on the frame rails. And as far as needing a trailer, well not hardly. This digger (most likely flathead powered) was towed to and from the track (San Fernando in this case) behind the family car...
From Northern California, Jim Davis' dual fuel injected side-by-side Pontiac powered dragster. Pontiac power was fairly popular in the gas dragster ranks. Note the stout roll bar...
The evolution of a dragster. When you build a dragster, you have to start with "the chassis". Today, you put in your order to a "chassis builder". Back in the day, YOU were the chassis builder. Texan Eddie Hill latched on to some aluminum I-Beams, a good start for a frame (aluminum would not be NHRA legal today). Everything had to be scratch built in those days. Eddie went with a Pontiac engine for power and a neat steering system...
Eddie with his helmet and goggles, ready to go. At some point in the evolution, Eddie decided to add some stiffness to the front of the chassis with the addition of tubes attached to the front of the frame and then bolted to the front of the engine. Very innovative. Today all you need to build a dragster is a lot of money. Back then it was blood, sweat, tears and innovation...
Having your own dragster is great, making it go faster is even better. Eddie added a 6-71 supercharger and fuel injection. The clever steering shaft he had been using would not work with the blower in the way, so a new steering set-up had to be fabricated. And NHRA probably got on his case about the roll bar only going up to your ears, so a new taller hoop was added.
Eddie went on to be one of the kings of Top Fuel drag racing, and was the first racer to run under 4-seconds in the quarter mile (4.990), and also held records in drag boat racing...
Eddie went on to be one of the kings of Top Fuel drag racing, and was the first racer to run under 4-seconds in the quarter mile (4.990), and also held records in drag boat racing...
Buddy Sampson's "Money Olds" dragster. Buddy was the Top Eliminator at the 1957 NHRA Nationals. Buddy hailed from Phoenix, AZ. The chassis was built by Lefty Mudersbach. The 412" carbureted Oldsmobile engine belonged to Joe Dillon. In it's day, this was a very sophisticated dragster (note the use of full size shock absorbers on the front end)...
"Sneaky" Pete Robinson's ultra light weight Ford powered dragster. Pete selected the Small Block Ford engine because it was a few pounds less than the Small Block Chevy engine. Pete was a fanatic when it came to weight. Note the lack of uprights connecting the upper and lower frame rails under and in front of the engine. Eventually, NHRA had to force Pete to add a parachute, he had refused because he felt it added too much weight...
On any given weekend in SoCal in the 1960's, there were more AA/FD racing than exist in the entire world today. Two, three and even four guys would get together, pool their resources, and be able to race a Top Fuel Dragster. This "Checkerboard" dragster, resting in the pits at "the Beach", belonged to Jerry Bivens & Doug Fisher and was always a threat...
Jim Crooke's beautiful AA/FD, "Assassin", out of Seattle, WA. I have always had a soft spot for this dragster, partly because it was partially assembled in the garage at the apartment where I lived in Torrance, CA, and also because I built the enclosed trailer that Jim used to haul the car around. The original engine was an Ed Pink SOHC Ford. Jim swapped in the hemi some time in 1968. The chassis was a typical 180+ inch Don Long creation, and the beautiful tin work was by master craftsman, Tom Hanna. Read all about the complete restoration of this digger here: http://wediditforlove.com/Assassin.html
I think that most people today would admit that many of the very early dragsters were kind of "rough" looking (the word "crude" had not been invented yet). On the other hand, "rough" did not apply to all of them. This flathead powered digger looks well proportioned and nicely built. Perhaps that might have been because the owner was also the sponsor, and wanted to display his custom body work. By the way, when is the last time you saw a phone number with only four numbers?
When it came to nitromethane fuel, the Hemi was at the top of the league. But it's important to remember that the during the NHRA "fuel ban" (1959-1963), the wedge head engines seemed to be pretty much as good as the Hemi on gasoline. Oldsmobile, Buick, Pontiac engines were very prevalent in dragsters. This photo of Dean Turk & Bill Cox's Pontiac powered digger was taken in 1962...
When it came to Pontiac powered dragsters, Eddie Hill from Texas was "Mr. Pontiac". He went from a single engine dragster to this dual engine car and raised hell wherever he ran. The dual drag slick trend on some of the dual engine dragsters did not last very long...
NHRA Nationals, 1956. Mel Heath on your left and Calvin Rice in the far lane. Heath was Top Eliminator that year...
An interesting little injected Chevy powered dragster, with a neat tube frame and what looks like torsion bar front suspension. It also has a fuel tank with enough capacity to drive from Los Angeles to San Francisco...
Anyone that went to NHRA National Events "back in the day" has to remember Bob Beazer, the Canadian Indian who was brought down to insurer that there was no rain. Bob did his special "anti-rain dance" which must be working for drag racer Art Malone here at Pomona, because the sun is shining and casting shadows on the ground...
This photo was sent to me by a friend from across the pond, at a track probably in Britain. Looks like six carbs on some kind of a custom intake manifold, but the make of the engine has me stumped. My first guess is a Cadillac and my second guess would be a Packard, but after that I do not know. A pretty nice piece, that's for sure...
There is nothing about this scene that is not "cool", starting with the blown SBC dragster with the cool front wing, to the dudes in the back with their shades and pointy toed shoes...
Note the date on top of this photo, and also the photo below, May, 1955. 1955 was an important year in my life, I turned 16, got my drivers license, and went down the 1/4 mile dragstrip. When I first went to the drag races, this is what the dragsters looked like. Simple, crude, and oh so bitchin. This flathead Ford powered digger has a radiator laying flat between the frame rails, parallel to the ground. I don't know how the water circulated since there is no water pump...
Showing some class, whitewall tires all around. Looks like an Olds engine, along with a completely un-braced roll bar...
An interesting dragster from back in time. Rather than go with a more normal and traditional type frame, this racer chose to build a small diameter tubing space-frame. Although different from most dragsters, this type of chassis is not that dissimilar from today's Pro Stock or Pro Mod class chassis...
Don Hampton's supercharged Chrysler top fuel dragster. Racers like to purchase parts from other racers that use those parts. Don Hampton was able to create a good supercharger business, a business that modified the stock GMC Superchargers and converted them for race use...
Another dragster using a crank-driven supercharger, Kenny Lindley's "Missfire". Younger people don't realize how many crank-driven superchargers there were in the 1950's and early 1960's. I'm willing to bet that it was at least 50/50, crank-driven versus top mounted belt or chain driven superchargers. The crank-driven blowers had a lot going for them, no belt or chain issues, much better sight lines for the drivers, better aerodynamics, etc. Of course, it did add some weight to the front of the car but even that was not all bad, considering that many cars relied on lead bars or weights attached to the front end for ballast. There was no horsepower gain with lead weights but there sure was with a GMC supercharger...
Bobby Langley out of Texas and one of his several "Scorpion" dragsters...
Mickey Thompson in his Pontiac powered, Dragmaster chassis car. I'm guessing this is a test session somewhere, and it almost looks like he strapped a couple of split logs on the front for ballast...
The beautiful "Dragliner".This is not the first dragster built by Dode Martin, but it was the first one built after he and Jim Nelson partnered up. They took this C/Gas dragster back to the NHRA Nationals in 1959 and received the Best Engineering Award. They received more than that, three different racers requested that they build a dragster for them. Nelson & Martin formed the Dragmaster Chassis company and moved in to their own place in 1960, in Carlsbad, California. They built dragster after dragster (photos of many of them are on this page) for the next 35 years, finally calling it a day in 1995...
Eddie Hill was a die-hard Pontiac guy, but eventually he saw the hand writing on the wall. If you wanted to make big horsepower with nitro, you had to join the hemi head crowd...
A car that was right for the times, the Jones-Mailliard Sidewinder. This car appeared during the NHRA fuel ban period when the majority of dragsters were fueled with gasoline. And given the state of the early drag tires, this car had awesome traction, 70% of the weight was on the rear end. The blown Chrysler hemi put out 550 hp on gas. The one piece rear axle rested on bearings located on each side of the chassis and a sprocket welded to it (on the left side) for the dual-row timing chain. It also had Jack Chrisman in the driver's seat. This was the second sidewinder that Mailliard owned, with a slightly longer wheelbase...
A 6-71 GMC supercharger connected to the Olds engine through a Potvin adapter. Note the clutch shield. The roll bar is "different" but it looks pretty stout, especially considering some of the roll bars at the time. When the NHRA (or track) rules eventually delt with roll bars, they simply said, "Roll bars required", with no specific specifications as to design, tubing thickness, etc., which is why we saw so many different variations. Safety specifications were few and far between in the early days. I have always felt that most of the safety rules we have in this class (and other classes too) came about as a result of a dead or maimed racer...
TV Tommy Ivo standing next to this beautiful supercharged Pontiac dragster, "Ernie's Camera". The paint, chrome and polish were flawless. Many people don't realize that Tom drove this car. They don't know it because Tom drove it using an alias. Tom has stated that because of his movie and TV work, he was stopped from driving race cars while he was co-starring in the "Margie" TV series.
So, where did that "TV" moniker come from? Tom was an actor in movies and TV from the time he was seven years old. I can't remember all the shows Tom appeared in. On TV alone, he had acting rolls in "Laramie", "The Lone Ranger", "The Donna Reed Show", "Rescue 8", "Leave It To Beaver", "Sugarfoot", "Father Knows Best", "Pettycoat Junction", and of course, the "Margie" series. Visit Tom's website, www.tommyivo.com
So, where did that "TV" moniker come from? Tom was an actor in movies and TV from the time he was seven years old. I can't remember all the shows Tom appeared in. On TV alone, he had acting rolls in "Laramie", "The Lone Ranger", "The Donna Reed Show", "Rescue 8", "Leave It To Beaver", "Sugarfoot", "Father Knows Best", "Pettycoat Junction", and of course, the "Margie" series. Visit Tom's website, www.tommyivo.com
First the good news. The driver is out of the car and standing up on his own. Now the bad news, he went off the end of the track. The first drag strips in the 1950's were not drag strips at all, they were usually unused airport runways or taxi ways. They were usually long and pretty wide. The few purpose built drag strips in the 1950's were anything but. They were pretty narrow and not that long. Sure, the race surface may have been a 1/4 mile, but as soon as you went across the stripe at the end, you were in no-mans land. Sand traps existed only on golf courses. You were lucky if the track had a flat runnoff area and if it was paved. This was not always the case. I have been to tracks in the U.S. where the shut-off area had treee stumps that you had to drive around. I have seen tracks that if you didn't get stopped pretty quickly, you could find yourself submerged in a swamp or a pond. One of my favorite drag strips in SoCal was San Fernando Raceway. Like most tracks built in the '50's, it had no guard rails. On the left side of the track, they had hay bails and then a standard chain link fence. Any car going over 25 mph could go through that in one quick hurry, and wind up dropping over 20-feet into a flood control canal. It happend many times and was not pretty.
I don't know what happend with this digger. The 'chute looks like it is still inside the 'chute pack. Maybe the throttle stuck and he panicked, who knows? The car is not that beat up but his weekend is done...
I don't know what happend with this digger. The 'chute looks like it is still inside the 'chute pack. Maybe the throttle stuck and he panicked, who knows? The car is not that beat up but his weekend is done...
What Stone-Woods-Cook was to the Gasser class, Greer-Black-Prudhomme was to the Dragster class. Top notch and almost unbeatable cars. Two of the guys responsible for the GBP dragster were (on the left) Wayne Ewing who fabricated the beautiful body (and blower scoop) and on the right, Keith Black who built the kick-ass engine. Sadly, both are gone now...
Yes, alot of drag cars in the 1950's had whitewall tires. Most dragsters were transported to and from the race tracks on open or flat-bed trailers. A very few had enclosed trailers. But this is the first one I have ever seen that used a tow-bar to get to and from the track. Buick V8 power, by the way...
Lefty Mudersbach's side by side twin. There was a time when all dragsters did not look alike. Racers were constantly trying different things in pursuit of "an edge". Sometimes the ideas worked and sometimes they didn't. Dual engines "worked", dual rearends didn't...
For Emmett Cull, it was one in the front and one in the trunk. The rear engine is a Ford Flathead, I'm not sure about the front engine. It looks like it might be a Chevy or GMC straight-six. Note the rear tires. They are not drag slicks. Looks like a standard tire with most of the tread ground off so as to be mostly flat...
Kent Fuller, chassis builder for many of the fastest dragsters in the nation. This was his first dragster, built in 1957, in his back yard...
A nicely proportioned early dragster. And by early, I mean VERY early. I'm guessing about 1949 or the very early 1950's. It even looks like a dragster...
One of the most famous drag cars of all time. It was originally built as a circle track car. At some point it was converted into a dry lakes top speed car. And finally, modified to be a dragster. Ford Flathead power in this photo and eventually converted over to a Hemi Chrysler. Art Chrisman was one of the founding fathers of NHRA drag racing and a member of one of the sport’s legendary families. His famed #25 dragster, was the first drag racer to exceed 140 and 180 mph, and the first winner at the Bakersfield U.S. Fuel & Gas Championships in 1959.
Jocko's streamliner went through several owners and engine combinations. It never worked as well as Jocko thought it would and in the end, while streamlining was something that other racers tried at various times, it never made the big leagues...
The "Grave Gambler", a twin blown Chrysler gas dragster. I hope they are not pushing their luck with the car name...
Simular dragsters, other than the wheelbase. The wings created downforce, enough to improve traction at the top end. Although Don Garlits might have been the first to mount a wing on a dragster, Connie Kalitta knows a thing or two about wings. He currently owns 13 Boeing 747's and four Boeing 767's...
Drag tires were few and far between in the 1950's, and were usually recaps.
I wonder how many hole saw blades he went through to lighten up this chassis? The neat thing about old photos is trying to figure out when they were taken. Based on the cars in the background, I'm guessing about 1960. And assuming the little boy standing in the cockpit was about 10 years old, he would be in his mid 50's by now...
John Bradley never got tired of racing Ford Flathead powered dragsters. This one has a ScOT supercharger pumping in the air. John probably knew more about the Flathead engine than Henry Ford...
Unless the driver is very short, that roll bar is going to be a little under the top of his head. Other than that, this dragster is one for the record books. This is the Brown, Frank & Harryman blown Olds dragster, reportedly the first gas dragster to exceed 150 mph. In the days of the NHRA fuel ban (1959-1963), the Oldsmobile engine easily held it's own against the Chrysler hemi and one of the best in the business at making power with the Olds engine was Dick Harryman (standing next to the engine). This particular engine (punched out to 403-inches) was once in a Gasser before being transplanted into the dragster. The rest of the team consisted of Nye Frank (who later went on to team up with John Peters and the "Freight Train" and his own "Pulsator" dragsters) and driver Mickey Brown. The late 1950's and early 1960's were ruled as much by the Oldsmobile engines in gas classes (Gasser, Street Roadster, Altereds and Dragsters) as the hemi and it wasn't until the fuel ban was rescinded that the hemi engines started to pull away...
The Smyth-Prieto twin Chevy...
Shaw & Vasquez, an interesting engine combination. A supercharged Chrysler hemi in the back and an injected Ford Cleveland engine in the front...
An injected Buick for power. The driver is completely in the open, there is no body whatsoever...
A couple of supercharged Chevy's mounted side by side for power, and a 3/4-inch thick piece of plywood on the front for "aerodynamics". This is the famed Howard Cams "Twin Bear"...
Hank Vincent's "Top Banana" dragster, before the addition of the spiffy driver's cockpit. This car was originally powered by a flathead engine. This photo was taken after George Santos (Hank's brother in-law) put his 306-inch, gas burning Chevy in it. In September, 1957, they installed Hank's fuel carbs on it and won Top Eliminator at the DRI Championship at Bakersfield, with a 147.29 MPH...
Looks like it might have been a sprint car in a former life, before growing up to become a dragster...
A supercharged hemi Chrysler. The supercharger was driven off the crankshaft of the engine. I don't know what track this is but it reminds me of San Fernando Raceway. They had a small spectator stand near the starting line but if you wanted to watch from further down the track, you drove your car down toward the finish line and parked next to the track, and sat on the hood of your car...
A 12-cylinder Franklin WWII Drone engine, 800+ cubic inches. How about that square tubing roll cage?
Chrisman & Cannon dragster looks pretty brutal coming at ya. What you see here is a dual engine dragster. The two engines (supercharged hemi Chryslers) are actually mounted in line, one in front of the other, each tilted outward so the dual drivelines don't interfere with each other. Then they attach to two seperate rear ends, each turning seperate drag slicks. It was one of those things, trying something new, inovating, a concept that is no longer permitted in the Top Eliminator class at NHRA National events. It failed. It failed, not because of a lack of power, but because it did not want to go straight for a quarter of a mile. It was an intersting concept, it looked good on paper, it just didn't work the way the owners anticipated...
This dual engine dragster did work. Eddie Hill's dual supercharged Pontiac combination, with the engines locked together at the flywheels. A couple of neat things to notice on this race car. The side by side engine location allows for a rack and pinion sterring system, with the steering shaft going right down the center of the car between the engines. And notice the chassis. The lower chassis tubing runs under the engines in the normal configuration. But the upper chassis tubing bolts to the front of the engine, making the engines themselves part of the chassis. Very clever...
The Creitz & Greer Top Fuel dragster, with a beautiful body hammered out of sheet aluminum by master craftsman (and friend), Tom Hanna...
Engine wizard Gene Adams, the manager of the Hilborn Fuel Injection Co., gave turbos a chance on his Top Fuel dragster. With what we knew about turbos in the 1960's, they did not blow away the competition. With what we know about them now, they might just do that...
If there was no one in town that had a tube bender, this is how your roll bar would look. The engine is a Chrysler hemi with eight carburetors...
Racers were willing (and permitted) to try anything in the 1960's. Some tried streamlining the whole car (all four wheels, like the photo above this one), and some tried covering only the rear wheels. Usually, the additional weight of all that tin cancelled out any aerodynamic benefits. This was the Scrima-Basilek-Milodon-Tuller streamliner, or Scrima-Liner for short...
Many racers in the 1950's (and even later) gave aircraft engines a try. Massive power and low cost. I've seen these engines for sale at military surplus stores after WWII for as little $350, brand new, never run, and still in their original shipping crates. Note the chassis fabricated out of square tubing...
"Big Daddy" Don Garlits and one of his many Top Fuel dragsters. Compaired to dragster teams today, with eight or ten guys working on the cars between rounds, Don was almost a one-man band. He designed the cars, built the cars, built the engines and drove the cars, and toured the nation with only one helper. Don was the ultimate inovator in the dragster ranks...
Bill Tibboles and another "Odd Couple" dragster. A carbureted Olds engine in the back and a small block Chevy in the front, with a crank driven supercharger...
John Wendurski and his "Black Beauty" fuel dragster, a legend in SoCal. John started drag racing in 1962, in his Chevy 409 Super Stocker. His next car was this dragster he had built. Going from driving a stocker to driving a fuel dragster in one step was a very big leap, and sadly, John perished in this car in 1964...
Two dragsters and a total of six engines. The Ambassadors Car Club twin on the left and on the right, Tommy Ivo's 4-engine Buick powered "Showboat". This is the great track in the San Francisco Bay area, Fremont Drag Strip, which first opened in 1959, and was still holding drag races into the late 1980's...
Ivo testing his streamliner before getting it painted...
If you guessed Buick Straight-8 engine, you would be correct. These engines were last produced in 1952...
By the 1960's, there were probably over 1,000 dragsters in the U.S. Today, there are probably less than 50 Top Fuel dragsters in the entire world. The only thing I know about this car is that it's powered by a big block Chrysler Wedge, and that it's running at Pomona...
Art Arfons and one of his Allison engined dragsters. Art was a friend of mine and a very inovative racer, and I miss him...
Sixteen nicely swept back pipes on George Marks' dual engine digger...
A flathead Ford powered dragster. Every old hot rodder I know gives thanks to Henry Ford on his birthday, July 30, (1863) for what he gave us. The last flathead Ford car was produced in 1953, a day of infamy...
This is the Guasco, Scrabonia & Tourt dragster, in 1964. Pete Ogden was the builder and driver. Thanks to Denny Forsberg for the info...
Not for the faint of heart, it took BALLS to be a flagman...
This is not a marching band of trumpets, it's the A&B Speed Shop's dual inline Chevy dragster...
I have been told that this neat Olds powered dragster is run by Thorkelson & Del Nero...
Looks a little like a sprint car. Ron Benham and Paul Aicher built this innovative dragster using a Hispano-Suiza 4-cylinder engine. For some reason a number of these French-built aircraft engines made it to the U.S. where they were popular in sprint car racing...
TV Tommy Ivo smokes the hides in the right lane with his twin Buick dragster. This is "the Beach" on a Saturday night, and the fans are standing up. Notice how close the stands are to the left lane. Also notice that in this photo, the chassis had been lengthend by chassis builder Kent Fuller from the original wheelbase (photo below). Lions Drag Strip opened in 1955 and closed in 1972...
Tom Ivo, one of the nicest guys you could ever meet, sitting in his dragster at San Fernando Drag Strip (opend in 1955, closed in 1967). Standing behind the car on the left in this photo is Bob Muravez (allias Floyd Lippencotte Jr.) driver of the "Freight Train" dragster and also our dragster, the Pulsator", and next to him, Tony Nancy, master upholsterer (and drag racer). Ivo, Muravez, and Nancy were all members of the Road Kings Car Club, along with Don Prudhomme and a whole bunch of other racers.
The twin Buick engines were connected to each other at the flywheels. This meant that one engine (the one on the right side) had to be modified to run in the reverse rotation. On this day, Tom was using Tony Nancy's supercharged Buick engine, which is why it was mounted on the left side where it turned in the standard rotation. It was fun, hanging out with Ivo and then going home and watching him on his TV show, "Margie", where he played the male lead Haywood Botts...
The twin Buick engines were connected to each other at the flywheels. This meant that one engine (the one on the right side) had to be modified to run in the reverse rotation. On this day, Tom was using Tony Nancy's supercharged Buick engine, which is why it was mounted on the left side where it turned in the standard rotation. It was fun, hanging out with Ivo and then going home and watching him on his TV show, "Margie", where he played the male lead Haywood Botts...
The famous "Sidwinder" dragster in the pits at "the Beach". The supercharged hemi Chrysler was mounted sidways in the chassis and used a large timing chain (like a Go-Cart) to spin the rear tires. Jack Chrisman was the driver, and came within a hairs breath of winning the NHRA Nationals one year (runnered-up) when some part broke. A friend of mine, Paul Nicolini, was involved with the building of this car. It looks like they were having an issue with the blower when this photo was taken, the snout and the blower belt are missing...
From Illinois, Norb Locke and his twin flathead rail. Photo from 1965, at Bakersfield...
I was probably about 10 years old when this photo was taken, and I'll be 78 in April...
Did someone say that rear engine dragsters were a new thing? Driving something like this would make jumping out of a helicopter with snow skis look like a safe sport...
Jack Chrisman tries out the seat in the "Magwinder", a lighter version of the "Sidewinder", and the same configuration. The chassis and the body were fabricated out of magnesium, which would be illegal now based on NHRA rules. The car was built by Kent Fuller with a body by Wayne Ewing, and owned by Chuck Jones...
Same car with the engine cover removed. Note how the engine is tilted forward (actually to the side) to get a lower profile...
In the pits with Bill Tibboles twin supercharged entry. Many of the twins were a partnership between two racers, each having their own engine. This is one reason that some twins have different headers on each engine. They have the headers that "came with the engine" so to speak, from the car that engine used to belong with...
Gordon Tatum's beautiful dragster. This car was originally built to replace the "Surfers" dragster, and then eventually sold to Tatum. There's alot of controversy about this car and Tatum. It seems that he didn't run it that much, and then hid it away for the next 30 years. At some point in all of this, he was nailed for some federal crime and served time in a federal prison. A few years ago, the car came up for sale and was purchased by Tom Hanna, who had built the original body. In my opinion, this is one of the most beautiful dragters of all time.
I put these two photos together for a reason. This is the way the car looked when the "Surfers" sold it to the Bandel Bros., and before they sold it to Gordon Tatum. The "Surfers" consited of Tom Jobe (standing in the light blue shirt), Bob Skinner (in the patterned shirt) and driver Mike Sorokin (not pictured). One of the Bandel Brothers is leaning over on the right. They had just taken delivery of the car. I knew the Bandel Bros (Bobby and Richie), they were from New York City and they were some crazy guys. I spent a day with them in 1966. I could tell you about that day however I'm not sure that the statute of limitations are up yet...
Gene Adams' Shark car in the far lane (superchrged Olds engine) and Mickey Thompson's dual engine digger in the near lane, running at Pomona. M/T's car had a small (215 cubic inch) Olds and a small (215 cubic inch) Buick hooked together, with a single GMC 6-71 blower for both engines. I can't tell who is driving the dual engine car (it could be Chrisman). The Shark car had several different drivers at varius times, including Tom McEwen...
The Bayer & Freitas twin. I believe that Super Stock legend Hayden Proffitt drove this dragster at one time...
A clean looking dragster with naturally aspirated Buick power. After looking at these photos for a while, you can figure out which pictures were taken at drag strips, and which were taken at airport runways or taxi ways, used as drag strips...
Davis & Malone with one small block Chevy and one hemi Chrysler...
Look at this, a dragster with an actual roll cage...
The Peters & Frank Quincy Automotive gas dragster before it was known as the original version of the "Freight Train". Nye Frank, John Peters, and Floyd Lippencotte Jr. behind the wheel...
Frank Bradley, the Ford flathead guru, raced this dual flathead engine dragster, on nitromethane...
A young A.J. Foyt, in a dragster.
A Sidewinder type dragster, with an Algon injected small block Chevy (Mouse Motor) on gasoline, run by the team of Ronnie Hampshire and George Bolthoff, in 1960. Info supplied by Denny Forsberg...
Many of the very early dragster bodies looked like they had been designed for or used on "roundy-round" type race cars, which they most likely were. This is Ed Losinski, running at Colton Drag Strip (opened in 1954, closed in 1963). Maybe this car had a roll bar that came up to the top of the car body, but even if it did, it sure didn't come up to the top of the driver's head...
Looks like big block Ford (FE maybe) for power. Fords always had front mounted ignition distributors, which usually got in the way of a top mounted supercharger system like this one. Note that the distributor (a magneto in this case) is mounted on an off-set angle drive off the camshaft to get it out of the way...
Frank Iacono and his 302-cubic inch GMC straight-six powered dragster...
Surplus belly tanks from WWII P-51 fighters made great bodies for dry lakes racers. If you wanted to convert a dry lakes race car to a dragster, all you had to do was to change the rear end gear ratio and add some drag slicks...
Adams & Enriquez. This car has a long wheelbase. A very long wheelbase. In fact, this car is so long that when it pulls into the starting line beams, the back of the car may still be in the pits...
The real early dragsters were home made contraptions, with the builders using any material they could find. There were no commercial "chassis builders" back then. I have seen dragster chassis built out of muffler tubing, childrens back yard swing sets, even conduit. This interesting six cylinder car appears to use some kind of coil-over springs in the front, instead of the usual leaf spring set-up. It's possible that the coil-over spring/shocks came off of a motorcycle...
Local drag racer Tony Nancy had several dragsters at various times, all of them immaculate, including this Plymouth 426 Wedge powered digger...
The Martin & Nelson "Dragliner"...
The Ramchargers, a factory backed team. They started with an old Plymouth altered and then took up the challenge in Super Stock competition, before adding this nitro buring hemi dragster to the stable...
Lefty Mudersbach twin. A taller seat back would have given Lefty more security in the event of an upset...
From the City by the Bay (you are not permitted to use the term "Frisco"). The Champion Speed Shop crew from left to right, Bruno Gianoli, Ted Gotelli, Jim McLennan and Larry Gotelli. No ID on the driver in the Douglas & Herndon dragster at Cotati Drag Strip. Thank you Denny Forsberg for the info...
Engine fired up and Jack Chrisman is making the turn to drive up to the starting line. This is MickeyThompson's dragster, with a hemi-headed Pontiac engine. It's the NHRA Nationals at Indy, in 1962. Chrisman was the Top eliminator at the event...
The "Ridge Route Terrors", Warren, Coburn & Miller, out of Bakersfield, CA, doing a burnout at Orange County International Raceway, better known as OCIR or just, "the County". Opened in 1967, closed in 1983, one of the classiest tracks in the nation...
Dual blown hemis in the Frakes & Funk car...
Zane Shubert with blowers on both compact Olds aluminum V-8 engines, getting ready to make a pass at "old San Gabe"...
Warming up the engine prior to a pass at San Gabriel Drag Strip. Like many tracks of this period, they had no guard rails. San Gabe was only open between 1956 and 1963...
Zane "the Beard" Shubert with the injected engines...
The "Syndicate Scuderia", Jack Williams beautiful dragster out of British Columbia...
Nye Frank's "Pulsator" dragster. The body and chassis built by Nye. Dual small block Chevy's running on straight nitromethane. I will discuss this car a little later...
The Quincy Automotive dragster. Before each engine was equipped with it's own belt driven supercharger, a single crank driven blower was used to feed both engines. That's John Peters checking something and kneeling behind the drag slick...
Al Hubbard's "Flying Bedstead" at Half Moon Bay drag strip, 1958. Engine is a 296-inch Small Block Chevy on Fuel. Hillary Govia helped tune the Algon injectors. Thank you Denny Forsberg for the info...
The majority of straight 6-cylinder hot rods I've ever seen were either Chevy or GMC's, and many of them could hold their own against flathead Fords...
Biven's & Fisher's "Checkmate" fueler in the pits at "the Beach"...
Kids checking out Calvin Rice's dragster. I always tell parents with kids this age, "get your kids involved with drag racing, get them to help a team or better yet, buy them a car when they are 15 or 16 to work on." Once they get excited about drag cars, they will never have enough money left to buy drugs. This photo is from the 1950's. Note that pile of stuff in the pits in the background. It looks like some street tires, and maybe some guys tool box, or whatever he had in his trunk, along with the back seat. He was trying to lighten up his car. He just left the stuff there in the pits, unattended. And you know what, you could do that "back in the day" and nobody would touch your stuff. Try that today and you will be sorry, plus you would have to drive home on your drag slicks...
I have no idea what kind of an engine is in this car, possibly a 4-banger, I just don't know...
A very neat twin engine, injected dragster. It looks alot like ours (the "Pulsator II") but it isn't. This is the Art Marshall twin...
Kalitta's "Boss 429" engine fuel dragster. Connie was one of the first to utalize the 427 SOHC Ford engine in a dragster. This new Ford combo came later. I don't know for sure but I'm guessing this engine was not the answer...
Golfer friends remind me that in the "old days", before Golf Carts were invented, they had to walk the 18 holes on the golf course. And with no golf carts available, drag racers had to pull or push their cars to the starting line or back to the pits with full size vehicles. This is Marty Byrne's neat dragster picking up the tow from a 1954 Ford (the first year Ford offered an overhead valve V-8 engine)...
Cook & Bedwell fuel dragster. This car was to be taken very seriously in it's day, and set several records. While most fuelers in the late 1950's were running around 150 mph, this car ran 166 mph. At the time, that was the fastest dragster of all time.
The Bob's Muffler dragster from Bakersfield, CA. The Crowe, Warren & Colburn rear engine dragster was finely detailed, a really nice looking car. The fact that the driver's butt was only 3-inches off the ground might have been another matter...
Most nitro engine explosions will kick out some rods and spread oil on the track. This one blew the entire engine clean out of the chassis...
Roland Leong's beautiful dragster at one of the "March Meets". A Keith Black hemi between the rails and most likely Don "The Snake" Prudhomme in the seat...
At one point, John Peters tried a couple of hemi Chryslers in the "Freight Train", but eventually, went back to the dual Mouse Motors...
Tom Ivo poses next to his Top Fuel, Blown Chrysler powered, "Videoliner"...
The "Moon Eyes" dragster exiting the shut-off area at Pomona after a run. The Pomona drag strip first opened in 1951, and is still active today, probably making it the longest running drag strip in the world. The drag strip in Bakersfield (Famosa Raceway) is most likely the seconed longest running drag strip, having opened in 1952...
The "Nesbitt's Orange Special" out of the SoCal area has the distiction of being the first "commercially" sponsored dragster in the country. It is said that Elvis Presley loved Nesbitt's Orange soda...
Jeep Hampshire in the seat in the Herbert & Steen dual engine fuel car, 1962. Engines are twin F85 compact Oldsmobile. The plywood board adds a nice touch. Info supplied by Denny Forsberg...
Eddie Hill and his supercharged Pontiac dragster. The photo above this one is also a Pontiac powered dragster, with six carbs...
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The "Surfers" dragster.
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The utter simplicity of it all...
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Lou Baney's Ford SOHC powered dragster, engine by Ed Pink...
Accidents happen. Actually, push road accidents happened alot more than many people think. I don't know what happend in this case however the 1960 Ford Wagon was pushing with their front bumper, and did not have a flat "push bar"...
Check out the "organic" front-end ballast. Looks like a small boulder to me.
Yes, there were several 3-wheeled dragsters back in the day. This one was run by Kenny Ellis and is photographed running at San Fernando Dragway...
John Wendurski and the "Black Beauty" in action at San Fernando...
First things first; I never realized that Nash made a "fastback". Second, I would bet money that this drag race was being conducted on an unused airport runway or taxi way. Any takers? Finally, the dragster. The engine is an injected Oldsmobile. Both Oldsmobile and Cadillac introduced their overhead valve engines in 1949, making the flathead Ford engine all but obsolete. Many folks can't tell the difference between the two powerplants. Here are a couple of hints. The cylinder heads on the Caddy engine had the center exhaust ports "siamezed", meaning that the #2 and #3 cylinders (#6 and #7 on the otherside) flowed into a single exahuat port. When you are looking at open exhaust headers on a dragster, the Olds engines usually show four pipes on each side (like the dragster above), whereas the Caddy has only three pipes on each side. The hold-down bolts for the valve covers are different, too..
Garlits' "Swamp Rat III", with Connie Swingle in the seat. Connie worked for Don in Florida building dragsters, and was a great driver in his own right. In 1965, Connie and I were roomates for awhile, in Wendover, Utah. Oh, the stories I could tell...
I think this is the Knapp & Westerdale side by side twin...
The early edition of the Peters & Frank "Freight Train". That's John Peters on the left and Nye Frank on the right (dark coat). When I first met Nye he was a fireman for the City of Beverly Hills. He and I roomed together in my apartment while we both worked for Craig Breedlove building the "Spirit of America" jet car. Nye was my Best Man at one of my marriages (the first one I think). Sadly, he is gone, having been murdered in a road rage incident...
Looks like the famous #25 dragster from the back, with Chrisman in the seat. Nice chrome plated roll bar. If this car was ever unfortunate enough to flip, the drivers shoulders would be protected, his head, not so much...
Bill Tibboles' twin grabs a slight lead out of the gate over a back motor dragster. Nice flowers alongside the track (in lieu of guard rails)...
Another streamlined dragster that did not make the cut. The Mooneyham-Ferguson-Jackson-Faust machine. The two most obvious issues were too much additional weight and too difficult to work on between rounds. There was also a third issue. Some of the designs, while they looked "right" to the eye, were aerodynamically incorrect and caused either ill handling or aero-lift, or both. Most racers that raced these cars ultimately gave up and went back to what they knew worked, a bare bones dragster...
From across the "pond", Great Britain. Looks like Pontiac power...
A Chevy 409 (or W-series) engine. Popular in the Super Stock classes, not so much in dragsters...
A couple of Chevys mounted side by side, each with McCullouch centrifugal superchargers (later called Paxton). These blowers were more accustomed to being installed on street/strip cars, and not dragsters. Another thing to notice is that it does not appear that the engines are connected to each other in any way. It is possible that each engine is attached to it's own rear end ring and pinion which would mean that the rear axle housing has two rear ends. It's trick, but I have seen that a couple of times. This is Jack Moss' "2 Much" dragster, sans the front body panels...
This beautiful machine is Gary MacArthur's Hageman built dragster, powered by a blown Chevy. In 1960, this car was an Oakland Show winner. (Photo taken at Bakersfield courtesy of Manny Maldonado)...
Chain drive supercharger...
Fuel dragster circa 1955...
Before drag racers ever heard the term "Motorhome", with air conditioning and TV, there were fold up cots and sleeping bags. Sleeping under the stars, dreaming about getting the win the next day. Or, a place to crash having consumed too many beers at dinner...
The following 20 or so color photos shows that while dragsters of this period were simular, none of them were the same. Each one had it's own personality, unlike the "cookie cutter" type dragsters we have today. Also note that very few of them were sponsored race cars. Sometimes it's hard to remember that drag racing, even at the dragster level, was once a hobby...
Bobby Langley's "Scorpion" dragster...
Nope, that's not Don Garlits. That's his brother Ed Garlits, who raced his own dragster, this one Buick powered...
We've all heard of Schultz Cams, right? Me neither. This is an early, early dragster. Racers had to be creative back then, they couldn't go online to Jeg's and order parts, they had to scrounge. Hot rod parts typically were found at junk yards (they were called junk yards then, not scrap or surplus yards). And if they couldn't find what they needed, they made it themselves. This racer wanted a rounded roll bar, but not finding someone that could bend tubing to the shape he wanted, settled for welding a dozen short straight pieces together into a half circle. Back then it was called "getting it done"...
Norb Locke's dual blown flatties...
Most dragsters in the '50's and '60's were hauled to and from the tracks (and around the country) on open trailers. When the team stopped at a resturant for a bite to eat, or slept overnight in a motel, they had little concern about somone stealing parts. I think that people back then had more respect for someone elses stuff...
Motes & Williamson's big double supercharged hemi dragster. Cars with these engine combinations were not lightweights, which might explain whey thy went with sturdier front wheels...
Some of you younger folks must think that photos like this one were taken at the time of the American Civil War. I'm guessing 1949 or the very early 1950's. These guys probably returned back after winning WWII. They probably felt that they were invincible. And maybe they were. These two cars, running at Saugus Drag Strip in SoCal, would represent some of the earliest Dragsters; basically an engine and a seat mounted on frame rails from some salvaged car. Which is why the media picked up on the term "rail jobs".
Eddie Hill's dual blown Pontiac dragster, with four drag slicks. This photo was in the early 1960's. Eddie always had new cars and his bright red Pontiac Gran Prix is a '62...
A pretty swoopy body for such an early dragster, must have been professionally done...
Something a little different. Built and owned by Cagle & Callahan, this rear engine, full body car, was driven by Red Case. Red was a member of the Hayward Head Hunters car club. I have seen only two photos of this car, this being one of them. The car set a record at the Colton drag strip but was not seen racing very often. Information regarding this car is courtesy of Denny Forsberg...
Mel Heath won the 1956 NHRA Nationals in this car...
Jack Moss's "2 Much" twin with the body attached...
Wow, two very simular body designs, and both running supercharged Olds engines. Kenny Safford was the driver of the Safford - Gaide- Ratican car (in blue) and the yellow car is the fueler of Porter and Reis. These two Olds powered fulers beat a lot of hemis over the years. Both photos were taken at Pomona...
Rick Suit Photo
Dragsters have a mind of their own, and sometimes they act kind of bitchie...
Ed Losinski polishes his "ahead of it's time" purple dragster...
Denny Forsberg and the "Vic Hubbard Special" at Pomona in 1963. Hubbard was the owner of a large speed shop in the San Francisco Bay area. The AA/FD classification (painted on the rear tire with shoe polish) was under NHRA rules (the Algon injected Chevy engine was 364 cubic inches and the car weighed in at under 906-lbs.). Everywhere else, the car was classified as a B/FD... (Information courtesy of Denny Forsberg)
I'm thinking that the frame on this dragster might need a little more support...
Gene Adams, "Mr. Oldsmobile". A pretty neat high-back body on this dragster. Tom "The Mongoose" McEwen was the driver. Notice the optional "streamline body system" on the front of this digger, a 3-foot by 6-foot piece of 5/8-inch plywood...
Marty Byrne, and his beautiful fuel burning flathead dragster. Marty was a member of the Hayward Head Hunters in the S.F. Bay area and ran at Northern California tracks like Lodi and Kingdon. The car was featured in the Oakland Roadster Show in 1956... (Information courtesy of Denny Forsberg)
A couple of dragsters laying down the smoke at the NHRA Winternationals, Pomona, CA...
The same thing is happening a few miles to the east (although not at the same time), at Fontana Raceway (also known as Drag City). Opened in 1952, closed in 1969...
Mel Heath and the trophies he won for being Top Eliminator at the NHRA Nationals in '56...
Something a little different. George Dawley's twin injected Chrysler wedge "B" blocks...
Depending on the clutch adjustment, there was a tendency for these cars to "creep" forward. If that happend on the starting line, he might have gotten a red light. The crew member is trying to hold the car back. One other thing, notice the spectators standing in the background. I would say there is at least a couple of hundred people there. How many of you reading this have ever had a couple of hundred people watch you doing something, or anything?
An Allison aircraft engine for power. How many of you older dudes remember penny loafers?
Maybe it's me, but this car just does not look that safe...
Looks like Bobby Langley's "Scorpion" dragster...
I was informed by a good source that this photo (from 1958) shows chassis builder Woody Gilmore in the seat...
Don Jensen's "Head Hunters"...
Not a lot of protection for the driver's body, although, the crossed shoulder harness was a step in the right direction...
You will notice that this is the same car as the one directly above. Fred Dannenfelzer started with one engine and then added the second. Fred (Santa Barbara High School, Class of '56) had several dragsters to his name, along with drag roadsters and Bonneville LSR cars. I'm pretty sure that Fred still holds the record at the Salt Flats for an open-wheel car, at 366 mph. Fred's local drag strip would have been Santa Maria, just a few miles up Hwy. 101 from Santa Barbara.
Lloyd Scott's innovative dragster, the famous "Bustle Bomb". An Olds engine in front and a Caddy in the back. It used torsion bar suspension...
Saturday night at OCIR...
Before she raced Top Fuel dragster, "The first lady of drag racing", Shirley Muldowney raced this Top Gas dual Chevy engined car...
The "Dragliner" and a nice woodie push car...
A legend in and around SoCal, Zane Shubert. Here he is at Pomona with dual blown Chevys and dual slicks for extra traction...
Some kind of a rocket car I guess. Either that or it's a bootleg whiskey still on wheels...
Doug King's first dragster, purchased in 1955 from Al Hubbard (originally Al's first dragster, too). Doug was a member of the Hayward Head Hunters. Pretty basic, with the hand operated fuel pump bolted to the simple body. Info thanks to Denny Forsberg...
The "Snake" coming out of the hole at Carlsbad. This was a nice track just north of San Diego. The shut-off area was a little short, though. The track opened in 1964 and finly closed for good in 2004...
Craig Breedlove raced this dragster during the time I worked for him. It was funded by Shell Oil Co. It was also a test car for the new Goodyear drag slicks (the first two tires made were on this car). The engine was a 354-inch fuel Chrysler hemi owned by Al Sharp. The all aluminum body was formed by Quincy Epperly and it was a work of art. In the end, however, the car was too heavy, and the new tires were like driving on grease. Goodyear eventually came up with better rubber compounds but by then, the car was kind of obsolete. It can be seen in the Don Garlits Museum in Ocala, FL, which should be on ever drag race enthusiasts bucket list...
When Nye Frank split from John Peters and the "Freight Train", it was becasue Nye wanted to build a Top Fuel car, and John wanted to stay with Top Gas. This was the car that Nye built, the chassis, the engines and the custom one-off fiberglass body. This car ("Pulsator") recieved the "Best Engineering" award at the NHRA Winternationals the first time it ran. The engines were dual small block Chevys, bored and stroked 327's (the 350 Chevy engine had not been introduced yet). Each un-supercharged engine had 364 cubic inches and made 900 HP on Chet Herbert's engine dyno. They used Hilborn injection and ran on 100% nitromethane. The theory was that the car would have 1800 HP, divided over 16 connecting rods and 16 pistons. The blown 392 Chrysler hemi made between 1500 to 1600 on nitro, which was spread over 8 connecting rods and 8 pistons. The blown hemi (all cast iron in those days) weighed about the same as dual SB Chevy's. Things did not work out as planned, and I will get into that when we discuss the "Pulsator II"...
The modified and updated "Freight Train", with Bob Muravez looking at us (or should I say, Floyd Lipencotte Jr.?)...
Dode Martin racing his very early dragster. Martin would go on to form the Dragmaster Chassis Co., that built dragster chassis for many racers. In fact, the Mickey Thompson owend dragster directly belot this is a Dragmaster Chassis.
Jack Chrisman was late at the start against "Big Daddy", but was first at the top end where it counts. His engine is one of the hemi Pontiac conversions. Garlits was running a Chrysler Wedge engine. Both cars are running on gasoline, the NHRA fuel ban was in affect...
Another M/T owned, Dragmaster Chassis dragster. Chrisman drove this car, too. The engines were two compact V8's, each with only 215 cubic inches, and all alluminum cylinder blocks and heads, one an Olds, the other a Buick...
Jack Chrisman in the "Twin Bear". An aluminum body panel now replaces the plywood board...
The rear view of the Red Case driven dragster, showing off all the chrome plating and the Halibrand quick-change rear end...
I hate to knock someone elses car, but this does look a little crude. At least the welding and the body work came out okay...
Ford SOHC powered (Single Over Head Cam)...
Tom McEwen charges off the line at "the Beach", in Gene Adams blown Olds dragster...
Mickey Thompson team hitting the road with two dragsters, a blown Pontiac V8 on the bottom, and a 4-cylinder Pontiac Tempest on top. I worked for M/T for awhile, on his Indy 500 porject...
The date on this photograph tells it all. The first drag race on record was held just a few months before, in 1948, at the Golita Airport near Santa Barbara. Dual flatheads and 4-wheel drive. According to Dennis Friend, this is Mike Willis with the first known twin engine dragster. Dennis has been very helpful to me with the identification of many of the twin engine cars on this site. Be sure and visit his site: http://twotogo.homestead.com/
Jim "Jazzy" Nelson and his dual flathead engine dragster, running on nitromethane. This may have been the first side by side twin...
The always good running Frye Brothers and their dual in-line injected Buicks...
The Dukes Auto Club dragster. Nothing wrong with trying different ideas to see if you can get an edge. But, if these racer's theory about the correct length for headers are correct, everyone else must be wrong...
Chuck Griffith and the beautiful PVTA "Choppers" dragster...
An interesting idea. A turbojet engine from a helicopter driving the rear tires. Well, why not?...
George "the Stone Age Man" Hutcheson at San Fernando. The beautiful dragster body hammered out by Tom Hanna. Note the bright red plume of feathers attached to George's helmet, he was a character...
Another belly tank bodied dragster...
I don't know about this one. We've got an aircraft engine and we've got a propeller........and after that, I don't know about this one...
Traction was always an issue with the big Allison engine drag cars. This racer decided to counterat that with wings that were designed to increase aerodynamic downforce. That and four slicks was the theory to solve the traction problem...
Robert Lindwall's "Re-Entry" back-motor car. It ran for only a short period, and crashed. To my knowledge it was never rebuilt...
Another beautiful drag car by Tony Nancy. All of Tony's cars were "car show perfect"...
This is the Tony Nancy dragster shown in it's original configuration, using a Chrysler wedge engine. If you skip back up a few photos, you can see what it looked like after the chassis was lengthened, the body painted blue, and a hemi engine was installed...
The "Bean Bandits", a car club out of the San Diego area, and their twin flathead digger...
The famed Chrisman & Cannon "Hustler". Over the years, this car had gone through many iterations, and it was always super competitive...
Ivo's old Buick dragster with a hemi Chrysler replacement engine. If I remember correctly, this was when Tom either sold the car to Don Prudhomme or it became a "Road Kings" Club car. The homes in the background are one of the reasons that San Fernando Drag Strip closed down...
From the "what was he thinking?" files. Tom Ivo and his "Giraffe" dragster...
Rodney Singer was Top Eliminator at the NHRA Nationals in 1958. Supercharged Lincoln engine for power...
I have no idea how many Dragmaster dragster chassis were produced, but it has to be a ton. They always were great cars, like this one and the one in the photo below...
The always competitive fueler, "The Frantic Four", Weekly-Rivero-Fox & Holding...
The "Surfers". This was not a high dollar team, they pulled their dragster all around the country behind that yellow '55 Chevy with a stock 6-cylinder engine...
An interesting looking side by side twin from Knapp & Westerdale. I don't know exactly what the purpose is with the disks on the front of the engines. Maybe that's where the engines are linked together, it looks like the engine on the right is reversed in the chassis...
Frank Smith's dual injected 426 style hemis...
Tire smoke is one thing but this is alot more than tire smoke...
Pick a direction, any direction, and you can always find dragsters with headers pointing in that direction. But I have never seen a dragster before this with the headers that point straight down. And there there's the thing about the chassis on Paul Myers twin. I have yet to figure this out...
A fuel injected flathead, now you're talking. This is a pretty up-to-date digger, too, and the driver is wearing the correct protective clothing...
A couple of hemi dragsters lighting 'em up at Carlsbad Raceway. This is not a burnout, this is the real deal, and the smoke would be coming off the tires all the way to the top end...
That yellow injector scoop, the front wing carved out of a piece of wood, and that old "55 Chevy push-car tell us that the "Surfers" are in the lanes and ready to fire up. Mike Sorokin is in the seat and Tom Jobe is fetching Mike's dome protector...
This dragster is going to be lighter by about 100 lbs. at the conclusion of this run than it was at the start of the run...
Walt Bumgarner and his in-line twin. More power and more weight vs. a little less power and a little less weight...
Well, it does have a roll bar, and I can pretty much guarantee that the lower 4-feet of a 6-foot driver will be okay in a roll-over crash...
Al Kunkle's "Double Trouble"...
Wayne Gump and his "odd couple" twin...
The twin flathead dragster of Del Nero & Thorkelson. The reality was that two engines made more power than one engine. Note the long gear shifter...
In the black T-shirt, Chris Karamesines, better known as "the Greek". As late as 2016, he was still racing a Top Fuel dragster, and he was 84 years old...
An NHRA Technician using a P&G Meter to check the engine displacement on thisw dragster, to insure that it's in the correct class. This at Pomona, at an NHRA National Event...
A torpedo shaped dragster powered by a "Cadiddliac" engine...
Whether the driver sat in front of the engine or behind it, the WWII aircraft belly tanks offered excellent aerodynamics. Belly tanks were popular for racing on the SoCal dry lakes and many early dragster were converted dry lake "lakesters".
It's a beautiful night in Irvine, at OCIR, the fans are on their feet, and based on the flames coming out of the pipes, the "Praying Mantis" has a load in the tank...
In the early 1950's this dragster, powered by a flathead Ford (with an Ardun OHV conversion), ran 144 mph. "Experts" predicted that no other vehicle would EVER be able to go faster than that in the quarter mile...
There is nothing new regarding rear engine dragsters. People seem to forget that rear engine diggers have been around since the very beginning of this sport. This is Ollie Morris' "Smokin' White Owl"...
A 6-cylinder "Jimmy" engine (GMC Truck)...
A Buick straight-8 engine in a clean little dragster...
One of the very few English cars to not have right hand steering. This is Sydney Allard, a designer and builder of British sports cars. This is Sydney’s interpretation of the American dragster. Driven by himself, it’s noise and spectacle stunned the UK motoring press at its launch in 1964...
Sampson, Dillon, and Mudersbach, the "Money Olds" car from Phoenix. They won the '57 NHRA Nationals with this big Olds direct drive car. Not the prettiest body, but it worked...
Jack Chrisman's dragster, at Colton, circa 1958...
A big block Ford FE Super Stock engine. Add a GMC 6-71 blower and Hilborn injection, and you had a good Top Gas engine. Not quite that good on nitromethane...
Lefty Mudersbach with the dual-slicks. Soon enough the drag tires would improve where a single slick on each side would work better. Three "mechanical" factors were always in play when it came to the dragster class, engine horsepower, clutch, and the tires. All three had to work together and if any one was off, it was back to the trailer. The fourth factor of course was behind the steering wheel...
Photo by Paul Hutchins
Another of the Arfons brothers "Green Monster" drag cars. This one also with a surplus aircraft engine (not an Allison). That's Walt Arfons kneeling next to the car. Walt and Art Arfons had a strange relationship, for brothers. They lived across the street from each other (on Pickel Rd. in Akron, OH), but because of some past argument, they never talked to each other for over 30 years...
One of Mickey Thompson's dual engine dragsters...
The Bayer & Freitas twin...
Tom Hoover always loved towing out to SoCal for the Winternationals, held in February. The Winternats are held in Pomona, Tom is from Minnesota. Do you know what the difference is in the weather between SoCal and Minnesota in February? Probably about 100 degrees...
This is the push-down road at Lions Drag Strip. Because of the way the track is set up, there is no room to fire up dragsters (or any other car that needs a push start) behind the starting line. The cars are lined up and pushed down this road, which is directly in front of the specator stands. The road makes a turn onto the track at about the 3/4 mark, and then the cars are push started going toward the starting line, where they make a U-turn and pull up to the starting line. Sounds complicated but it wasn't. Here is the process: When given the signal, the push car starts pushing the dragster. When the speed reaches about 70 mph, the driver of the push car blows his horn, at which time the driver of the dragster eases the clutch out, checks to see if there is oil pressure, and if there is, flips on the ignition switch, at which time the engine comes alive. At this point he is pulling back on the brake handle (with his foot on the clutch) to keep from running over anyone near the starting line, and then comences making his U-turn and staging his car. The longer wheelbased dragsters had a hard time making the U-turn, so people near the starting line would pull the dragster back a few feet so the car could complete the turn. Of course, while this little shuffling back and forth was going on, the engine was belching out nitro fumes into his face, which blinded the driver so he could not see. Not to worry, he now had to stage the car, wait for the flag or the lite, and get it to the other end, squinting with one eye, and hoping that the blower didn't explode sending hot cast aluminum pieces into his face. He only had to do this 3 times during qualifying and if it was a 64 car Top Fuel show at Lions that night, he had to do it about 5 or 6 more times that night to run in the finals, and collect his $500...
A Ford flatehad powered dragster with the Ardun OHV conversions. How to turn the flathead Ford engine into an over head valve engine. The heads were designed by Zora Arkus-Duntov, to provide additional horsepower for inter-city busses. The heads were good, but under the heads was the same flathead engine, with those long skinny connecting rods and only three main bearings to carry the load. When the Caddy and Olds OHV engines came out in 1949, it was pretty much over for the little Ford engine, except of course for the die-hards...
An early family photo of Don Garlits' dragster befor the supercharger was installed. That's Don (with the cowboy hat) on the left, his wife Pat, and his brother Ed (don't know the name of the other guy)...
Gene Adams "Shark Car". Lean Gene loved the big Olds engine and won many races with Olds power. It took him a long time to wean himself off the Olds and onto the Chrysler...
My friend (and former boss), Craig Breedlove, who was born with Kryptonite gonads, sits patiently in the lanes waiting to make a pass. Craig was the first man to hold the Land Speed Records at the Salt Flats at over 400, 500 and 600 mph...
Jim Davis from Northern California and his dual fuel injected Pontiac digger...
Ivo yanks the front end of his single engine Buick at "the Pond". I loved that track. On the right hand side of the track, there were no guard rails. On the left hand side they had this chain link fence. After a few cars went through the fence, and dropped about 50-feet into a flood control drainage canal (kind of like the Thelma & Louise scene in the movie), they put hay bails along side of the fence. That solved the problem...NOT...
Chuck Tanko and his carburated hemis...
Would someone please remind him to wear his helmet next time?
There is only one thing you can see when you are on your knees looking under an engine in a dragster, and it's usually not good...
Ed Roth's "Yellow Fang", running at Riverside Int. Raceway, at one of the Hot Rod Magazine meets. Riverside had a 1/2 mile track, and it was open from 1959 until 1970.
You won't find Mockingbird Heights on the map. It does not exist. This is Lions Drag Strip and they are shooting an episode of the TV show, "The Munsters". This episode was called "Hot Rod Herman" and originally aired in 1965...
Peggy Hart, the first lady dragster driver. This photo dates back to 1951...
"Big Daddy" working on one of his first dragsters. The original wheelbase was too short so he extended the frame, which was from a 1930 Chevy...
Yes, I know, it's got fenders. As you can see, Jack Chrisman's Comet is running in the B/FD class. Race cars like this, which were typically used for match racing, had no specific class to race in at NHRA National Events. But their sponsors wanted them to be able to participate, wanted them to be seen, wanted photos of them in magazines, running in competition at NHRA Nationnal Events. Many of the cars that were loosely associated with the FX (Factory Experimental) classes, such as the cars with drastically altered wheelbases, or were supercharged, or were running nitromethane fuel, had no "door car" classes at NHRA Events. They were not legal for any of the Factory Experimental classes. If they were running on gasoline (supercharged or not), some of them could compete in the Altered classes. But for the fuel burners like this Mercury Comet, the only class available was a Dragster Class.
Here's something different, a Buick powered dragster with a crank driven supercharger, blowing into the exhast ports, and the exhaust coming out of the intake ports. This is like going upstairs to the next floor by getting on the escalator that goes down...
The "Freight Train" with a single blower belt driving both blowers...
Darryl Greenamyer's "Smirnoff Special" dragster. Long, low and beautiful. Darryl was a test pilot and also had the worlds fastest propeller driven airplane. Pass the vodka, please...
Obviously a staged photo, but pretend you were driving down the street and you saw this. You call your friendly banker and ask him, "I'm looking at a new car, what kind of terms can your give me and how much a month for 60 months?" The banker responds, "What kind of car is it?" You say, "It's a blown Chrysler Top Fuel dragster." The next sound you hear over the phone is.....a dial tone.
Junior Fuel. I don't remember where this class started, Lions I think. I think that this was a class that Pappy Hart started. It was a great class. No blowers, 304-inch engine, naturally aspirated, on nitro. The cars were super light (900 lbs.) and they put on a great show. The cars were easy to build and pretty cheap to run. A small block Chevy could deal with 98% with no problems, and because the cars were so light, breakage was minimal. I remember seeing some small displacement Dodge and De Soto hemis in there, but for all practical purposes, the small block Chevy ruled...
Pretty as a picture. Tony Nancy was never a follower. His race cars always had a unique look to them. He left us too soon...
Jim Busby's rail. How about a couple of naturally aspirated Ford Indy 500 double overhead cam engines between the rails?
Ivo at "the Pond" with the dual engine car. Tony Nancy's supercharged Buick engine on the left, and Ivo's naturally aspirate Buick on the right. He probably picked up about 200 more HP with that arrangement...
Three dragsters in the pits, and not a single 18-wheeler in sight...
Chet Herbert's dual aluminum (215 cubes) engine dragster. Note how the front blower is facing in reverse, so a single belt can drive both superchargers...
I believe this is the only Dragmaster chassis to ever use the side by side engine arrangement. Many Dragmaster chassis were used with the dual in-line engines. This car, the "Two Thing" was considered as a "company car", it was built and raced by Dragmaster (Dode Martin & Jim Nelson)...
Some between round maintenance on the early "Freight Train"...
"Sneaky" Pete Robinson and his ultra light Dragmaster dragster. Pete was very weight conscious. If a part didn't absolutely need to be on the car, it was eliminated. If it did need to be on the car, Pete would drill holes in it, grind on it, and anything else to make the part lighter. He was a hell of an innovator...
"Big Daddy" and a long wheelbase dragster sans body. All of Don's dragster chassis were fabricated by Don himself, or by my ex-roommate, Connie Swingle...
Mickey Brown was the driver of this car, the Brown-Weddle-Frank blown Olds digger (Mickey Brown, Ed Weddle, and Nye Frank). One night we were at Lions. After warming up the engine in the pits, they found a crack in the Oldsmobile block so rather than blow it up, they put it in the trailer and we all hung around to just hang around. Mort Smith (who was my neighbor) was a dragster driver too, and he was having some handling issues with the car he was driving, the Scrima-Adams dragster. Gene Adams asked Mickey Brown if he would give it a try just to see if he had a clue as to what was causing the problem. Mickey was somewhat taller than Mort, and he either didn't or couldn't adjust the shoulder harness, or maybe he just didn't put them on at all. He left the line and the car went to the right, off the track, and barrel rolled several times and Mickey partially came out of the cage and that was it. I was on the starting line, standing next to Mickey's wife, and it was an ugly evening.
I still run into Mort from time to time, he's in the L.A. Roadster Club.
I still run into Mort from time to time, he's in the L.A. Roadster Club.
Tommy Ivo showing some class, a beautiful dragster and an expensive push car, in matching colors...
More than just changing plugs between rounds. It could be just a head gasket swap, or because the car is off the ground, possibly changing a slug that has a hole in it. I don't know where this track is located, but my guess is that it's a few miles from nowhere. By the way, in the "old days", crew uniforms consisted of matching T-shirts...
I still have sad memories when I see a photo of this car and that night at Lions...
The Bright Family twin dragster...
This supercharged flathead has a very stout (Howards) chain guard. Yes, chains. Before the Gilmer belts were introduced, the early blower drives used multiple V-belts (like a generator or water pump belt). Of course, these belts allowed for slippage so many racers adapted motorcycle chains and sprockets to drive the blower. They worked great, unless the chain broke a link at which time they could fly off the car or up into the air. This could be deadly, so an appropriate chain guard was required...
Roland Leong's beautiful "Hawaiian" dragster, complete with wood inlay in the body. A class act all the way, nothing but the best, and Don Prudhomme in the driver's seat...
Bakersfield, and Don Garlits driving a dragster that was not pained black...
The "Surfers" running at Riverside International Raceway, a Hot Rod Magazine event...
Don "the Snake" Prudhomme in his brand new and as yet unpainted dragster, at Half Moon Bay, up near San Francisco. In the background I can see that he is up against Don Garlits. That's Connie Swingle holding on to the roll bar, trying to keep the car from creeping forward...
Zane Shubert at the wheel of Chet Herbert's blown Chevy nitro dragster. This car put down some very big hitters in it's day...
Janis Earl's Buick straight-8 powered dragster...
Eventually, the dragster above was modified and the Buick straight-8 was swapped for a Buick V-8...
Pete Robinson tipping in the nitro, getting ready for the next run. Pete lost his life in this car...
One of only two 1967 Woody (Race Car Engineering) "Trick Cars", so named for the unconventional front suspension...
I'm not so sure about this one, is it a Dragster or is it a Modified Roadster? Definitely running as a Dragster in this photo...
Don "The Beachcomber" Johnson's fueler with Bob Muravez in the seat. This might have been at the old Las Vegas drag strip...
The engine looks like a Lincoln or a Big Block Ford power plant...
Bob Muravez in the Top Fuel "Pulsator II". If you are interested in the true story about this car, copy and paste this into your browser:
http://twotogo.homestead.com/TTGHistory.html
http://twotogo.homestead.com/TTGHistory.html
Tommy Ivo's old car, "under new management", Don Prudhomme...
The small block Chevy powered "Glass Slipper"...
At first glance, I thought this was another Small Block Chevy engine but upon further inspection, it appears to be a 4-cylinder Pontiac Tempest mill...
Two standout dragsters from the San Francisco Bay area. Al Hubbard's "Flying Bedstead" in the near lane versus the Hank Vincent-George Santos "Top Banana" in the far lane, racing at Half Moon Bay in 1958. Both of these cars featured Algon Fuel Injection. Thank you Denny Forsberg for the info...
Harold Nicholson, "Dyno" Don's brother. Long before Don Nicholson was into Super Stock Chevy's, Harold and Don ran this flathead powered dragster. They had a speed shop in Arcadia, CA, only four blocks from where I live now. Sadly, Harold was killed in this car...
Shirley Muldowney in her small block Chevy dragster...
Even without the name on the car, we would know by the bright red plume on his helmet that this is George "The Stone Age Man" Hutchenson...
Lefty dumps the laundry after a run...
A long extended nose on Eddie Hill's twin Pancho dragster...
Cyr & Hopper dual hemi dragster...
"She's so fine, my 409" (or 348)...
Kenz & Leslie, started out with Ford power, and never wavered...
Ernie Hashim's blown Chrysler, out of Bakersfield. Ernie was the California distributor for M&H drag tires and I think a founding member of the "Smokers" car club that put on the fuel-gas championships "March Meets" at Famosa...
If the parachute attachment point on the chassis is a little above the center line of the rear axle, there is a tendency to pull the front wheels off the track when the 'chute deploys...
An interesting race with info provided by Denny Forsberg. Al Hubbard borrowed Emmit Cull's twin engine dragster and installed his own 296-inch fuel Chevy in front and Vic Hubbard Jr's 350-inch fuel Chevy in the back. Here he is racing Tony Waters' DeSoto powered fuel burning roadster, at Vaca Valley, CA, in 1959...
Mickey Thompson's right hand man at M/T Enterprises, Fritz Voigt and his injected hemi...
Rod Stuckey in his fully upholstered cockpit. A beefy looking roll bar, unless of course it's muffler tubing...
Dave Dangerfield's side by side double...
Either a Chevy straight-6 or a GMC in this digger...
A flathead V8-powered 1927 Model T stripped down to the bare frame rails. According to many, this is undisputedly the first dragster, known then as a "rail job". Dick Kraft raced it at Santa Ana in 1950 when the strip first opened...
The "Bean Bandits", a car club out of San Diego, with one of their many dragsters...
The "Bustle Bomb" without the body. An interesting design. The front engine drove the rear wheels through the standard clutch set-up. When the car left the starting line, the rear engine, which had not been running, would fire up after a few feet and add it's power through the same rear end. There was no clutch with the rear engine, it was high-gear only and hooked to the rear end from the back of the differential. Visualize a driveline from the front engine going in normally, through the front of the differential, and another driveline from the rear engine going in from the rear. Very trick, and given how poor the tires were back then, being able to leave the line on one engine and adding in the second engine once out of the hole was a major traction advantage...
Another "Blue Angle" car...
The first word that comes to mind looking at this photo is "narrow". And second, the flagman should get danger pay...
A Caddy engine in the dragster and a Caddy push car, this racer is obviously in the chips...
The only really successful "Sidewinder" type dragster was this one...
A good view of the dual-roller timing chain that attaches to the clutch, and wraps around the huge sprocket on the rear axle. The top of the chain guard is hinged for inspection, and is in the "open" position...
The Chrisman-Cannon "Hustler" was an awesome car...
Mickey Thompson has always been given credit for "inventing" the sling-shot dragster, with the driver behind the rear end. Here is M/T in that very dragster...
Rollema and Hill, their GMC powered dragster always ran great. But here they are up against a dragster with two additional cylinders, and a supercharger to boot. Unless the racer driving the Olds powered digger in the other lane left early, he's already got a full wheel on the Jimmy powered car on this side...
Before the "Old Master" was old, this was engine builder Ed Pink's dragster. On another note, they need more Porta-Potties at this track...
Norm Reis's in-line big block supercharged Chevys...
Jerry "The King" Ruth, from the state of Washington in the Pacific Northwest. This guy was an absolute terror...
The Gene Adams "Shark Car"...
A yellow injector scoop. An old yellow '55 Chevy push car. Guess who? Surf's up, baby...
Looks like a couple of supercharged Ford small blocks...
Gene Adams and Ronnie Scrima's blue Olds powered car, driven by Leonard Harris. During a six-month span in 1960, there was no hotter drag racing pilot than Leonard Harris, whose career ended with his tragic death in October, just six weeks after his Nationals triumph.
A shooting star blazes its way across the sky in a spectacular but short-lived burst of glory, and that's an apt metaphor for the all-too-short drag racing career of Leonard Harris. He may well be the best driver you've never really heard of.
Racing at Lions Drag Strip was never in easy win for anyone, for two reasons. First, everyone in the nation seemed to show up at Lions to race so you had your hands full. And second, it was a tough track to tame. In the evenings, the fog would roll in, the track would get damp, and you had your hands full. For 12 straight weeks, with full fields, Leonard Harris won every race at every event. For 12 straight weeks.
Leonard Harris went from a relatively unknown racer to being an NHRA Nationals champ and earning a still-standing regard as one of the best race car drivers in the sport's history. Personally, I have seen a lot of dragster drivers. I have seen Don "Big Daddy" Garlits and pretty much all of the rest of the hot shoes. I would rate Garlits as the 2nd best I have ever seen. And I would rate Harris as the best...
A shooting star blazes its way across the sky in a spectacular but short-lived burst of glory, and that's an apt metaphor for the all-too-short drag racing career of Leonard Harris. He may well be the best driver you've never really heard of.
Racing at Lions Drag Strip was never in easy win for anyone, for two reasons. First, everyone in the nation seemed to show up at Lions to race so you had your hands full. And second, it was a tough track to tame. In the evenings, the fog would roll in, the track would get damp, and you had your hands full. For 12 straight weeks, with full fields, Leonard Harris won every race at every event. For 12 straight weeks.
Leonard Harris went from a relatively unknown racer to being an NHRA Nationals champ and earning a still-standing regard as one of the best race car drivers in the sport's history. Personally, I have seen a lot of dragster drivers. I have seen Don "Big Daddy" Garlits and pretty much all of the rest of the hot shoes. I would rate Garlits as the 2nd best I have ever seen. And I would rate Harris as the best...
Tom "The Mongoo$e" McEwen in FoMoCo's Super Mustang...
Frank Iacono and his Wayne 12-port headed GMC. Frank, to the chagrin of many Ford flathead racers, showed them the way to the finish line on numerous occasions...
It's those "Blue Angels" guys again...
Stan Lomelino and his double. It looks like the rear engine was supercharged (some kind of centrifugal supercharger?)...
Tommy Ivo and fellow drag racer and fellow "Road Kings" car club member, Tony Nancy. Tom borrowed Tony's supercharged Buick engine for awhile. This photo was taken at "the Pond", San Fernando Raceway, the home track for both racers...
The Gopher State Timing Association double hemi dragster. Note that the injector scoops face backwards...
Rodney Singer was Top Eliminator at the 1959 NHRA Nationals with this supercharged Lincoln powered dragster...
The Dugan & Turnow dragster, with what looks like a very well thought out tube chassis and a couple of Chrysler engines (front one is supercharged). This photo was taken in 1956 and it appears that after this event, the car was never seen again...
Don Garlits and his first dragster...
Peggy Hart storms off the line in this blown Chrysler dragster. There was nothing this lady could not drive, including a Caddy powered Willys Gasser...
Fred Sibley and the "White Lightnin"...
First of all, it doesn't look like it would be comfortable. Second, it's clearly not a seat. And what about the shoulder harness? (not that it would help if he ever crashed)...
Photo by Paul Hutchins
Lefty Mudersbach and his dual in-line Chevy dragster. Regardless of any changes they made on this car, and they made many, it always ran fast as hell...
Tommy needs a haircut...
At some point it appears the "Blue Angeles" (I'm assuming this is some kind of a club) decided to go with a singe engine dragster...
The "Frantic Four" pose behind their killer A/FD at Pomona Drag Strip in 1963. Dennis Holding, Jim Fox, Ron Rivero and Norm Weekly...
Note the securely mounted ballast on the front of the chassis. That's Don Prudhomme in the driver's seat and a slightly slimmer engine guru Dave Zeuschel leaning on the roll bar. San Fernando Drag Strip...
Any way you look at it, this is not good, but, it could have been worse. It could have happened in the lights instead of just off the starting line...
John Wendurski and his wife at the scales with the Wendurski & Winkle machine. John would lose his life in this car...
Nye Frank truly was an artist, plus being one of my best friends. Look at how neat the cockpit windshield folds out of the way. Even Bob Beazer (the Indian) looks impressed. Bob was hired by NHRA to do a dance to keep the rain away. It must have worked, it's not raining. This is at the Winternationals in Pomona...
An earlier edition of Lefty's dual Chevy dragster (with carbs)...
In the near lane, Arizona's winningest Top Fuel driver, Al Eshenbaugh, in the Steinegger & Eshenbaugh dragster, is up against John Wenderski in the far lane. A later crash at this track eventually took the life of John Wenderski...
Of course it's a Ford engine. It's Kenz & Leslie...
Mickey Thompson's "kilo" car. It was originally built to set international standing start kilometer records...
The "Pulsator" had a two-piece fiberglass body. Nye built a single mold, for the bottom half. The top half was made in the same mold and after it came out, it was modified for the engine inlet and the rear driver's compartment...
Stan Lomelino and a hot pair of flatties (injected)...
Logghe Stamping out of Michigan built some beautiful dragsters. Many of them had this interesting shaped nose, which always reminded me of a doctor's little wooden tongue depressor. "The Prussian", the team of Logghe, Marsh & Steffy, with Maynard Rupp doing the driving and Roy Steffey building the engines...
The "Bustle Bomb", all dressed up in her aluminum finery...
A supercharged Buick engine in a "Lynwood Eliminator" chassis...
I'm betting that they did not change plugs between runs. Four Allison engines and eight slicks...
Lefty, in Herbert's dual engine dragster, after a third engine was installed (facing backwards) making the car 4-wheel drive...
Driver Gerry Glenn waits as Gene Adams checks the engine heat in his Hilborn Injected (of course) Jr. Fuel car at OCIR...
Hopefully, the puddle on the ground did not come from Todd "Doc" Rawleigh's Oldsmobile engine. Note the unique "compound" supercharger set-up, with one blower forcing air into the other blower...
This interesting dragster belongs to Brent Tyler and Warren Welsh. This photo is from 1956. The dragster itself has many features. The 392 Chrysler engine uses a Novi centrifugal supercharger and a home made fuel injection system. The drive system is a torque converter. The rear end uses swing axles. The front end features twin I-beam suspension and Morris Minor torsion bars...
I never knew for sure if Mickey Thompson built this dual engine (4-wheel drive) car to be a dragster, or to be a Land Speed Record attempt car. Shortly after he built it, he started work on the 4-engine Pontiac LSR car...
A Cadillac engine and a nicely upholstered drivers seat. The forward part of the body appears to be the back portion of a WWII fighter plane belly tank. Racers in the early days of drag racing were experts at finding "stuff" for their race cars in junk yards and WWII military salvage yards...
From Northern California, the "Glass Slipper", showing off it's very clean Ford flathead engine. This was a very finely detailed dragster in it's day....
Melvin Heath's 1956 NHRA Nationals Top Eliminator dragster. Note the leaf spring in the rear. Many dragsters by then had gone to solid rear suspension on dragsters...
The "Freight Train", the Top Gas dragster with Bob Muravez in the seat jumps out to a lead. One big advantage for "the Train" was that it had enough torque to use the larger Top Fuel tires. Most single engine gas dragsters could not spin the bigger tires. Also note that both superchargers are driven by a single blower belt off the front engine, with a small drive shaft between the two blowers...
Jocko's streamlined dragster. Robert “Jocko” Johnson made his name porting cylinder heads in the late ’50s and ’60s, but became a legend with his full body streamlined Top Fuel dragster. Jocko was somewhat of an eccentric but he did have a feel for aerodynamics. He built a streamliner for Don Garlits who also thought that aerodynamics could be important in drag racing. For whatever reason, the Garlits car was not successful. Don blamed Jocko; Jocko blamed Don. Not much else to report. This car went through several different engine combinations at various times, including an Allison aircraft engine...
Ansens, a very well known speed shop in SoCal. There never was a "Mr. Ansen", it was a partnership between hot rodding legend Louis Senter and acclaimed engine builder Jack Andrews. They changed the business name to Ansen Automotive Engineering with Andrews as the AN, and Senter represented with SEN in Ansen.
The dragster is a little unique in that is using a supercharged Packard V-8 engine...
The dragster is a little unique in that is using a supercharged Packard V-8 engine...
Ken's Automotive, the original "Odd Couple", a blown Chevy in front of a blown Chrysler...
Still one of the most beautiful dragsters ever built, in my opinion. I believe it is now in the safe hands of master craftsman, Tom Hanna...
Fire, the ultimate fear of front engine dragster drivers. There was no place for the driver to duck out of the way, and they had to wait until the car came to a stop. We lost too many drivers to this calamity...
The "Greek", running at "the Beach". I used to live in Torrance at one time, which was close to Lions Drag Strip (in Long Beach) and someone must have kept passing my address around because I always had out of town racers using my place as a crash-pad"...
The "Snake" at Indy for the Nationals. Not the prettiest dragster he ever owned (I'm trying to be kind)...
Photo by Paul Hutchins
Lou Baney's magnificent dragster, with SOHC Ford power in the hands of Ed Pink. Don Prudhomme in the seat. This is Orange County International Raceway in Irvine, the Taj Mahal of drag stirp towers. Lou was a legend in this sport, starting out with owning speed shops and racing at the dry lakes. In 1951, Lou opened Saugus Drag Strip in Newhall, CA. He was one of the first presidents of the SEMA organizations. At one point in his business career, Lou owned both Ford and Chrysler new car dealerships (not at the same time)...
Car owner Roland Leong never owned an ugly dragster...
Photo by Paul Hutchins
Photo by Paul Hutchins
Beebe & Mulligan Top Fuel dragster with popular John "Zookeeper" Mulligan at the helm. John ultimately paid the price as he succumed to serious burns suffered in a fire...
Photo by Paul Hutchins
Even with a couple of heavy lead bars strapped to the front axle, the "Pulsator II" pulls a wheelstand for the folks at San Fernando Raceway. Naturally, it's Bob "never lift" Muravez in the seat...
Don Prudhomme, Lou Baney and Ed Pink, with Lou's terrific dragster. I was the co-owner of the company that built the dragster trailer in the background...
NOTE: Prices may change without notice...
Don's first "modern" dragster. This was no tube-frame car, it was fabricated using frame rails from a 1931 Chevrolet. This photo was probably taken at the March Meet. The March Meet, originally called the U.S. Fuel and Gas Championships, was spearheaded by the Smokers, a local race club. The Smokers, who began racing at Famoso in 1951, became skeptical of reported times and speeds set in the east by “Big Daddy” Don Garlits. So they invited him to Bakersfield to compete. In March 1959 he did just that. This was his very first appearance "out west"...
Between Don Garlits and Connie Swingle (who worked for Don), they built many dragster chassis for other racers around the nation, including this one...
A classic match-up. Leonard Harris in the blown Olds on the near side, and Tommy Ivo in the twin injected Buick on the far side. Leonard had the magic ability to make run after run after run without smoking the tires...
Mickey Thompson with his original "sling-shot" dragster, after he updated the body. This car was very advance for it's day...
Mickey Thompson, always the innovator, built this 4-wheel drive, dual Pontiac engine dragster...
Calvin Rice on the left and Mickey Thompson on the right. I believe this photo was taken at the very first NHRA Nationals, in 1955, at Great Bend, KS...
Dragsters, four wide - Fresno, CA
I always liked this shot of our "Pulsator II" dragster, with the front tires just dancing off the ground, the pulse of the headers on the tire smoke, and Muravez looking straight at us. Compared to trying to peer around a blower, injector body, and an injector scoop, forward vision was a dream with this fueler.
Yes, duct tape, what about it?
Yes, duct tape, what about it?
Off to see the world. A pick-up truck and a single axle open dragster trailer. Life was simpler back then, and when it came to the amount of fun per dollar spent, we were way ahead of drag racing today...
Attention in the pits - Top Fuel to lanes 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6. There were more Top Fuel dragsters at Lions on a Saturday night than exist in the entire word today...
A Top Fueler at speed in the lights. Centrifugal force is pulling the tire bead away from the wheel and creating a very small contact patch to the racing surface...
The "Freight Train" smoking the hides at the old drag strip in Las Vegas...
Tom Ivo's twin Buick in-line dragster. Just at the time this car was built, NHRA rescinded the fuel ban, so Tommy got busy building a blown Chrysler dragster, which became the "Barn Stormer", and this car was turned over to Ron Pellegrini...
An expensive day at the races for this racer (or car owner)...
Sorry, couldn't help myself...
It was on a pass, and then it went boom. Hopefully, the PA announcer would soon report, "the driver is out of the car and appears to be okay". Then the announcer would say, "this is a good time to walk around in the pits or buy a hot dog, we are going to be down for awhile".
Ed "The Old Master" Pink's great looking and running dragster. My ex-roommate, Connie Swingle, drove this car for awhile...
Photo by Mike McCarthy
The one and only time that the "Pulsator" and the "Pulsator II" were ever at the same place at the same time...
Photo by Paul Hutchins
Just a typical Saturday afternoon at Lions dragstrip...