Notes about the passing of former NHRA Funny Car champ Shirl Greer last week have dominated my Inbox, and there is some cool stuff worth sharing.

NHRA released a statement, lauding the former champ: "One of the true pioneers of Funny Car racing, Georgia native Shirl Greer will always be remembered as the first to win an NHRA Funny Car world championship title with the modern-day points format. He claimed his place atop the point standings with an incredible resolve and strong work ethic that led him to the title in 1974 over a handful of talented drivers, including Paul Smith, Don Prudhomme and Frank Hall. He overcame great odds to win the championship that year, including a dramatic final weekend at Ontario Motor Speedway. After his car suffered a massive fire during qualifying, the entire Funny Car community pitched in to assist him in his quest to rebuild his car to race. Once the work off the track was completed, Greer went back to work on the track and held off Prudhomme, one of those who pitched in to help, for the title. Greer’s signature “Chained Lightning” Ford Mustang Funny Car will always be remembered as one of the most popular hot rods of all-time. On behalf of the entire NHRA community, our heartfelt thoughts and prayers go out to Greer’s family and friends. He will be missed.

In a nice move, Bristol Dragway issued the following statement about Greer and included the photo at right of him at its Legends Breakfast during last year's NHRA Thunder Valley Nationals: "There are examples out there of champions who, beyond talent, earned their way with grit and determination. Shirl Greer was one of those champions. The cars may be different than they were 30-plus years ago, but the elements it takes to win a championship are not, and he put those elements together. Shirl was a great friend to Bristol Dragway and always was there to lend a hand in helping promote drag racing. Whether it was through allowing us to put his Funny Car on display or to attend an event, Shirl loved the sport of drag racing. He will be missed, and our thoughts and prayers go out to the family of the 1974 NHRA Funny Car world champ."

I mentioned that I was writing a column for National DRAGSTER about the massive pit thrash that kept Greer in the hunt for the 1974 championship and that I had contacted some of the principals, including Paul Smith and Don Prudhomme – who were battling Greer for the title, yet each selflessly assisted him in his quest – and Gordie Bonin for their remembrances. Rich Hanna, son of veteran nitro and jet Funny Car racer Al (of Eastern Raider fame), dropped me the phone number for his dad, and I got some great additional info yesterday morning just before deadline to squeeze into the story.

Al Hanna helped Shirl Greer into his borrowed equipment.

Of the four I interviewed, Hanna definitely had the best memory of the thrash and filled in some great details as well as offered others that I just couldn’t bring myself to put into print out of respect for those with squeamish stomachs.

Hanna told me a couple of things that I never knew, including that Prudhomme insisted to skeptical NHRA officials that they let Greer run the patched-together flopper in eliminations after all of the work that had been put into it. I also never knew that NHRA officials had insisted that Greer make a checkout launch with the car Sunday morning prior to eliminations before beating Leroy Chadderton in the first round. Anyway, I'm really pleased with the way it came together and humbly propose that it's likely the most definitive piece ever constructed about one of the most memorable pit thrashes in our sport's history.

Longtime Insider reader Larry Peters also shared his Greer story, circa 1974. "A friend and myself went to U.S. 131 Dragway in Martin, Mich., for one of the usual Saturday night Funny Car match races, and while walking through the pit, we saw Shirl Greer unloading his car by himself," he wrote. "As we were watching, he asked if anybody had a pickup truck he could borrow for the evening. Apparently, his crew or helpers never showed up to the track. We said he could use ours. So we helped him that night, towing to the line and towing back from the top end. I even got the chance to help work on the car. It was a neat experience at the time. At the end of the night, he said all he had to give us was some beers and T-shirts. I still have that T-shirt [pictured], even though it's ready to fall apart. He was really nice, and it is sad to see he's gone. In 1996 at Indy, Bob Frey was doing the start of the NHRA Today show, and I was in the crowd as he walked by. They were taping the show, and I had this cool hat on, and as he walked by, he pointed at it. He then walked past several other people, and there stood Shirl Greer. I didn't know he was there until I got home that night and played the recorded tape back. Sure wish I had known he was standing there. It was the morning after Blaine Johnson died, and Steve Evans started the show. Hard to believe so many good people are gone now."

"As a professional drag racing photographer of note from the mid-1960s to early 1980s, Shirl Greer and I often found ourselves standing in the winner's circle on both sides of the camera lens," said Hall of Fame photographer Bob McClurg in a remembrance forwarded to me by Dave Wallace. "Shirl was a real gentleman and a class act. In the winter of 1975, after winning the much-publicized 1974 NHRA Winston Funny Car world championship, Shirl built an all-new Chained Lightning Mustang II Funny Car, which he debuted at the NHRA Winternationals, and he and I had made an appointment to photograph the car the week before the event for Kendall Oil and CARS Magazine. However, inclement weather prevented us from doing so, which meant photographing the car in the pits, which -- for many reasons -- would have been impossible. On the Saturday morning of the event, Shirl went to the NHRA and asked them if they would hold his spot in the pits while he loaded up the Funny Car on the back of that old Dodge Clinic transporter he used to have and drove around to the front of the L.A. Fairplex, where we photographed the car on the site where the Sheraton hotel now stands. Some might have called that preferential treatment, and in this day and age, that kind of request would have been absolutely impossible. But that just showed you the kind of respect that the newly crowned Funny Car champ had with the NHRA. I would also like to think that everyone involved that morning wanted to share in Shirl's good fortune and help him celebrate his onetime championship in any way that they possibly could."

Reader Mark Whitmer, responding to the ongoing discussion about Jeg Coughlin Sr. and Funny Cars, reported that the late Bob Durban of central Ohio was the first to achieve a national event victory for the Coughlin family when he drove Coughlin's injected Hemi Barracuda to the Comp title at the 1972 Gatornationals, beating Tom Trisch in the final. "Bob D. was a friend and high school classmate," Whitmer added. "He and his cousins, Ned and Neil Durban, had some success racing gas dragsters in the East, and at one time, Neil, with the help of Bob Sinister, held the national record for C/Gas with his '41 Willys." I went to our files and dug out this shot of the car in question, showing "the Kid" in action.

Mickey Bryant, who with Todd Hutcheson is writing a book called Don Garlits, R.E.D., which focuses on the year and a half surrounding Garlits' debut of his first rear-engine car -- covering the period between Garlits' March 8, 1970, accident through Sept. 7, 1971, the last race of Swamp Rat 14 – took note of my musings about Arnie Behling's contribution toward the acceptance of the rear-engine Top Fuel idea with his 1971 Summernationals win. "Even though in our new book we highlight all of what Garlits did in 1971, we do point out others were doing quite well in other rear-engine cars," he wrote. "Ironically, on the same weekend of Behling's win, Carl Olson, in the brand-new Kuhl & Olson rear-engine car, posted a stout 6.52 on its very first pass at Lions. Coast to coast, they were after 'Big.' "

Olson confirmed Bryant's information and told me that Woody Gilmore at Race Car Engineering built the car, whose construction began immediately after the team returned from the 1971 NHRA Springnationals in Dallas with the front-engine car that today is seen in the Cacklefest.

"The Lions debut was just the initial shakedown run with no paint, chrome, etc.," Olson said. "We did not compete that night. We first ran the car in competition several weeks later at OCIR. Our first NHRA national event participation with that car was at the 1971 NHRA Nationals in Indy, where we ran very well and were awarded Best Appearing Car."

I asked C.O. if there was a lot of opposition and naysayers about the switchover. "Quite to the contrary," he remembered. "I think most Top Fuel racers were convinced rear-engine was the way to go, but most were not in a position to make the change right away. Many had just ordered or taken delivery on new front-engine dragsters. There were a few front-engine 'hard cores' (John Wiebe and the Berry Brothers & Hughes come to mind), but most of our contemporaries were thinking rear-engine just as soon as time and resources would permit."

And, finally, in Tom Nagy's Fan Fotos from the Midwest, I mentioned the Bill Schifsky/Doc Halladay Cox Pinto. Kevin Cooley of Longmont, Colo., dropped me a line and these photos to show that the car is still around and running. It's now driven by Jon Reich and powered by an injected Chevy. Cooley captured the images at the Muscle Car Reunion at Kansas City Int'l Raceway last September. In the photo at right, you can see that the crew cleverly covers the injectors with a couple of the Cox toys when the car is in the pits.

They say you can find anything on eBay, and I guess that's true; I was alerted to two recent posts on the auction Web site.

The first is for one of the most controversial Funny Car bodies of the modern era, the infamous and notorious "Batmobile" Buick LeSabre of Kenny Bernstein.

Crew chief Dale Armstrong drove the body through every loophole and space between the lines of the NHRA Rulebook for a car that, though it certainly was within the letter of the rules, was so far outside the spirit that it's amazing it ever made it to competition, let alone carried the Bud King to his third straight championship. NHRA moved quickly to close those loopholes, but, despite quite a clamor from fans and his fellow competitors, the car was allowed to run that season. Others, including Ed McCulloch with Larry Minor's Miller team and Jim Head, quickly made their own wild versions.

I interviewed Bernstein about this car in 2002, during his (first) retirement season, and he noted, "Looking back, this car was really ahead of its time. It looks like the cars of today. And look at that rear spoiler: There's hardly anything there because we had so much downforce everywhere else. That car was just a superior car, and Dale was really on his game."

According to the seller, "Bernstein gave this car to David Taylor's museum in Texas where it was made into a display. It was sold to a local car collector in South Florida in 1988-89," and apparently sat in a Florida storage yard for years before being rescued. The paint is in pretty rough shape, but I can't imagine someone not wanting to pick it up. It's the body only; no chassis. Hurry -- the sale ends in less than a day!

Check it out!

The second, sent by Angel Nieves (who, by the way, has been receiving quite a few photos of the Hedman Headers Maverick Pro Stocker after I asked for them in this column a couple of weeks ago), is a show-car version of "Wild Bill" Shrewsberry's Knott's Berry Farm wheelstander. It's a total nonworking piece and, as the seller notes, was never an actual wheelstander but a replica built to display in the theme park's Roaring '20s airfield area. I found the photo above left of the car on display on the DragList site. Pretty cool!

Ed "Big Daddy" Roth painted, lettered, and pinstriped the '28 Ford truck, whose chassis was built by Warren Brogie. The car comes with many promotional extras as well as stands to position the car in the wheelstanding position.

Most of us West Coast fans remember seeing the truck – the successor to Shrewsberry's long line of L.A. Darts -- do its thing at national events and match races. It won’t ever replace the Dart in my heart (it rhymes!) but might make a nice display item for someone. Hurry, the auction ends Thursday.

Check it out!

 

The news of the passing of "Smokey Joe" Lee earlier this week and the loss this morning of 1974 NHRA Funny Car world champ Shirl Greer was a double tough blow to longtime fans like me and many of you who remember these guys in the nostalgic heyday of Funny Car racing.

I never saw Greer run outside of national events much because he was from back East but remember "Smokey Joe" living up to his nickname many a time at Orange County Int’l Raceway or Irwindale Raceway match races. As big of a Don Prudhomme fan as I was, I also loved the independents of the 1970s and even early 1980s, guys like Lee, Jeff Courtie, Bob Pickett, Roger Garten, Neil Leffler, Jim Terry, Clarence Bailey, Willie and the Poor Boys, Ray Romund, Al Arriaga, and Mike Halloran. I remember Halloran winning Irwindale's famous Grand Prix of Drag Racing in 1973 over a strong field. He beat Ed McCulloch in the semi's and even set top speed, then got a bye in the final when Jim Dunn's Satellite was broken. What a "little guy" win that was!

Looking at the list of guys we've lost recently, it's very stunning. As Courtie told me in an e-mail yesterday, "It's been a rough couple of years for guys from the 1970s." Going through the NHRA.com archives, I see that in the last two years alone, we've lost racers Jim Paoli, Leroy Chadderton, Ron Correnti, Bobby Hightower, Dick Loehr, Al Eckstrand, Jocko Johnson, Red Gobel, Chuck Finders, K.S. Pittman, Joe Allread, and Lou Sattelmaier as well as iconic manufacturers Chet Herbert, Jim Deist, Sig Erson, Marv Rifchin, Ralph Truppi, Ed Justice Sr., Pete Jackson, Greg Weld, Rocky Childs, and Bob Tasca Sr., not to mention more contemporary figures such as Don Woosley, Gene Fasching, Jim Harrington, Ronnie Marcum, and Tom Baum.

Even my own journalism world has been rocked with the losses of guys such as online pioneer Mike Hollander, DRAGSTER's own Dick Wells, Bill Crites, and Eric Brooks, Charlotte Observer motorsports veteran David Poole, former Safety Safari member/Hot Rod photographer Eric "Rick" Rickman, Fast News' Darryl Jackman, and photo ace Bob Hesser. Going back three to four years, we also lost nitro stalwarts Chuck Kurzawa, Dick Custy, Billy Holt, Romund, Jim McClennan, and Tom McCourry. It's very tough to see your heroes dropping one by one.

While working up background info on Greer, I thought it would be a good time to retell the story of his heroic efforts in winning the 1974 world championship, so it's the focus of this week's Pure Nostalgia column in National DRAGSTER. I interviewed Paul Smith, who was leading the points coming into that final race but didn’t qualify and ultimately led the group of guys who put Greer's fire-ravaged Mustang back together, as well as Prudhomme, who battled Greer down to the wire yet still had the class and sportsmanship to offer Greer a pair of gloves to cover his badly burned hands. I also got some info from Gordie Bonin, who was in on the thrash.

Greer's championship ended the best bid that Smith ever mustered for the title – he finished second – and denied Prudhomme what would have been his first championship.

"He was real strong and had a good-running car," remembered "the Snake," who finished third. "He had my respect. He was an independent guy, but he was a real threat. It was a well-deserved championship, to come back from that fire and still run. They don’t make 'em like that anymore."

Through 1973, the world championship had been decided by whoever won that year's World Finals; 1974 was the first year of a true points-based championship, though it relied heavily on points meets as much as national event competition. Prudhomme didn't run as many divisional races as Greer, and that probably cost him the chance to win his first title.

"That was the year before Winston came into the sport, and I have to say it was Greer who made me well aware of winning the championship, so we really went after it the next year," said Prudhomme. "Drag racing was really beginning to take off."

Smith, who battled with Greer throughout the season in Division 2, was actually inspired by Greer to compete in the class.

"The first I saw Shirl was down at Miami Dragway, and here came this Funny Car – a car called Tension. (I had never had a Funny Car – just an old bracket car)," he remembered. "It was injected at the time, but the next time I saw it, it was blown. That's when I said, 'I've got to get me one of those.' I kind of followed him and watched and learned from what he did."

Smith, known more today as the journeyman crew chief for aspiring racers and a guy who could get a car down a dirt road, had a great car that year, the Fireball Vega, owned by Gary Phillips, whose family was in the jukebox business, and Jim Shores of Shores & Hess Anglia gasser fame.

"We ran good," remembered Smith. "We had Ed Pink engines and all the good stuff. We had a good record with that car and almost never oiled the track. I'm not the kind of guy who's going to throw down a $100 bill to jump over it to get a $20 bill. You have to run them like a business to stay out here. Greer was the same way. We liked racing together. If I needed something, he'd give it to me, and I’d do the same. We were good friends, and I tried to help him as much as I could."
 

Bonin appended his recollection of that 1974 race with a funny story about Greer that actually will help segue into my next topic. Last weekend at the March Meet, John "Tarzan" Austin regaled Bonin and friends with a story about how he and Greer dealt with a pushy policeman one year at the Summernationals.

Bonin paraphrased "Tarzan's" story thusly: "There we were, me and Shirl Greer in our firesuits, watching the rounds in front of us when this little bastard comes up to us and tells us we have to leave. We ignore him, so he pushes Greer, who doesn't even budge. Now, I'm a big boy, but Shirl topped me by about 5 inches. We look at each other, put one arm each under Barney Fife's arms, pick him up, and walk to the side of the burnout box and deposit him head first into a trash can."

Man, the stuff you could get away with in the '70s!

Bonin bringing Austin into the tale is a perfect transition for a follow-up to a query from the aforementioned Courtie about my statement in Tuesday's Fan Fotos that Austin had never won a national event. Courtie was sure that he had but that the car owner had kept the trophy and that years later "T.V. Tommy" Ivo had bought a replacement Wally trophy for Austin, his longtime friend and former crewmember.

I knew that Austin had never driven to a win, so I asked Ivo for clarification.

"Right church -- wrong pew!" he responded. " 'Tarzan' did win Englishtown in 1971, but not as the driver. He was the mechanic, and Arnie Behling was the driver."

(At right is a photo of Behling accepting that Wally -- with Wally! I couldn't find a group winner's circle with Austin in it. Bonus points if you can tell me, without looking it up, whom Behling beat to win the 1971 Summernationals. Answer at the end of the column, or click here to jump there now if you just can't wait).

"I had a Wally made up for him a couple of years back and gave it to him in the front of the DoubleTree Hotel on Friday night during the [California Hot Rod Reunion]. He had complained to me some time before that that even the [team] truck drivers nowadays get a Wally as a team member (if the boss buys them one, of course).

"So I walked up to him with it in a box in my hands and said, 'You always said I never gave you anything,' to which he replied, 'What's that, box of hundred-dollar bills?' When I said it was better than that and whipped out the Wally and explained to him what it was all about, it was the first time I saw him without anything to say, and he rushed off to put it in his truck. He actually had a tear in his eye. That's a first! It's times like that that really make my day. As I've said before, 'Tarzan' was all but my real brother!"

(Gregory Safchuk photo)

Ivo also attached this photo of him and Austin celebrating in the winner's circle in Epping, N.H., after winning the track's big meet of the year.

" 'Tarzan' went for the bottle of champagne (and is drinking it … with a cigarette in his other hand … with a team 'Tommy Ivo' T-shirt on … NOT. Sigh.) instead of handling the trophy like he did with Arnie. That's my ex-wife Inez in the middle. Nice boots, but I should talk with my bell-bottom pants."

Courtie was happy to get the straight story, right from one of his favorite drivers. "Ivo was a childhood hero of mine when I used to ride my bike up to San Fernando starting when I was 12 years old," he said. "Now it's great to know him and talk to him about the old days; a really great guy!"
 

Another item from Tuesday's Fan Fotos – this one concerning Jeg Coughlin Sr. -- elicited the same question from readers Jack Adamson and Chris Van Unen, who not only were sure that "the Captain" had skippered a nitro Funny Car – contrary to my story – but also cited the same car and race as "evidence."

"I remember a picture of a JEGS flopper way back when that experienced an engine explosion," wrote Adamson. "The only way I remembered that picture was in the pic you can see the cap from the fuel tank had been blown off of the tank at the same time the picture was taken. Was this a nitro car or an alcohol car? I think the Funny Car body was a Camaro, but I can’t give you the year. I seem to also remember that because of this there was a rule change on the attachment of the fuel-tank caps."

"If I am not mistaken, the infamous photo of why we went to screw-on fuel-tank caps is Jeg in a nitro Funny Car," wrote Van Unen. "The body was exploding off the car on the line due to the tank igniting, and the old-style hinge cap had seen its last days."

Both are spot-on with everything but the driver, who was Dale Emery and not Jeg Sr. The race was the 1973 Supernationals at Ontario Motor Speedway, and the great photo was taken by a guy I regard as one of the all-time great clutch photographers, Don Gillespie, who has frozen some of the wildest blowups in history (see Mike Dunn, OCIR 1983).

Emery, of course, was the fearless driver of Rich Guasco's original Pure Hell fuel altered from 1966 to 1969 and then the shoe of Guasco's similarly named Duster Funny Car (and others) after that before a two-year stint with Coughlin. After Coughlin parked the Funny Car following the 1974 season, Emery drove other cars, including fellow Texan Mike Burkhart's Camaro, in which he made his ill-fated pass that ended up in another infamous photo – of the car on its nose, perpendicular to the ground, after hitting the guardrail in Indy in 1977. Emery broke his arm in that accident and retired from driving but, of course, went on to greater things as a key member of the crew in Raymond Beadle's three consecutive Funny Car championships.
 

Behling follow-up: The runner-up to Behling at the 1971 Summernationals, in what also was his only final-round appearance, was Jim Harnsberger. Harnsberger's story was pretty amazing: He beat Don Garlits on a holeshot in round two, 6.76 to 6.69, then narrowly beat Herm Petersen in the semifinals in a bout in which both drivers ran 7.09. The win was costly to Harnsberger; though; he blew a rod and had no spares. It was a typical hot, humid, and nasty Summernationals day, and Harnsberger almost passed out due to heat prostration. He was whisked to the hospital — against his wishes — in an ambulance but talked the ambulance crew into bringing him back to the track, and he watched Behling solo to the win.

Interestingly, Behling's Spirit dragster was one of just a few rear-engine dragsters in the field – Garlits' iconic Swamp Rat 14 was in it, of course, as was Prudhomme's Hot Wheels Wedge – and, going through photos of the event, it looks as if, of the few back-motor cars, only Garlits' and Behling's had wings. Garlits' was mounted conventionally, but Behling's was mounted atop the engine (shades of Garlits' Swamp Rat V!).

Behling's Spirit dragster probably should hold some sort of historical footnote. It was only the second rear-engine Top Fueler to win a national event, after Garlits, who famously won the Winternationals (in the car's debut) and the Springnationals. Jimmy King won the season's other early event, the Gatornationals, in a front-engine car.

I could probably make some kind of argument here about how the win by the previously unheralded Behling spurred along the acceptance of rear-engine Top Fuelers as much as Garlits' histrionics, as Behling not only proved the worth of the design and that you don’t have to be "Big Daddy" to win in a rear-engine car, but I'll leave that one to supposition.

Thanks for reading. See ya next week.
 

Welcome to another installment of Fan Fotos, galleries of great memories hauled from shoeboxes and dusty photo albums to share with your pals here at the Insider. This is always a real treat for me as well, sorting through the various submissions for cool stuff that I've not seen or cars I haven’t seen in a while.

Tom Nagy is today's gallery guest, and he made it real tough on me by submitting 30 photos to choose from, almost all of them great memory stokers. I tried to whittle it down to the usual 10 but fell short by one, so I hope you'll accept my apology for presenting 11 <g>.

"All these photos were taken by me in the 1970s; all of the on-track shots were taken from the grandstands," he wrote. "I know I sent more than 10, but I thought you could decide which ones to use. I had a 35mm Canon that was purchased new in 1973 and was used for all my photos. I used a Vivitar 85-210mm zoom for the action shots and sometimes attached a 2x teleconverter when there was enough light. I shot 400 ASA print film almost exclusively, and the resulting negatives were stored in plastic sleeves. I bought a good Nikon negative/slide scanner a couple of years ago and have been scanning my 1970s images on and off since then; one of these days I'll finish.

"I'm from South Bend, Ind., and went to many Midwestern dragstrips throughout the '70s. Many times, I went to U.S. 131 Dragway on Saturday and U.S. 30 Drag Strip Sunday. It was sometimes possible to see nitro Funny Cars four times a week: Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday at U.S. 30 and Saturday night at U.S. 131. Boy, those were the days. I attended my first NHRA national event in 1970 when I talked my dad into taking me to Indy. I've been going to the Nationals (I have a hard time saying U.S. Nationals) ever since. I started going to the Popular Hot Rodding Championships at U.S. 131 in 1971 and attended my first NHRA Gatornationals and Springnationals in 1973, so, basically, I saw four national events a year throughout the decade. I'm so grateful to have seen so much drag racing history firsthand."

Because the Gatornationals kicks off in a few days, let's start with this shot of Nagy's showing Shirley Muldowney running against defending event champ Dave Settles and the vaunted Candies & Hughes dragster during qualifying at the 1975 event. This was Shirley's second year in the class, and a season in which she would reach her first final rounds, in Columbus (where she lost to Marvin Graham) and Indy (where she lost to Don Garlits). Shirley didn't qualify at this event, and Settles, surprisingly, only qualified on the bump (obviously not on this run!) and lost in round two to Graham.

 

Nagy sent me a lot of pit-area stuff, which I always think is really good. I was especially struck by this photo of then-world champ Dale Armstrong working on his world-championship AA/DA (that's a Top Alcohol Dragster for today's fans) in the pits at the 1976 Pop Hot Rod race. What I really like about it is seeing the transmission out on the ground, with "Double A Dale" hard at work and his longtime (and very young!) sidekick and protégé, Mike "Shadow" Guger assisting. Guger was with Armstrong pretty much everywhere he went, including the Bud King team. After a stint with the David Powers team, Guger is back with the Bernstein camp after following Rob Flynn there. Also note those Funny Car-style zoomies on the car. Interesting!

From that same event comes this interesting shot of Bill Jenkins' famed Grumpy's Toy Monza being unloaded from the trailer. What immediately grabbed my eye was "the Grump" chatting with "the Snake," Don Prudhomme (inset). Wonder what they were talking about?

Here's soon-to-be world champ Gary Beck and his scary-tough Export A Top Fueler at the 1974 Springnationals in Columbus, Ohio. I always get a kick out of seeing that big ol' Canadian flag on the cowl because many people still think he was from north of the border when he actually was born in Seattle. In fact, I'm looking at a copy of a 1974 Drag Racing USA on my desk with Beck on the cover and the blurb: "Canadian superhero Gary Beck: Invincible?" Invincible? Yes. Canadian? No. Export A was a Canadian cigarette and partner Ray Peets was Canadian, but Beck was not. Beck moved to Canada in 1969 when he married his first wife, Penny, who was Canadian.

Speaking of Columbus, here's a great old shot of one of Columbus' most famous drag racers, Jeg Coughlin Sr., at the wheel of his JEGS AA/DA at National Trail Raceway in 1975. "The Captain" not only sponsored cars for years – including Top Fuelers and Funny Cars before his son began racing Pro Stock – but also drove them. I don't think he ever drove a nitro flopper, but he did compete in Top Fuel as well as in Top Alcohol Funny Car. He's one of the sport's truly good guys and obviously did a great job raising his successful sons.

There was a time when green cars – like peanuts in the pits – were considered bad mojo, but someone forgot to tell Gordie Bonin that. I always loved this car – and it made me drink an awful lot of Bubble Up soda during my high school days – and "240," with whom I worked at NHRA for many years, remains a good friend. The scene is Indy 1976; note the lack of guardwall in front of the photographers in the famous triangle. Man, that unobstructed view made for some nice shots in the day.

Here's another shot from Indy, this time in the pits in 1973, showing a couple of the lesser-known lights of the day, Ronnie Martin, foreground, and Chuck Kurzawa. Martin drove Robert Anderson's Metarie, La.-based dragster for three seasons but also had driven great cars for guys like Leonard Abbott, Sid Waterman, Gene Mooneyham, Prentiss Cunningham, and Chuck Tanko. The win the world championship in 1970 by winning the World Finals. Detroit-based Kurzawa's career spanned three decades of on-again, off-again competition in Top Fuel, including a stint with the famed Ramchargers team in the late 1960s. According to Bill Holland, that's car owner Bob Farmer (of Bob's Drag Chutes fame) tending to the Kurzawa car in the background.

I never got a chance to meet him, but John Austin is one of the true legendary characters of the 1970s. Nicknamed "Tarzan" for reasons that would be obvious to anyone who spent an evening with him, the former Tommy Ivo crewmember also made good behind the wheel, especially in this car, the Greg Scheigert-owned Hot Tuna dragster, shown in the pits at U.S. 131 during the 1973 Pop Hot Rod meet. It was Austin, in this car, who was in other lane when "T.V. Tommy" went upside down in Pomona in 1974. Love not just those wheel pants but the psychedelic 1970s paint scheme.

Before he became a Top Fuel hero and even before he became a national-event-winning Top Alcohol Dragster racer, Joe Amato wheeled this car, the Gabriel Hijacker Monza. Gabriel Hijackers were popular shock absorbers back in the day that could be aired up to raise a car's rake for either performance or looks. This is Indy 1976. I'm sure glad that Amato got out of Top Alcohol Funny Car because, for a while, there was another Joe Amato in the same class, "Wiskey Joe" Amato out of Chicago, and it got to be kinda confusing during our race reporting. "Wiskey Joe" (not sure why he spelled it that way) died in the early 1980s, in a traffic accident as I recall.

We just lost Lou Sattelmaier earlier this year. A lot of modern-day fans knew him from his line of Sonic Thunder jet Funny Cars, but before that, folks knew him for this great car, a 1932 3-window Model B that he ran in the gas classes throughout the 1970s. The scene is the 1974 U.S. Nationals.

After he gave up driving in Top Fuel, White Bear Lake, Minn.'s Bill Schifsky gave a lot of drivers a chance to drive his Funny Cars throughout the years, including this entry, the Beartown Shaker, which was wheeled by future luminaries such as Mike Dunn and Rick Johnson, pictured, in 1979, as well as Topper Kramer and Glenn Mikres. Doc Halladay once also was Schifksy's partner (on the Cox Pinto, which was made into a great nitro-powered scale dragster toy); Schifksy's son, Chuck, also went on to great things. He was part of a power trio of young wrenches — along with future tuning star Mike Green – working under Lee Beard on Gary Orsmby's championship-winning Castrol GTX Top Fueler and later went into the journalism field (in which he rose to the lofty position of executive editor at highly regarded Motor Trend) and today is a regional director of public relations for American Honda.

OK, that's it for this edition of Fan Fotos. I'll be back later this week after we finish the current issue and its very special subject matter. I hinted at it last week but couldn’t reveal it until all of the pieces were in place, but it's another special themed issue, like our recent Top 10 Lists installment, called Most Intriguing People. The staff looked around the NHRA landscape, and we picked eight subjects whose interests both in and out of drag racing make them very intriguing candidates. I'll reveal them later this week and a little insight into each. How many can you guess?