Sad news earlier this week sent by reader Craig Eagle, advertising accounting assistant at The Columbus Dispatch, pointing me to an online obituary for former NHRA event worker Ron Rickman. Rickman, who also worked at times as an official for the Ohio and National Tractor Pullers Associations and was an avid bass fisherman, died last Thursday at age 71.

You may not know the name, but if you've been around these woods for a while, you certainly will recognize the image at right, which shows Rickman getting ready to play dodgeball with Connie Kalitta's crashing Top Fueler at the 1971 U.S. Nationals.

This accident occurred during Thursday qualifying when Kalitta, running in the right lane, lost the handle on his new wedge dragster – a car that I believe was owned by the late Pancho Rendon and was similar to the Hot Wheels wedge of Don Prudhomme and another owned by Leland Kolb – and, as you can see at right, got it completely on its side as he crossed the centerline. He impacted the left guardrail and then the Marathon scoreboard/win light.

Rickman did not suffer any injuries, nor did Kalitta, shy of some pretty fair bruises, but as you can see in the third photo, the same can’t be said for the scoreboard. That's Rickman beside the mangled remains, checking out debris from the crash while the Safety Safari and ambulance crews tended to Kalitta in the background.

Longtime NHRA Competition Director Steve Gibbs remembered the incident well.

"[Rickman] was the guy who used to sit in a chair at the quarter-mile to spot debris on the track. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but after Kalitta nailed the scoreboard in the wedge car, it brought an end to that idea. When Jack Hart and I were helping to clean up the crash scene, we both thought we were going be picking up Ron in pieces and kind of panicked when we couldn’t find him for a while. A little later, I found him in the bottom of the finish-line tower drinking a Coke … not a scratch on him. He and wife Geri worked fuel check for a while but dropped off the NHRA tour quite a few years ago."

The other part of this story that's often forgotten is that Kalitta not only returned to action later in the event to qualify his Funny Car but also reached the semifinals. Shirley Muldowney also qualified but lost in round one to Henry Harrison, and Kalitta went on to beat Jake Johnston, then got a bye run when a broken clutch spring caused the Richard Tharp-driven Blue Max to lock up on the starting line. Kalitta lost in the semifinals to Ed McCulloch, who went on to score his first of six U.S. Nationals crowns.

I looked in our files and couldn’t find any photos of the Kalitta wedge at the event, and there may not have been many taken because the wreck occurred so early in qualifying. The best I can offer you is the clip below, from Heart Like a Wheel, the biopic on the life of Muldowney, which shows a re-creation of the car.

In my recent in-depth interview with Shirley for National DRAGSTER's Most Intriguing People edition, she took issue with a lot of the Hollywood-ization of her story, and I'm sure this fits right in. I couldn’t swear to it, but I'm guessing the late, great Steve Evans wasn't calling the action, and the wreck surely did not occur at Orange County Int’l Raceway, which is the stand-in for Indy here (though it's sure cool to see OCIR!). We do know that Kalitta sure wasn't running against Don Garlits when he crashed – it was Vern Anderson in Jim Nicoll's car in the other lane – and Kalitta's car never hit the right guardrail and disintegrated as such. I also doubt that Shirley just happened to be at the top end watching through binoculars.

Still, I think it’s pretty cool footage.

As mentioned earlier this week, the rear-engine cars were starting to come out in force following Garlits' wins at the Winternationals and Springnationals and the Summernationals win by Arnie Behling in Bruce Dodd's Spirit. Garlits qualified No. 1 at 6.21, miles ahead of No. 2 qualifier (and eventual winner against Garlits in the great burndown) Steve Carbone, who ran 6.39 in his slingshot; behind them were the back-motor cars of Kuhl & Olson (6.41) and Behling (6.46), but they were chased by the front-engine cars of world champ Ronnie Martin, Gerry Glenn (Schultz & Glenn), Butch Maas (Creitz-Donovan-Maas), and "Kansas John" Wiebe.

I don't have a full entry list at hand, but skimming the photos in ND's coverage, here's a pic below of Kolb's wedge; Prudhomme had a rear-engine car, too, but not the wedge he ran in Englishtown. In contrast to Kalitta's misfortunes, Kolb reached the third round (quarterfinals of the 32-car field) before losing to first alternate Gary Cochran.

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 above photo 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!

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.
 

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?
 

Conceived in 1959 by the Smokers Car Club of Bakersfield as sort of an East vs. West challenge, the March Meet became much more than that, and, to many, having a March Meet win (aka U.S. Fuel and Gas Championships) on the ol' driving résumé meant as much as winning any race shy of perhaps the U.S. Nationals. The race was that tough to win its heyday.

Here's a quick year-by-year recap of the event in its original incarnation, from 1959 until 1988. In 1994, it became a nostalgia racing event and continues to enjoy success to this day, but in the beginning, it was one of the ultimate tests of its day.

1959: Art Chrisman won the inaugural March Meet.

1959: Everyone remembers that inaugural event, if for no other reason than it prompted Don Garlits (who was not yet "Big Daddy") to make his first trip west, thanks to a generous payment by the Smokers. Garlits wouldn’t win that first time – heck, he wouldn’t win in his first six trips west – and the West Coast fans got to see two of their own battle it out. Art Chrisman drove around a holeshot by Bakersfield’s Tony Waters to claim the win in Top Eliminator. "T.V. Tommy" Ivo scored the gas dragster honors.

1960: Ted Cyr, just a year and a half removed from winning the Nationals, scored another big win when he defeated Neil Leffler. A couple of Florida heroes, Art Malone and Garlits, set the performance marks, with Malone grabbing low e.t. at 8.60 and Garlits top speed at 185.56. Ivo and his young protégé, Don Prudhomme, swept the gas dragster honors, winning the Open and B Open titles, respectively.

1961: Lefty Mudersbach drove Chet Herbert 's dragsterto a pretty big surprise win by driving his unblown twin Chevy dragster to Top Eliminator honors against the equally surprising B/Fuel Dragster of Jack Ewell.

1962: Prudhomme dominated the event, setting low e.t. and top speed (8.21, 185.36) en route to victory and claiming the win on Glen Leasher's final-round red-light.

Gordon Collett won Top Gas back to back ('63-64).

1963: Malone made good on the promise he'd shown at earlier March Meets by nabbing his first win there. Like Prudhomme the year before, this one was decided on the starting line, but this time on a holeshot as Malone capped Tom McEwen, 8.33 to 8.31. Gordon "Collecting" Collett won the Top Gas title.

1964: Garlits came close to grabbing his first Bakersfield win but was turned away by wily Connie Kalitta in the final, 7.95 to 8.23. Top Gas again was "collected" by Collett.

1965: "Big Daddy" finally struck California gold, beating good friend "Starvin' Marvin" Schwartz in the final with a blast of 8.10 at 205 mph.

1966: The surf was up as Mike Sorokin scored the biggest win of his career, beating hometown favorite James Warren in the final. Sorokin and the Surfers team set low e.t. at 7.34 en route to waxing an all-star field. Phil Hobbs won Top Gas, and the newly initiated Funny Car class was won by Gas Ronda.

1967: Mike Snively, hot off of 1966 wins at the Winternationals and U.S. Nationals, kept Roland Leong's Hawaiian in the spotlight by beating Dave Beebe for the March Meet crown. Jack Chrisman won Funny Car, and the popular Freight Train, with Goob Tuller driving, won Top Gas.

1968: The Frantic Four became the celebrated ones as Ron Rivero, hot off a semifinal win against Winternationals champ Warren, made a solo in the final after the late Leroy Goldstein couldn't get his mount to fire. Fred Goeske won Funny Car .

1969: A whopping 125 Top Fuelers were at the decade's final event, an upset-filled race that Jim Dunn won by defeating Dave Babler. Danny Ongais wheeled Mickey Thompson’s Funny Car to victory against “Big John” Mazmanian.

1970: "The Loner," Tony Nancy, went his Winternationals runner-up one better with his first major win, but the bigger news may have been former event Top Fuel winner Snively, who reached the Funny Car final and nearly became the first driver to win the event in both classes but smoked the tires against Hank Clark's AMC Rebel. Pro Stock was added to the event, and the inaugural title went to cigar-chomping "Dandy Dick" Landy, who beat the "Red-Light Bandit," Bill Bagshaw, in the final.

1971: Don Garlits, driving his new rear-engine car, won his second March Meet.

1971: As he did at the Winternationals, Garlits reached the winner's circle with his new rear-engine dragster, defeating the conventional California Charger slingshot of Rick Ramsey. Garlits got it done on a holeshot, 6.71 to 6.64. Dunn accomplished what Snively could not the year before, becoming the first to win in both fuel classes when he beat Dave Condit to win the Funny Car title.

1972: McEwen scored his first major victory when he beat Winternationals champ Carl Olson in the final with a track record 6.35. In what was a remarkable run, Dunn again reached a March Meet final (his third in four years) but conceded the Funny Car title to Ed McCulloch after his mount lost fire. "The California Flash," Butch Leal, beat Bob Lambeck for the Pro Stock title.

1973: Dwight Salisbury joined the list of long-deserving Top Fuel winners to finally strike paydirt. After beating Garlits on a holeshot earlier in eliminations, "Sals" beat Randy Allison for the win. Tom Hoover ended McCulloch's bid for a double in the Funny Car final, and Lambeck was relegated to runner-up in Pro Stock for the second straight year, this time at the hands of Larry Huff.

1974: Olson made good on his second trip to the final. After qualifying No. 1 with a 6.04, the driver of the Kuhl & Olson digger made the track's first five-second pass, a 5.94 in round two, then denied Nancy a second Bakersfield win in the final. McCulloch reached his third Funny Car final and again collected the win, this time on a solo when Twig Zeigler could not back up his Pizza Haven machine after his burnout.

1975: As hard as it is to believe, it took until 1975 for Warren and Roger Coburn to win their hometown's biggest event, but the Ridge Route Terrors did it in terrorizing fashion with a blitz of five-second passes, including a 5.92 to qualify No. 1 and low e.t. of 5.87 in the semi's. Warren capped the win with a 5.91 defeat of Jeb Allen. Dale Pulde defeated Prudhomme in the Funny Car final.

1976: More Top Fuel terror as Warren-Coburn and the Rain for Rent team again rained on the parade of the other Top Fuelers, and Warren became the first Top Fuel driver to win back-to-back Bakersfield titles. Hard-luck Nancy again was the runner-up, this time shut off on the line with a fuel leak. Funny Car also was decided on a bye run after Gordie Bonin lost fire, allowing popular “Jungle Jim” Liberman an easy pass to victory.

1977: After qualifying No. 1 with a track record 5.79 and bettering it with a 5.75 in round two, Warren won for the third straight year, beating Garlits in the final. Eddie Pauling won Funny Car.

1978: Dennis Baca, near lane, defeated Graham Light.

1978: Future NHRA Senior Vice President Graham Light reached the Top Fuel final (run in April after rain postponed the event) but lost to Dennis Baca. Baca lost the blower belt on his pass, but Light had already smoked the tires. Denny Savage won Funny Car.

1979: In what to many marked the beginning of the traditional great race's demise, the Top Fuel field was reduced to just 16 cars. Furthering the anxiety of the Bakersfield faithful, Warren couldn’t even qualify for that field. Garlits, coming off his own shocking DNQ at the Winternationals, qualified No. 1 and won only his second Bakersfield Top Fuel title and, ironically, did it by beating the same guy, Ramsey, as he did eight years earlier. Simon Menzies won Funny Car.

1980: Kalitta finally added his name to the list of double March Meet winners and did it by beating archrival Shirley Muldowney in the semifinals and tire-smoking (again) Light in the final. Dunn scored again in Funny Car when Prudhomme smoked the tires in the final.

1981: Muldowney added her name to the Who's Who to win the race when she defeated hometown favorite Doug Kerhulas in the final. Pulde scored his second Funny Car win, beating Dale Armstrong's Speed Racer in the final.

1982: Muldowney reached the final the following year as well only to be upset by upstart Lucille Lee in what was the first all-female Top Fuel final. Lee also won the Southern Nationals that month, but Muldowney got her revenge by defeating Lee in the final of the Springnationals. Tom Ridings beat the late Tripp Shumake in the Funny Car final.

1983: Another shocking winner was crowned in former sand drag racer Danny Dannell, who denied Muldowney in her third straight final-round appearance at the event. Mike Dunn joined father Jim as a March Meet Funny Car champ after taking out Henry Harrison in the final.

1984: Gary Beck and crew chief Bernie Fedderly won their first of two straight.

1984: Reigning world champ Gary Beck won Top Fuel, capping a dominating performance by beating team boss Larry Minor and his matching Miller Lite car in the final, 5.49 to 5.67. Three years before he'd win his first NHRA national event title, John Force upset McEwen in the Funny Car final.

1985: Beck returned to the winner's circle the following year, this time by besting long shot Shannon Stuart in the Stuart & Harmon dragster. Rick Johnson, who had powered Leong's Hawaiian Punch Dodge to a stunning 5.58 at the Winternationals, kept the magic alive by winning Funny Car against Gary Densham. Pro Stock returned to the event, and Ken Dondero beat Jerry Eckman in the final.

1986: With the Top fuel field pared to just eight cars, Garlits won again but did it in dramatic fashion with a 5.37 – then the quickest run in history – with his famous Swamp Rat XXX streamliner. Although his final-round opponent, former NFL quarterback Dan Pastorini, was a surprise, Pastrorini, like Lee, also would win the Southern Nationals that year. Force scored his second March meet win, defeating "Jam-Air John" Martin.

1987: With the world rapidly losing interest in the event, Garlits scored his fifth March Meet win on former starter Larry Sutton's red-light, and Force defeated McCulloch in the Funny Car final.

1988: The final March Meet of the original era went into the books with yet another former sand drag racer, Butch Blair, winning in his Blair's Fugowie dragster against journeyman Robert Reehl. Martin made good in his second straight Funny Car final and took a bye run to the winner's circle after Pulde was unable to return after hurting his car in the semifinals.

That's it, a capsule look back at what was, for decades, a great race. The race continues to this day under its nostalgia format, which for many is wonderful and a bit of a throwback to the old days, and with the NHRA Hot Rod Heritage Racing Series as its main booster, the event should continue to thrive.
 

Seeing Team USA take the four-man bobsled gold has to be my favorite post-Miracle on Ice Olympics moment.

... Potbellied USA-1 driver Steve Holcomb, far right, may be the best everyman driver since John Force.

... They even kinda dance alike.

... OK, 'fess up. When you read that Holcomb's USA-1 sled was nicknamed Night Train, how many of you instantly thought about the Freight Train? Or Bruce Larson?

... After covering the Geoff Bodine Bobsled Challenge in Lake Placid in January, I somehow feel like I'm a tiny part of this gold medal. Hey, how many bobsled rides have you taken?

... Did you see Geoff Bodine getting giant and well-deserved hugs from the USA-1 team? Go motorsports!

... Great headline Sunday in the L.A. Times: "Giant Sleighers."

... That 62-year gold-medal drought makes Force's recent woes look like chopped liver.

... Does anyone really eat chopped liver?

... Jeg Coughlin Jr., fiancée Samantha Kenny, and a few friends were in Vancouver as guests of the USA bobsled team to cheer on the sledders and filed this story about the combined joy of all of the drag racers who have taken part in the Challenge during the years.

... Jeg and Samantha took in the ice-dancing event (she made him go; she's a lifelong ice skater) plus the men's giant slalom, the women's two-man bobsled, and the women's bronze-medal ice-hockey game.

... The bobsled win almost made up for the USA men's hockey team's tough gold-medal loss to Canada. My guess is that KBR's Canadian crew chief, Rob Flynn, is still doing cartwheels.

... Ditto for one of my all-time favorite racing people, transplanted Canuck Dale Armstrong. Congrats to "Double A" for his upcoming induction into the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America.

... The double elimination of the weekend's Phoenix activities sure threw a monkey wrench into the plans for this week's issue of National DRAGSTER.

... Does anyone still use monkey wrenches?

... Can you believe that planning is about to get under way for NHRA's 60th anniversary celebration?

... The fabled March Meet turns 52 this weekend.

... By show of hands, who's going? Wow, that's a lot.

... Blake Bowser, vice president and general manager of the Kern County Racing Association, operator of Auto Club Famoso Raceway and producer of the fabled March Meet: “Bakersfield is Buck Owens, Merle Haggard, and the March Meet.”

... Not necessarily in that order.

... How is it possible that I turn 50 in two and a half months? Cripes.

... Texas Motorplex is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year. Cool logo. Congrats to NHRA alum Gabrielle Stevenson for being named the new GM there.

... That first national event at Texas Motorplex (1986) was named to ND's Top 10 list of greatest national events ever.

... It was No. 3, behind the amazing 1975 World Finals and 1982 U.S. Nationals. That's some good company.

... I'm going to miss going to Gainesville this year, especially seeing Kalitta Racing's Darrell Gwynn tribute car.

... I remember that 1990 event as if it were yesterday. Remember that whole star-crossed year for that matter. It's the subject of my Pure Nostalgia column this week in ND.

... Connie Kalitta raced Gwynn six times; Gwynn won five times, including his first Top Fuel victory at the 1986 Winternationals.

... I had to choose between Gainesville and the Four-Wide Nationals in Charlotte, and no way was I gonna miss that spectacle. I'm still a little 50-50 on the whole concept, but at least I can say I was there.

... Not having Gainesville on my travel schedule this year caused me to miss out on the honor of inducting the late Dickie Harrell, Leroy Goldstein, Jack Engle, and John Buttera into Don Garlits' International Drag Racing Hall of Fame. By the time "Big" honored me by asking for my help, it was too late.

... Congrats to NHRA historian Greg Sharp for his induction this year with the special Founder's Award.

... Making his National DRAGSTER debut this week is new columnist Alan Reinhart. He starts out by picking a fight with the ND staff for not including Phoenix 1992 in our greatest races list. What a "homer."

... We also have the return of "the Brash One," former ND writer Todd Veney, right, with the first entry in a new column that will chronicle his season behind the wheel of Jay Blake's Follow A Dream Top Alcohol Funny Car.

... Who is Tim Wiley, and why does he want me to join the "Balding heads of Facebook" group? ("A place where we all can show those sliding hairlines, bald spots, or where it all used to be.")

... Mafia Wars has to be the most popular Facebook mini game. Among those trading Untraceable Cellphones, Tommy Guns, and Bangkok baht are current and past nitro drivers, crew chiefs, publicists, NHRA staffers, and tons of others,

... Don’t knock it 'til you've tried it.

... It's amazing the amount of people – including racers -- who use Facebook to contact me instead of regular ol' e-mail.

... ND's own Brad Littlefield very well may be the funniest guy on Facebook. Friend him and see for yourself.

... Did you see the news item this weekend about B.R.A.K.E.S. teen-driving classes in Pomona this year? I need to send both of my crashtacular daughters. The boy would go just to play on the skid pad.

...  Yeah, OK -- me, too.

OK, enough playing around here for the day. Time to finish this week's issue and get started on an exciting project for next week's issue, details of which I will reveal later this week.
 

"At my first drag race, my grandpa and I were watching all these (what I thought were) street cars going down the track, and this little kid thought, 'OK, cool,' until this one car came out to make an exhibition run. Grandpa said, 'Watch this!' It was Ron Leslie in the 777 Comet. We watched that car fire up, and it was louder, and the smoky burnout was longer, and he launched that car, and I remember the sounds and smell to this day. I was hooked. The rest of that story is that my grandpa knew Ron's dad, Roy Leslie, and his partner Bill Kenz. Yep, my grandpa knew the team that had the first Funny Car in Colorado, the Kenz & Leslies 777. Here's a terrible picture taken with an Instamatic camera, but this picture is priceless to me.
 
"So time went by, and when I was in junior high, there was a story in the Rocky Mountain News that my grandpa had for me. It was of a drag racer and his chief mechanic, and Grandpa said, 'Do you know the chief mechanic on this car?' And indeed I did: It was my math teacher, and he was a mechanic on a Funny Car. 

"Art Ward was the driver of this car, and between my math teacher, George Willett, and another dear teacher of mine back then (Tawney), they took me under their wings and helped me in every way they could. Part of that was introducing me to Art Ward, and saying that we were all pals from that moment on is an understatement. They all knew that I grew up without a father, and by this time (due to health), Grandpa just couldn't get me to the races anymore, so my mom would even take me (thanks, Mom), as did some dear old friends of mine, Mickey G. and Pat J.

So that's kind of where Art and crew (which also included on his Top Fueler Bob Yetter, who went on to be a part owner of a successful Super Comp car before he was taken away from us due to cancer) would step in and just let me hang out with them. Art liked me for some reason (even when I was a kid), and I looked up to him and his crew (my former teachers) to no end.
 
"Art is no longer with us, but I'm thankful to say that he knew what he meant to me, and me to him. To say that is priceless to me is way understated. He was my pal.
 
"Through Art Ward and my friends on his crew, this kid had the privilege to meet countless drivers and owners who I admired and still do, people like Roger Guzman, John Dekker, my friend Robbie Williams, Junior Kaiser, Johnny Abbott, Doug Kerhulas, Dan Pastorini, Jody Smart, Gene Snow, Sush Matsubara, Tripp Shumake, and even back in the day, that's how I first met the guy I call 'Forceman.' I'll never forget what you did for me, Art Ward, George Willett, and Bobby Yetter." -- Keith Dochterman

"Don Garlits. Yes, 'the King,' just like Arnold Palmer in golf. There are now drivers with more wins, but, like Arnie, Don Garlits defined the sport early with personality, performance, and technical innovation. Garlits was the first successful and aggressive touring pro and thrilled fans at tracks across the country. No doubt his personal disaster and the creation of the rear-engined dragster has saved many other disasters. He should receive some type of major honor from NHRA and motorsports while we still have him.
 
"Don Prudhomme: Another icon of the sport from the formative days when the personalities were clearly developing and marketing was at a high point. 'The Snake' and 'Mongoose' rivalry stirred up people who were not even into drag racing. The Hot Wheels craze put toy Funny Cars into the hands of young kids. 'The Snake' was successful in both Pro nitro categories and continued as a prototype of the corporate team owner. We're really going to miss him on the circuit.

"Ronnie Sox: One of my personal heroes from Cecil County days, and if not the best four-speed shifter ever, then tell me who was better! The famous Sox & Martin Mopars were pushed by Chrysler and marketed from 'shaker hoods' to the paint jobs on Hemi 'Cudas and Road Runners. Also one hell of a guy who would sign autographs for young and old alike.

"Bill Jenkins: Ah, 'the Grump,' another character that I spent some time around at Cecil, especially in his secret test sessions. His name has been synonymous with Chevy horsepower, and many Stock and Super Stockers with national wins sported the famous Jenkins Performance logo. The trademark cigar and snappy personality only added to his persona. And the old bugger is still at it!

"Tony Schumacher: You kidding me?! He's a modern hero, and if there is anyone who defines success, ultracool, and positive thinking, it's Tony. Obviously well-financed, but 2009 proved that he was up to the real test of nurturing a new team to greatness. Not always the quickest off the line, but when it really counts, he's there. And may I add what a great ambassador of the sport and his sponsor, the U.S, Army.

"Kenny Bernstein: Like 'the Snake,' Kenny Bernstein is a veteran of the sport from the real formative days and was another rare success story from both Pro nitro classes. Naturally, he'll be remembered for breaking the 300-mph barrier, but he also was the model for nurturing a world-class sponsor, Budweiser, for 30 years. Kenny got it on how to make a relationship like that work, and no doubt he'd still have the king of beers on board if not for their unfortunate acquisition.

"John Force: Geez, where do I begin! All the stats show he's the king of Funny Car racing, but, like Bernstein, is the new corporate king of sponsorship in drag racing, maybe all of racing. And when God passed out personality, John got a triple dose plus. He is known outside of our sport, which is a rare feat, and probably gets more airtime on NHRA TV broadcasts than any five other drivers combined! But John Force is also nurturing the future of the sport with his daughters, relatives, and trusted friends. Obviously, it benefits John Force Racing, but it also helps the future of NHRA racing.

"Bob Glidden: Here's a guy I watched a lot, and if there is ever a driver who was more modest and flew under the radar more than Glidden, well, I don't know who it is. With his record wins and domination of Pro Stock for so many years, he is probably the first of the superstar Pro Stock teams. And he did it with a manufacturer that had not been a powerhouse until he adopted them. Ford owes him a lot for keeping their brand in the fan's eye in NHRA when everyone else was a GM or Mopar fan.
 
"Jim Liberman: Maybe a surprise to you or others, but I have a special place in my heart for 'Jungle.' He was a regular at Cecil for a long time but then went national in a big way. He was the first (and only?) to ever 'franchise' a name brand in NHRA. He had other Funny Cars and a dragster and a Pro Stocker with 'Jungle Jim' branding. The inventor of the 1,000-foot burnout, and what a showman. The first real Funny Car star and a prototype of the marketing that was needed to be successful." -- Ken Campbell

"In an era where you can literally build a car from the ground up by simply using your cell phone, credit card, and a catalog, it’s no wonder my heroes are the guys and gals from yesteryear. No matter what motorsports discipline you subscribe to, the guys and gals that did it mostly out of their own pocket, they didn’t have engineering backgrounds, computers, and wind tunnels, or even some old geezers to draw knowledge from -- they were the ones that had to figure it out for themselves. In my opinion, they are the true heroes because they paved the way for the rest of us.

"The challenge has always been the same for everybody: Go from point A to point B as fast as you can as well as faster than the rest of the guys or gals. What made motorsports so interesting back in the day was the different trains of thoughts that came about to complete the same challenge. Innovation was the key. If some guy sitting in his garage looking at his car thinking about how to make it go faster comes up with an idea, then tries it on his car and it works great, he has an advantage over the competition. If it didn’t work, well, they called that the school of hard knocks.

"Obviously, motorsports is not the same anymore. Multimillion-dollar sponsorship deals, the high-paid wheelmen in multicar teams, and the sanctioning bodies trying to control everybody and everything, and then you throw in the cookie-cutter cars -- what a shame. If there is one thing I am grateful for it would be the Sportsman classes in drag racing. What a variety of cars, ideas, and theories all to do the same thing: to go one-quarter-mile as fast as you can and beat the other guy! You just won’t see that anywhere else, eh?

"My heroes of today’s era are all the Sportsman racers who spend their own dime and time to do what they love to do. There’s no big ol' honk’n trophy! There’s no big ol' honk’n check! There’s no ESPN media time at the end of the day for these guys and gals, just the satisfaction that they got to do what they love to do one more time, and if they win, well that’s just icing on the cake. My hat goes off to you guys and gals! You are my biggest heroes!

"When I look back at the years gone by and think about the mainstream guys, there are only a few guys who stand out in my mind. Now granted, I was just a high school kid racing my Cortina at OCIR when these guys were making headlines, but these would be my heroes from yesteryear: Don 'Big Daddy' Garlits, Don 'the Snake' Prudhomme, 'Big Jim' Dunn, James Warren and Roger Coburn, and, of course, Anthony Joseph Foyt. Now I know there were a lot of others that may come to mind for you, but these were the guys that stood out the most in my mind.

"The reason is these guys built, modified, drove, and maintained their own cars. They didn’t have special cars built for different tracks, billion-dollar shops, huge transporters with hospitality centers, 10 or 20 crew guys to do all the work so the driver could mingle with the media and fans. Nope, they built one car and dragged it around the country on the back of a flatbed truck or an open trailer, usually behind the family’s station wagon, and ate bologna sandwiches for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. The fancy-pants guys might have had an enclosed trailer or truck. These guys did a lot of the driving, and, as far as crewmembers go, they sometimes had to recruit guys from the stands to help out just so they could do what they loved to do, and that was race. Most of the time, they only made enough money to get to the next racetrack. Again, I know there were a lot of guys doing that, but you have to admit, look what these guys have accomplished. Also, you got to love A.J. Foyt; when he gets out of his car in the middle of the Indy 500, gets a big screwdriver and a small sledgehammer and proceeds to beat on the gearbox linkage trying to free it up … now that’s my kind of guy!

"Guys like A.J. and 'Big Daddy' are household names; however, James Warren and Roger Coburn might not be household names, but I remember when 'the Ridge Route Terrors' came over the Grapevine to my home track at OCIR, they would kick everybody’s ass and take all the money home with them. If a picture is worth a thousand words, then there is a great black and white picture in the Wally Parks NHRA museum that shows James and Roger sitting in their one-car garage with the motor on a stand in the background that depicts just how it was back then. That picture says it all!

"Now every time I go to Fresno to visit my mom and sister and I’m traveling north on Highway 99 and I see that round, black and white sign that says, 'Rain for Rent' with the umbrella in the middle of it, I think for a moment how great racing was back then." -- Charlie Arford

"Don Prudhomme is my longtime drag racing hero since I was a kid with my own Hot Wheels Funny Cars. I built the model of the yellow Funny Car and dragster. I can recall watching the Snake Funny Car in the early '70s and then the backbreaking Army car of the later '70s. I have always idolized the man and studied his intensity. I can remember watching TV and seeing the horrible crash on Wide World of Sports the year at Indy when Jim Nicoll’s car split in half in front of a very young Don Prudhomme. I must admit I wanted to be him! In 2000, I had my kids at the drags in Atlanta, and we were standing in line for autographs from the popular drivers, and right next to the long line we were standing in was 'the Snake,' sitting in his T-shirt trailer with no lines and no waiting! I took a picture of my son and Don standing in the background. I was very upset after reading about his decision to leave the sport, but I feel fortunate to have enjoyed watching his success throughout the years. There are others I could include in my heroes list but none as special as Don 'the Snake' Prudhomme." -- Kris Miller

"Flash back to 1966, Great Lakes Dragaway, Union Grove, Wis. Three guys in their teens with their first race car (1955 Chevy, 327, four-speed) not knowing what they didn't know. Between rounds, we were watching Don Garlits service his Top Fuel car, which in those days consisted of changing the plugs and maybe changing the oil. But anyway, here we are watching and not speaking. The next thing we know, 'Big Daddy' turns around and asks us how things are going. And he carries on a conversation with us like he's known us forever. To have one of the greats in the sport treat us as equals was one of the high points of my life. 'Big Daddy' will always be a hero in my eyes." -- Charlie Brock

"My two biggest heroes are Tom 'the Mongoo$e' McEwen and Jim Fox (Frantic Four AA/FD, Frantic Ford AA/FC). McEwen for his sharp wit, great-looking cars, his promotion of the sport of drag racing, and his ability to attract sponsors and legions of fans from around the world for many, many years. The world of professional drag racing should consider itself very fortunate that McEwen showed up and stuck around our sport. A very colorful character that has no equal. 'Snake' may have beat him in overall on-track performance over the years during the Hot Wheels era, but 'the Mongoo$e' more than made up for it by just being himself. The sport needs more Tom McEwens. Long live 'the 'Goose!'
 
"Jim Fox is a Hall of Fame mechanic/tuning ace/car owner. Jim never received the credit due him for his long list of accomplishments in the sport of drag racing until 2007 when he was inducted into the Drag Racing Hall of Fame. Jim dedicated many, many years of his life to the sport he loved. His ability to tune a car by ear was astounding. His on-track performance record speaks for itself and will live on in the drag racing history books. A genuine down-to-earth, honest, hardworking guy who deserves mention." -- Bobby Frey

"Bob Glidden drove, was crew chief, engine builder, team marketer, truck driver, built his own engines, and was great to his fans. One time, he couldn’t sign an autograph for a little boy, and he said, 'Come by later, and he will sign him something.' It was my younger brother, and he let him sit in his car, gave him a spark plug from the motor, and signed a poster for him! He always respected his racing rivalries even when they didn’t respect him. I was in Milan, Mich., the day IHRA wanted him to tear down his motor in the pits. Bob said, 'OK, we will do it in the trailer,' and the tech guy said, 'No, out in the open.' Bob just said, 'Well, I guess I will see you later.' He was tough on and off the track and had a lot of class. No disrespect to the nitro racers, but Bob Glidden is and will be the greatest drag racer ever. If they had 23 races per year when he was in his heyday, who knows how many races he could have won! Truly a legend in any sport!" -- Michael Walker

"At the time of his accident, Darrell Gwynn was probably going to win the Top Fuel championship that year. His life was changed forever. He fought through his injuries and became a successful race team owner. But that was not his greatest accomplishment. He started a foundation to help other special-needs individuals. I'm chairman of the board of Project Stable, a nonprofit organization that uses horses and farm animals to help children overcome their disabilities, and Darrell presented a motorized wheelchair to one of our students at the Barrett-Jackson auction in Palm Beach in 2008. He also spent a lot of time with the child that day showing him how to use it and encouraging him to be mobile. I cannot explain the joy on his mother's face. That day also opened the door for someone in the crowd to assist the family for additional therapy to help this child. Darrell's help made a big difference in this child's life." -- Sheldon McCartney

"My admiration of Danny Ongais has several aspects. He is a fellow native Hawaiian, served his country in the Army as a paratrooper, and raced nearly everything with wheels. His picture should be in every dictionary that defines a racer. He raced the widest variety of vehicles and tracks that went straight, oval, road course, on asphalt, dirt, or salt. It is a very small universe of racers who have competed and with many successes in Formula One, Indianapolis 500, 24 Hours of Daytona and Le Mans, Bonneville, USAC, IMSA, SCCA, AHRA, NHRA, CRA, Grand-Am Series. He is associated with the greats of all motorsports: Parnelli Jones, Mickey Thompson, Roland Leong, Ickx, Daly, Piquet, Fittipaldi, Unser, and more. He is honored in NHRA's Top 50 drivers (No. 39), the Motorsports Hall of Fame, the International Drag Racing Hall of Fame, and the Hawaii Sports Hall of Fame.

"I grew up hearing about him racing motorcycles and watched him at the dragstrip in Hawaii. I followed the news as he raced on the mainland with Roland Leong (my other hero) and the Hawaiian dragster. For many years, his name would pop up in nearly every motorsports broadcast on TV. Although drag racing is top of my list, my interest expanded as Danny would be seen racing in the Indy 500, then IMSA, and Formula One. One of my favorites was in 1996 when, at the age of 54, he started the Indy 500 in 33rd as a substitute driver and finished 7th. For me, it was great to watch Danny Ongais from my home state of Hawaii, in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, make his mark all over the world as a real racer, an honorable human, and a champion with an honest to desire to win. He is my role model." -- Ken Alagan

"I grew up in SoCal and raced a lot at San Fernando, Irwindale, OCIR, Pomona, and, of course, Lions from about 1962 to 1974. I always enjoyed watching the Top Fuel cars when I was not racing my own car. Probably the one driver who stands out the most in my mind as someone who – to borrow a phrase from another profession – had the right stuff was Danny Ongais. He had a couple of nicknames – as did all of the drivers of that era – including 'the Silent Hawaiian' and 'On the Gas.' The latter of these nicknames earned because he NEVER lifted no matter how crossed up and sideways the car he was driving got. During the time he spent driving Mickey Thompson’s blue 1969 Mach 1 Funny Car, he was almost unbeatable! But the car I particularly liked the most was his Harbor Honda of Wilmington Top Fuel car. Not only was this a beautiful car, but it was equally FAST. Unfortunately at the 1966 Nationals, Danny red-lighted in the final round of Top Fuel to Mike Snively, who was driving Roland Leong’s Hawaiian.

"Around about 1968 or 1969, Danny expressed an interest in driving an Indianapolis car, which was probably one of the reasons he decided to drive Mickey Thompson’s Funny Car since Thompson was running Indy cars at that time. Danny Ongais was without a doubt the best drag race driver ever, be it a Top Fuel or Funny Car. And he was not too bad in the other types of racing he pursued." -- Bob Nielsen

For fans of the Misc. Files segment that ran here last year, the current issue of National DRAGSTER picks up where we left off, with the letter M, including Lloyd Mosher's Little Giant Killer, Murf McKinney's own Funny Car, the Mori brothers' ChevWagen, and more!

Before I get too involved in the coming issue, I wanted to clear out a few more items from the Inbox. Later this week, I want to bring you Part 2 of Your Heroes, so stay tuned. And away we go …

Bob Brown sent me this fine pic of Sonny Messner posing with the GMC Carryall at the 2005 California Hot Rod Reunion, where it made its debut.

Todd Miller, who drove the GMC to Pomona from Messner's home in Acton, Calif., sent along this pic of Garlits and Messner working on Swamp Rat V.

After the juicy piece here Friday about the GMC Carryall that was used to push-start Don Garlits' Swamp Rat V at the 50th Anniversary Kragen O'Reilly NHRA Winternationals presented by Valvoline, I was glad to hear from the guy who actually owns it – and has been a big part of Garlits' career for decades – Sonny Messner, who also owns Swamp Rat III.

"On the 1st of February, 1960, I went to Lions Drag Strip to see Don Garlits," he wrote. "We became acquainted, and he asked me to help him with Swamp Rat III; Connie Swingle was driving. We pushed Swingle to start, and when the engine cackled, the nitro fumes came floating back into the Carryall push truck, I was hooked. Gar and I became friends, and I worked on every Swamp Rat thereafter.

"For the next 40 years, I bugged Gar for that car, and he always said no, but one day he relented. We came to a financial agreement, and he put Swamp Rat III back together. In the meanwhile, I decided to re-create the push car he would have used then, the same one I rode in back in 1960. Gar sent me all the photos he had and all of the anecdotes concerning the Carryall, right up to its demise in a canal. I faithfully re-created the truck from his photos.

"I asked him early on why he ran a GMC when he raced Chrysler stuff, and he told me that he and Smokey Yunick were friends for many years and Smokey asked him one time what he used for a push car. Don said he used his mom's 1950 Cadillac. Smokey said he could probably help him; 'Let me call some of my friends at GM.' He called back and said they had a surplus cop car in Saginaw, Mich., and that's how the black and white GMC came out. The current push car has a late GM driveline, and we have taken it to the Vegas nationals [SummitRacing.com NHRA Nationals] several times, Bakersfield a dozen times, and other events. All of the stuff on the roof rack, Gar has contributed."

Thanks, Sonny, for filling in the details. What a great story, and another missing piece in the history puzzle of our little world.

After publishing Angel Nieves' photo of Bob Toyer's Vintage G.T.O. '40 Pontiac last week, I heard from Toyer's son Joe, who was thrilled to see his dad's car again and passed along this photo of the car from his collection. Bob died in 2002.

"I remember being at OCIR when I was a little guy and enjoying the races because my dad was a good father," he wrote. "I remember the stories of Lions Drag Strip that he talked about and how he was part of a club called The Qualifiers. My dad had lots of friends that loved him, and he always helped others at the track when he could, and I myself try to do this as he would. My dad had just two boys -- my older brother, Robert Jr., and me -- and even though my brother and I both love drag racing, I seem to have gotten the bug a lot harder than he. I still have access to his 1940 Pontiac and hope to with my brother's help rebuild it and bring it back out again soon. I wish my dad was still here with us so we could enjoy being at the track together. I miss him, and when I make that pass it will be in his honor."

Toyer also remembered that his dad's car ran a blown 327-cid small-block for a short period of time before the rear end broke, then went to the injected big-block. His dad later raced a roadster in Super Comp that he built himself, a cool '26 Pontiac roadster; "like his coupe, it was one of a kind," he noted proudly.

The 1970s SoCal doorslammer nostalgia just keeps on rolling. With all of the love we've been bestowing on Fords, Kevin Hardy thought that we ought to showcase a little Bowtie braggadocio as well, especially in the case of a car near and dear to him, the Hardy Boys '56 Chevy Super Stocker, shown at right launching with the wheels up at Orange County Int'l Raceway and the 1955 version, shown at good ol' Irwindale Raceway.

Fielded by a trio of brothers – Kevin, Pat, and Terry (the latter drove) – the car, shown in SS/N trim, was a multitime Division 7 champion and perennial national record holder in multiple classes.

"Probably the biggest feat was winning the division in 1976 and scoring more points than any other Sportsman-class car in the entire country," noted Kevin. "We earned 4,600 points, the result of setting a mess of national speed and elapsed time records and being in the final round of all five WCS events in Super Stock eliminator -- three wins, two runner-ups. I doubt if anyone ever did that before."

OK, that's today's quick update. I plan to be back Thursday or Friday with the second part of Your Heroes. The first was a huge hit, and I'm sure you'll enjoy Part 2 just as much.

Welcome back, my friends, to the nostalgia that never ends, at least when it comes to feedback and insights from the Insider Nation. I've said it before and I'll say it again, this column wouldn’t be half of what it is were it not for your generous and knowledgeable input, memories, and photos. To wit …

My old buddy Jim Hill, whose knowledge of early Florida drag racing may be second to none, dropped me an interesting note about the push truck that Don Garlits was using to fire Swamp Rat V in the Winternationals Cacklefest. He said he couldn't really tell based on the cropped photo I posted Tuesday, "but I'm betting it was another of Garlits' favorite mid-'60s GMC Carryall truck/vans."

I forwarded Jim the photo at top right, taken by National DRAGSTER Assistant Photo Editor Jerry Foss, and he confirmed that that was the truck he was envisioning. I dug up some other photos from the weekend and zoomed in and cropped in to some photographs that Garlits had taped inside the back windows of the car showing the truck in action in the 1960s.
 
"Before such amenities as crew cabs and enclosed trailers, racers like Garlits usually traveled with their race car strapped to an open trailer, a canvas covering the engine, which was usually the only bullet they had," he wrote. "The quality of these trailers was often suspect. Most were homemade on a flat garage floor, stick-welded, and rudimentary, at best.
 
"Tow/push-start vehicles were generally of the potluck variety, or whatever was available. Pickups were popular, as were big comfy station wagons. Because he often towed long distances to events and match race dates, Garlits traveled with as much as possible for a tour that might last several weeks away from his Tampa home. Thus was born the need for a sturdy, enclosed vehicle to carry himself, a helper, spare parts, tires, and fuel, and often wife/helper Pat and their daughters.
 
"For several years, that function was ably handled by a GMC Carryall truck, a pickup with lots of covered space and windows. These vehicles needed power and torque sufficient to haul a trailer and provide the 40-plus-mph speed needed to push-start 'Big Daddy's' nitro-fueled hot rods. Such chores were capably handled by the GMC V-6.
 
"While today's V-6 engines are diminutive little hummers usually of 4 liters or less, the standard GMC V-6 was a pushrod monster of 305 cubic inches. It boasted a 4.250-inch bore and 3.580-inch stroke and was designed to be a heavy-duty truck powerplant, with maximum torque and reliability ... sort of an 'anti-diesel.' This engine design was later enlarged to 351-, 379-, 401-, 432-, and 478-cubic-inch versions. There was also a unique 702-inch design that bolted together a pair of GMC V-6 engines with a common block and four cylinder heads. It powered Minuteman missile carriers during the deep-freeze days of the Cold War. Talk about bizarre!
 
"Garlits' Tampa Top Fuel colleagues Art Malone and Val LaPorte saw that 'Big' had stumbled on to something with the GMC. They bought their own Carryalls and likewise logged hundreds of thousands of miles towing from sea to shining sea."

Thanks for the insight, Jim!
 

Robert Nielsen's Fan Fotos of the early SoCal door cars and the buzz they created continues to have "legs," as we say in the entertainment business, and Nielsen and others are responding to those comments.

Mark Wallace said that seeing the Falcons of Nielsen and Tom Nicklin brought to mind another early Ford named Just Falcon Around, and Nielsen dug through his archives for this photo of the car, which he says was a '63 similar to his own ("except it was MUCH faster and also had a 289 in it") and was owned by the Gibbs family; a father and son took turns driving it and owned a Chevron gas station in Woodland Hills, Calif., where Nielsen lived. Nielsen couldn't remember either of their first names but thought that the elder Gibbs was Gene.

Of the Adam-12 episode mentioned that featured Ted Wells' Ford: Nielsen remembered that the episode was filmed on a Monday and that the producers of the show chose to use Wells’ '54 Ford because in a previous episode, Officer Jim Reed, the character played by Kent McCord, had an early Ford pickup, and this was the closest they could come. Albert Aird chipped in to report that the Camaro in the other lane belonged to Larry Ofria of Valley Head Service.

Nielsen also commented on Cliff Morgan's recollections of Wells' Excedrin Headache #1320 entry. "Ted used to break a lot of driveline parts because of the weight of his car and the power he would make. That is until he ‘bulletproofed’ everything in the driveline. He always said this car give him a lot of headaches early on – or was it that it was a pain in the ass? Ted built me a similar 9-inch Ford rear-end third member for my Falcon – although I used more standard nodular iron housing with a Ford Galaxy drag car pinion carrier. He said this was probably an overkill for the type of horsepower I was making, but he insisted there was only one way to do something, and that was the right way – no shortcuts!"

Angel Nieves, another OCIR regular, noted in Morgan's comments the mention of the yellow Glendale Speed Center Nova as well as the Vintage G.T.O. (which wasn't a Pontiac GTO) that frequented Lions, and he (who, by the way, is on the lookout for good photos of the Hedman Hedders Maverick Pro Stocker; contact me if you have something) found photos of both of those cars.

"The photo of the Vintage G.T.O [above] is from Orange County Int’l Raceway's second Pro Gas meet in 1980," he said. "Those early Pro Gas meets were a big thing. The other photo is of Jim Parrish's 1962 Nova [right] at a Brotherhood Raceway Park Pro Gas meet in 1980. Jim worked at Glendale Speed Center. If you were from the Los Angeles area, everybody knew him well, including me. What ever happened to Jim Parrish?" Readers?

Back on the Ford bandwagon, I received a nice note and photos from another Blue Oval diehard, Jeff Foulk, who fielded the Finagler A/FC. "I started racing with a '63 Falcon Sprint and eventually worked up to a '67 Cougar nitro Funny Car," he wrote. "I was a little disappointed last year when you did not include me in your Letter F files. I will admit I was not a big fish and ran very few NHRA events, being engaged primarily in match racing and circuit races. However, I am still proud of our accomplishments as they hold a unique, small niche in drag racing and Funny Car lore.

"With all due respect to Doug Nash, I had the quickest small-block Ford-powered Funny Car, at 8.35, 156.97, injected, on nitro. One of Doug's own early business ads claimed 8.55, 182 with nitro and a blower. We were featured twice in articles in Super Stock magazine, including the one where Editor Jim McCraw licensed in the car. The old cat is presently being restored in Canada." Foulk included a racing magazine clipping of the 8.35 run as evidence; the caption said he did it at Mason-Dixon Dragway en route to winning the track's Jr. Injected Fuel Funny Car Circuit event.

Ever since I posted the photo of the V-8-powered snowblower a few weeks ago, my Inbox has been filling up with snow-related stuff. Eileen Daniels sent the pic above left showing one poor Pennsylvania fan's version of the season opener. My heart weeps for you, my friend. Veteran Stock racer Tom Kasch sent the pic above right showing a really, really cool '57 Nash Metropolitan-bodied snowmobile (it's even for sale, for $10,000) that has a 700cc Yamaha triple beneath the hood. 
 

We've had more losses among our family in the last few weeks that I'm trying to catch up on. Most of you heard (and read in the NHRA.com Notebook) that we lost "Rocky" Childs on Monday. The cofounder with Jimmy Albert of Childs & Albert was 74 when he passed away and left a long legacy of performance and race cars, including the current Addict cackler.

Bill Holland, who knew Childs for decades, was kind enough to supply background info on Childs as well as a few photos, including the one at right of Childs, right, with wife Sharon and Tony Thacker of the NHRA Museum and the one below it, of Childs' first race car, a '37 Chevy. In addition to leaving his mark on the performance aftermarket, Childs worked in the motion-picture industry for many years doing sets and special-effects work.

Pat Foster, Walt Stevens, Tom Toler, Dwight Salisbury, and Bruce Walker are among those who chauffeured Childs & Albert race cars, which enjoyed good success locally, according to Holland, but the closest one of their cars came to the national event spotlight was Salisbury's runner-up to James Warren at the 1968 Winternationals. Sals couldn’t even contest the final as the car had clutch woes, which allowed Warren to single for the title. Walker was runner-up at the ill-fated PRO meet on Long Island in 1974.

Another couple of losses that went undeservedly under the radar last month were those of former nitro Funny Car owner/drivers Ray Strasser and Ron Sutherland.

Strasser, with wife Shirley, fielded a number of cars, but they're best known for their line of Insanity fuel floppers driven by the likes of Gary Ritter, Dave Uyehara, Ron Fassl, Lorry Azevedo, Richard Hartman, and Rick Williamson. Strasser started out driving his own cars in the 1960s, including a '23-T fuel altered and a AA/Dragster, before switching to Funny Cars in 1973.

According to 70sfunnycars.com, their chassis was homebuilt, and the body was an old Hawaiian body purchased from Roland Leong. The most notorious incident involving the car was the brutal two-car top-end get-together at the 1986 Winternationals between Uyehara and Ron Correnti in Bill "Capt. Crazy" Dunlap's Thunderbird.

After getting out of the Funny Car business in 1992, Strasser returned to racing from 1999 to 2001 with David Baca on an A/Fuel Dragster. Baca ran a 5.22 in the car, which at the time was the quickest ever for the class. Strasser retired again after Baca went on to Top Fuel.

"He was a great man, and our family is grateful for all the things he did for us because if it wasn't for him, we probably never would have gotten back in the saddle," Baca posted on a message board.

Like Strasser, Sutherland was tied to his car's memorable name: Desert Rat. And, like Strasser, the Arizonan first drove his and wife Val's cars, beginning with a cast-iron-powered homebuilt Camaro followed by an ex-Larry Christopherson Nova in which he shared the cockpit with the guy who would become his full-time shoe, Chris Lane.

The Sutherlands were on the sidelines from 1975 until 1984, during which time Ron became a professional hockey referee ("I've probably been in more fights than everyone in the pits put together," he told former ND staffer Todd Veney; wonder if he checked with McCulloch before making that claim.)

Lane drove the Steve Marley-tuned cars (a Regal, a Corvette, and a Cutlass) from 1985 until the 1990 season -- and their shining moment in national event competition was at the 1989 Winternationals, where Lane reached the semifinals after beating R.C. Sherman on a holeshot and Mark Oswald in a pedalfest -- then Sutherland took the controls back and drove through the end of the 1994 season.

Farewell, my fuelish friends.
 

Having been charged with the creation and infrastructure of the Winternationals Memorable Moments program, I breathed a heavy sigh of relief after turning loose the final stories on NHRA.com to bring six intense months of work to a conclusion just prior to Sunday's first round.

From researching and picking the candidates to overseeing the voting and, finally, the writing and posting of the stories, it was a great trip down Parker Avenue's Memory Lane, and the event itself proved a more than worthy arena to salute the rich history of the Winternationals.

In the spirit of that top 25 list, here's my own top 25 list of reasons why I enjoyed the 50th Anniversary Kragen O'Reilly NHRA Winternationals presented by Valvoline.

1. The Golden 50: Good grief, I could write pages and pages about the amazing collection of cars assembled for this display. I could, that is, if I hadn't drooled all over my notes. The display, with everything from front- and rear-engine Top Fuelers to vintage Funny Cars and roadsters and fuel altereds and gassers (oh my!), was almost always packed with fans, both young and old. The older crowd was doing the whole "I remember seeing this car" deal, and the younger gang was staring in wonder at the sometime primitive designs and the sometimes inspiring artistry of these cars. At Saturday's Legends Dinner, Don Garlits remarked, "Of all of the things that NHRA has done for the history of this sport, this really stands out in my mind," and he marveled at the enthusiasm of the young fans looking at the old cars and old drivers "that they never thought they'd be able to see." A-plus effort!

2. Cacklefest (part 1): Saturday's static Cacklefest in front of the grandstands was cool, but of course, the big deal of the day was Sunday's push-start Cacklefest. The cars were paraded up the return road in front of the fans to later be push-started down the track. What was really cool was to see guys like "the Greek," Chris Karamesines, beaming as he rode the short-wheelbased Chizler or to watch Don Garlits accept the acknowledgement of the crowd from the spartan cockpit of Swamp Rat V or to watch "T.V. Tommy" Ivo grinning and waving wildly from the hot seat of his Barnstormer.

3. Cacklefest (part 2): The Cacklefest itself was amazing. The line of cars coming down the track seemed never-ending. Unlike past years, when the cars were pushed down the return road and lined up, engines still running, on the track, this time, they motored down the return road to the cheers and thumbs-up of the fans, each occasionally whacking the throttle. Bob Muravez, taking Larry Dixon Sr.'s usual spot in the Howard Cam Rattler, actually steered close enough to the fence to exchange high-fives with some fans.

4. Cacklefest (part 3): Unfortunately, a little mishap way down the return road brought the cackling to a premature end just as Don Garlits had been started. The cutoff sign was given to those still running and then to Garlits. "Uh-oh," I thought, "This isn't going to be pretty." As an official moved in front of Garlits' car, I had visions of a repeat of the great old tale of NHRA founder Wally Parks trying to disqualify Garlits at the 1960 Winter Nationals (the Florida precursor to the first Pomona event).

As the legend goes, Garlits was facing Lewis Carden in the final, and, as was allowed then, Carden didn't accept the first flag start. Garlits had already launched, but, figuring out what had happened, slowed his car and whipped a U-turn across the centerline and headed back to the starting line. Parks told Garlits he was disqualified for crossing the centerline and that Carden would receive a bye run. Garlits instead waved push-truck driver Art Malone on anyway to refire him, and Parks, who had moved between the truck and the dragster, had to jump onto the hood of the truck to avoid getting mowed down. Garlits' car lit, and he actually chased Carden down to "win" ... or at least cross the finish line first.

As Garlits famously recalled in his book King of the Dragsters, his thought at the time was, "Now you've gone and done it, Garlits. That's the boss of the most important drag racing association in the world who's holding on for dear life back there. You've run your last NHRA race for a long, long time."

So, as an NHRA official ran out to Garlits this time, making the universal hand-across-the-throat cutoff sign, and as one of Garlits' crewmembers dismounted the push truck to discuss it, I was channeling to the official, "Dude, just don't step in front of the push truck. ..."

Garlits, none too happy about, did shut it off this time but clearly was hugely disappointed. "Everything this whole weekend was leading up to this," he lamented.

5. Force wins!: I don’t care who you are; even his fellow competitors had to in some way be happy that John Force won again. The sport needs him like it needs nitro, and it's been way too long since he has cradled a Wally. Personally, I love Force to death and am proud that he considers me a sometime confidant. We became grandpas about the same time in 2004, and he always asks me about the little ones. Although I don't play favorites, there was no losing for me in the final because I also love Ron Capps; I've known him before he was a somebody, and he has always treated me the same.

6. Family feud: Speaking of John Force, how about that wacky second-round race with daughter Ashley? The duo had the first round's quickest times and had to face one another, but just as she'was rolling into the water, one chute popped out. The crew got 'er stopped and started frantically repacking it. Dad realized something was amiss and slowed down as much as he could to buy her some time. Meanwhile, Ron Capps' NAPA flopper, which had won just before them, was locked up on the top end with a broken rear end, and just as the starting-line crew was about to shut off both Forces, they got Capps' car rolling. Ashley never got to do her burnout but still ran 4.18 in a losing effort to Dad's 4.12.

7. Top-end emotion: Between John Force almost busting into tears while thanking wife Laurie for her support and encouragement and presenting her the trophy as a Valentine's Day gift and Larry Dixon being swarmed by his three kids and then hoisting 3-year-old son Darien into his arms in a pose reminiscent of his own with his dad in the 1970 Winternationals winner's circle, when Larry himself was 3, it was some emotional stuff.

8. Larry Dixon and Tony Schumacher: They battled through last decade, and it looks like more of the same. They paired off in the semifinals and, true to form, ran identical e.t.s and speeds to the thousandth -- 3.836s and 317.05s a pair – which Bob Frey says had only happened three times previously in national event competition. "It was like, 'Can't we wait until October to do this?' " said Dixon, whose .068 to .085 holeshot made the difference.

9. W-C-M: Man, what race fan growing up in SoCal in the early 1970s didn't love Warren, Coburn & Miller? Fortunately for us, there were two former Ridge Route Terrors cars at the event, one of each flavor, front- and rear-engine.

The Rain for Rent rear-engine car is the one I remember best, and it was parked next to one of those cool Mr. Ed trailers that was so popular back in the day (Mike Kuhl also had one next to his car). I have a photo of this car and the same trailer (I assume) that I took at Irwindale in the mid-1970s, so the connection was cool for me.

On the other side was Henry Walther's painstakingly reconstructed 1982-83 Larry Minor Top Fueler. They were pretty much the only two back-motored cars in the display, but they're definitely two of the finest!

10. Legends Dinner: Saturday night's gala event at the Avalon restaurant at Fairplex was amazing. I have a full recap of it in this week's DRAGSTER. The panel gave Don Garlits a hard time about his passion for UFOs, and there was a ton of good-natured banter back and forth and amazing stories told. I think there's going to be a DVD made of the evening, and you won't want to miss it.

11. Autograph sessions: Staged each day in the Golden 50 Corral, they were extremely popular. The lines typically would begin to form a good 90 minutes before showtime and would snake around the perimeter of the corral.

12. Exhibition passes: It was really cool to see all of the tribute nostalgia Funny Cars in one place and to see the great names of Pisano & Matsubara, the Fighting Irish, Blue Max, Plueger & Gyger, Beach City Chevrolet, L.A. Hooker, Candies & Hughes, Pizza Haven, and "Jungle Jim" back on the Pomona track. Leah Pruett LeDuc, in Steve Plueger's P&G Mustang, really knocked it out of the park with her 5.70 blast. Her run supplanted the 5.72 registered by Bucky Austin at the Bakersfield March Meet last year. Good one! And let's not forget Mike Boyd's two strong passes in the Winged Express. Although it wasn't the typical guardwall-to-guardwall action we've seen from the car, I can never watch this car run enough.

13. Seeing old friends: The Winternationals was a great place to meet up with old friends, including some past winners I hadn't seen in ages. I caught up with 1990 Winternationals Top Fuel champ Lori Johns and again enjoyed time with the great Shirley Muldowney (not at the same time!) and chatted for a while with Roland Leong. Ran into my "sister" Dawn Mazi-Hovsepian, who flew out from frigid Massachusetts to shoot the nostalgia action, but I just missed one of my all-time favorite people, former Comp champ Bill Maropulos. I haven't seen him in decades, and although we both went looking for one another, we never did connect. I never made a big deal of it at the time, but not long after I drove the Mazi family's supercharged Opel in the mid-1980s, I had a similar generous offer from Maropulos to pilot his national-record-holding B/Econo Dragster. It never came to fruition (my fault) but think of it from time to time.

14. 'Big Mac': It was sure sweet to hear longtime NHRA announcer Dave McClelland again calling the action in Pomona. He worked side by side with regular Bob Frey, and although their styles are different, they complemented one another nicely. I was surprised as well by how abreast "Big Mac" has stayed of the current goings-on.

McClelland, who recently emceed the Dick Wells memorial and was the "roving reporter" in the crowd at the Legends Dinner, has been to every Winternationals save the first two and made a pleasant discovery just before the event when he slipped on his old NHRA jacket, which he hadn't worn in more than three decades. In the pocket, he found a folded piece of paper that turned out to be a handwritten event schedule (in the immaculate penmanship of Steve Gibbs) for the 1978 event, which many will remember as one of the most weather-challenged in history. It even snowed on the starting line! Click here for a close-up look at the schedule.

15. Book sales: We had for sale at the event 300 copies of our book, The History of the NHRA Winternationals, at the NHRA Membership Hospitality Center, and we were sold out early Sunday. Savvy fans snapped them up to have autographed by many of the heroes who were walking around. If you want a copy, you can still get one on Amazon.com here.

16. They love it: I was blown away by the number of people who stopped me to say how much they love the new-look National DRAGSTER. The staff here planned and worked long and hard to make the changes, and we're all working hard to keep the quality and content high from here on out. We appreciate your support and your faith in us and NHRA, and we promise not to let you down.

17. Member-able moments: Speaking of which, I made a number of stops at the NHRA Membership Hospitality Center to welcome those who came out for the race and, again, to thank them for being subscribers. It's always great to hear firsthand what's going on in the minds and hearts of some of the most important people in our NHRA world or just to bench race with them or to answer their questions. I really wish we could offer the center at more events.

18. Brad Pierce: Yet another ND connection as Brad Pierce, husband of ND staffer Debbie, won the Winternationals again with his vintage Corvette. Like Super Stock winner Jeff Lane, Pierce won the season opener in 2003. Between Debbie's bracket wins and Brad's Super Gas work, they're accumulating an impressive collection of trophies.

19. In-N-Out is back in: As a lifelong Angeleno, In-N-Out has been a part of my life for decades, and now they're back in my favorite sport as well, backing Roger Burgess' Melanie Troxel-driven Funny Car.

In-N-Out is always one of the things that out-of-state visitors – be they racers or fans – rave about, and the nearest In-N-Out is usually one of the first places they'll visit when they come to Pomona. The food, of course, is always amazing and predictable from outlet to outlet, but of course, like everything, what makes them even more desirable to those Easterners is that they don't have them where they live.

When I was a teenager, the chain had not yet spread to the Culver City/Venice area where I grew up, so the only time I got to devour a Double-Double was during our regular treks to cruise fabled Van Nuys Boulevard. There was an In-N-Out on Lankershim Boulevard, in neighboring North Hollywood. We'd stop there on the long ride home, and it was always something worth looking forward to. Fortunately for me, when I joined the NHRA staff in 1982, our headquarters was in North Hollywood, just around the corner from that In-N-Out, so it certainly became a regular part of the lunchtime routine.

Today, there are more than a dozen In-N-Outs within 10 miles of my house. I don't eat there any less, and the food certainly is as good as always, and now the flopper is back, too. Life is good. By the way, look for an ND Interview with Troxel in next week's issue.

20. Morgan's Mustang: How about that Larry Morgan and his new Pro Stock Mustang? Semifinals in its debut … nice! With Ford the new official car of NHRA, I think it would have been a home run to have the Mustang win in its debut, much as John Calvert did with the first Cobra Jet Stocker last year and as the original Cobra Jets did in 1968. Morgan is another longtime friend whom I knew before he became a superstar, and I almost got the chance to drive his Castrol/Nationwise Super Stocker at the 1984 SPORTSnationals in Indy. We were doing new-car tests then in National DRAGSTER (man, now that was some fun), and we had a Firebird there to make laps in. The idea was for Larry and me to swap rides. Due to weather issues, the closest I got was some practice launches on the Indy road course. Here's a pic of the two cars.

21. Shane Gray: I gotta hand it to the kid, he done good. The son of versatile Johnny Gray made his Pro Stock debut and not only at times outran the old man but looked good doing it. I don't know who else is in the field, but right now, he's the easy favorite for rookie of the year.

22. Comp: Oh, man, what a shootout. From Brian Fitzpatrick's amazing turbocharged six-cylinder (193-cid) Toyota H/Dragster running 6.223, 226.28 to a crash-filled second round and Dan Fletcher's stunning -.001 red-light all the way to the rematch of the 2006 final, which again went Lou Ficco Jr.'s way against Dean Carter, it was good stuff. I'm glad Comp is my regular ND beat. It's still my favorite class.

23. WFO Radio: WFO Radio's Joe Castello broadcasted live each day from the event with an all-star lineup that included Brandon Bernstein, Greg Anderson, Jason Line, Robert Hight, Larry Dixon, Del Worsham, Ashley Force Hood, Ron Capps, Bob Tasca III, Jeg Coughlin Jr., John Force, and Antron Brown, plus NHRA's Graham Light and media guests such as yours truly, Bobby Bennett, Susan Wade, local motorsports reporter Lewis Brewster, and more. You can hear my two cents at the end of this show.

24: Fudgee-Os!: I stopped by Jeg Coughlin Jr.'s pit to drop off a bottle of wine for him and fiancée Samantha Kenny to again thank them for their generous hospitality in getting me to last month's Lucas Oil Geoff Bodine Bobsled Challenge. Later, Alan Reinhart, who also traveled with us, dropped off a present from the Kennys: a package of Fudgee-O cookies from north of the border. I mentioned them in my entry here from the bobsled trip, but I guess they're quite the phenomenon. They don't look much different than any other double-stuffed fudge cookie, so maybe it's the whole Canadian contraband thing. Anyway, I shared them with my fellow staffers in the media center, and it was bloody. They were gone in less than two hours. But they sure made our day sweeter. Twas a bad weekend for the Coughlin clan, though – Jeg lost early in both Stock and Pro Stock, and Samantha went red early in Super Comp.

25. No rain!: If you were at the Winternationals last year, you know what I mean. It rained almost nonstop, and we didn't finish the Pros until Tuesday and the Sportsmen until Wednesday. It poured rain here for five days the week before this year's event and on Tuesday of race week, just enough to provide the picturesque snowcapped-mountain backdrop that we all love.

Man, what a great race. Something for everyone, for sure.
 

But for decades, there has been another, lesser-publicized reason that racers enjoy their twice-annual trek to Pomona, and it resides on Fairplex Drive, just outside the gates behind the tower complex. The El Merendero Mexican restaurant has been a favorite of drivers from all classes for years, not just because of its savory burritos, carne asada, and nachos but because of its convenient location. Back in the days before Pro teams had chow at their own hospitality trailers in the pits, it wasn't uncommon to see the stars of the sport trekking over there and returning minutes later with boxes piled high with spicy goodness. Back then, the street was named E Street, and, with my Bruce Springsteen leanings, I used to think of heading over there as "the E Street Shuffle." The task of fetching your south-of-the-border goodies was a lot easier then because you could exit the facility through a manned gate, but now you have to exit out onto Arrow Highway and head a block west, but it's still worth the trip.

Look familiar?

Uncle Everett and Aunt Elly

Uncle Everett working the grill.

I bring up all of this now not to ramp up business for the joint, but because it has an interesting connection to the National DRAGSTER staff. You see, long before the Merendero family began wrapping tortillas there, it was a hamburger stand called Elly's Quick-Snak, and it was owned by Everett Pace, the uncle of National DRAGSTER Photo Editor Teresa Long.

Beginning in 1964, Everett, the brother of T.L.'s mother, leased the new building from the owners of neighboring Lopez Liquor and named the place after his wife, Elinor.

"They did a great business back then because the Pomona drags used to run every Sunday in those days," Teresa told me after talking to her aunt Elly, who still resides in La Verne and just turned 80 (Everett passed away in 2006). "When the Winternationals was in town, they were really busy, employing more than 20 workers to help out with large orders. People would order 50 tacos at a time, and they wanted them in a hurry."
 
Their three sons helped, along with both grandmothers, preparing malts, shakes, and food. There was even a pool table and a jukebox for extra entertainment. "It was just like Happy Days," remembered Elinor.

After the Paces' five-year lease expired, the Lopez family (brothers Dave and Dan) opted not to renew the lease, planning to take over the restaurant themselves, but they eventually sold it to the Merendero family. Until the last few years, the place still looked virtually the same as these 1960s photos – "Same counter, same fireplace," T.L. pointed out. "And every time I went in there, I would tell my friends, 'My aunt and uncle used to own this place' " -- but just recently, an ornate front was put onto the restaurant.

It's still a great piece of Pomona lore, and I'd bet that any afternoon that you dropped in there around Winternationals or Finals time, you could do some pretty good star watching. Tell them Teresa sent ya.

But, hey, it's our secret, OK?

Response to Robert Nielsen's SoCal doorslammer smorgasbord was, as I suspected, hot and heavy. I think a lot of us nitro-jaded journos forget how popular and memorable some of these door cars were at local tracks, but y'all helped bring me back the warm 'n' fuzzies.

Insider regular Cliff Morgan, a Lions denizen from way back, wrote, "I saw a lot of those cars, especially at Lions. I used to like the really fast E.T. cars at Lions, and they put on a good show between rounds of the Pro cars. A really fast E.T. car could run 9.90s, and that was crazy fast back then. Glendale Speed Center used to have a Chevy Nova that ran 9.90s and did bumper-scraping wheelies at Lions.

"Also wanted to comment on Ted Wells' '54 Ford. I used to see it run at Fernando with the 352 motor, and the car was called Excedrin Headache #1320. This is like 1969 or so, and Excedrin used to have a series of TV commercials with a number assigned to each commercial. Example, you got a headache from traffic, so that was Excedrin Headache #1, etc., etc. That's where Wells got the name for that Ford because it was hard to make that motor run. My first car was a 1958 Ford four-door with that engine. I ran it at Fernando, and it went 16.80s at 86 mph on street tires. I saw Wells run a lot at Fernando. I also liked Tom Nicklin's Outcast Falcon. I saw that car at Lions a lot. I was trying to find a decent photo of the Vintage GTO, a late-'40s Pontiac with a Chevy rat motor in it, that ran Lions, and I was gonna send that in with the photos you published. I bet Robert Nielsen remembers that car. It was red and ran low 10s in Bracket 1, which was Lions' quick bracket. The slowest bracket at Lions was Bracket 6, and I ran that a few times with my Ford Falcon six-banger (low 20s ... once I was The Slowest Car At Lions -- argh). Also ran that bracket with a '71 Pinto, my first new car. Anyhoo, I really liked the photos. Those cars are as much a part of drag racing as the flops and fuelers."

A lot of love also was cast toward Wells' Ford as a number of readers, including Jeff Zimmer and Jeff Bolton, correctly remembered that the car was featured in the Adam-12 episode shot at Lions Drag Strip in the early 1970s.

"It was a show about the dangers of street racing," recalled Bolton. "At the end of the show, Kent McCord raced the car (in the show, it was 'his' car) against Gary Crosby, who was running a friend’s '67 or '68 Camaro. It was a grudge race. Crosby knew he could take that tank easily. It didn’t work out that way. I think the Ford ran an 11.11; it was a cool episode."

You can see the whole episode here on Hulu. The racing and some great looks at Lions (aka "Benson's Drag Strip") begin at about the 20-minute mark.

Steve Neal also dropped me an interesting note about Wells, whom he had confused with recently departed NHRA mainstay Dick Wells. "For the last few weeks and indeed for probably the last several years, whenever I heard the name Dick Wells, I had often thought that he being an old-time West Coast hot rodder, that he was also the guy that I remember reading about in an old car magazine that hand-fabricated a center section for a 9-inch Ford rear," he remembered. "My being a Ford enthusiast who had suffered a similar fate in my '61 Hi Po 390 Galaxie may have been the reason that this stuck in my mind for so long, but then seeing the car in your column, I almost fell out of my lounge chair with laptop to the floor.

"I remember the reference to the 352 engine, too. I didn't know about the 396 'destoker' though, but I did immediately recall that I and a partner at one time raced a B/Dragster with a similar 'destroked' FE Ford. As I recall, we used a 361 FE Ford truck crankshaft (steel) with a heavily machined front snout and a set of pistons that came right out of the Ford parts bin. My partner at the time was the parts and service manager for a small Ford dealer in Connecticut. If memory serves, these pistons were sold without wrist pin holes so that you could bore them for the proper compression height with the shorter stroke. We also later had a similar problem with the lack of appropriate intake manifold when we changed to the tunnel port heads for the FE with Hilborn injection. The medium riser heads had a manifold made for Weber carbs that worked with the injection, but for the tunnel port heads, we had to use a hand-built deal. We actually purchased one from another old Yankee racer by the name of Ed Prout (A/A FE Ford). Wish I had some pictures of some of those old cars from my Connecticut Dragway days. Now I am just rambling, but that '54 Ford sure got the memories flowing! Love it!"

I also heard from David Nicklin, nephew of Tom Nicklin, whose outcast Falcon was featured in the article. "The Outcast cars were my uncle's, and it is nice to see the Falcon again as all the photos from his collection are lost," he wrote. "I still have some from the Funny Car and the altered. If you have any other shots of the Outcast cars, I would like as many as I can for my collection. I hope someday to bring the name back to life with a car of my own."

I forwarded his e-mail to Nielsen, who sent him the image at right and will send him more images once he digs them out of his archives. Another successful Insider Connection!

The photo of the Outcast and of Nielsen's own Falcon inspired even more mail.

"Thanks for the pics, Phil," wrote Gary Crumrine. "It returns us to what we consider to be the golden years of drag racing. That '63 Falcon is just plain neat. When I attend a race these days, I spend very little time actually watching the racing. I am scouring the pits talking to door-car owners who are just plain good people. I’ve had a guy unload his '41 Willys so he could show me some of his handiwork. He had gone out early and was preparing for a long trip home, but he really wanted me to see his car, and my son and I really got a great look at a very nice car. All steel, by the way. I have run into guys like that all over the country. They are the backbone of the sport. I just wish we could do more for them, for without them, the NHRA would not exist."

"The Falcon photos reminded me of that bracket car named Just Falcon Around that ran at Lions," added Mark Wallace. "Great name!" Indeed.

Insider alert: The aforementioned Zimmer wondered if anyone had photos of a '70 Duster called Lil Jinx. The East Coast car competed at the 1976 Grandnational (he believed in D/MP) and ran a dual quad 340, four-speed with a Dana. Zimmer, who is overseas working in the Emirates, owns the car, which is still original but without the motor. Drop me a line here if you have pics of this car, and I'll forward them on to Jeff.

OK, kids, that's it for the weekend. Lucky me, I'll be neck deep in nostalgia all weekend at the Winternationals. If you’re there and see me, stop and say hey. If you can’t make it, we'll miss you. The weather looks to be great, and after recent rains (including Tuesday), the foothills behind the track are picture-postcard white with snow. It's gonna be some weekend!

I have to say that I'm truly impressed not only with the range of people whom you look up to -- everyone from the superstar pros to less-well-known mentors -- but your skill at conveying your admiration. I heard from all over the globe, including England and Australia. There are some very meaningful and deep-rooted emotions here, and I loved every minute of reading. I hope you all do, too.

"My all-time favorite motorsports personality is Gary Beck. #1: A great driver (two world championships, three U.S. Nationals wins, 19 national event wins, first to run in the 5.60s, 5.50s, 5.40s, and 5.30s). #2: A great mechanical mind (made innovations in nitro fuel systems still in use today and made the McGee quad cam engine competitive when it looked like it was always going to be an uncompetitive 'leaker'); I really think that if he chose the path, he could have become one of the all-time great crew chiefs after he left the driver's seat.

"#3: A great sportsman. He suffered absolutely painful final-day world championship losses in 1975, 1980, and 1981 but never felt sorry for himself and carried on to win again. He handed the bottle of champagne (for celebrating his championship if he won) to Shirley when she beat him out for the championship on the last day in 1980. #4: Great with the fans; I had many fascinating conversations with him in the pits, and he always made time to talk to fans. #5: He never made excuses; example: At the 1982 Springnationals, his chute came out when leading an engine-smoking Lucille Lee. Instead of saying it just vibrated out (happens all the time), he admitted that he pulled the chute by mistake when he was reaching for a fuel valve.

"What more needs to be said?" -- Al Kean

"Top of my list is still Mr. Darrell Gwynn. While Darrell accomplished some great things during his racing years, I strongly feel what he has done in the years since his terrible accident should be an inspiration to all of us. Had he not been hurt, would Darrell have won more races and perhaps even an NHRA Top Fuel championship or two? Almost certainly. However, since his accident, he has impacted so many people, in such a positive way, and despite his disabilities.

"It can be argued he has probably accomplished more in life since 1990 than he would have had he continued racing. Would any of us have been able to do the same and show the same attitude if we were in his situation? Something to think about for all of us!" -- Reg Kenney

"My hero in drag racing is Shirley Muldowney, which I know sounds very cliché, but I believe she has helped influence my favorites in other sports/arts. I was born in 1976, so while I was alive during Shirley's prime, I was still very young and have limited recollection of it. It has been as I have grown older and developed my feminist tendencies that I have been able to truly appreciate what I enjoy about her, and why she, pop icon Madonna, and figure skater Michelle Kwan are my 'trifecta' of female competitors.
 
"I was always a huge fan of female superheroes (Wonder Woman and She-Ra, later Buffy), and it's only been in the last 20 years that I have been able to appreciate how much of a superhero Shirley Muldowney truly was. To hear the tales of what she had to go through, to watch how tough she is in interviews, and to see her do it with so much passion for the sport she loves is truly inspiring.
 
"I think she infused a lot about why I like Madonna and Michelle Kwan. For Madonna, I think she has the outspoken nature of Shirley Muldowney that I truly admire. Also, there is a confidence level about Shirley Muldowney, and her capabilities, similar to Michelle Kwan on the ice. When she came back from her accident and Steve Evans asked her why she came back, the first thing she said was "Because I'm good at it." Fabulous!
 
"I think all three ladies have helped educate me and inspire me to live my life to the fullest. Confident. Fierce. Proud. Passionate. Resilient. Competitive. Controversial. Fascinating. And always striving for excellence.
 
"I know for me, going to the races hasn't quite been the same since I made the cross-country trek to see Shirley's Last Pass in November 2003. And it was truly an honor to be there." -- Billy Anderson

"As a sign painter, I was influenced by the works of Kenny Youngblood and Nat Quick (both worked at Kirby's in the '70s in Bellflower, Calif.). I wanted to work in a shop lettering race cars all day, just looking at their work. Their lettering and design skills influenced me and so many more to where I chose to self-teach myself the trade. I've been lettering race cars and signs since 1975.

"I've met Kenny [pictured right] a number of times, but I finally got to meet Nat at a get-together in Syracuse N.Y., in '08. What a wonderfully talented individual. It was and still is a highlight. He shared stories of the days gone by at Kirby's. He and Kenny are responsible for most of the 1970s Revell model paint designs and the actual paint and lettering of those cars.

"As a racer, Frank Mazi [below right] and Wally Clark are my heroes. I think Frank is a hero to many; Frank could and still can do anything. I met Frank at a little eighth-mile race track in Lancaster, N.Y., just outside of Buffalo in 1975. He had purchased Jimmy Oddy's BB/G Opel, and it was the first time I saw the car since the sale. Remembering that Oddy was the kingpin around here and the Opel was just the coolest thing at the racetrack (not to mention Oddy's talent of driving). Frank was so easy to talk to, and from that day, he and his family have done nothing short of adopting me. I'd drive the 180 miles from Buffalo to Eastlake, Ohio, just to spend a weekend sitting around Frank's garage taking in whatever was going on. He always took the time to explain and encourage not only me but many others. He pointed me in the right direction and to this day still takes no credit for it. He'll never know how much difference he has made in my life and career choice.

"I met Wally Clark, the Canadian Super Stock racer, when I was 12 years old at the old Niagara Drag Strip on the airport base in Niagara Falls, N.Y. Wally was one of the people at the track to pay any kind of attention to me. I loved the sport so much back then. Too many reasons to share, but I've lettered countless numbers of race cars for him, watched him win races, helped and travel with him after I stopped racing myself. He is also one of the funniest guys I know. Through all his kidding, there was always a serious side, and when I needed that, he was there, too, same as Frank Mazi. Wally encouraged and advised me when needed. I owe a lot to both of them.

"Finally, my dear friend John Oldfield. John was like concrete to the local drag scene. He was Superman to a lot of us younger racers. After my folks died in 1989, John and his family kept close to make sure I was all right. John was just one of those guys; hard to explain, but he was. I wanted to move forward with my sign business and build a standalone shop. With his advice, I did and found a piece of land and contracted out the project. John was a master plumber and guided me through the whole deal with what to do and what not to do (the what not to do being the key); I couldn't have done it without him. Sadly, John never saw me put the key in the door as he died in October 1991 at the age of 46. I finished the building shortly thereafter. I'm still heartbroken to this day. I owe a lot to him and for that reason the faith he put in me to succeed. I hope I haven't failed him. If his name sounds familiar, his brother is Dickie Oldfield of the Motown Missile fame. Dick lives in town here and we see each other all the time … talk about hero! Anyway, there you have it. Maybe these people don't mean anything to many people, but they do to me, and I don't know where I'd have been without them." -- Dan DeLaney
 

"My two favorite racers are two old-time competitors: fuel altered racer Mike Sullivan and front-engine slingshot racer driver and innovator Pete Robinson. Sullivan always had a commitment to the altered class even after fuel altereds were fading and Funny Cars were the coming thing. Who can forget his flag-draped Fiat. He brought class to the class and a record of fine performances."  -- Pete Oldengarm
 

"I guess my list has to start with a 'D.' #1: Don Garlits – Need I say more? #2: Danny Ongais – He did so much for bringing credibility to drag racing. He could win in just about anything he tried – Top Fuel, Funny Cars, Top Gas, IMSA, and, of course, Indy cars. At his peak, he could race side by side with Foyt, Andretti, Unsers, Mears, etc. (and beat them). #3: Dale Earnhardt." -- Mark Brenner
 

"One stands out among the rest, not only for drag racing, but in life. Like probably a million others, Don Garlits gets my vote. He always has appeared to me to be an example of a hardworking, extremely gifted, and, as far as I can tell, humble person. He rarely failed, and his perfection of the rear-engined dragster probably did more for the category than anything else.

"I could go on and on, but check this out. Back when I was in the eighth grade, a college student came to my middle school. I was selected for a poll that asked students different questions, like what do they like to do, friends, etc. One of the questions was who were my heroes. Besides my dad, who always is No. 1, I mentioned Garlits. This was in 1973, a few years after his great 1971 comeback. I explained to the student about Garlits' accident, his perfection of the rear-engined dragster, his comeback, and his success. Suffice it to say, she had never heard of Garlits but knew a lot about him after speaking to me. He's always been that way to me. I actually got to finally meet him in 2006 at a custom car show, where he autographed one of his books for me. I didn't tell him about the hero story." -- Joe Faraci

"I would like to add Tom 'the Mongoose' McEwen to your list. Tom paved the way for several of the heroes and legends to find sponsorship resources to make drag racing their lifetime careers. The Mattel Hot Wheels agreement was probably the turning point in drag racing. Media followed the sale of millions of Hot Wheels at the races and off the track as well. This was not the first non-automotive sponsorship Tom solicited. Tirend, English Leather, and others were signed up to start the marketing ball rolling for professional drag racing. These sponsors were convinced by Tom that exposure to their products was a valuable use of marketing resources, especially with the addition of television to the sport.

"Tom also was a true pioneer in this wonderful sport. Taking street racing to the track was the main reason the Lions Club of Long Beach opened Lions Drag Strip. Who did they convince to race at the track and not on Cherry Street? Tom, of course. The rest is history, including being inducted into two Halls of Fame." -- Dr. Rick Smith
 

"It's difficult to pin down just one hero to me, so I'll try to explain why I have several. Let me begin with local Rochester, N.Y., racer Ed Miller. In the '60s, Ed was one of the hot Super Stock racers and was of invaluable assistance in helping me when I was only 18 get so many Mopar parts for my old Plymouths and Dodges. He was always approachable and down to earth.

"Another big influence to me was Ronnie Sox [right]. I'm pretty sure that my first few cars were Mopars because of Miller and Sox. I even designed and had a car painted very similar to one of the Sox & Martin cars. I've written to his widow, and we've exchanged several e-mails. The most impressive thing to me about S&M cars was the preparation. Immaculate! You could eat off of the chassis. The attention to detail was second to none.

"One series of cars I used to admire, because they were so innovative, was the Motown Missile series of cars. This brings me to a man I never dreamed I would ever meet, let alone become good friends with. Dick Oldfield was the first driver of the Missile as well as a bunch of other Super Stock cars in the mid- to late '60s. I met Dick through my neighbor Jason Oldfield, Dick's nephew. Now Dick and I hang out with Jason, with and without his race car, on and off track. Dick thinks at a level most can't even begin to consider. I've been witness to what he's capable of at the track, and if someone could talk him out of retirement, he'd make one hell of a crew chief. If I ever return to racing cars, Dick is the first guy I want next to me at the track.

"I used to race a Pro Gas Suzuki. One of the my big heroes was Elmer Trett. I encountered him at many races and was very proud when he took the time to approach me in the pits and compliment my bike. To watch his wife and daughters work on the bike was to realize that they had probably forgotten more about motorcycles than I ever knew. I can't think of anyone who had a bad word for Elmer. Everyone just plain, flat admired him. I recall the sad news from the Nationals the day he died. I wept openly and can only imagine where motorcycle drag racing would have grown to if he were still with us.

"The last person on my list, though far from least, is Tommy Ivo [right]. I met him when he was sponsored by Honest Charley of America. Part of his deal was to leave his car and trailer at the nearest shop if he was in the area. I met him at our store and took him and his crew chief out to dinner. We all know that 'T.V.' was a cut above the rest. His rig was something to behold, and there were rarely better-looking cars. I've run into Tommy several times since we first met in 1973. I was 23 at the time then. In the times we've met since, he has always been very gracious and has remembered me, which is VERY flattering. He even introduced me to Don Prudhomme, Ron Capps, and Larry Dixon, and I was invited to breakfast with them at the Gators one morning.

"Drag racing is the one sport that ANYONE can walk up to their favorite driver, anytime they simply pay for a pit pass [ticket], and get an autograph. I've been lucky enough to have been around long enough to meet and even reacquaint myself with many of the racers I've admired. I'm almost 60 now and have been a fan of drag racing since I was 7 and a racer myself, in various forms, since I was 16. I may not be as famous as some, but I have certainly enjoyed the trip and will continue to do so." -- Paul Cuff

"My hero was local guy named George Warren here in the Phenix City, Ala., area. No football or baseball player could touch him as far as I was concerned. He could put on a show. I first saw him in 1970 when I was 13. He drove a 1970 AMX. I have seen the biggest names in drag racing who came through Phenix Drag Strip at that time from Don Garlits, Sox & Martin to Bill Jenkins and Larry Fullerton, but that white AMX was what I wanted to see. I am proud to have seen all the drag racers who came through Phenix City, but I'm even more proud to call George Warren my father-in-law." -- William Burch

"Has to be 'the Snake.' Seems to me he was always there. Every national event since 1964, except for one year, many division events even outside his own division (I hated when he raced Division 1), and match races out the kazoo. He raced front engine, funnies, rear engine, and did it successfully, plus he does quite well as an owner. I don't think in all the racing I've witnessed anyone who works harder or is cooler. I remember once at Maple Grove on a hot Saturday night he was racing someone, and back then, we could stand practically alongside the cars. His opponent decided to burn him down, and I could feel the heat and flames grow in intensity. I thought 'the Snake' would be getting upset, so I watched his hand on the brake to see if he flinched a finger. After all was said and done, he put a bad holeshot on his desperate opponent. Then there was a Summernationals at Raceway Park on a 90-degree humid day. He worked rebuilding, honing, changing motors, all without even a canopy, and after winning the event, I stayed to watch some more. He left the track after midnight, working with drop lights long after everyone was gone. He was generous with parts, never played games, and on the run above even asked what lane I wanted. Not that it mattered, he left me in the dust." – Frank Mancuso

"My motorsport hero has to be the late Sammy Miller. From that first awesome sight of Vanishing Point blasting away to an unseen or unbelievable speed/e.t at Santa Pod many years ago. He was a superb showman who was easily approachable and loved the fans. Always an innovator and a true hero never to be forgotten." – Karl Alcock

"I have always been a huge Ford fan, thus for me, Bob Glidden has always been a hero. When all others abandoned the Ford oval, Bob soldiered on virtually alone against first the huge GM contingent and later, to a lesser extent, the Mopar onslaught. His on-camera persona of proud but reserved competitor and always nice family guy was a breath of fresh air compared to some of the other egomaniacs. Bob always evoked the best example of good sportsmanship even in the face of almost insurmountable odds and showed them all in an understated way how it should and was done. He and his family will always be in my heart as the best example of what hard work, great manners, and family values bring to a family-oriented sport." -- Daryl Judd

OK, so there's the first batch of your heroes.Great stuff, guys. I'll probably roll out Part 2 after Pomona, depending on what happens the rest of this busy week. We're all keeping one eye on the skies as it's supposed to rain through Wednesday but clear up for the first day of the season Thursday. Everyone here is just so super excited for the season to kick off, especially with the caliber and depth of this year's 50th anniversary event. If you're coming, see ya here. If you couldn't make it, my condolences. 

 

For fans and racers who attended the digs, it's not always the showstoppers they remember but also some of the other cars, and I'm sure that anyone who frequented SoCal tracks will recognize some of these lesser-spotlighted but nonetheless interesting and nostalgic machines.

"I have more than 1,000 images of cars from Lions, OCIR, Irwindale, San Fernando, and other tracks in SoCal, Nor Cal, and Arizona," said Nielsen. "Most of these images were taken on occasions when I was not running my car but still traveled to the races to help friends with their cars and took along my 35mm Nikon FTN camera. For the most part, the photos that I took were of cars that were either friends' or cars I raced against. While I do have some photos of dragsters, Funny Cars, and Pro Stock, these are definitely only a very small portion of the images that I have. While I do not consider myself a photographer – I am a picture taker, the difference being a photographer knows what he is doing, and I just take a LOT of photos, and some turn out OK."

These definitely turned out OK, Robert. Thanks for sharing. The quoted parts below are Robert's notes for each photo.

"Here's Carl Smith’s small-block Chevrolet-powered All Star Tire Anglia as he makes another typical wheels-up launch off the line at Lions Drag Strip. I am not sure of the exact date of this photo, but it must be 1971 or 1972 as there is an NHRA sign in the background (prior to this time, Lions was an AHRA track). This car was an extremely hard-running bracket car and was at Lions every Saturday night and Sunday afternoon, almost without exception! I, too, spent a lot of time there and occasionally had my Nikon FTN camera with a 50-300mm zoom lens with me when my car was undergoing some periodic maintenance or update. The things that I have always liked about this photo are the front end being carried in the air, the rear tires slightly distorted from the forward launch thrust, and one can almost see the cool, calm, relaxed expression on Carl’s face as he drives his car down the track."

Nielsen knows that I have a soft spot for supercharged Opels after my short stint behind the wheel of Frank and Linda Mazi's BB/A in 1984, so he included this great shot of the Herrera and Sons AA/GS Opel, taken during one of the Sunday events at Lions. Bitchin'.

Nielsen could not resist including his own first car in this piece; of course, the photo was not taken by him (that would be some feat, eh?). I love the pic for its snapshot-in-time view of the Irwindale starting line and snack bar. Although the track is long gone, the road in the background that goes over the 210 freeway still pretty much looks the same, and I shed a tear every time I drive on it. Said Nielsen, "My car first car was a 1963 Ford Falcon powered by a 260-cubic-inch small-block Ford engine. It had a B&M Hydromatic transmission. This transmission had a 4.05 1st gear, and coupled with the 5.43 rear end, it launched real well and would rev way past 8 grand if I was not quick on the 1-2 shift (this was before I installed a rev limiter that I designed and built myself). I also modified the distributor so that it would retard the timing when I shifted into high gear. This car was much more competitive in the AHRA than in the NHRA as I held a number of AHRA national records, including the H/Stock Automatic record at 12.97 seconds and 109.35 mph in 1969. I did mange to hold the Irwindale D/Modified Production class record, which allowed me to participate in their annual Grand Prix race, and the OCIR D/Modified Production class record. I also held track class records at San Fernando Raceway, Beeline (Phoenix), and Fremont."

"Tom Nicklin & Sons Outcast. Being a Ford racer, I was always somewhat partial to other Fords. Anyone could make a Chevrolet run, but it took real heart and dedication to make a Ford run (some might add stupidity to that also). This car had a fuel-injected big-block Ford in it; I think it was a 427, but I might be wrong. This was another of the many cars that was at Lions every Saturday night and Sunday afternoon."

Nielsen took this photo in November 1970 in the pits at the inaugural NHRA Supernationals at Ontario Motor Speedway of Bill “Grumpy” Jenkins adjusting the valve lash on his Pro Stock Camaro. He said, "What I find rather unique about this photo is the total lack of ‘secrecy’ that is displayed by Pro Stock teams today. No trying to hide anything that is ‘under the hood’ that might give up some advantage you may have over the competition, unlike Bob Glidden when he crashed his Thunderbird and the first thing he did when he crawled out was take his jacket off and cover up the intake. I also like the duct tape being used to hold the beat-up plates on top of the carburetors. And if one looks closely at the interior, you can see that there are still some of the original factory door panels and interior parts in place – unlike today’s hand-fabricated from-scratch Pro Stock cars where nothing is stock anymore!"

Another pit shot from the 1970 Supernationals; this one shows Jim Stevens’ B/Street Roadster, which took Modified honors at the event. The car was powered by a fuel-injected Ford Boss 302. Stevens was a full-time Los Angeles County firefighter.

And yet another pit shot from Ontario, this time of the famed Marcellus & Borsch Winged Express AA/Fuel Altered. That's the wild man himself, "Wild Willie" Borsch, having a smoke. "I loved – and still do love – the fuel altereds," said Nielsen. "One never knew exactly which direction these short-wheelbased cars might actually go. They definitely were exciting to watch run and I suspect even more exciting to drive!"

OK, race fans, that's it for the day. I hope you enjoyed the little non-nitro side trip down Memory Lane. I'm sure there are dozens of Lions denizens out there who fondly remember these cars, and I think they make for an interesting collection of early iron.

See ya next week.
 

First things first: I'd like to welcome World Products aboard as the presenting sponsor of DRAGSTER Insider. Bill Mitchell, whose name should be familiar to anyone who has been around drag racing the last four decades, created World Products in 1987, kicking it off with the now-legendary Dart II (now Sportsman II) cylinder head, an affordable cast-iron head for the small-block Chevrolet that delivered impressive performance gains. The head was an instant success and was named Product of the Year in 1988 by Hot Rod magazine.

From that point, Mitchell, who is pictured at right in the photo here, and his team of engineers created other Chevy-oriented masterpieces such as the Merlin line of cylinder heads and engine blocks and now intake manifolds. No one-trick pony, World then wowed the Ford crowd with its Man O’War replacement block for 302/351 engines, and Mopar lovers could look to World for enhanced versions of aluminum Hemi and Wedge engine blocks.

World also went back to its Chevy roots and introduced the Motown line of cast-iron and aluminum blocks and heads for the small-block Chevy. The company also recently launched its Warhawk line of replacement blocks and cylinder heads for GM’s LS1/LS7 and C5R offerings.

Check them out here, and tell them thank you!
 

Given the number of people whom he touched and the many causes that Dick Wells championed, Monday's Celebration of Life service for the NHRA board member and aftermarket icon who passed away two weeks ago Monday was, not surprisingly, a packed-house affair at the Wally Parks NHRA Motorsports Museum presented by the Automobile Club of Southern California.

Emceed by NHRA great Dave "Big Mac" McClelland, the 90-minute salute was filled with laughter and remembrances of Wells, who also served as National DRAGSTER's first editor. "There was nobody who enjoyed what he did more than Dick Wells," "Mac" told us, and it was clear that many people enjoyed their time with Wells and many who benefited greatly from it.

NHRA employees present and past turned out to show their respect for Wells, led by Board Chairman Dallas Gardner, President Tom Compton, Executive Vice President/General Manager Peter Clifford, Senior Vice President-Racing Operations Graham Light, and every vice president who was in town. I saw a lot of old NHRA friends who had known Wells since he joined the board in 1979.

Industrywise, it was an all-star turnout, especially from among Wells' friends and co-workers at SEMA, including President/CEO Chris Kersting, Board member and President of Street Scene Equipment Mike Spagnola, and Trade Shows Director Gary Vigil. Also in the crowd were well-known figures such as longtime NHRA friend, supporter, and Museum board member Alex Xydias; legendary car builder Carroll Shelby; Tom McKernan and Rick Lalor of the Automobile Club of Southern California; LA Roadsters founding member Jack Stewart; “Speedy” Bill Smith (for whom Wells had worked before leaving Nebraska for his job with NHRA); Jim Adolph; Bob DeVour; Bill Holland; Roland Leong; and Linda Vaughn, just to name a few.

Many of the above-named also spoke, sharing funny Wells stories and remembrances, honoring a guy who loved good humor with much of the same. Many of them knew Wells for more than three decades and spoke from the heart about their admiration for and kinship with Wells.

Compton closed the service with a story about his young daughter, Rachel, whom Wells had "babysat" for hours in the NHRA suite in Pomona while her dad was having one of those million-miles-per-hour days. When Compton told her two weeks ago about Wells' passing, she was heartbroken and told him, "He was such a nice man." Amen.

If you're going to the Kragen O'Reilly NHRA Winternationals presented by Valvoline and you knew Wells, a special tribute is planned for him Sunday that you won't want to miss.

When I left you last Thursday, the National DRAGSTER staff was heading into our meeting to somehow construct an impossible list of Top 10s of our sport. Even with 10 lists on tap to construct, I somehow imagined that our 9 a.m. start would lead to a conclusion around noon, but when the first list – Top 10 cars, which I thought was going to be one of the easiest – took nearly an hour to agree on, I knew we were in trouble.

We didn't wrap until well after 4 p.m., and even though consensus on all 10 was finally reached, there were some sore feelings about cars or crew chiefs or drivers that didn't make the top 10 cut or didn't end up ranked as high as one or more of us might have believed they should have been.

We'll present our lists in Issue 5, the one between the Winternationals preview and the results issue. I'm tackling the write-up on Top 10 Upsets and Top 10 National Events. The lists are controversial for sure, and we're already bracing ourselves for the "How could you leave (fill in the blank) off that list?" kind of responses.

Is it time for the Winternationals yet? The clock on the home page shows seven days, which isn’t many considering that we began the countdown with 70-something just after the Finals in November, but still … eight days? Man, I can hardly wait. We're all anxiously scanning the extended weather forecast and hoping that we don't have a repeat of last year's rain-marred event. We're expecting rain later this week and some early next week, but I think the race will be fine.

We're putting the finishing touches on the Winternationals preview issue. My print nostalgia column has more great memories of "T.V. Tommy" Ivo, who recalls his historic (but painful) eight-second blast in Pomona, as well as Lori Johns' look back at her 1990 Pomona win. It's also our annual season preview, which includes a class-by-class look at the year ahead and so much more.

Our Winternationals Memorable Moments list is down to the top five, which will be revealed next week leading up to the big moment during Sunday's pre-race ceremony, where the top moment will be unveiled. Looking at the list of Nos. 6-25, I was surprised that moments such as Robert Hight's comeback victory of just four years ago – in which he just about burned his Auto Club Mustang to the ground in round two but came back and won the race – finished higher than almost mythical moments such as the "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" of 1981 or the Hawaiian Funny Car taking flight in the lights in 1969.

In fact, two of the top 10 moments are from the 2000s, and every decade is represented in the top 10, which speaks volumes about the consistently great nature of the racing at the annual season opener.

Eager in the interim for some kind of motorsports competition, I took the kids and my 2-year-old grandson, Trevor, to Monster Jam at Angel Stadium in Anaheim Saturday. The little guy – like most little guys – just loves them monster trucks, and he wasn't alone. They put on a pretty good show – nothing like the sound and fury of a drag race, though – and I always try to observe how "the other guys" do their thing compared to the NHRA Big Show. I know that my fellow NHRA decision-makers do the same wherever they go, and it's interesting to compare notes. How was the pre-race ceremony? What did they do to fill any downtime? Were the sponsor mentions too egregious? How was the sound level of the PA? Did the drivers interact with the fans? Did the fans seem excited? How was parking? Ticket control? The list goes on and on. It's probably not something you’d even think about unless you also were in the biz, but try it next time from a fan perspective. There are a lot of differences but also a lot of similarities.

It's pretty clear, too, that the iconic Grave Digger is the John Force of their world. Even the mere mention of the name brought cheers from the crowd, especially from the under-10 set, including T-Rev. Even though it was Pablo Huffaker and not Dennis Anderson behind the wheel of the familiar black and green '50 Chevy panel truck (did you know that seven Digger drivers travel the circuit to ensure a Grave Digger at every major event?), you wouldn’t have known it by the cheers. He got smoked in the first round of the racing competition and came back determined to wow everyone in the freestyle portion. He was (predictably) the last to run and blew the right-front tire after a monster jump but kept the hammer down and ended up flipping end over end trying to make a jump on three wheels. Kinda reminded me of Force in the 1992 Dallas final.

Good stuff and a lotta fun, but I'll stick with drag racing.
 

From the Too-Good-To-Be-True Department: We started getting word here yesterday that Don Prudhomme had signed a last-minute deal to salvage his season and "un retire" with a return in Gainesville, but, sadly, tisn't true. Talked to Snake Racing General Manager Skip Allum on the phone this morning, who confirmed that although he has also been hearing the same rumors, that's all they are.

I can’t tell you how much I would have loved to have had "Snake" pull a Mark Twain ("The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated"), even after publishing our huge tribute issue to him two weeks ago, but, for now, "the Snake" remains in hibernation. I just hope that he remembers Don Garlits' famous quote, "Retiring is easy; I've done it dozens of times," and that fellow heroes such as Kenny Bernstein and Warren Johnson changed their minds, too, after hanging up their gloves.

I know y'all have been itching for more nostalgic stuff, so I'm proud to announce: Coming later this week --The Return of Fan Fotos!

See ya then.
 

Anyway, in anticipation of being locked up all day, I went sifting through my e-mail Folder of Interesting Stuff (eFIST, patent pending) looking for some entertaining material for today's entry. Man, I collect some weird stuff in there. So, for your reading enjoyment and amusement, here's a little show-and-tell.

And away we go ...

NHRA's IT guru, Jared Robison, forwarded me any interesting link to a story headlined "World's Smallest Hot Rod Made Using Nanotechnology." How could I pass that one up? I mean, there are Jr. Dragsters and then there are Jr. Dragsters, but nano dragsters?

For those of you without a college degree – or those like me who also had to look it up -- nanotechnology is a manufacturing process that controls matter at the nanoscale, usually considered between 1 and 100 nanometers. A human hair is about 100,000 nanometers wide. Apparently it's the next great gateway to technical advancements. Hey, just look at the iPod nano.

Anyway, I got all excited thinking that there was going to be some great photo of a super-small car that maybe a flea could drive but instead got the photo below, helpfully positioned by the Photoshop whizzes of the American Chemical Society next to a photo of Joe Hartley's Top Fueler to show the similarities.

Uh … OK. This is a dragster?

"It has smaller front wheels on a shorter axle and bigger back wheels on a longer axle," explained James Tour, a Rice University chemist, who was involved in the research. I think he was serious.

Researchers say that this new "nanodragster" improves on prior nanocar designs (I certainly hope so) and could speed up efforts to craft molecular machines, and learning how to drive nanovehicles could pave the way for small but technologically useful structures, such as electronics, that could be built atom by atom.

The minuscule vehicle, whose chassis is a pair of aligned hydrocarbon molecules, is about 50,000 times thinner than a human hair. According to the article, spherical molecules called buckyballs, made of 60 carbon atoms each, serve as the rear wheels. For the front wheels, the scientists opted for a less sticky compound called p-carborane. The "dragster" is pushed along a "dragstrip" made of a superfine layer of gold (and you thought all-concrete tracks were expensive!) by heat or an electric field, where it can reach speeds of up to 9 nanomiles, or 0.014 millimeters (.0005-inch), per hour (which they tell me is pretty fast), and, hey, it also can do tricks.

"Because the front wheels don't stick to the surface as strongly, they're more prone to lift up, so [the nanodragster] does seem to pop a wheelie at times," Tour said.

I bet Bill Doner would book 'em.

On a slightly larger but still small-scale note comes this photo from Randy Bruette at ATI, who has recently finished restoring the ATI Black Magic Funny Car. No, I'm not talking about the Al Segrini/R.C. Sherman/D.A. Santucci-driven flopper, but rather this fine little piece, a minicar built by ATI honcho Jim Beattie for his kids in the mid-1970s when the real car was first storming around the country and up and down the East Coast.

The minicar had languished in a barn for 25 to 30 years before Bruette found it and began bringing it back to life. Built on a Rupp go-kart chassis and powered by a 3-horsepower Clinton engine, it's cloaked in a Vega replica body made of high-impact plastic rather than fiberglass. The body was painted by the late, great flopper painter Tom Stratton in California, who also painted the original Black Magic Funny Car body from a Kenny Youngblood scheme.

Bruette says he's planning to make a Back in the Day Tour in 2010, going to as many tracks as possible in the Mid-Atlantic area for nostalgia events.

The minicar is functional, and a couple tracks have given him the OK to have his 10-year-old daughter, Emmy, make a couple laps.

I also received these and other images like them from several folks, showing amazing art fashioned from old tires. It just goes to show you the inventiveness and creativity of the human spirit. I was about to comment that these were pretty slick pieces of art, then I noticed that these are made from treaded tires. I wouldn’t want to anger the artist, especially if any of them were women. I'd hate to rubber the wrong way, you know? I'd rather inflate her ego. Wheel-y I would. "Rim" shot, eh? Man, suddenly I'm very tired.
 

Is Ford's reemergence in drag racing showing up in its TV commercials? One can't help but wonder. Old pal Jason Oldfield clued me in to a Ford ad for the new Taurus boasting about the quiet ride and showing it off by placing it and a competitor alongside a jet dragster going through its flame show.

Talented wheelman Tanner Foust, he of drifting fame and the Speed Channel show Supercars Exposed, is in all of the new commercials, which can be found here.

Well, it's winter elsewhere in the country, which means it's the time when everyone shows off cool new snow machines. I really like this T-bucket snowmobile with supercharged Chevy power to help conquer those nasty snowdrifts, but how about the bottom photo, where some guy, obviously tired of his anemic-performing snowblower, got all radical with a big-block Chevrolet powerplant so that he could really start tossing aside the white stuff?

Kai Grundt's V-8 snowblower has electric start, an electric block heater, antifreeze heater, and eight wonderful cylinders that churn out 412 horsepower and 430 foot-pounds of torque and can throw snow 50 feet at just 3,500 rpm.

The custom 42-inch, two-stage auger has a Chevy 10 bolt truck differential with spool and a centrifugal auger clutch with shear pin protection, further adding to the image of this automotive-themed blower. Crazy Kai will build you one to suit your automotive leanings (Chevy, Dodge Hemi, or Ford) or will even give you a V-10 or a diesel engine if you’re so inclined.

He also offers hop-up kits consisting of Lunati camshaft, Milodon gear drive, and Holley and Edelbrock components as well as a fuel-injection option.
 
Sure, it weighs more than 900 pounds, but he has ingeniously routed engine coolant through the handle bars to keep the operator's hands nice and warm.

OK, folks, that's it for today. I gotta pack my notes and my boxing gloves and head into the meeting.
 

Between the History of the NHRA Winternationals book, the 50th Winternationals Web site, the special expanded event program, and various featurettes here and in National DRAGSTER, in the last six months, I've written tens of thousands of words. And we haven’t even started on the Winternationals preview issue of ND yet! And I know that in the course of covering the event for National DRAGSTER and NHRA.com, I'll write even more. As much as I can’t wait for the event to get here, I also can’t wait for it to be over.

OK, so that's a lie, but you get my drift.

Columnwise, thanks for all of the input for our Top 10 lists – I was besieged with your votes, and y'all only confirmed what I already knew: You're a bright and knowledgeable bunch – and your submissions for the Your Heroes column (coming soon!) as well as all of the feedback on the new deal around here. I'm trying to keep it fun and nostalgic while not crossing swords with the ND column.

Candida and Marc were in Phoenix this weekend to cover the National Time Trials there, and although the car count was a little light (OK, a lot light), Marc took advantage of the downtime to set up some possible cover shots for the Pomona preview issue, which is also our annual Season Preview. I know you've seen our trusty ND photographers covered in tire rubber after a brutal day on the starting line, but it's clear from this photo, snapped by John Force Racing publicist Elon Werner, that Marc was getting down and dirty for us to get the shot. (Man, that's a low-angle shot!) I'm not saying this is going to be the cover, and I've yet to see the actual photos, but I like the way it looks.

For those of you keeping score, that will be Issue 4. Issue 1 was our What's New: Top 10 issue that most of you who subscribe should already have. It includes Tommy Ivo's great recollection of his 1974 crash and a lot of other cool stuff. Yesterday, we received office copies of Issue 2, which has a huge – and I mean HUGE – Don Prudhomme retrospective. If you're a "Snake" fan, you're gonna love this one. In addition to a four-page interview I did with "the Snake" about his decision to retire (I still think he's not done), the Pure Nostalgia column is the second half of the interview, called Snake's Take, for which I fed him subjects and let him share his feelings, covering topics such as Tom McEwen ("It's like having a brother that you don't get along with, but they're still family.") and his take-no-prisoners attitude of the 1970s ("I was a jerk. I recognize that, especially now."). That covers three more pages, then there's Little Bradfield's four-page photo tribute to The Man, and I have to say he picked some great shots, most of them color keepers.

We're working on Issue 3 right now, and I'm very proud to say that Senior Editor Kevin McKenna landed an interview with Al-Anabi team owner Sheik Khalid Al Thani, who doesn't grant interviews very often. K-mac had to do the interview Sunday, but it was worth it. This issue also includes Phoenix testing results, a tribute to Dick Wells, a look at overdue champs, and the What's New combo of the first installment of our all-class new iron and new products. Issue 5, the one between the Pomona preview and results issues, will be our Top 10 special.

I'm pretty excited about the Top 10 lists, but there will be some hard choices to make. Internally, we've been compiling our lists and sharing them, and I can guarantee there will be some heated discussions Thursday when we reconvene to decide the Top 10. Everyone has an opinion (including you guys), and there are bound to be hurt feelings and busted jaws before this one is done. Candida has a mean right hook.

Back to the Winternationals: The Golden 50 is shaping up to be really something, and even with some last-minute dropouts, it's already at about 80 cars (you can see the current list here) because we keep adding great ones. Just yesterday, I added to the list the Drag-On-Lady SS/BA, the Mooneyes Dragster AA/D, the Syndicate Scuderia AA/D, Don Grotheer's Cable Car SS/BA, the Teixeira & Son B/G, the rear-engine Warren, Coburn & Miller Top Fueler, Roger Gates' AA/FD, and the Leland Kolb/Scorcher AA/FD.

Some of the cars on the list will be Cackled, and there's a lot of excitement about one entry in particular, the Smirnoff AA/FD.

The car, which was designed by the talented Steve Swaja, built by master craftsman Roy Fjasted of Speed Products Engineering, and surrounded with a body from the equally prodigious Bob Sorrell, was tuned by the late, great Dave Zeuschel, who had coaxed speed-crazed Darryl Greenamyer to Lions Drag Strip for a look-see and before he knew it found himself building engines for his pal.

The car made its debut in 1967 and ran its last race at the 1969 Winternationals, but the original owner held on to the old gal for nearly four decades before she was resurrected.

Sure, I know, the car has been seen around since it was restored in 2006 (there's a great recap of the car's history as well as its restoration here), but the big news is that Greenamyer will be back at the wheel. Greenamyer was a famed test pilot and air racer (he flew both the U-2 and the SR-71 Blackbird) and original owner and driver of the car, which Larry Dixon Sr. drove when Greenamyer’s duties at Lockheed kept him from racing.

According to Steve Gibbs, "It took current owner Joe Passalaqua years to talk Greenamyer into selling the car, and it is a beautiful restoration of what was one of the most beautiful cars of the era. To get Greenamyer back into the car is a big deal in our little corner of the sport."

Greenamyer's name also may be familiar to people who saw the documentary Frozen in Time, in which Greenamyer attempted to fly an abandoned B-29 out of Greenland in 1994.

The plane, the Kee Bird, was on a secret mission over Greenland Feb. 21, 1947, when the crew became lost and, out of fuel, crash-landed. Miraculously, the plane suffered little structural damage. Although the crew was rescued, the plane was left behind and sat on the edge of a frozen lake for nearly 50 years. The Air Force released ownership of the plane to anyone who could fly it out of there.

After months of work replacing vital components on the plane, including all four engines, and after the death of the project's chief engineer, who literally worked himself to death, the plane was finally ready to fly and had taxied to a takeoff position when fire broke out, and the plane, heartsickeningly, was consumed in flames. It sank into the lake the next summer, gone forever. (You can read more about this ultimately sad but definitely Herculean effort here.)

The plane is gone, but Greenamyer is still here to tell the tale and I'm sure will share racing tales with his old buddies in Pomona. I think I'd like to shake his hand.
 

The first two issues of National DRAGSTER 2010 are out the door, and we're knee-deep in preview stuff for the 50th annual Kragen O'Reilly NHRA Winternationals presented by Valvoline and the season as well as plotting issues beyond those.

When late last year we were deciding on themed content for the early 2010 issues, we hit upon a great – but daunting – concept for our fifth issue: top 10 lists. We came up with a list of topics for 10 lists to cover the major areas of our sport: Pro drivers, Sportsman drivers, crew chiefs, cars, innovations, rivalries, national events, runs, upsets, and moments.

Now, anyone who has ever created one – or even read one – knows that they are lightning rods for controversy, but the specter of picking the 10 best anything in a sport as old, storied, diverse, and rabidly followed by legions of loyal and knowledgeable fans feels kind of like standing at the foot of Mount Everest in sneakers and a windbreaker. Like I said, it's a daunting task.

Not that we're not prepared. Our staff has plenty of background knowledge and a full library at our fingertips, and we've recruited a trio of very well-respected historians of the sport – Bob Frey, Bret Kepner, and Todd Veney – to make sure we don't overlook anyone.

Unlike 2001's Top 50 Racers selection for which I enlisted a veritable who's who army of drag racing experts to develop, this is going to be the National DRAGSTER staff's top 10 picks – not that of the NHRA or the community – so it's like we're going a little bit rogue to do this, so don't call Tom Compton if we don’t pick your favorite.

That being said, I am considering a popular-vote component as an addendum to our feature, where you fans can weigh in, and I can’t think of any better place to start than right here, with some of the greatest fans in the sport.

If you'd like to weigh in, send me your top picks in each of the categories below, using the specific e-mail link for each so that I can easily filter them through my Inbox. I'll compile the results of the outside voting and create a separate set of lists. It'll be interesting to see how our lists vary.

So, here ya go. Below are the categories, with just a brief note of criteria for each, and each with its own e-mail link. Please send each of your lists separately. Get those thinking caps on and get busy.

Top 10 Pro Drivers (success and driving skills): E-mail picks

Top 10 Sportsman Drivers (including alcohol): E-mail picks

Top 10 Crew Chiefs (wins and innovations): E-mail picks

Top 10 Cars (success of car, not necessarily driver): E-mail picks

Top 10 Innovations (mechanical or otherwise): E-mail picks

Top 10 Rivalries (drivers and/or teams): E-mail picks

Top 10 NHRA National Events (performance, emotion): E-mail picks

Top 10 Runs (not limited only to performance): E-mail picks

Top 10 Upsets (event, round or season): E-mail picks

Top 10 Moments (NHRA’s most memorable moments): E-mail picks

Have fun!

So, Senior Editor Kevin McKenna sent out a note to Messrs. Frey, Kepner, and Veney asking for their help, and the ever-clever Kepner, seizing on a bit of vagueness in the note as to the focus of our lists, responded thusly.

"I'm surprised you didn't narrow this poll to include only drag racing. I doubt if I can struggle through each category, but I'll make an attempt at the easy ones."
 
Innovations:
1. Fire
2. Wheel
3. Language
4. Electricity
5. Indoor Plumbing
6. Birth Control
7. Roomba
8. Riding Lawnmower
9. Sliced Bread
10. Internet
 
Crew Chiefs:
1. Barney Oldfield
2. Ray Evernham
3. Juan Manuel Fangio
4. Flavio Briatore
5. Dale Inman
6. Bobby Unser
7. George Bignotti
8. Richard Noble
9. Neil Armstrong
10. Dave Edstrom
 
Upsets:
1. David/Goliath (event)
2. Truman/Dewey (season)
3. Spartans/Persians (event)
4. Louis/Schmeling (season)
5. USA/USSR (Lake Placid) (event)
6. USA/USSR (Bay of Pigs) (season)
7. Douglas/Tyson (event)
8. Upset/Man O' War (season)
9. Diversity/Susan Boyle (season)
10. Frankenstein/Godzilla (event)
 
Rivalries:
1. Hatfields/McCoys
2. Republicans/Democrats
3. National League/American League
4. Ford/Chevrolet
5. Capitalists/Communists
6. Lohan/Hilton
7. Cats/Dogs
8. Hogan/Andre the Giant
9. Leno/O'Brien
10. Cubs/Everybody Else

Funny guy!

OK, get to nominating, kids. Remember, please submit up to 10 for each of the categories, and PLEASE use the specific e-mail link for each. Thanks.

See ya next week.

Reactions to Monday's column about Russell Long and yesterday's about Dick Wells came by the bucketful, kind of like the rain we're getting here this week in SoCal. We're getting absolutely drenched, and the biggest storms reportedly are yet to come, later tonight and Thursday.

There was even a tornado and a water spout down by the shore – the latter reportedly lifted a catamaran 40 feet out of the water, spun it around several times, and then dropped it on another boat. And you thought we only had to worry about earthquakes and wildfires!

The one thing that we all keep saying is that we're glad this is happening now instead of three weeks from now when the 50th annual Kragen O'Reilly NHRA Winternationals will be rolling to the starting line for what promises to be an amazing weekend. After last year's wet-a-thon, no one wants to see a repeat of that rain on this year's parade.

But back to the feedback.

I wrote about the impact that Wells had on my career here, and I certainly found that I was not alone in being touched by his generosity and support.

Don C. Mason III wrote, "The legacy Dick leaves is everything that we're doing here today. I was fortunate enough to get to know him personally, and the closer I got to him, the more respect I had for him because he was a highly intelligent man, a highly driven man but a very compassionate man, too. He cared about the sport and the people in it. Dick Wells, by default, is an automotive historian. This has evolved from his more than 40 years with Hot Rod magazine, NHRA, and SEMA. Dick had a remarkable career and an even more remarkable life. Words cannot express how much he'll be missed by myself and by the industry overall.

"I will miss the stories he told about why most drivers back in the day chomped on a cigar while driving in races. He told me they did this because of the rigid chassis of early race cars, and due to the rough surfaces of the tracks (the Brickyard in Indianapolis among them), drivers bit down on a cigar to avoid chipping their teeth while driving in races.

"At Indy in  2003, I sat in the tower watching the races with Dick, and he looked at me and said, 'Isn’t it amazing that the word race car is the same whether you read left to right or right to left?' I responded, 'Yes, that’s amazing.' All while we were watching cars shoot flames several feet in the air accelerating from 0 to 300-plus mph in a quarter-mile. Everything was about race cars or hot rods.

"He would call and tell me about his health or send e-mails that always made me smile. Always looking at the positives, he missed visiting the NHRA events the past year due to the economic crunch and volunteered to reduce his travel and attending expenses for the NHRA. Last year's Indy event was only his third Nationals he missed. He always said he would make up for it in Pomona. Sounds like a racer, doesn’t it?

"Dick Wells was not only a leader in our sport, but he was also a very good friend. Not only did he teach me a lot about our sport, but he taught me numerous lessons about life. It's a huge loss. Dick is someone that I will never forget. I will always remember him for his graciousness and his tremendous passion for the sport. In his e-mails to me, his salutation always stated, President of your fan club. That’s the kind of guy Dick was, and I was one of his biggest fans."

Roland Leong also dropped me a note asking about services for Wells (still waiting for that info) but also told me that in 1965, his mom, Teddie, hired Wells to do PR for the Hawaiian Top Fueler. This was in a era when very few racers had publicists or sent out press releases.

"At Indy, he sent out our press releases to the press," recalled Leong, who with driver Don Prudhomme won both the Winternationals and U.S. Nationals that year, which was also the Chinese Year of the Snake. Wells was working for Hot Rod magazine at the time under NHRA founder Wally Parks, who was more happy that drag racing was getting more exposure than he was upset about his staffer moonlighting.
 
"I guess he was nervous when Wally mentioned something but said that Wally was very happy because no one did anything for Indy, and ours was the only press release out there," said Leong. "Dick told me that story, which I never knew, years ago."

Longtime Insider follower Rich Venza also knew Wells well. "I met Dick while he was president of National Street Rod Association and I was event director for the first Nationals East in Timonium, Md.," he wrote. "That friendship lasted some 35 years. Whenever we crossed paths at SEMA, Indy, or for the last time at the NHRA Museum during the 2009 GT and National Roadster Show, he was always ready with a smile and hearty handshake.

"As you said, one by one, we're losing that generation we all looked up to and learned from. It's our task to be sure we don't let their vision and accomplishments get lost in the dusty corners of history."

I'm on it, Rich.

I also heard from Wells' nephew, Ron Evans, who thanked me for my kind remembrances and added, "There are a lot of people writing a lot of nice things right now, but you have touched on things that most are missing. His gift of storytelling and his well-timed compliments 'when deserved.' As one of his only California family members, we spent a lot of time together; he has been good at dragging me along to many, many races and car shows over the years. He is my hero for a number of reasons, not only his accomplishments but for just the person he was."

My interview with former Funny Car racer Long about his harrowing time in Haiti during and after the major earthquake there apparently quickly caught fire and was passed around not just the racing community but Long's old classmates from Mission Viejo High School.
 
"Your article has made the rounds of the social-networking sites, as we have shared the good deeds of our fellow alumni, friend, and character," wrote one. 
 
Longtime Long fan Reginald Beckham Jr. was so moved by the story that he donated money to the American Red Cross, and another longtime Long acquaintance, Rick DeVoll, dropped me a line to share his history with Long.

Rick, left, then and now ...

"Growing up in Mission Viejo back in the late '60s through my high school years (1976), I was a drag racing addict. I ate, slept, and breathed drag racing; it seemed that every 'game' this 10-year-old boy could come up with revolved around drag racing.

"I would be surprised if Russ would even remember me, but I will say that he was one of my childhood drag racing heroes (and he was only 6 years older than me!). I first met him when he worked at the Union 76 gas station at La Paz Road and the 5 freeway. We were only acquaintances, but I would talk to him whenever my parents would go there to get gas. I didn't get the weekly papers like National DRAGSTER and Drag News back then, and I would be a sponge looking for drag racing tidbits wherever I could. (He was the first one to break the sad news about John Mulligan to me.) I ran into Russ at an OCIR Manufacturers Funny Car race, and he had just landed a spot on Lew Arrington's crew. That was big news for me and my buddies: Russ Long was now on a Funny Car crew - and we knew him!

"He went on to other things including a stint crewing for Tom McEwen when he had the Hot Wheels Duster. Russ gave me a ride home in the infamous flatbed truck with the race car loaded up after one OCIR race. You would have thought I had died and gone to heaven! My only regret was that it was after midnight and nobody was around to see me pull up in that rig. Not even my parents - they were asleep and just thankful that they didn't have to drive out to the races to pick up their 12-year-old son. (Ah, the good ol' days -- being dropped off at OCIR in the morning and hanging all day until midnight -- you can bet I would never let my daughter do anything like that nowadays!)

Long's first real ride was in Charlie Proite's Pabst Blue Ribbon Charger.

"Even though I didn't follow drag racing as intently when I got into my high school years, I did stay in touch with the sport through friends and magazines, and I kind of kept tabs on Russ through those avenues. It wasn't until he was driving the Sundance car and moved in a couple streets down from where we were living in El Toro (now called Lake Forest) that I ran into him again. I only stopped by his place on a couple of occasions but remember seeing the likes of 'Jungle Jim' Liberman hanging out there. Russ' crew chief at the time was also quite the character.

"It's fun to look back at our childhood through the eyes of an adult and enjoy a different take on our experiences, and after reading the story of Russ in Haiti, it doesn't surprise me that he went from being the hero to a couple of young drag racing fanatics to being a hero to a group of kids in a more serious and life-changing environment. I'm sure his presence there will be forever etched in their minds."

I also can’t let another day go by without the acknowledgment of the passing of Jan Gabriel, the legendary voice of the old U.S. 30 Dragstrip, who made "Sunday! Sunday! Sunday!" a household phrase, who died Jan. 11. He was 69.

Gabriel, who urged fans to head out to  "smokin' U.S. 30 Dragstrip ... where the great ones run!" died –  appropriately enough – on a Sunday in his Lombard, Ill., home from complications of a lengthy battle with kidney disease.

According to an article in the Chicago Tribune, the "Sunday! Sunday! Sunday!" commercials were conceived by track owner Ben Christ, who wanted to make sure everyone knew his business was open on Sunday.

According to Steve Cronen of Starbeat Recording Studios in Deerfield, Ill., who produced the ads, about 50 announcers auditioned and were turned down before Gabriel, who had gained notice in racing circles with scintillating descriptions of the circle-track action at Santa Fe Speedway, was called in, and a legend was recorded. "It was the excitement, the way he delivered that line. No one else was able to do that," Cronen said. "That's because he really loved racing."

Cronen also revealed that the original script called for two announcers to trade "Sundays!" but the tape recorder Gabriel used for his first take was set up with a delay that allowed him to handle the line himself, and Christ liked it.

In addition to being the voice of U.S. 30 Dragstrip and Santa Fe Speedway in Hinsdale, Ill., he also had his own television racing show, The Super Chargers, which ran from 1982 to 1994.

Gabriel remained active, even after the closing of his favorite tracks and even after 2005 amputation of both legs below the knees, the result of polycystic kidney disease that would eventually claim his life, and his latest venture, Team Demolition Derby, found a home at Route 66 Raceway.
 

How do you say goodbye to the guy who invented your job?

Last night, the NHRA family lost a precious member and a longtime friend to many in our world when Dick Wells passed away after battling complications from recent surgery.

Wells was the first editor of National DRAGSTER, handpicked by NHRA founder Wally Parks to oversee the creation of NHRA's newly born house organ. Wells served in that role through 1960 and returned for a second tour from 1961 to 1963 after our second editor, Bruce Tawson, left.

In my long career here at NHRA, including more than 20 years atop the National DRAGSTER masthead, I've had a lot of father figures to guide the way, led, of course, by Parks himself, but also including guys like Leslie Lovett, John Raffa, and Neil Britt, who all saw something in me worth helping and molding. Dick Wells didn't fit that mentor definition, but he was more like the kind uncle always there to offer encouragement and clarification, and one who helped show the way.

With his passing, I've lost another one of the fraying connections to our past, who are slipping through our fingers more and more each year. Wells' history in hot rodding was long and thorough, and his memory was sharp and fine, and I'll miss being able to lean on him for clarification of NHRA's past.

In the years leading up to Wally's passing, I had milked him endlessly for details about his life and NHRA's birth, eager to get it all on the record before we lost him. After Wally's death, Wells was the go-to guy about Parks. The two had been inseparable for years, and you always knew that Dick had Wally's back. Woe be it to anyone who tried to mess with Wally's legacy, or with the NHRA for that matter. Dick was fiercely protective of both.

Although we didn’t always agree, Wells knew and understood the pressures and give-and-take of being the editor of a house organ, and he was unfailingly flattering in attaboy e-mails he'd send me from time to time. Because of who he was and because of his grasp of the challenges of this job, I'd save those e-mails like little treasures.

From 2001: "Just spent time going through the August 10 edition of Dragster and it is nothing short of fabulous. How you continue to turn out winners each week is beyond my grasp, but it is to the pleasure of us all that you do so."

Or this gem, which contains advice we all should live by: "Many years ago, when I was the feature editor of Hot Rod magazine, I covered the Nationals. In the wake of the feature we received several complimentary letters. One was worded, 'I felt like I was there.' Tex Smith, also on the HR staff at the time, said, 'That's what we must all strive to accomplish.' And you, Phil, seem to accomplish that goal with virtually every issue."

Although I am saddened by this loss, I am glad that I got to spend some quality time with Dick at the opening of the National DRAGSTER exhibit at the Wally Parks NHRA Motorsports Museum presented by Automobile Club of Southern California last year. To celebrate our 50th year of publishing, we gathered some of the editors – including me, Wells, George Phillips, and Jim Edmunds – and Dick and I were the speakers.

Those who know me know that I generally shun the spotlight and abhor public speaking – there's no erase, cut and paste, or grammar checking in live speaking – so, other than the thrill of representing National DRAGSTER at this special opening, I initially wasn't very thrilled with the speaking assignment. Initially, the plan was for Dick and me to address the crowd separately, but that quickly changed to a combined appearance at the microphone.

Dick and I exchanged e-mails in the days preceding the opening to share our thoughts, and, ultimately, he said we should toss out any scripted stuff and just wing it, to essentially riff off of each other's comments to compare and contrast the job now and then. It went smashingly well.

Dick was a natural and gifted storyteller and had the audience's rapt attention as he wove tales about the production of the first issue – like how Wally had to write a personal check to the printer before he'd roll the presses – and the challenges of working with the technology of the day. We traded barbs about how one another's jobs were so easy, and I honestly didn't plan anything I was going to say until Dick was partway through his story. When he'd complain about the sweatshop toil of working with hot-type printing and how easy we have it today with e-mail and the Internet, I'd jab him about having to cover just one national event a year compared to our 23. It was all in good, clean fun and seemed to go over well, and both of us took our turn lionizing (and canonizing) Wally and what he meant to us. I'll always remember that day.

Dick died 10 days short of his 76th birthday and 21 days shy of the 50th Anniversary Winternationals, which I know he would have enjoyed immensely because it involved so many of the friends he'd gained along the way. We'll all miss you, Dick. Thanks for everything.
 

"240 Gordie" Bonin and others tipped me off to a great story about former nitro Funny Car racer Russell Long, driver of, among other fine machines, the Chi-Town Hustler and several cars owned by "Jungle Jim" Liberman, who returned home to Southern California last night from Haiti, where he and nine fellow missionaries from Mission Viejo Christian Church had been helping children at an orphanage when last week's monster 7.0 earthquake struck the impoverished country.

"240" shot me Long's phone number, and earlier today I reached a happy-to-be-home Long.

"We arrived on Friday, the 8th, in Port-au-Prince and met the kids and worked with them for a few days, and the earthquake hit on Tuesday. It was late in the afternoon, and it seemed like the world was coming to an end. It shook forever. The house right next to the orphanage went right to the ground. Thank God the kids all made it out OK. I got my knee beat up a little bit and hurt one finger, but otherwise OK.

"We got them onto a soccer field, where we slept for three nights. There was a constant flow of people showing up badly injured, missing arms and legs … it was more than you could imagine. Some doctors finally arrived, and we helped as best we could to set up a makeshift hospital. It was complete and utter chaos. On Wednesday, some people were trying to incite a riot, and there were even rumors of a tsunami coming. By the end of that night, we were pretty worn out and out of food and water."

Long was interviewed by the Los Angeles CBS news crew.

Their friends were happy to have them home!

What was worse, the group had no way to tell their loved ones back home that they were OK until Thursday, when one was able to reach out through Facebook to spread the good news.

"By Friday, our church had hired a group called SOS International to evacuate us. Friday night, we went from the orphanage over to a safe house by the airport. At 5 in the morning, they snuck us to the airport, and up walks Geraldo Rivera to interview me!"

The group's anxiety continued as, two minutes before its twin-engine Beechcraft rescue plane was to arrive, the airport was shut down to accommodate the arrival of Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. The group finally was able to board its plane and was flown to Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic. After a quick meal and some medical care, the group was hustled onto a flight to San Juan, Puerto Rico. On Sunday, they flew first class on American Airlines nonstop from San Juan to Los Angeles, where they were greeted by news crews. You can see footage here.

The congregation met them at the church, where more news stations awaited, and a huge welcome-home party ensued.

Among those welcoming Long home was his former car owner, Don Schumacher. Long drove one of Shoe's Wonder Wagon Barracudas in 1973.

"The day before we left, I had called him to ask if it was OK to give his phone number to the church so that if we got into any trouble while we were down there he could send his jet to get us. He said he would, and he later told me that they had been looking into flying down there when we got hauled out. I told him later that while we were running that makeshift hospital, it was worse than running Indy every day for a month."

Long's racing career was short – just six years – but filled with highlights. When he earned his license in 1972 in the ex-Tom McEwen Arkansas Razorback Duster of Pat Brinegar, he was the youngest licensed nitro pilot at age 19. (Billy Meyer later licensed at age 17.)

"When that deal went away, I was out on the road with Leroy Goldstein, at the Holiday Inn in Racine [Wis.] because we were running at Union Grove [Great Lakes Dragaway], and Charlie Proite and his driver, Gary Bailey, got into a fight, and I asked if I could drive his car," said Long, now 57. "He said I could, even though I only had made five license runs, and I was able to borrow an old truck from Schumacher, and boom-boom-boom, I was a Funny Car racer. He got a sponsorship from Pabst Blue Ribbon and got rid of the 392 and put an elephant [426] in it."

After spitting the crank out of the Pabst car and crashing it, Long drove one of Schumacher's two Wonder Wagon 'Cudas, replacing Bobby Rowe, who had a falling-out. (A pre-Blue Max Raymond Beadle drove the other.) Long also drove McEwen's second English Leather Navy Duster, a couple of Liberman's Vegas, the Chi-Town Hustler, and Dennis Fowler's pretty Sundance. He also made odd laps every now and then in Top Fuelers, including the Frito Bandito of the late Pancho Rendon and the Pegasus.

Long had plans for a jet-car future with an ex-Tommy Ivo jet and even was in consideration for a sponsorship from Skoal that ended up going to Don Prudhomme. He retired from racing and ran his backhoe business.

"My career only lasted about an hour and a half, but it was a good one," he said.

Now in its fifth year, the event helps raise funds to build quality bobsleds for the U.S. Olympic team, which until the early 2000s was racing in cast-off sleds from European teams. According to literature at the event, NASCAR legend Bodine joined forces with auto racing designer Bob Cuneo of Chassis Dynamics in Oxford, Conn., to create made-in-America bobsleds for the United States men's and women's national teams. Since 2002, the Bo-Dyn effort has produced one Olympic gold medal, two silver medals, and a bronze. Additionally, U.S. team member Steve Holcomb ended a 50-year world-championship drought when he drove his four-man Bo-Dyn sled to the world title in Lake Placid last February. The men's and women's squads have claimed numerous World Cup medals this season -- five gold medals among them -- in the run-up to the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics. To learn more, go here.

OK, now where was I? Oh yes, after fun-filled days of travel Thursday and Friday, some practice for the drivers Friday and a bobsled ride for me, we head into Saturday and qualifying for Sunday's big show.

SATURDAY

Compare this with yesterday's shot. What a change in the weather.

8 a.m.: The alarm clock goes off, but damned if I can talk my freezing, jet-lagged butt out of bed. Sledding practice is supposed to start at 9 a.m., and it's clear I'm not going to make that, but I need to be there by noon (seems manageable, no?) to get my second bobsled ride. Hey, I'm all about the team. It's a glorious sunny day – Friday's clouded-over skies and snow are gone, replaced by a crystal-clear, sunny sky -- but somehow it's colder than Friday. The thermometer built into the mirror of the rental reads 0 degrees. That's Fahrenheit, folks.

11 a.m.: In motor racing, drivers try to "keep the shiny side up" – that being the paint and the chrome -- but in sledding, keeping it upright is referred, somewhat paradoxically to us, as "keeping the shiny side down," referring to the polished bottoms of the sled's runners. Weird. Apparently, though, there's some confusion here as four drivers get their sleds upside down on the course in practice, including three of the four drag racers. 

Assessing the damage to Morgan Lucas' sled. Note the paint damage on top of the cowl from his long, upside-down slide.

Morgan Lucas does it twice, on his first and third of four passes, and Top Fuel teammate Shawn Langdon and Melanie Troxel also go on their heads. What's especially painful about flipping over is that it usually occurs as the result of trying to exit Shady 2 (turn 6 of 15 on their shortened course), so you slide down the rest of the hill trying to tuck yourself into the sled (easier for the driver than the brakeperson). But that's just the half of it. The sleds usually don't slide all the way to the finish line because the last two turns (18 and 19, the exit to The Heart) and the run to the finish line are uphill, so the hapless drivers end up sliding back down the course several hundred feet before the sled grinds to a halt. Philip Morris also gets on his head, meaning that six of the 10 drivers in competition have flipped so far. They won’t be the last. Their sleds and helmet tops bear evidence of the long slide.

Despite their flips, the drag racers seem unfazed. They acknowledge to me that nothing they've ever done prepared them for this and that it's as challenging, if not more so, than their usual rides and feels just about as fast despite them reaching speeds of "just" 60 mph.

Noon: Practice is over, and everyone gets a sheet with all of the split times (50 meters, exit of Turn 4, exit of Turn 9, exit of Turn 12, exit of Turn 14, and finish) so they can see where they need to improve. Some drivers are fast and clean up top, and others, like Langdon and Troxel, are better in the bottom part of the course.

The Lucas family, trying to stay warm in the Start 3 warming hut.

Noon means lunchtime and a large line for rides. This time we'll be riding the four-person sled, a virtual bus compared to the two-person sled I rode Friday, but the extra weight – two passengers and a driver and brakeperson, the latter Lake Placid regulars who give tourist rides -- should mean faster speeds. I spent the night memorizing the course so that I could relate it better for my column next week in National DRAGSTER, tracing in my mind the exit from Shady 2, the run through the three quick turns of the Labyrinth and on to Benham's Bend, a nearly 90-degree right. From there, you hope to slice a straight line through the chicane to have speed for the nearly 180-degree left-turn Turn 17 (marked by the huge JEGS logo) that marks the entrance to The Heart. From there, it's a quick right through 18 (the middle of The Heart), then another sweeping left-hander to exit The Heart and on to the finish line.

1:30 p.m.: I told you it was a long line, but finally we are, as the familiar voice of course announcer Kim Luther calls out (as she does on each run) "Sled in the track," the bodsledding equivalent of "And they're off." By Benham's Bend, we have enough speed to be up on the bank, and our driver threads the chicane beautifully and puts us high onto Turn 17, the G forces sucking me down into the sled. The chill wind is again lacing through the pores on my face, but the ride is amazing and all too soon over.

2:30 p.m.: One-shot qualifying commences, and the straight-liners hold their own. Lucas Oil off-road racer Carl Renezeder, who is part of Team NHRA, is the surprise leader at 50.66, with NASCAR rookie of the year Joey Logano not far behind at 50.79. Jeg is third with a 51.03 and Morgan fourth at 51.13. Langdon is sixth (51.22) and Troxel eighth (51.48). The warming hut at the top of Start 3 provides an excellent place to watch the races as there's a TV monitor inside (plus hot chocolate!), and they pipe in Luther's turn-by-turn commentary, singing out praises of a turn well carved or noting a bad blunder.

Sure is pretty up here ...

By the end of the day, you can tell that the racers are sore from their efforts. The sleds chatter on the ice, rattling the flanks against shoulders, and the G forces are strong, and the muscles that are used to tug on the control ropes that turn the runners are different ones than they’re used to exercising. Troxel has an impressive  softball-sized bruise on her right bicep and various other aches and scrapes, but she's clearly one of the most info-hungry drivers, consulting regularly with Team USA bobsled (USA 6) driver Ethan Albrecht-Carrie, who has been brought in to help tutor the drivers. Troxel may be among the greenest of the bunch, but she has clearly caught on.

7 p.m.: The day ends after the qualifying pass, and everyone retires to their hotels and cabins to prepare for that night's benefit auction at the Crowne Plaza. Me, I do a little souvenir hunting and pick up a cool 1980 Olympic hockey team T-shirt and some T-shirts for my grandson. Later at the auction, Jeg walks away with a cool 1/8th-scale nitro-fueled RC truck at night's end. I bet he puts it to good use.

Watching the evening weather forecast and checking weather.com, they're predicting a low of minus 17 early Sunday morning, with a "warm up" to minus 8 by race time. I can hardly wait.

SUNDAY

9:45 a.m.: Somehow, I make it out of bed this morning, and we're assembled back atop the hill for opening ceremonies. It's cold, cold, cold, at or about that minus-8 number according to the ol' rearview-mirror thermometer. There's a bit of extra drama brewing for us as the renta-Jeep throws me a Check Gauges warning on the dashboard just as I reach the top of the hill ,and the oil-pressure is down on the peg. Ruh-roh, Scooby. I park it and give "Woody" the bad news.

10:30 a.m.: We're running a bit behind schedule because of TV and because we've had yet another flip. This time, it was my Friday chauffeur Burkart, who was giving Indy 500 winner Dan Wheldon a ride from the top of the hill for the TV show and flipped it. I haven't seen the footage, but apparently Wheldon wasn't going to ride the sinking ship to the bottom and jettisoned himself from the sled partway down. He barely made it off the course before the sled and Burkart took him down on its backslide "up" the course.

Opening ceremonies. God bless America, indeed.

Finally, we're ready to go. The great Kate Smith, who is buried in St. Agnes Cemetery in Lake Placid, belts out her trademark "God Bless America" (via tape recording, of course), and we're ready for the first of two competitions, an Olympics-style head-to-head competition among all drivers, with the winner being the one with the lowest combined two-run time. Melanie apparently is a good student, and a consistent one. She puts together back-to-back runs of 49.67 and 49.66 for an overall time of 1:39.33, which is just a few ticks better than Jeg's 1:39.40. Jeg was quicker on run one with a 49.31 but not as consistent on run two, and it cost him. Seven-hundredths is a lifetime in drag racing, but in bobsledding, it's just a brush or two of the wall, and there's no Christmas Tree here for Jeg to make up that lost time with as he does on the quarter-mile. Melanie takes the gold, Jeg the silver, and perennial Bodine medalist Boris Said of Team NASCAR the bronze with a 1:39.69.

Melanie Troxel and brakeperson Matthew Powers didn't leave much on the table.

1:30 p.m.: After lunch and an autograph session (with the drivers, not me), it's on to the NHRA vs. NASCAR competition. The format is confusing to everyone, but eventually we figure it out. The five drivers on each team get one run. The quickest three qualify, and the slowest two are done. The quickest driver gets a bye, No. 2 races No. 3, and the winner of that races No. 1. This happens on both sides of the ladder until just one remains from each side. Geoff Bodine and Charlotte Lucas preside over the coin toss, which NHRA wins, meaning our drivers get to go first (supposedly an advantage).

That whole shooting match boils down to Melanie and Logano. Melanie qualified No. 1, Morgan No. 2, and Renezeder No. 3 on the NHRA side. My host, Jeg, is fourth, just a hundredth behind Renezeder and is disappointingly done for the weekend; Langdon also DNQs. Renezeder against Morgan is wacky as both crash and neither gets a turn (Morgan's third flip, for anyone keeping score), but Morgan advances to the final against Troxel based on his higher seed, and she ekes past him, 50.12 to 50.14.

4 p.m.: We're all cheering for Melanie to be queen of the hill again, but her 50.07 in the final falls just shy of Logano's stout 49.81, but we're all super-thrilled for her anyway. The rookie done good.

We all pile into the rental cars – oil pressure on the Jeep is shaky, down in the single digits at idle but OK at speed – and beat it to the airport, trying to warm our frozen feet and hands.

Home, James ...

5:15 p.m.: The rent-a-Jeep goes the distance – barely – and we jump out of the quickly cooling night into the jet, and we're off. By 7 p.m., we're back in Columbus and a half-hour later chowing down pizza at Tommy's, another Jeg favorite: Pepperoni pizza with the pep really crisp, garlic bread, crinkle-cut fries, and some tasty suds finish off a great evening.

10 p.m.:  No one feels much like doing anything other than hitting the hay, so it's off to bed. There's a 7 a.m. wake-up (again) for the first leg of the flight home and a lot of great memories to fall asleep to.

It truly was one of those great weekends, and I was thrilled to take part in it, thanks to Jeg and "Woody." Although intense in competition, it was great to be around our racers in a little more relaxed arena, and the time spent with Jeg, Samantha, "Woody," and Reinhart was true quality time. Lots of laughs, good food, and camaraderie.

I was super-impressed with how our drivers – especially sledding rookies Melanie and Shawn – comported themselves and drove their freezing butts off. They were great ambassadors, as were the Lucases, who clearly enjoy their support of this fine endeavor as much as anything they do. A big tip of the hat to them as well.

If they'll have me, I'll be back next year. It was that much fun.
 

Like most of you, I've casually watched bobsled competition over the years on the Olympics, and though it certainly looked fun, I had no idea how technical it could be. After all, any of us who have ever ridden a toboggan or sled down a snowy hill knows that gravity does most of the work, but what I learned and absorbed during a chilly weekend in Lake Placid , N.Y., will stay with me for a long time, as will the memories of a great time.

Here's how it went down.

THURSDAY

Yeah, sure is cold and snowy out there.

3:50 p.m.: After an early flight from Ontario, our flight out of Dallas is delayed an hour and a half. It's a constant series of text messages to Scott "Woody" Woodruff, JEGS marketing manager, who's going to be waiting at Port Columbus airport, to keep him apprised of the new arrival time. It's thanks to "Woody" and his boss, Jeg Coughlin, that I'm even doing this, as they took care of all my expenses for the trip to the event, of which they are a major backer and, obviously, a competitor in.

7:15 p.m.: When we land, it's in a light snowfall. The pilot does a great job setting 'er down with just a little wiggle -- they must have had a guy installing the tire chains in the cargo hold, I reckon -- and in no time, we're into the warm terminal.

7:30 p.m.: "Woody" picks me up and safely navigates us down the snowy highways and byways in Jeg's Escalade pickup to Chile Verde, Jeg's favorite Mexican restaurant, where he, fiancée Samantha Kenny, and NHRA announcer Alan Reinhart are just finishing off a bowl of queso and chips awaiting our arrival.

9:30 p.m.: After a thoroughly stuffing (and, surprisingly for Ohio, spicy) dinner, some great company -- Jeg can be very funny, and when he and "Woody," childhood chums, get to telling old tales, it's good listening -- and with half of the BCS championship game in the books, we head back to the parking lot, where a moderate blizzard appears to be under way. Well, to this California kid, it looks like one. Actually, it's snowing pretty good.

10 p.m.: We make the 20-minute trek to Jeg's house, named River Ridge Farms, where we'll be spending the night. Turning into the long snowbank-lined driveway, there's an American flag and a Canadian flag, the latter posted by Jeg in honor of Samantha. Like everything the JEGS operation does, the place is first class all the way and designed by Jeg. It's probably the nicest house I've ever been in on beautiful grounds that are blanketed in picture-postcard snow. Kinda makes me want to open my own mail-order company.

10:15 p.m.: Samantha breaks out a a bag of Fudgee-O cookies, one of their guilty pleasures, steathily imported from Canada. "We'll start our diets Monday," she pledges for what she estimates might be the 50th time in the last year.

After watching the Crimson Tide sew up the national title against the Colt McCoy-less Longhorns, I get a tour of Jeg's "trophy room," a hallway-long collection of trophies, National DRAGSTER covers and championship profiles, photos, helmets, diecasts, and more. Dotted throughout the house, placed nicely but not boastfully, are other Wallys, including his 2008 championship Wally. After that, it's off to bed for an all-too-short night.

FRIDAY
7 a.m.: We're up, and everyone is milling around, consuming their morning beverages – which for Reinhart, "Woody," and me is Diet Coke – and wolfing down a few more Fudgee-Os. We grab a few breakfast bars out of a bowl, and, right on target, we head out the door, suitcases in tow, at 7:45. Jeg, Samantha, and Reinhart hop into his Audi while we follow in the Escalade.

8:30 a.m.: After a quick drive-by of the sleek building that houses Jim Head's engineering company, we pull into the airfield on a corner of Port Columbus and start loading our bags into the Lear 45 that JEGS time-shares with other companies. It's snowing again, but within a few minutes, we're packed and ready to go and take our seats. Man, this beats the heck out of commercial travel!

It's cold outside, in the teens, so we taxi forward to have our wings deiced, a two-step process that first coats the wings with orange and then green liquid -- antifreeeze of some sort, I assume -- dispensed from a fire hose from a guy aboard a moving boom. That complete, we're ready to hit the friendly skies.

9 a.m.: We're wheels up and en route! There are beverages and pastries to be consumed, joking and laughing to be done (plus snacks under the seats). We marvel at the onboard monitors that not only show current position on a map but also readouts of speed, altitude, outside temperature, and time until arrival. At the height of it all, I caught a quick glimpse of a screen that showed up at 41,000 feet, cruising at 585 mph, with an outside air temperature of minus 56 degrees. After logging hundreds of thousands of commercial miles and battling crowds and security lines and oversized seatmates with pointy elbows, man, a fella could get used to this.

Those NASCAR slowpokes ...

10:20 a.m.: As we near our destination at Adirondack Regional Airport, outside of Saranac Lake, N.Y., one of the pilots turns around to inform us that we're going to have to slow down because of air traffic ahead of us that's going much slower. We're amused to discover that it's the NASCAR contingent's plane, Rick Hendrick Racing's 40-passenger Saab turboprop. We urge the pilots to pull a NASCAR-style slingshot on them to get us in first, but he either doesn't hear or chooses to ignore us. Dang.

10:25 a.m.: We're on the ground and sizing up the entourage departing the Hendrick plane; seeing enough luggage to equip a small army, we hatch a plan to grab our luggage and book it to our waiting rental cars with hopes of beating them to the host hotel, the Crowne Royal in Lake Placid. Unfortunately, the NASCAR gang is adept at stop-and-go's, and they've arranged for a truck to haul their luggage en masse, and they're out the gate before we are.

The first thing I notice is that it is freaking cold here. My face stings even though it's only lightly snowing. There's a mildly brisk breeze, but whereas in Columbus I had worn just a fleece hoodie and not felt cold at all, here, despite a ski jacket and longjohns, I can clearly feel the cold. I pull my ski cap down over my ears and gut it out to the renta-a-ride.

The view from my hotel balcony. That's Mirror Lake in the distance.

11:15 a.m.: It's just a 12-mile trip from the airfield to Lake Placid, a charming little town on the shores of Mirror Lake (Lake Placid is smaller and not far away, but the town is built around Mirror Lake) with a quaint two-lane road between restaurants and shops selling all manner of Olympic souvenirs. I'll be back to shop later for sure. After all, it's an Olympic year! We check into the hotel and line up to sign waivers and collect our cold-weather gear. It's here that I meet Samantha's parents, Al and Carol. Al, of course, is an alcohol racer from way back and now the father of two NHRA national event winners, Samantha and her brother Jason.

There's a general sense of chaos as there aren’t enough jackets and pants to go around, at least not in all the right sizes. Nerves and stress are at fever pitch, not only among the poor ladies doing the distribution but those uneager to face the chilly temps without full gear.

1 p.m.: After unpacking, I return to the lobby to meet up with "Woody," only to find that he has left to shuttle Jeg to the bobsled run for publicity photos, so I enjoy a nice buffet-style lunch with the Kenny family while we await a new shipment of coats and pants that never arrive. Fortunately, I've packed enough snow gear of my own to get me by. Finally, we load up into the Kenny family truck and make the 6-mile ride to the bobsled course. Right next to our hotel is a place very dear to my heart, the Olympic hockey stadium that was the site of 1980's Miracle on Ice. This is the 30-anniversary of the great moment in American sports, and, like the stores, I promise I'll be back to visit later.

1:30 p.m.: We pull into the Olympic Sports Complex and are afforded official-vehicle status, meaning we can traverse the road between the bottom of the hill and the several stops along the way at our convenience rather than waiting on a shuttle. We gather and watch the photo shoot for the Challenge and then head to the top of the hill for a driver meeting and to walk of the course.

(Above) Walking the course and trying to catch up; this is between turns 5 and 6. (Below) Alan Reinhart, leading the way. The shades keep the snow and sun off the ice.

Ha! Jacket open wide, one glove off; how cold do I look? I ain't no SoCal softy!

2:20 p.m.: We strap spike-studded sandal-like devices to the bottoms of our boots for the course walk down the 20-turn run. As you can imagine, the course is nothing but a long, slippery ice tube. By the time I defer shoe-wear choice to all of the drivers, pickings are pretty slim, but I finally scrounge a pair of large-size spiky sandals, strap them on, and head out to the start gate. Unfortunately, my delay in finding footwear has me well behind the last group to depart. Reinhart is with me, and we're advisied to slide down the course on our rears until we catch the group, which is already two turns ahead of us.

After double-checking that we weren't being pranked, Reinhart slides a few feet down the tube but gives up and stands. My former NHRA.com cohort, Rob Geiger, suddenly wants to go, too, but he doesn't have the studded soles. I agree to help him along down the course, and we saddle up, me in front and him behind, bobsledders without a bobsled, for a fast ride down the course on our butts.

Now, on the surface, this is a really swell idea and a great way to catch up to the group, except that I, of course, am not wearing snow pants yet. When we finally grind to a halt, my jeans are fairly soaked. I won't do that again.

We hobble along after the others with Geiger holding my shoulders and foot-sliding behind me. We eventually catch up to Jeg and Samantha, and she kindly offers Rob one of her two "sandals." It's a Keystone Kops-worthy scene as he tries to strap one on while maintaining a precarious balance. No sooner is he safely into the device than a friendly photographer standing along the course offers his pair to them, giving everyone equal footing.

We negotiate the course, listening to the advice being doled out to the drivers: where to be on the course at this point, how high to be on this turn, what to aim for in the turn ahead, etc. The sheer wall face of the legendary Shady 2 corner towers 15 feet above us, though we have to duck to exit the corner, where the ceiling height is just about 4 feet. In a sled, it's like threading a needle, except at speed on ice. We learn later just how tricky this is. We shuffle our way down the course, taking photos and mugging for the TV cameras documenting the walk.

3:30 p.m.: It's time to begin sledding. The drivers will all get their first runs beginning at one of the lower start houses -- Start 4, which begins at Turn 9 -- so that they can get a slower-speed feel for the turns ahead, which make up the most technical parts of the course. All of the drivers take off – with just a small push; no running starts like you see on TV -- accompanied by a brakeperson, who is selected randomly from among those eager to ride, which includes friends and a dozen or so National Guardsmen. Funny Car racer Phil Burkart Jr., who made the three-hour drive from Utica, N.Y., to again help run the event, asks me if I want to take a ride. I grab a helmet and surge to the front of the line and jump into the backseat of the Home Depot sled of NASCAR rookie of the year Joey Logano, but my broad shoulders won’t fit below the top rail, and my double-layer jacket isn’t helping. I'm bummed and climb out.

4 p.m.: Burkart decides to take a drive himself and asks if I want another crack at it. He doesn't have to ask twice. I dump the inner layer of my jacket and squeeze in, and it’s a great fit, though far from comfortable. As brakeperson, you slide in behind the driver and thread your feet between the driver's shoulders and the outside of the sled. You then have to bend over at the waist for aerodynamic reasons and to be able to grasp the brake handle, which is inconveniently on the floor of the sled, between your thighs. There are two other handles, easier to grab, to hold on to during the ride. Until the finish, the brakeperson's job is supposed to be to stay low, look at the floor, and wait for the driver to call for brakes at the end of the run. It's not a glorious position.

Burkart has made about 20 laps down the course throughout the years, so I feel pretty safe, and, heck, he does a pretty decent job of negotiating the course, but it seems like it's over before it starts, just a blur of white walls and banks and jolts. It feels faster than it really is, and it's almost too much to observe, and I was only riding. I can’t imagine how the rookie sledders do this. (Yeah, for the record, I didn't keep my head down; I wanted to see this deal.) There's another round of rides Saturday, and I vow to be ready.

4:15 p.m.: The drivers are taken up to Start 3, which will add five new turns and a lot more speed to their runs. From this point on, due to insurance regs I guess, the National Guardsmen only will serve as brakepersons. I would have loved to have taken a shot from the top. Everyone does pretty well, and only George Brunnhoelzl, the 2009 NASCAR Whelen Southern Modified champ, flips it and rides out the rest of his run on his lid. No harm, no foul, and the day is over. Well, the sledding part that is.

7:30 p.m.: There's a gala reception at the famous Olympic hockey rink where the 1980 U.S. team pulled off the Miracle on Ice. Being the hockey nut, I didn’t want to miss it, and, as advertised by those who have been there before me, the place seems absolutely tiny. It looks way bigger on TV.

The bobsled drivers are introduced on the ice, and, in a neat ceremony, USA hockey jerseys, bearing the drivers' names, are lowered from the ceiling and donned. Much photo-opping later, we're treated to the official unveiling of the paint scheme for the Team USA sleds that will compete in the upcoming Vancouver Olympic Games. More photo-opping follows, and the crowd is allowed onto the ice for photos, too. It's a mob scene.

9 p.m.: It's off to a group dinner at the Boat House, right on Mirror Lake. It's a fun and raucous affair, with lots of good-natured ribbing and great food.

10:30 p.m.: At the end of a long day, it's time to hit the hay and get ready for another early start, with another practice session from the top of the hill slated for 9 a.m.

Next: Days 2 and 3
 

Still, I wouldn’t trade all the extra work I'm thrashing to do for this past weekend. I was going to write a long and detailed report about it here, but after getting halfway through it, I wondered if anyone would really care (if I get enough votes for it, I'll finish it, so let me hear from you). Some of the photos are pretty cool (so to speak), so I might throw a few of those at you later this week. In a nutshell, it was an amazing weekend, despite – or maybe because of -- temperatures that dipped into the negative digits. The sledding competition was first-rate and the event a real hoot. Thanks to the generosity of Jeg Coughlin and his PR ringleader Scott "Woody" Woodruff, I flew with them from Columbus, Ohio, to Lake Placid in their time-share Lear 45 jet after spending the night at Jeg's amazing house.

Sledding rookie Melanie Troxel, the first woman in the competition, showed the boys the fast way home almost all weekend and, like almost all of the drivers, got the fun experience of tipping 'er over once on the tricky course. Morgan Lucas flipped three (!) times and Shawn Langdon once, and at least four other drivers also went on their heads. I walked the fabled course and took two rides, the first as brakeman in a two-person sled for Funny Car racer Phil Burkart Jr., who drove over from Utica to help with the event, and the second in one of the four-person sleds. I'll be sharing the story of that in next week's National DRAGSTER.

What I really want to talk about today is the announcement that hit me like a ton of bricks when I stopped to check my e-mail in the Dallas airport Thursday on the way out, and that, of course, is Don Prudhomme's retirement announcement.

I guess it didn't really take me by surprise; after all, in this economy, trying to put together a major sponsorship in just the three months since he learned in Indy that U.S. Smokeless would not be back is a daunting challenge for anyone, even "the Snake."

Still, it kind of struck me at the moment that "the Snake" is probably the last of the iconic household drag racing names to hang 'em up, in the footprints of Don Garlits, Shirley Muldowney, Tom McEwen, and Bill Jenkins. OK, I know that legends like Connie Kalitta and Jim Dunn are still racing and racing well, and no offense surely to them, nor to even Bob Glidden or Joe Amato or anyone else, but "the Snake" and "Big Daddy" and "Cha-Cha" and "the Mongoose" and "Grumpy" will always be on an iconic plateau just a bit above everyone else, at least in my mind.

Shortly after the announcement, I got a message from Skip Allum, Prudhomme's longtime team manager, that "the Snake" wanted to chat, which dovetailed nicely into the plan I already had hatched in my mind for a send-off in National DRAGSTER next week.

I spent an amazing hour on the phone with "the Snake" this afternoon as he explained the reasons behind his tough decision, and I don't think I've ever heard him so relaxed. I'm sure that the toll of months of hard work trying to land a deal was considerable, but, well, because he was in such a good mood, I figured it was a good time to get his thoughts about great moments in his career. As we wound up the "news"  part of the interview, I was hastily scribbling notes to myself -- "Greer-Black-Prudhomme, Roland/Hawaiian, Indy wins, 1975-78, the Monza, first 5, first 250, return to Top Fuel, McEwen, Dixon/Capps/Massey" – to make sure I covered as many highlights as I could quickly remember, and I'm sure I forgot a few, but he was amazingly candid and told me some things I had never heard. It's priceless stuff. The plan is to run this in-depth interview next week in National DRAGSTER, along with a photo-filled career retrospective. This week, we're running this awesome Leslie Lovett photo in our Hot Shots slot.

Although his phone continues to buzz and, I guess, there exists the minuscule chance that some multibillionaire could ring him in the next day and all of this will become a bad nightmare, it looks as if "the Snake" is really hanging 'em up. I asked him about hanging in there for just the historic Winternationals, and he was adamant that he's not going to do some one-, three-, five, or 10-race deal just to do it. Like always, he wants to win and, in his own famous words, "rip their throats out."

He also didn't totally rule out a return to the sport well down the line if the current climate changes. I guess the most comforting thing he said to me was this: "The door's closed, but the doorbell still works."

OK, back to work. Issue 1 of 2010 ships tomorrow, and we can’t be late out of the gate to start our season.
 

The new-look National DRAGSTER is shaping up nicely, although, as one could expect, there are a hundred last-minute changes and decisions to be made as it gets closer to reality. I'm really pleased with the way it's looking; all of the pieces seem to be coming together wonderfully.

The first nostalgia column of the year – the print spinoff of this column – is a wonderful retelling of Tommy Ivo's terrifying top-end tumble at the 1974 Winternationals, told by "your hero and mine" himself, who did a bang-up (pun intended) job of respinning the yarn and got permission for us to use the great sequence of the accident. As I note in the column, even though Wide World of Sports was at the event, it’s rather ironic that Ivo, who embraces the public spotlight and made an early career in television, doesn’t have any footage of his accident. The Wide World of Sports team had decided it was getting too dark and turned off its cameras just as Ivo pushed out to make the run. I've seen some grainy video of the accident on YouTube, but the photos really give you a better idea of what happened.

I resurrected a National DRAGSTER feature name from the past – Pure Nostalgia – as the title for the new column, and the Ivo piece gives it a great launch. The story is full of cool observations, including this one, in reference to squeezing his eyes shut (mostly) when the car rolled over: "During one small peek, I saw that the ground was over the car instead of under it, the tower was upside down and in front of me instead of behind me, and fire was blowing past my ears. So I slammed 'em back closed again, thinking, 'I don’t want to see this happen.' (I guess ostriches aren’t all stupid for sticking their head in the ground to get away from the inevitable; they’re right -- it works.)"

Speaking of Ivo, Car and Driver magazine has a nice featurette on him in its February 2010 issue, in its "What I’d Do Differently" column by the prolific Steven Cole Smith. It includes the great portrait sketch here at right.

The Q&A format touches on Ivo's acting and racing careers, and I was surprised by Ivo's answer to a question about his famous four-engine Showboat machine. "That thing has been nothing but bad luck for me, but it’s my signature car," he said. "Of the 36 cars I built and raced, I hated that one the most. It was like driving a 200-mph Sherman tank." Ivo certainly has a way with words. You can read the column online here. 

Today is my last day in the office until next week as I'll be whipping outta here early tomorrow morning bound for frigid Lake Placid, N.Y., for the fifth annual Lucas Oil Geoff Bodine Bobsled Challenge. NHRA stars Morgan Lucas and Jeg Coughlin Jr., both veteran bobsledders, will show the ropes to new teammates Shawn Langdon and Melanie Troxel as they prepare to take on NASCAR stars on the 20-turn Olympic bobsled course on historic Mount Van Hoevenberg. 

The plan tomorrow is to fly through Dallas and then on to Columbus, Ohio, where I'll bunk with the Coughlin clan overnight before we hop a small jet to Lake Placid.

Friday is orientation day where we get issued some cold-weather gear, the drivers get Bobsled 101 for the n00bs and a walk of the course (pictured). Saturday is and endless day of sledding fun for the drivers and Sunday is the big show. There are actually two races, one for everyone against the clock and another that pits the best NHRA sledders against the best NASCAR sledders on a drag-racing-style ladder. We'll have full coverage on NHRA.com.

Though I'm super excited about going (and the possibility of being able to take a ride in one of the sleds!), the timing of the event probably couldn’t have been worse as it's the week of the first issue, and I'd normally over-obsess about babysitting the debut from start to finish. If all goes right, I'll be back in the office Monday afternoon and be here for the final two days of production. If it doesn't go right …

Well, I'm already a little concerned about the overall travel itinerary because my outbound flight lands in Dallas at about noon, where it's predicted to be 31 degrees and windy (18 degrees with the wind chill) and drop to 29 degrees (16 with wind chill) by takeoff time to Columbus, making delays a possibility. It's also supposed to be snowing when I land in Columbus. The return is probably more of the same. Fun! Well, I'll have my laptop and AirCard at the ready.

Weather in Lake Placid will be in the low teens when we arrive Friday morning and will hit a high of just 10 degrees Saturday with lows down to 0 degrees. It's supposed to snow on and off all weekend there, too. You Easterners (and residents of Woodbury, Minn.) probably wear T-shirts in this type of weather, but us soft Californians have been basking in mid-70-degree temps this week, so it's going to be a brisk adventure. Scott "Woody" Woodruff of Team JEGS, who's responsible for my trip out East, advised me thusly: "Warm socks, long johns, and boots."

(Oh crap. Just got this 'warming note from NHRA member Paul Cuff: "As a resident of Rochester, N.Y., I'd just like to warn you that you had better bundle up when you get to Lake Placid. The weather here has been a real bitch. The entire state has been getting a good blast lately. Being up in the mountains as Lake Placid is, it should be a real sweetheart for weather there. It's been snowing CONSTANTLY since about New Years Day, with daily totals running anywhere from two to 15 inches, depending what area you're in. The cold has been numbing, haven't seen anything above 30 degrees since mid-December." Great, if even the locals think it's cold, what a poor warmbody like me to do?")

Though I'm not a nervous flier by any means, this one should be interesting, given the weather and other factors. This will be my first plane trip since the underwear bomber set himself on fire, so security no doubt will be heightened. As if hurtling through the sky at 500-plus mph in a thin-skinned aluminum tube 6 miles above the ground wasn't of enough concern, initial reports were that you wouldn’t be allowed to get out of your seat in the final hour of the flight (better plan that potty break!), and some airlines were even preventing you from using portable devices such as laptops and iPods, but I hear that's been relaxed. I'm packing the new "Snake" and "Mongoose" book for reading enjoyment on the way, just in case.

If time and conditions permit, I'll try to drop you guys a postcard from Lake P.

A couple of other notes from my previous columns.

1. Though I have received a lot of supportive e-mails concerning the new deal here, I've also received some less than enthusiastic responses from those disappointed that the column will no longer share great old photos from the past and memories of those who took them. In case you didn't read my mission statement, I plan on continuing the Fan Fotos segment here, so you'll still get a healthy dose of great old photos. What's going into print are some of the more detailed and longer types of stories and photo features.

2. Readers Dave Kanofsky and Charley Powell pointed out that I'd omitted perhaps the best palindrome ever, at least as far as race fans are concerned: race car. Good one!

3. Responses have been brisk to my request for Your Heroes. I have some great lists going, but what I'm additionally looking for are more details about why these people are your heroes. A typical submission might be "Don Garlits, for creating a workable rear-engine dragster and everybody followed suit," but I'm hoping that you'll take the time to flesh out these types of thoughts, especially in light of how the person impacted you and how you felt about him or her. (I'm looking for a paragraph or so, not just a few words.) If you already submitted one with little explanation, please send me a follow up, and keep 'em coming. Email me

OK, it’s time to start double-checking my to-do list before I go. I'll be in touch, if my frozen fingers allow it.

If you thought the Insider's Favorite Race Car Ever poll of 2008 was something else, well, here's something else that may top it.

There's an interesting discussion thread going on in the Motorsports - networking world, asking for members of the group to name their all-time motorsports heroes.

Already, names like Donald Campbell, Juan Manuel Fangio, Jim Clark, Gilles Villeneuve, Michael Schumacher, Dan Gurney, Ayrton Senna, Freddie Spencer, Colin McRae, AJ Foyt, Al Teague, Chip Hanauer, Niki Lauda, Nigel Mansell, Richard Petty, Dale Earnhardt, Jack Brabham, Roger Penske, Parnelli Jones, Zora Arkus-Duntov, Jackie Stewart – covering everything from land speed to Formula One, stock cars, motorcycles, and rally racing -- have been bandied about along with a healthy mix of drag racers such as Don Garlits, Jack Chrisman, Shirley Muldowney, Bob Glidden, Elmer Trett, Art Arfons, Dave Zeuschel, and Dick Landy. It's been interesting to see many kudos thrown at the drag racers from some folks whose profiles don't seem connected with the NHRA world.

So, Insider Nation, who are your motorsports heroes? You don’t have to confine yourself to our sport, but I'd assume most of you will anyway. I want to know not only names, but reasons. I also expect to see more than just a mailed-in vote for the famous icons of our sport -- also consider racers, engine builders, mentors, etc. who were your heroes for whatever reason, be it idolization, inspiration, or whatever. I'll publish the best lists and the best tributes in a future posting.

Hit me up here: pburgess@nhra.com.

It has been a sad ending to the year with a number of painful losses, including of Don Woosley, Gene Fasching, Jim Harrington, Lou Sattelmaier, Ron Miller, and Rufus "Brooklyn Heavy" Boyd, but I totally missed the Christmas Eve passing of a guy who I think had a pretty big impact on NHRA from outside the cockpit: George Michael.

In the 1980s, no sports show gave more love to NHRA Drag Racing than The George Michael Sports Machine, a sports-highlight show that was unique in that Michael capitalized on the growing pervasiveness of satellite technology to pick up highlights rarely seen elsewhere on broadcast TV let alone cable. I'd dare say that even the awesome ESPN SportsCenter owes him a tip of the hat for paving the way. Michael, who was among other things a well-known top 40 deejay, weekend sports anchor, color commentator for the NHL New York Islanders, and a nationally known collector of baseball cards and early baseball photographs, died at age 70 after a two-year battle with cancer. Although he shut down The Sports Machine in March 2007, he's still fondly remembered by friends at NHRA for his appreciation of our sport.

Stupid fact department: Drag racing fans are, by definition, numbers freaks, but in case you weren't paying attention, Saturday was Jan. 2, 2010, which when written in U.S. notation is 01-02-2010, which is a numeric palindrome. (Palindrome being a word or phrase that reads the same forward and backward such as "radar" and "a Toyota.")

We're apparently living in rare times. Between A.D. 1000 and 2000, there were only 43 palindrome dates -- the most recent on Aug. 31, 1380 (08-31-1380) – but there will be 12 this century. The last such numeric date palindrome was Oct. 21, 2001 (10-02-2001), but you won’t have to wait eight-plus years (let alone 629) for the next one, which will occur on the second day of November next year (11-02-2011). After that, you’re going to have to wait a long time -- until roughly the 2020 Winternationals Feb. 2, 2020 (02-02-2020) – for the next one. The last one for the century will be Sept. 2, 2090 (or 09-02-2090), though I doubt many of us will be around to celebrate it.

Well, maybe "the Greek" will be.

 

Although there definitely was some general unhappiness, I was pleasantly surprised by the number of you who said that putting the original Insider format into National DRAGSTER was enough to convince you to subscribe to the magazine, and I think that once you get it in your hands, you'll be pleased with more than just that content. Again, thanks for your understanding and suggestions – one of which was to post the printed ND columns in the members-only area so that you could have the convenience of also following the column on the Web, which just might happen – and keep the ideas and good vibes coming.

Couple of quick items for you. Voting for the Most Memorable Winternationals Moment concluded when 2009 did, and the results are now final. We will begin unveiling them, in reverse order, on NHRA.com next Monday, five at a time leading up to the announcement of the top five during race week and the unveiling of the top moment during Sunday's pre-race ceremony.

Watching the voting throughout December, it was interesting to see a couple of surprise entries reach the top five, only to fall out. There were so many amazing moments to vote for that it's a shame that some of what I consider iconic moments from back in the day didn't even make the top 10 while some newer highlights did.

I think that some of you may be surprised. OK, I've probably already said too much. You'll have to wait for the first of the unveilings a week from today.

Speaking of memorable moments, Mopar released its top 10 moments of the 2000s, and I was thrilled to see drag racing not only included but dominant, with five of the top moments coming from the NHRA world. Gary Scelzi's 2005 NHRA Funny Car world championship – the first for a Dodge-bodied flopper since Frank Hawley's 1983 crown in the vaunted Chi-Town Hustler, was the top moment. Scelzi's win in the Don Schumacher Racing/Mopar Stratus ended John Force Racing's 12-year grip on the Funny Car throne.

Pro Stock racer Allen Johnson winning the 2007 Mopar Mile-High NHRA Nationals from the No. 1 qualifying spot was voted the No. 6 moment, and Super Stock ace Bucky Hess' victory at the inaugural Mopar Hemi Challenge in 2001 was ranked seventh. The unveiling of the new Dodge Challenger Drag Pak cars by Mopar legends Don Garlits and Judy Lilly at the 2008 Mile-Highs was ranked eighth, and Scelzi's breaking of the 330-mph barrier in his Dodge Stratus Funny Car at the 2004 event in Chicago was listed as ninth.

You can review the entire list, with more detail, here.

One more Winternationals note. I mentioned last week that the famous Howard Cams Twin Bear dual-engine wonder would be among the restored entries of the Golden 50 on display at the 50th Anniversary Kragen O'Reilly NHRA Winternationals and was rewarded by this great photo of the car, with the legendary Jack Chrisman in the cockpit, taken by devout Insider follower Rich Venza.

"I thought you might enjoy a photo I took at Island Dragway of Jack Chrisman getting ready to make a pass in the Howard Cams Twin Bear," he noted. "It must have been '62 or '63 as the plywood had been replaced with a more professional nosepiece."

Venza's plywood reference relates to the photo in my Dec. 29 column below from when the car made its debut with a very low-tech aerodynamic attachment in front of the twin powerplants.

Dennis Friend, who runs the TwoToGo.com Web site that specializes in twin-engine machines from the past, has even more photos of the Bear (as well as the Dragmaster Two Thing) here.
 

Back in April, as part of our annual April Fools' shenanigans on NHRA.com, I wrote a column here called "The Insider … out," reporting that I was closing up the Insider because I was bored to tears with living in drag racing's past. No one who knew me really fell for it, which is a good thing, but today's start of a new year also marks a bit of a new era for the DRAGSTER Insider, and I hope you'll bear with me as I chart this column's future path.

First off – no, the column is not ending, but, yes, there are going to have to be some changes around here.

Over the last two-plus years, this column has come to mean a lot to me, as it has to many of you. It started out with quite a different mission – more like a blog about what was going on behind the scenes to produce National DRAGSTER --- and evolved into what it is today, mostly a fond look back at our history and a great community effort to not only keep the past alive by retelling stories told many times, but also to take a fresh new look at these stories with the type of introspection that sometimes only can be possible years after the fact. The tagline on this column used to be "The stories behind the stories," which I rather liked. I didn't want to just regurgitate the sport's past, but rather put a fresh spin on it through research and interviews and through the generous donations of memories and photos from the readers of this column.

Judging from your e-mails that come in every week, profusely thanking me for this gatekeeper role, I've accomplished that goal. I hear regularly from fans from the '60s and '70s thrilled to see some of the cars they used to root for, and I'm also quite pleased that a literal Who's Who of our sport – including heroes from the past and present – regularly follows the column. I never knew it would have such legs or create such a buzz, and my old pal Todd Veney, not one to heap praise or hyperbole, even went so far as to say something along the lines that this column would be my legacy in the sport, even more so than my decades at the helm of National DRAGSTER. That's all very flattering, but …

The column has become a bit of a victim of its own success. So many of you have written to my bosses or otherwise expressed your gratitude to them for a job well done and a column much enjoyed that I began to get asked the question, "If this column is so good, why are we giving it away for free?"

OK, don't panic yet. Deep breaths. It's going to be OK. Before you get all riled up at big, bad NHRA for messing with another of the things you love, take a moment to understand the motives.

It's no secret that print publications have taken it on the chin the last couple of years. Driven not only by the loss of advertising revenue as companies tighten their belts to get through the recession but also by spiraling costs for paper and ever-rising postage fees, approximately 450 titles ceased publication in 2009, according to online magazine database MediaFinder.com. Though that number is down from 2008's losses, it's still very troubling, especially when you look at some of the household names that have gone belly up this year: 68-year-old Gourmet magazine, 58-year-old Home, 27-year-old PC Magazine, and niche mainstays like Vibe and even Playgirl. Teen magazine, once read by every Shaun Cassidy-smitten girl in the 1970s, folded last year after 54 years of covering teenybopper heartthrobs. Even Editor & Publisher magazine, the authoritative tome that has covered the world of publications for more than a century, folded last month. The number of daily newspapers that has shuttered also sends a dismal message.

Certainly, that bleak scenario is cause for concern for anyone with a print publication, National DRAGSTER included. Although the cost of a membership brings you much more than just National DRAGSTER 48 times a year – you also get the live audiocast, live timing, insurance, and other goodies – we're continually looking for ways to make the actual publication portion of the package more valuable. I've discussed here several times our 2010 ambitions to make ND bigger and better (and readers already have seen and saluted some of the changes), and now part of that plan includes taking this column into print.

I'm not stupid or naïve or big-headed enough to think that this column is soooo good that people will plunk down their credit cards just to continue reading it, but the hope is that it adds enough additional benefit to an already great package that it'll push those fence-straddlers over the hump.

Even though your $69 membership doesn't come close to covering the costs of producing and mailing you 48 issues (the balance is made up through advertising), we all realize that $69 a year is a lot of money to some people. Heck, it's a lot of money to me. I picture a guy arguing with his wife at the dinner table while they sort through the bills, trying to figure out how they're going to get through the rest of the month, and him trying to convince her that it's less than $1.50 per issue, plus look at all the goodies. I think we all realize that, at some point, someone has to get out the checkbook or the credit card and commit to a membership, and that can be temporarily painful. Our goal is to make it a short-term loss, long-term gain, and if adding this column to our new efforts helps convince people to sign up, it's something we need to do.

(I'm not going to go into full-sell mode here, but if you used to subscribe to ND but gave it up for one reason or another or just have never gotten around to signing up, now's the time. It's going to have a fresh new look and more additions. We have some new columnists to complement last year's popular guest writers, more color, and pretty much more of everything.)

Worried yet? Don't be.

A rational person might just fold up shop here and go exclusively into print. After all, I've been writing this column twice a week now for a couple of years (it started out as three times a week ... what was I thinking?), and the sheer magnitude of some of the research is a huge time eater, so why not take the easy road and have to write just one column a week for DRAGSTER?

I can’t do that. I tried, believe me. Well, I thought about it, for sure. But when I go back and read some of the incredible e-mails I have received, I just can't turn my back on a loyal and supportive bunch like y'all. So I'm going to be brainstorming about how two columns can coexist and not rob from one another. I won't lie to you: The really, really good stuff – the in-depth features, personality profiles, history lessons, remainder of the Misc. Files, etc. – is going into ND. I owe that to the newspaper that has supported me and kept my cupboard stocked with more than Pop-Tarts and Diet Coke for more than 25 years.

I know that many of you eagerly await new columns each Tuesday and Friday, and I thank you for that diligence and attention; I certainly want to continue giving you a reason to come here. I want to hear from all of you about what you’d like to read here, keeping in mind the kind of limitations I've already laid out.

What I'll probably end up doing is more of a notebook-style blog, probably updated more often than this column, with various odds and ends that will interest you, most with a nostalgic spin. This actually will be helpful to me because, after losing two of my writers in our recent staff reductions, I'm probably going to be doing a lot more traveling in 2010, and putting together columns on the road is tough without full access to our photo libraries. Plus, I get an awful lot of little tidbits along the way that I'd like to share without having to create a whole column around them, so this new format will help.

I'm still twirling the ideas around in my head, but it might be a tease of what's appearing that week in the print version, maybe videos, links to interesting stories, and correspondence of different kinds from you all. A few readers have asked for more stuff about how DRAGSTER is put together each week or who I've been chatting with, so I'll probably do that kind of thing, too. I think I will keep the Fan Fotos feature going here, which should help any of you going through withdrawals for photos of vintage iron from back in the day, and other interesting contributions from the Insider Nation.

I think it’s a good plan and a decent compromise, and I hope you agree. Again, your feedback, which has helped make this column what it has become, is most welcome and, heck, very much expected.
 

Me, I'm a bit of a workaholic, so unless there's an auto race or a hockey game on TV, I'd rather spend the quiet days in the office trying to catch up and getting prepared for 2010.

I'm actually quite proud of myself because, for the first time since I can remember, I took a trip without my laptop, driving up the California coast to see my parents and my sister and her family, meeting up with them in scenic Morro Bay in the shadow of the enormous rock that is its signature. (Well, it's not actually a rock; it's 581-foot tall volcanic plug and one of the "Nine Sisters of San Luis Obispo County," a series of ancient volcanic plugs that line the Los Osos Valley between oceanside Morro Bay and inland San Luis Obispo. Cruising down Highway 1, I sighted several of the other sisters, curious huge rock heaps jutting from the landscape, but didn’t connect them with their more-famous, most westerly, and waterbound sibling until later.)

Anyway, in the spirit of holiday giving, I vowed to devote this time solely to the family. The folks are getting up there in age and you just never know when you might lose them, so I went without a net, hopin' and a-wishin' that no major news broke in the span of those two days (not that I didn't stealthily scout out the nearest cyber café upon arrival, just in case). I returned home Sunday night, checked the email and saw that the drag racing world didn't miss me ... not even a Wilber blog waiting in my Inbox. (I was extremely glad that pre-Christmas rumors of Tom Hoover's passing proved untrue, though the veteran Funny Car driver did lose his brother and, just this morning, we lost Jim "Happy" Harrington, just three days shy of his 49th birthday. Bummer way to end the year.)

The week before Christmas was crazy busy with a number of projects. Job One for all of us has been whipping the new-look National DRAGSTER into shape for its 2010 rebirth, complete with new graphics, columns, and sky-high expectations. I've written so much about our plans and hopes that I'm thrilled to be seeing it all finally taking shape. In addition to that, we finished up production of the 50th Winternationals Web site, which will launch Jan. 4, and I did a fun interview with Joe Castello for his WFO Radio show (you can listen to it here; be patient while it loads) on Tuesday as part of his regular NHRA Tuesday programming. Joe was the longtime host of PowerShift on XM Radio and has a regular lineup of quality guests on his show. Although he covers all forms of motorsports, he's a big NHRA fan, and it's obvious when you listen to the interview that he knows his stuff.

The highlight of the week clearly was the unveiling of the Golden 50 lineup for next year's 50th anniversary Kragen O'Reilly NHRA Winternationals, a list of awesome historic hot rods that quickly has exceeded the target number of 50. Steve Gibbs deserves a huge hand for helping coordinate what's going to be the all-time greatest drag racing car show. "Big Hook" and myself are part of a six-man "steering committee" for the golden anniversary race – along with Vice President-National Event Marketing Glen "Hat Trick" Cromwell, Director of Advertising & Promotions John "Hook 'em Horns" Pesetski, Director of Broadcasting & Video Communications "Corvette Jim" Trace, and Director of Public Relations Michael "Facebook" Padian – who have worked diligently the past six months to shape the event, which will include the Legends Dinner, also announced recently on NHRA.com. And, hey, don't forget: Voting for the Most Memorable winternationals Moments ends when 2009 does, so, if you haven't already, VOTE NOW.

The "Golden Fifty – Plus" list includes some of the great machines from Winternationals history including Don Garlits' Swamp Rat 5, his innovative winged dragster that won the 1963 event (his first NHRA win), the fabulous twin-engined Freight Train gas dragster, and the Kohler Bros.' King Kong AA/Gas Supercharged Anglia sedan, which Gibbs, in his notes, calls "one of the most recognized supercharged cars of the late 1960s." Ed Kohler drove the car to a Super Eliminator win at the 1967 Winternationals and it's a true find. The car was lost for years, and when found had been converted to a street rod. Carlos and Mary Cedeno, of Lockport, N.Y., had the car fully restored and Kohler, who now lives in Newberry, S.C., will be reunited with the car in Pomona.

Of course that decade's other legendary gasser, the Stone, Woods & Cook BB/GS Willys that the Insider Nation crowned as “Favorite Race Car Ever” back in September 2008 will be there as well. The late Doug Cook drove the car to Middle Eliminator honors at the 1963 Winternationals, and Gibbs reports that, "like the King Kong gasser, the car was converted to a street machine for many years, before being discovered by owners Joe Troilo and Mike Wale. It has been faithfully and fully restored to its original race condition. All of the original team principals are now deceased, however Doug Cook’s son. Mike, and Tim Woods’ son. Lenny, will be in attendance. Owners Troilo and Wale are bringing the car to Pomona from their Chicago, Ill., base."

It wouldn't be the Winternationals without the famed Dragmaster Dart AA/D and Dragmaster Two Thing AA/D, a pair of revolutionary machines in their own right. The Dragmaster Dart, which for years gtreeted me in the lobby of NHRA headquarters in North Hollywood as I came to work each day, won the 1962 Winternationals and was the first car to be donated to the Wally Parks NHRA Motorsports museum. Driver Jim Nelson. who also served as one of NHRA’s original technical directors during the formative Safety Safari events of the late 1950s, and partner Dode Martin will be in attendance. The dynamic duo built hundreds of their “production line” Dragmaster chassis at the Carlsbad, Calif., shop, just about an hour south of Pomona.

Hugh Tucker's Ventura Motors AA/Street Roadster also holds a wonderful place in Winternationals lore as the supercharged roadster won Little Eliminator at the 1962 event, Junior Eliminator at the 1963 race, and Super Eliminator at the 1966 event; in fact, Tucker was never defeated in individual class competition, according to Gibbs. This car also was “lost” for many years, but has been fully restored to its original glory by Tucker and his son, Hugh, Jr., both of whom will travel from Hansville, Wash., to bring the car back to its famous stomping grounds.

Winternationals fans can also see some of Funny Car's earliest machines in Bruce Larson's USA–1  Chevelle, the 1969 "Jungle Jim" Liberman Nova, and the factory Dodge Charger formerly driven by the late Jimmy Nix. Larson's car, which is now owned by the Don Garlits Museum of Drag Racing, was the first all-fiberglass Funny Car to appear in NHRA national event competition, even before there was an official Funny Car class (the car ran in the B/XS class). Larson will be on hand with the car in Pomona. The Liberman car, now owned by Dave and Sally Bany, of Wilsonville, Wash., was driven to victory at the 1969 event by Clare Sanders, who also will be in Pomona. The Charger, which was built as a Chrysler “factory” project by the aforementioned Dragmaster Company, was one of the first supercharged, full-bodied, late -model drag racing vehicles. Although the car never used nitromethane as a fuel, it truly was forerunner to today’s Funny Cars, The car is currently owned by Frank Spittle.

Another great piece of restoration magic will be unveiled with the debut of the Howard Cams Twin Bear twin-engined AA/Gas Dragster. Again, according to Gibbs' notes, the car was one of the most dominant machines during the NHRA fuel ban years and was driven by the late Jack Chrisman (who won the inaugural Pomona Winternationals Top Eliminator title in another car), "The Twin Bear went through many changes before being destroyed in 1968. Many of the original components are still in use."

Fuel Altered fans will get their socks knocked off by a quartet of Awful-Awfuls as "the big four” -- Pure Hell, Pure Heaven, the Winged Express, and the Mondello and Matsubara Fiat -- which campaigned on several national tours and raced at NHRA national events -- will all be on display together at the event.

According to the countdown clock on the NHRA.com home page, it's only about 43 days – six weeks – until the Winternationals rocks us into the 2010 season but National DRAGSTER 2010 begins production in less than a week. I've been trying to get as far ahead as I can because a week from Thursday I'll be headed to Lake Placid, N.Y., as a guest of JEGS to attend the the fifth annual Lucas Oil Geoff Bodine Bobsled Challenge. Jeg Coughlin, Morgan Lucas, Shawn Langdon, Tommy Johnson Jr., and Melanie Troxel will be representing the NHRA against NASCAR in this great and worthwhile even that benefits the Team USA Olympic bobsledding efforts.

The plan calls for a flight to Columbus Thursday with an overnight stay with the Coughlin clan, then off to chilly Lake Placid early the next morning for a full weekend of action. Hopefully we'll be avoiding any great blizzards, but I'll be all geared up for the cold anyway. I'm sure these northerners will have a good laugh at the California boy freezing his butt off.

And, yes, I'll have my laptop.
 

In the spirit of the season, I worked with National DRAGSTER staff to create the list below (which also appears in ND's year-end issue, in my Staging Light column), which represents our Christmas wish list for certain NHRA racers and for the community as a whole.

I'd like to hear your suggestion as well, and I'll print the best ones in a future column. Have at it, and Merry Christmas!

Dear Santa,

Hi, it’s Phil Burgess (again, still waiting on that Hot Wheels collection from my 1967 list — any hope?). How are you? I hope your off-season was great and you spent some quality time with Mrs. Claus hot rodding around in your supercharged sleigh. Our off-season is just beginning while your busy time ramps up, so I thought this would be a good time to send you our Christmas list of wishes for 2010.

You don’t have to worry about fulfilling all of our wishes at once — dropping them under our trees on Christmas Eve wouldn’t make much sense for most of them — so, hey, no pressure.

My brothers and sisters and me here at National DRAGSTER have been extra good this year. We wrote all kinds of really interesting stories and didn’t tell any lies. We treated every winner — and even those who didn’t win — as if they were the most special person in the whole world. We were respectful of our elders (and bosses), played nice with others, and filled every single page of every single issue and were never late. We didn’t even whine or complain (well, not much anyway) while sitting through hours of rain.

Anyways, I asked the staff for their lists and compiled them for you.

A double for Dan?

A double for Dan Fletcher: C’mon, Santa, give the guy a break. He’s one of the all-time NHRA Lucas Oil racers and won just about everything under the sun, yet in seven chances where he has made it to two finals at the same event, you’ve been a little Grinchlike in denying him a double. Pretty please.

A robust economy: I can’t tell you how many problems this would fix (including helping you out on a few of the items below), but we’re tired of hearing how good friends of ours have lost their jobs or took pay cuts or how worthy racers can’t get a sponsor, and, frankly, we’re a little tired of eating two-for-99-cents Jack In the Box tacos for lunch every day.

Good weather: I think you poured it on a little too much this last year, boss man. I mean, we’re all for the greenification of the world, but we’re getting tired of those Next Heavy Rain Area acronym jokes. Let’s start with the sun shining in Pomona, OK?

A championship decided by a single point: OK, we don’t mean to sound greedy after both Top Fuel and Pro Stock Motorcycle titles were won by two points, but after that double dose of dual-digit deciders, how the heck are we gonna top that? I think you get the point, and we hope we do, too.

While we’re at it: Three points each for Larry Dixon and Eddie Krawiec — hey, better late than never.

And furthermore: Greg Stanfield would like the thousandth of a second he needed to win the Indy Pro Stock final — with interest.

Where there's a Will ...

The return of some old pals: Man, we really miss Hillary Will, David Grubnic, “Hot Rod” Fuller, J.R. Todd, Melanie Troxel, Doug Herbert, Whit Bazemore, and a bunch of others. While you’re at it, coax Gary Scelzi out of retirement. Whaddaya say, Santa, a big reunion anytime soon?

More first-time winners: You were very generous in this category in 2009, helping place Wallys into the hands of Krawiec, Morgan Lucas, Spencer Massey, Bob Tasca III, and Mike Neff. Here are a few who seem overdue and/or deserving: Bob Vandergriff Jr. (c’mon, 12 runner-ups? Give “BeeVeeGee” a break!), Shawn Langdon, Joe Hartley, Matt Hagan, Doug Horne, Rickie Jones, Rodger Brogdon, and Junior Pippin.

A national event win — in his own car — for Gary Densham: Densham won eight races in four seasons driving for John Force Racing but has never won one in his own car in 330 races since making his Funny Car debut at the 1971 World Finals in Ontario, Calif. He has reached seven finals in his own iron but never the winner’s circle.

A new season champ in Top Fuel: OK, nothing against Tony Schumacher, but we think it’s time he shares the wealth a little. Last thing we want to see are “Schumacher Buster” T-shirts. He can win it again in 2011.

Next champ?

Ashley Force Hood, Funny Car champ: We love Robert Hight as much as wife Adria, but can you imagine the public-relations windfall for AFH and NHRA — and by that I mean, the entire NHRA nation — if she were our season champ? And, hey, it ain’t like she isn’t deserving, right?

A sponsor for “the Snake”: As we close the publishing season, Don Prudhomme’s handlers tell us he’s still beating the bushes for a 2010 backer. “The Snake” hasn’t sat out a season since 1986, and we don’t see any reason why he should again.

A get-well season for John Force: After being shut out of the winner’s circle for the first time in 22 seasons, drag racing’s Superman deserves better. He still has laps in life to make before he hangs ’em up. If you’re feeling real generous, another championship might be nice. (PS: If you can’t swing the championship, Force says he would like to ask for a new Top Alcohol Funny Car champion next year. Frank Manzo’s 13 titles are just one shy of his own record.)

A Stock class win for Don Garlits: I think we were almost as disappointed as “Big Daddy” was when his Mac Tools U.S. Nationals comeback in Stock ended with a DNQ.

For Pro Stock’s Allen Johnson, more races in Denver: He won two of the last three years on the mountain and was runner-up the other.

Looking for a home

Some stability for Antron Brown: You gotta feel for “the brothaman.” He was shuffled around in 2009 like grandma’s nasty fruitcake. From David Powers to Mike Ashley and finally to Don Schumacher, A.B. had more owners than a shelter-rescue puppy.

A Christmas Tree with no red lights for Karen Stoffer: The hard-charging GEICO rider was felled by six foul starts this season, the third straight season in which she has had a half-dozen or more red-lights. Here’s hoping for more gecko-colored bulbs in 2010.

Another great rookie of the year battle: Other than Pro Stock newcomer Shane Gray and perhaps Daniel Wilkerson, we’re not sure who’s going to make up next year’s freshman class, but if 2010’s race is even half as good as this year’s, we’ll be happy.

More four-lane racing: This year’s dual-fuel exhibition at zMax Dragway — four Top Fuelers and four Funny Cars, going off side by side — had to be seen to be believed, and here’s hoping for more of the same in 2010 so more fans can enjoy the rare treat.
 
Okay, kids, that's it. Hope you're enjoying your holidays and already working towards being on Santa's "nice" list for next year. Remember to send me your gift suggestions for those in our sport.
 

If you've read drag racing magazines for any amount of time, the name Cliff Morgan should be familiar to you as a regular contributor to various "letters to the editor" columns, including in National DRAGSTER. A drag racing fan since the early 1960s, he has a very deep and wide knowledge of the sport that he's quick to share, and he has been a regular correspondent to me since I began this column, so it was only natural that he'd want to participate in our Fan Fotos features.

Born in 1946, Morgan attended his first drag race in his teens, in 1961 at San Fernando Raceway, and went to Lions and once to the old San Gabriel drags before it closed.

After serving in the Air Force from 1964 to 1968, he became a regular at Lions, Fernando, and Orange County Int’l Raceway, which then was fairly new.

"So many memories, and I saw so much history," he said. "Don Garlits, my hero and favorite driver. I saw the accident that cut off part of his foot. I thought he'd been killed. A year later, he came out with the "back motor" car, and it ran straight. I saw Garlits at Ontario when he ran that 5.63/250. I moved to Arizona in 1981 and got to see the last AHRA Winternationals at the old Tucson Dragway; also the last AA/FA Nationals there. I started going to Firebird when it opened. I remember being so happy to see Firebird when it was new; it reminded me a lot of OCIR. I like Firebird a lot and also Speedworld [Dragstrip], the other track in Phoenix. It was built in 1963 and reminds me a lot of 'the old daze.' I have so many memories of the drags. Next to the Lord, it's my greatest passion. I've really been blessed to see so much history in the making."

Morgan sent me an envelope packed with his original photos with nice captions on the back of each to get me pointed in the right direction. "I didn't know what to send, so I tried to send something maybe a bit out of the ordinary," he cautioned. "I'm gonna send way too many photos, so you are gonna have to decide what you wanna show."

His caveat definitely rang true when I sorted through the images and made up my final 10. I've mostly gone away from the tried and true photos of cars on the track to show some of the neat stuff that Morgan found in the pits as well. For me, shooting interesting things in the pits can be as challenging as shooting cars at speed, and Morgan had a nice knack to capture some cool images. What's even cooler to me (and I think to Morgan when he sees them here) is that by scanning the images and cleaning them up a little, I was able to reproduce them here at sometimes double their printed size to show more detail. Here they come …

Morgan points out how cool the pits were back then: "Everything done in the open ... no 18-wheelers, etc." You could pretty much walk around three sides of a car being worked on (the trailer representing the fourth side); unlike today, when you mostly get to see the cars from behind.

"I wonder how old those two boys are now," mused Morgan of the pic he took more than 35 years ago. "Late 40s?"

 
Garlits henchman Connie Swingle built the frame, over which was cloaked a super-sexy fiberglass body by regarded aero wizard Robert "Jocko" Johnson, and "Big Daddy" had hopes of 250 and (gasp!) perhaps even 275-mph speeds — not bad considering that the best speed to that date was (dismissing some scoffed-at 246- and 247-mph time slips Garlits was given in Gary, Ind., in July) 243.90 by "Big" himself in Gainesville in 1972.

According to Garlits, "Butch Maas drove the beast to 180 mph, far off the highly touted 275 mph! We brought the car home and tested the next time at Lakeland [Dragstrip] outside of Tampa, and Don 'Mad Dog' Cook was at the controls. Still no real good runs. I then decided to drive the car myself, and to my surprise, at about 180 mph, the motor revved up and I lifted. We returned to the pits to find nothing was wrong! What had happened was that at about 180 mph, the whole car became airborne, and as the rear wheels cleared the pavement, the engine would rev up. I pulled the plug on the project."

Garlits later sold the car to rocket-car racers Russell Mendez and Ramon Alvarez, and Garlits bought it back from Alvarez after Mendez was killed during an exhibition run at the Gatornationals in a different car, their wheel-pants-equipped Free Spirit rocket dragster.

Okay, that's it for the Tuesday before Christmas. I'll have a column Friday (my gift to you!), even though it is Christmas Day, which is going to be a humorous look at National DRAGSTER's Xmas list for our racers, which I originally wrote for the Staging Light column of our final 2009 issue. OK, so I'm a regifter, but I thought I’d share with you guys and ask for your suggestions.

Til then …

Longevity in any field of work is a dual-edged sword. On the positive, the longer you’re around, the more people you meet, and the friendships you make can last a lifetime. The downside is that the more people you meet, your odds of losing one of them skyrockets. The friendship may last a lifetime, but, unfortunately, lifetimes don't last.

When the e-mail appeared in my Inbox late Tuesday, the sender and the subject line shared a common last name, which is never a good sign. Trust me on this. The sender was Jamie Woosley, and the subject was Don Woosley.

I didn't want to open it, but eventually I did and learned that we'd lost "the Wooz" the day before, in his sleep, at age 63. Sad doesn't begin to explain my feeling.

Why should you care? Some of you may not even know or remember the name, but Don Woosley was damned good behind the wheel of the Ale-8-One Top Alcohol Dragster that he campaigned with partners Bill Sharp and Bill Reynolds. They won the 1983 Top Alcohol Dragster world championship, 10 national event Wallys, and seven Division 3 championships. Woosley's battles with the late Al DaPozzo (whom he always called "Albert," much in the same way that Shirley Muldowney calls Don Garlits "Donald") were legendary, including their to-the-wire title battle in 1982.

Woosley was one of the first people I met on the job here in 1982, and he quickly became one of my favorite people. He was easy to talk to, respectful of my job and needs, and, of course, he was a riot, a bearded lunatic with John Force-like material, though proffered with a Southern drawl and even delivery. In fact, one of my most favorite interviews of all time was with Woosley, back in 1986, just before the SPORTSnationals. I called it "Just a TAD crazy" (TAD, of course, being shorthand for Top Alcohol Dragster), and it included comments that still make me laugh.

Although he had won earlier in his career, this is the car that made Don Woosley famous, the Woosley, Sharp, & Reynolds Ale-8-One Special.

Typical of their good-natured rivalry, Al DaPozzo put an exclamation point on his victory over Woosley in the final round of the 1982 Finals.

Partners Bill Sharp, center, and Bill Reynolds readied "the Wooz" for another pass.

This is July 3, 1974, at Beech Bend, where Woosley drove the Woosley & Sharp A/Fuel Dragster to Pro Comp honors over Don Gerardot.

At the 1975 Springnationals in a car called Magic Show. (There's probably a really great story behind that name!)

The first car I could find with Bill Reynolds' name on it, from the 1977 Cajun Nationals.

From 1986, ND Ad Sales czar John Mazzarella causing "the Wooz" some grief.

Because he grew up in horse country in Kentucky, I asked Woosley, who was probably short enough to be a jockey, if he had ever considered a different kind of horsepower than methanol-brewed. In Force-like fashion, the answer quickly dissolved into a story.

"I don’t even like horses," he told me. "I got bit by one once, but he paid. He was a real nice horse. I always used to walk through the field where he was. One day, I just walked by him, and he bit me on the shoulder. The next day, I walked through the same field, I had a croquet mallet in my hand and whacked him and brought him to his knees. Hit him right between the eyes."

The typed word doesn't do justice to the way he told the story, but I always remembered it (over the years, somehow in my mind, I had bent the story so that he had actually clobbered famed thoroughbred Secretariat, who, it turns out, was boarded nearby but was out of mallet range, apparently). I also never forgot something that he said later in our interview, which has stuck with me through all these years, especially when I climb into a car to race someone.

He was assessing his competition; after singling out DaPozzo, Bill Walsh, and "that kid on the West Coast; what's his name? Sleezy?" (he was serious; he meant Gary Scelzi, who had just won the Winternationals) as drivers with "the killer instinct," he said, "You can tell the guys who don’t have the instinct – like when someone comes up [before a race] and wishes you good luck. … Isn't that the stupidest thing I've heard in my life? I've never wished anybody [I race] good luck. I wish 'em a safe trip and all that, but I'm sure as hell not gonna wish 'em luck if they're racing me.

"I can sit around and joke with Walsh and DaPozzo in the staging lanes before the race, but when that helmet goes on, it's war. I wanna kill 'em. They're the enemy, and it's my job to beat the guy next to me."

Long before the Woosley, Sharp & Reynolds dragster was sponsored by regional ginger-ale-type soft drink Ale-8-One ("People around here drink it for breakfast," mused 'Wooz.' "Can you believe that? I could see drinking a good cold beer for breakfast and pouring it on your corn flakes ... but Ale-8?") and became a terror on the track, the trio was tearing up the track in Division 3 with a fuel-injected front-engine dragster.

Woosley first partnered with Sharp, who had been building an Anglia with his brother, who got hurt in a racing accident. Sharp took his engine and put it into an old dragster chassis that Woosley had acquired in trade for a '64 GTO (not a great trade, IMO, especially because "it didn't do much," according to Woosley).

They later got an ex-Top Gas Don Tuttle chassis and later a front-engine Stebbins chassis that became the Magic Show injected fuel dragster with which Woosley won his first Wally at the 1975 SPORTSnationals. I'm not exactly sure when Reynolds joined the duo, but with Sharp building the engines, Reynolds tuning and working the clutch, and Woosley behind the wheel, they were tough to beat, as their seven Division 3 championships attest.

Division 3 Director Jay Hullinger told me that he had been planning to invite Woosley to this year's division banquet so that he could be honored with the other seven-time Division 3 champions, who include Danny Townsend, Jerry Arnold, and, now, Bill Reichert. Hullinger also noted, with a grin, that Woosley's online obituary noted that he was "an avid cat fisherman." And I thought he was just mean to horses.

I texted ND Senior Editor Kevin McKenna after I'd gotten the news from Woosley's nephew, and K-Mac's response was perfect: "I'm sure he's already played a practical joke on DaPozzo." I bet.

On a closing note, I remember that my tape recorder malfunctioned during that 1986 interview, so I had to call Woosley back at his Winchester, Ky., service station and finish the interview again, for which I apologized profusely.

"Yeah, I know how that is with technical stuff," he sympathized and added self-deprecatingly, "I'm in the same position myself when I try to drive home. Y'know, you've got Park and Drive and keys and all that stuff."

I wasn't sure if he was joking, and then he launched into a rambling, Force-like monologue.

"You wasn't bothering me anyway; I wasn't doing a thing. I was sitting here looking at this Chevelle sitting out front. It's a 454. Guy brought it down here to the garage and thought it had a rod knock, but it was just a rocker arm. I don’t want to give it back to him. I'll take it out and get picked up by the police. It's been a long time since I've sat in something you could walk into the four-barrel and the sumbitch would just jump sideways. You can’t get that now. This one here'll do it. I like it. I think I'll drive around and terrorize the neighbors.

"Y'all have a good day. See ya at the Sports[nationals]. Now make that article good, or I'll have to run you out of Kentucky."

A funny ending for a funny guy, and one of my all-time favorite racers. Godspeed, "Wooz."

All of the NHRA executives, from President Tom Compton on down, got into the groove with funky outfits, which for Compton included a bushy wig. It was quite the riot to watch him speaking to the assembled staff and trying to keep a straight face, especially during photos for the annual presentation of service awards marking five-, 10-, 15-, 20-, and 25-year anniversaries with the company. National DRAGSTER Photo Editor Teresa Long was one of the 25-year employees, along with Competition czar Graham Light; my senior editors, Kevin McKenna and Steve Waldron, were saluted for 20 years, and our own Jeff and Robyn Morton won the costume contest. There were Name That Tune contests, some funny skits (with Dana Mariotti, Kieth Burley, and Evan Jonat of the Marketing Department dressed as and lip-synching to The Beatles, The Jacksons, The Supremes (!), and The Isley Brothers (for a raucous version of "Shout!"). It was a great holiday send-off for what has been a tough season. Sorry, no photos. I like my job.

Speaking of Christmas (nice segue, eh?), I told you I'd let you know when our new book, Wild Rides II, was out, and it is and available for holiday purchasing on Amazon.com. Here's the link. The Amazon setup allows you to look at the first few pages for a sample of what's inside. I didn't plan it this way (I swear!), but two of the three crash 'n' burn pics it shows are mine: John Force's top-end fire in Montreal in 1991 and Nick Nikolis' crazy top-end Pro Stock crash in Gainesville in 1986. I had a lot of fun researching and writing the captions for the book, and Jeff Mellem of our Production Department did a great job laying it out. It's a pretty cool little book, and with its horizontal format, a great stocking stuffer. While you’re shopping there, you can also check out the other books we've produced in the last year, which include the first Wild Rides, our popular History of NHRA Pro Stock, and a Wally Parks biography, and soon we'll have our History of the NHRA Winternationals book online.

Speaking of history, I heard from your friend and mine, Tom "the Mongoose" McEwen, who called to exchange holiday pleasantries and to ask me to mention his new book, Mongoose, The Life and Times of Tom McEwen. He dropped me a copy in the mail (autographed!), and it's an interesting piece. Basically, it's a compilation of all of the "Mongoose Journals" columns he has run in Drag Racer magazine in the last few years.

I haven’t had a chance to go through it yet, but I have enjoyed the columns, which are written in first person for McEwen by longtime cohort Pete Ward. Although presented in chronological order, the book isn’t a McEwen bio per se, as it's told in chapters that are vignettes of his life, and each originally was published as a column in the magazine, but the sum still is greater than its parts. You can order it from Amazon, too, or, if you’re local to SoCal, you can pick it up at McEwen's favorite non-racing haunt, Prestige Hobbies, in Anaheim.

"Snake" and "Mongoose" fans also probably will be interested in Tom Madigan's new hardcover, Snake vs. Mongoose: How a Rivalry Changed Drag Racing Forever, another book that I just received in the mail and have not yet had the breathing room to sit down and peruse, but I'm looking forward to it.

Perhaps the biggest ink that either has received lately, though, is the video at right, which was presented on Jay Leno's Garage Web site. It's a great nine-plus-minute segment with Leno and "the Snake" that focuses on the Hot Wheels Barracuda. Prudhomme reminisces about the car and takes viewers on a guided tour of its features. It's a cool bench-racing session between the two icons and shows that Leno knows his way around a race car (we’ll excuse him for saying they were going to open the car's "hood").

You can check out the embedded version here at right (which includes an ad  ... sorry) or visit the real site for a larger video. Pretty cool stuff.

The wildlife duo also are featured in a 20-questions feature in issue 20 of Garage magazine, which is published quarterly by car and cycle customizer to the stars Jesse James. It's a nice eight-page feature with some really quality questions ("Who sold more Hot Wheels?") and some nice photos.

"The Snake" and wife Lynn also get the Christmas Card Holeshot Award this year as being the first to hit my mail slot this season with their jolly, jingly, and cheery greeting. Also, here's the first Christmas tree (non-racetrack division) sighting of the year, courtesy of Toni Yates.

Feeling all Christmasy yet?
 

National DRAGSTER issue No. 48 for 2009 left the office last night, zipping through cyberspace to Conley Publishing in beautiful downtown Beaver Dam, Wis., where they'll print it up all pretty and get it in the mail to y'all. It's our annual year-end wrap-up, featuring Top 10 Stories, "Best of" awards, Quips & Quotes, The Year in Photos, and much, much more.

For those of you keeping score, it's issue No. 2,349 (an even 2,350 if you count the infamous and seldom-seen or-remembered "Issue 0" promo piece), and for yours truly, it's issue No. 1,324 with my name in the masthead. (Soooo bummed that I didn't get a chance to salute my 1,320th issue in some cool way. Opportunity squandered.) By my figurin', that makes me accountable for 56.36 percent of all NDs ever published. I hope that's a good thing.

The last issue is always a challenge because teams seem to have an impeccable knack of making announcements on the last day of production, forcing us to add, edit, or subtract items from Bits from the Pits to make room for all of the juicy last-minute stuff that otherwise would have to wait out the four-week publishing hiatus. Yeah, good times.

Anyway, we gave the final issue a rousing sendoff with a high-falutin' affair, noshing on caviar and slurping Dom Perignon from fine crystal. OK, so it was pie and apple cider in plastic cups, but it was still cool. The department heads gave their traditional speeches, thanking the team and pointing out how the publication couldn't possibly get out each week without the help of their specific department etc., etc., and we toasted those who sadly left us earlier this year.

It's eerily quiet in Silly Season this year, and I'm not sure if that's a good thing – a sign of stability – or a bad thing, so I've been entertaining myself with other news in the automotive world.

Have you caught a peek at the Bloodhound land-speed record car yet? Wow, that's a sexy piece.

The team behind the beast says it hopes to surpass 1,000 mph in the South African desert in June 2011 to set the land-speed record. The current land-speed record is held by the twin-engine ThrustSSC, which hit 763 mph in 1997 with RAF pilot Andy Green at the controls, becoming the first car to exceed the speed of sound. Richard Noble designed  both cars, and Green has again been tapped to be its pilot.

The $25 million project bypassed traditional wind-tunnel testing in favor of computer modeling that calculated everything down to the thickness of the paint. At 1,000 mph, an extra layer of paint on one side of the car would be enough to alter its direction and could send it into a tailspin.

Powered by three engines -- a Eurofighter Typhoon jet engine, a hybrid rocket engine, and a third engine whose sole responsibility is to pump fuel to the other two – the team expects it will produce more than 135,000 horsepower. Coming from a place where 8,000 horsepower from one engine requires some finesse, I'm kind of skeptical of lofty numbers such as that, but ThrustSSC was said to have made 110,000 horsepower. Somehow, I have a hard time imagining that anything that makes the power of 16 nitro-burning Hemis will stay on the ground.

However, according to experts, the "Jet over Rocket configuration [JoR, in geek speak] works extremely well with the thrust forces from the jet and the rocket balancing either side of the center of gravity [well, they said "centre"], creating less downward force on the front wheels when the rocket is fired."

Estimates are that the car will only accelerate at 1.5 Gs initially (that's all?), with peak acceleration and deceleration in excess of 3 Gs. At full speed, the car will cover a measured mile in less than 3.6 seconds.

There's a pretty cool simulation video of the Bloodhound "racing" a Eurofighter Typhoon that includes a pretty good simulated look at the car and simulated in-car footage. You can read more on the official site, http://www.bloodhoundssc.com/. There's even a cool "video game" that lets you design your own land-speed car. My first attempt didn't result in a record-breaking run even though I had enough thrust; there was some nonsense about my engine not being "safe enough." I think it was driver error. Try your hand. 

 
Here's the headline of the week: "101-Year-Old Man Buys a 426-Horsepower Camaro." This is a pretty cool story; I found it on the N.Y. Times' "Wheels" blog, and I only hope that a) I live that long and b) that I still am able to drive.

Virgil Coffman, who turns 102 in January, bought the new Camaro SS from the Miles Chevrolet dealership near his home in Decatur, Ill., in September and even chose the Transformers special-edition model with black stripes (made up to resemble the Bumblebee character from the movie).

According to the Times, after learning of the purchase, GM flew Coffman, who worked at GM from 1950 until 1973, to Detroit to tour the design studio and its Heritage Center museum.

No feather-footed geriatric, cautious Coffman said: “Once in a while I like to kick it up, but I’m afraid to drive too fast and get a ticket, and then they might take my license away.”

Speaking of someone who should have his license taken away, I'm sure by now that most of you aghast gearheads have at least heard of – if not seen the video of – the lead foot plunging a million-dollar Bugatti Veyron into a saltwater lagoon along Interstate 45 in Texas. It was reported to be one of only 200 made and one of only 15 in the United States.

The fact that someone just happened to be filming the car when it took the plunge is fishy enough – but not out of the realm of possibility; I'd probably whip out the ol' cell-phone camera if I saw one – but I guess it has been uncovered by the local media that the mindless motor man (who says he swerved to avoid a pelican) just happens to own a business that restores wrecked super cars for sale. Coincidence?

I would have embedded the video here, but the reactions of the videotapers includes some NSFW language that I'd hate to create problems for those of you reading at work. You can find it quickly enough on YouTube.
 

OK, this isn’t actually a news story, but if you’re like me and dig cars and love reading the sarcastic wit of The Onion, you'll get a kick out of the editorial "Any Idiot Could Have Come Up With The Car" in which the author pooh-poohs the complexity of car design and mocks those who take credit for its invention.

"When you get down to it, a car is really nothing more than a couple of chairs on wheels—wheels, mind you, being those round things that have been around forever! It was only a matter of time before someone thought to plop a seat down on four of them and roll around in it. Just toss in an internal-combustion motor utilizing a high-octane accelerant to produce kinetic energy to rotate the axle, and whammo! You've got yourself an automobile. It's so simple, it's almost impossible not to invent."

It's hilarious. Check it out here.
 

I'd also like to give a shout-out to the nice site launched by racing buddy Gary Gardella. The former NHRA Sport Compact racer, whose driver, Ryan Tuerck, finished a close second in the Formula Drift national championship this year, recently launched DeathMachines.net. Fortunately, the content is not as lurid as the title suggests, but it's chock-full of photos, video, interviews, and story links for all things motorsports, from drag racing to drifting to F-1, NASCAR, MotoX, rally, boats, and more.
 

It's becoming harder and harder not to keep getting sucked in to the time-eating vortex that is Facebook, the popular social-networking site. For me, it's rapidly replacing e-mail as the easiest way to track down racers and correspond with them, as most of today's top drivers have a page.

But it's not cyber stalking that has the potential to be a time waster second only to Mafia Wars; it's the many cool groups that keep popping up. I really try to limit myself to becoming a fan of a page or joining a group, just because I know I'll never have time to check them all out, but there's some pretty cool stuff out there.

For you nostalgia lovers, there are a ton of great groups, each filled with photos and comments from fans and others, to entertain you. For example, and just brushing the surface, there are Fans of Pat Foster, Memories of O.C.I.R., the Steve Evans Memorial, Roland Leong Friends and Fans, The Fans of Tom "The Mongoose" McEwen, Gordie Bonin "240 Gordie" Fans & Friends, Shirley Muldowney Fans!, Jungle Jim Liberman/Jungle Pam Hardy Fans, Dick Harrell "Mr. Chevrolet," and so many more.

The Foster page has more than 50 pages of "Mr. Everything" submitted by the likes of Auto Imagery's Dave Kommel, Dawn "DragStrip Girl" Mazi-Hovsepian, Darr Hawthorne, and many others showing him and his various rides and more than 300 members sharing their thoughts about "Patty Faster." Cool stuff.

The Evans Memorial already has attracted 550 members to honor one of motorsports' most unique and well-loved personalities. While there are only about a dozen photos on the page, Steve was better heard and witnessed in motion than in freeze-frame, and there's plenty of great old Evans footage from Diamond P videos like fabulous floppers and old national event TV shows to give any Evans fan a daily fix. Be there!

I've mentioned the Memories of O.C.I.R. group here before, which has grown to an impressive 570 members, each seemingly with his or her own great remembrances, and hosts a mind-boggling collection of old photos from the County, more than 600 in all. If you were one of the Sand Canyon Road denizens, you'll get a kick out of it. A lot of the old racers who competed there are part of the group. Ah, what memories.

The Bonin friends and fans page has nearly 250 members and about 40 pics of "240" – many submitted by the man himself, with comments – from all over the world as well as some cool video from old Wide World of Sports shows.

Bonin, a former Hawaiian shoe, is actually listed as one of the admins on the Leong page, which has more than 450 fans paying homage to "the Hawaiian." Though there aren't a ton of photos here (I'd guess there were more ex-Hawaiian drivers than there are photos), there are a couple of pretty cool video compilations with footage spanning four decades from places like Fremont, Pomona, and Sanair, and even one with Hawaii Five-O theme music.

The "Jungle" 'n' Pam page has nearly 400 members and four dozen photos, about half of which are of "Jungle Pam," which probably draws as many lookers as those seeking out JJ's amazing array of machinery. There's a nice "Jungle Pam" video tribute (complete with the Hollies' "Long Cool Woman" as the soundtrack), and following the link to her own profile, what I think is a pretty rare video of "Jungle" himself, for those of you who have never heard him outside of his famous "Drag racing is faaaaar out" quote, with him discussing strategy with team driver Jake Crimmins before a track record pass at Maple Grove Raceway in 1974. Well worth the watch!

The McEwen page has about three dozen photos of his various Top Fuelers and Funny Cars and, unfortunately, not a lot of activity on its pages yet. The Dickie Harrell page, with just under 200 fans, is a fine tribute to "Mr. Chevrolet" with more than 70 photos and newspaper clippings and links to other stories about him.

Of course, none of these racer groups is as big as the Muldowney group, which boasts 700 fans, but just a few historic photos of drag racing's first lady. I know that Muldowney has a Facebook account (still waiting for you to accept that Friend Request, Shirley), and I'm sure that when (if?) she gets up to speed there, she'd find it a great way to interact with her loyal fans.

The American Nitro group – saluting the 1970s cult classic drag racing film of the same name -- is one of the largest, boasting more than 2,300 fans and almost 450 fan photos and more than 350 wall photos from the producers. The film, originally released in 1979, has been digitally remastered and rereleased, so there's a lot of buzz about it. The page links to the official site, which features trailers from the movie, too.

Of course, my own personal favorite fan page is Frank Mazi Racing, saluting one of my life mentors and all-around great guys (and, to date, the only guy who has let me drive his race car). Assembled by his daughter, the aforementioned Dawn, the page includes not only photos of the "blower snob's" well-known supercharged Opel and Firebird, but also his early T-bucket roadster. (It also includes his wonderful warning to me as I prepared to drive his car for the first time: "The BB/A has two positions: out of shape and about to be out of shape.")

Speaking of which, your old pal here has two positions: Out of time and about to be about of time, and we're at the former. It's been a busy couple of days at NHRA outside of my DRAGSTER work with planning meetings for the 50th annual Kragen O'Reilly NHRA Winternationals -- look for some cool announcements in the next two weeks and the launching of the special Web site next week (hopefully) -- and all kinds of other groovy stuff. I'll see ya next week.

I didn't get a chance to get out to John Force's Holiday Car Show this year like I did last year, but it made the local news in a big way, showing the stacks of toys gathered from attendees.

If you've followed this column for any length of time, you know of my admiration for Force, as a racer and a human being -- who could forget the Hurry Back, Superman ode I penned to him the day of his accident in Dallas in 2007, a heartfelt, get-well-soon kind of message that later became a bit of an anti-rallying cry from him about how he wasn't Superman (he'll still have to disprove that one to me) --- and am proud to be a confidante and occasional sounding board, and we all, as drag racing fans, have a lot to thank him for.

Whether you approve or disapprove of multicar teams, Force fields four very solid cars, all winners, that help make the show better. He has given us our next-generation nitro superstars in Ashley Force Hood and Robert Hight, and, before them, Eric Medlen. He gave Gary Densham the chance to win the Mac Tools U.S. Nationals. He has given drag racing the Eric Medlen Project and safety his utmost attention. He has helped more fellow racers under the table than we'll ever know about, whether with guidance, parts and pieces, or financial assistance. He's helped take NHRA to new and great places on the back of his enthuiasm and popularity and guft of gab.

The Holiday Car Show, which celebrated its 12th version this year, is just another example of the good guy that he is. I'd say you'd be hard-pressed to find many people who don't like him and even fewer still who don't at least respect him. As I was cruising through our photo archives from the last year, thousands and thousands of photos taken by our amazingly talented photo staff, Force's folder was packed with images of him with other people, most of them smiling or laughing. If you've ever seen him at the track, he is stopped every few feet for a photo with a fan, which he almost always obliges. Everyobe wants their photo taken with him, or so it seemed to our cameras. It was pretty overwhelming, and fun, and I thought I’d share a gallery of them here today.

With longtime friend and mentor Gary Densham	A handshake for rival and good pal Ron Capps
With the Prezes, NHRA's Tom Compton ...	and Auto Club's Tom McKernan
With his favorite people, the fans	High-fives from the faithful
Holding court with Ford buddy Bob Tasca III	Force and BT3, sharing the love at the top end
The Wilkman laugheth ...	This pic was from last year, but Brandon's still probably laughing
Force loves the media: ESPN's Dave Rieff	No doubt making sure the camera guys get good shots of him
Flanked by photo greats Steve Reyes and Tim Marshall	And with NHRA Chief Starter Rick Stewart
Congratulating his hero, "the Snake," in Chicago	With another legend, Connie Kalitta
Flowers for Laurie in Dallas, for their 28th anniversary	What racing once put asunder, it now revives
Proud poppa, with a kiss for his little girl	Smiling in Seattle with his next superstars

 
And how can we overlook Force's other constant companion at the races -- his scooter. Hell, ESPN even did a feature on the darned thing. If you've ever been to a race, chances are you've seen Force make more passes on his scooter than in his Mustang, with a variety of castmembers hanging on for dear life behind him.

Easy there, boss, that's the world champ riding back there. Don't hurt him. Adria (and his fans) would be pissed.	JFR marketing coordinator Chad Light has a lot of important duties; not sure if this is one of them, or if he gets hazard pay.
One-handing it while chucking a hat to the fans; Laurie approves	BT3 acknowledging the fans ... his or Force's?
Chauffeuring daughter Brittany, another aspiring champ	Riding off into the sunset, another championship won

Let's get right to the mailbag …

John "JW" Wilson, part of Don Garlits' Swamp Rat Pack of the early 1970s – which included Connie Swingle, T.C. Lemons, Don "Mad Dog" Cook, and the late "Starvin' Marvin" Schwartz -- dropped me a great note regarding the photo of one of Garlits' 1975 dragsters in Butch Barnhart's Fan Fotos entry. Williams had come to work for Garlits, assisting Cook's work on a pair of 1975 cars, and when Lemons decided he needed a breather from the road during a hectic match race schedule in late 1975, Williams was there to fill in.

In my comments and based on Barnhart's notes, I had surmised that this car was actually Swamp Rat 21, built in early 1975 for "Jungle Jim" Liberman, and not the famous 5.63, 250 Swamp Rat 22 that debuted midseason, but Wilson set the record straight. Wilson confirmed that Swamp Rat 21 was indeed built for "Jungle" in Garlits' chassis shop, but it was built by Slim Werner, who had taken over for Swingle, but that the car in question is definitely Swamp Rat 22.

"Though the roll-cage shape of the Cook-built car was different than Swingle's design, the distinct giveaway is the chrome roll cage on SR22," he reported. "The photo would be the Division 2 points race, in which 'Big' swept the event for all the points during a fierce ongoing battle for the Winston championship against Gary Beck. The following week, we ran the Springnationals at National Trail in Columbus, and the same car was photographed right off the starting line in a power wheelstand against Shirley in the first round."

Wilson went on to laud the car's construction, noting that "at a time when five-second runs only occurred on better racetracks and suitable conditions, Swamp Rat 22 clicked off 34 consecutive runs in the fives without removing the heads."

Because of the heavy highway travel to keep pace with "Big Daddy's" continuous match race dates, NHRA national and divisional events, AHRA and IHRA national events, and performances like setting the speed record to 249.72 during the Popular Hot Rodding Meet, SR 22 ended upping being backhalved at Glen Blakely's shop in Tampa, Fla., immediately before breaking the record at the World Finals in Ontario, Calif.

Steve Scott's Fan Fotos submission also prompted some follow-up, this from Nick Poloson. He referenced the shot at right, a self-portrait by Scott in a mirror that's mounted on the rear of a injector of a dragster, and indentifies the dragster as his own ride, a nostalgia Top Fueler.

"If you can read backwards, you'll see my name," he said. "This car belongs to Floyd Head from San Antonio, Texas, and is a great piece of history. It's Floyd's 15th Top Fuel car, and he had it built in '69. It's a Huszar chassis, Hanna body, and paint from Cerny's shop. It's an absolute survivor. Never been apart (other than normal maintenance), wrecked, or changed: same motor, paint, owner, etc. for the last 40 years. We still take it out and cackle it. We've been to Bakersfield, Bowling Green, and a lot of other places that our schedule lets us go. We went to Ardmore, Okla., a few months ago and made a burnout and launch: That's where Steve Scott took the picture."

Poloson also drives an Outlaw Fuel Altered, Tom Wood's car from San Antonio, and competes on
the Outlaw Fuel Altered circuit in the Texas area.

He attached the photo below of the car as well as this link to a neat YouTube video from a car show at Jack Chisenhall's Vintage Air car show in San Antonio that shows more of the car, images of Floyd, and the car being cackled.

According to his son, Swanson raced the Cheetah Funny Car into the early 1980s. His last shot was in 1982 when he landed sponsorship from Minnesota parts chain 10,000 Auto Parts, owned by Mike Stigge. The partnership lasted only one race, the 1982 NorthStar Nationals. The car did not qualify due to mechanical issues (a poorly wrenched mag was the culprit). The Stigge-Swanson partnership effectively ended there.

"As a side note, right after the ill-fated Brainerd experience, the small warehouse space at the office of Kelly, Swanson, and Drabzack was used by Gary Burgin in preparation for the then upcoming U.S. Nationals," recalled Jeff. "This was the year Gary was runner-up with Cory Lee as his sole crewmember. I had the pride of seeing Gary's car on TV knowing that I polished every inch of the Orange Baron for Gary and was his overall errand boy while he visited."

Swanson never raced again after 1982. He attempted to gain larger sponsorships to race full time and was very close to closing a few deals, but they were destined to not happen.

After my reprint of the Fun with Fotos columns, Tom Molyneaux of Vineland, N.J., offered more info on Don and Gene Bauman's Vineland Villains rear-engine flathead-powered dragster. His hometown obviously gives a clue as to the origin of the car's name, and he passed along this second image. "I am friends with Gene Bauman and happy to tell you that he is alive and well and still has a repair shop in Vineland, N.J.," he wrote. "Gene loaned me his photo collection, and attached is a sample for your pleasure. Another view of the Vineland Villians dragster and crew. Gene Bauman is second from the left, I never knew his brother Donnie and don't have the names of the other folks in this photo. Enjoy!"

In that same column, I showcased Noel Black's wild two-engine Top Fueler that actually was destined for Salt Flats (and in which he later was killed), but Don Francis also dropped me a note to report that Joe Garcia had Black build a Funny Car for him, the Garcia Bros. Out of Sight Camaro (pictured at right). "Noel was a Salt Flats builder as Dan Tuttle has pointed out," said Francis. "The Salt Flats concepts where quite evident in his chassis design of the Out of Sight. I believe that his design made it possible to break the 200-mph barrier in 1968. Noel Black was a talented budget builder whose life was unfortunately cut short, and, in my opinion, he never got the credit and recognition that I believe was due him."

Why does Francis know so much about the car, which was driven by the late Steve Garcia and was pictured in a four-wide Funny Car race in this previous column? Turns out that Francis has owned the Out of Sight twice for a total of some 14 years. "The Camaro has been a long and arduous restoration process that I hope to bring back to its home track, Sacramento, Calif., and take a pass or two," he said. "Steve Garcia clocked 202.00 backed up with a 198.00 run at Rockford Dragway in July 1968. One of the infamous Isky ads actually proclaims that it is the first ever to run over 200 mph using an Isky cam, of course on that day."   

I also heard from good pal Henry Walther, who reports that Black and partner Bert Peterson turned out a lot of drag racing machinery from their B&N Automotive in South Sacramento.

"He was very helpful to a lot of us Northern California drag racers early in our racing careers," said Walther. "Here is a photo of one of my early rides, a dragster disguised as a Modified Roadster. This car was built at B&N Automotive, the photo taken at the Grand Nationals at Kingdon Drag Strip in the mid-1960s."

And finally, the photo above, of Mike Kuhl's and Carl Olson's Top Fuel dragster in the pits at National Trail Raceway during the 1974 Springnationals, came to me from veteran Stock and Super Stock racer Tom Kasch, who for the last couple of months has been treating me and a few dozen others to a collection of photos from the 1960s and '70s. I thought that this photo, actually taken by his then-12-year-old son Mike, was pretty cool, and I forwarded it to Olson for his enjoyment. What I got back from C.O. was way more than just "thanks."

"There's an interesting story behind this photo," he wrote, and he was right.
 
"You'll note that most of the forward body panels have been removed from the car prior to this warm-up. The reason is that while unloading the car from the trailer and parking it in our pit area, I noticed that it wasn't steering as usual. It just didn't feel quite right. As a result, Mike and I removed the forward nosepiece to take a look at the steering assembly. Something looked funny, so we removed the Dzus fasteners from the front section of the belly pan. As soon as we did, the bottom framerails fell away from the top rails, and we realized that the only thing that had been holding things together where the top and bottom framerails came together at the front of the car was the belly pan. The rails had evidently broken during the tow from California to Columbus in spite of the various safeguards in place, including the air-filled rubber 'pillow' that Mike always placed and inflated under the engine.
 
"Mike quickly found a welding machine, jacked the bottom and top framerails together, and welded them up. (Mike used to claim that he could weld anything, including a broken heart.) As usual, he did a perfect job, and we never had a problem with that part of the chassis again. If I hadn't noticed the odd feel in the steering and we'd have just warmed the car up as usual and put it in line for the first qualifying session, I hate to think of what might have happened." Me, too!

You can find more of Tom's great photos here. By the way, like his pops, kid Kasch has done quite well for himself in racing. He has worked for Jack Roush for the last 12 years and was the NASCAR Engine Builder of the Year in 2000 and runner-up several times for that honor. He works at the Yates-Roush engine shop in Mooresville, N.C.

OK, that's it for the week. We're working on the final issue of National DRAGSTER for 2009, our year-end wrap-up, which should be in the mail to you late next week. Enjoy the weekend. Just 68 days until the Kragen O'Reilly NHRA Winternationals!
 

Happy week after Thanksgiving! Hopefully by now you've worked off that turkey hangover and are getting geared up for the rest of the holiday madness -- crowded parking, cranky help, and bargain hunting … and that's just to get out the door! I admit that I'm not much of a shopper, as I suspect a lot of you other fellows aren't, but as the holiday shopping season begins, allow me to offer some pointers.

For me, and most guys, shopping is all about planning and execution, not browsing. Maybe it's a holdover from the meticulous toy-soldier battles we enacted as boys or maybe just our innate need to always know where we're going (even if the gals disagree; I promise you, we're never lost, just looking for alternate routes). Though there might be some macho cred to the whole strategically staking out a spot two days before Black Friday and roughing it in a tent, that would only be if you were billeted outside of Best Buy or Home Depot.

For me, it's all about what I call "guy shopping," an exquisite piece of expertise somehow lost on the females in my life. It's quite simple. I know exactly what my quarry is – the model, size, color, and quantity. I know precisely where the target is located in the store, down to the exact aisle and shelf, using GPS coordinates if necessary. I know the shortest route to the objective, from front door to target acquisition. I can tell you, plus or minus five depending on other operatives seeking the same high-value target, the exact number of steps it will take to secure "the package." I am a keenly tuned, intensely focused professional. I will not be distracted on the way to or from the objective by blinking lights, no matter how sweet that Modern Warfare 2 Xbox demo looks.

I know how to gauge the complexity of the checkout for each customer in line at the extraction point – I mean the cashier – for the quickest exit possible. I also know how to sigh loudly or wear a mask of contempt to catch the manager's attention so he or she will open that previously closed lane. All the while, my extraction team has been circling the parking lot --- forbidden to park unless it's at the closest possible stall – waiting for my stealthy exit. With any amount of good fortune, I'm in and out in five minutes.

The sweetest gift of all, of course, is the one you can order while still wearing your Lightning McQueen pajamas. It's Cyber Tuesday! I'm talking about online shopping, baby, and do we have some tasty stuff for you to point your browsers at, just in time for that special someone. Yes, Santa's little elves here at National DRAGSTER have been burning the midnight tool-shed oil while cranking out 48 awesome editions of ND.

First up, and available soon at Amazon and other online vendors, is the second installment of our NHRA Drag Racing Photo Greats: Wild Rides. The first edition of this crash-packed keepsake was a hot item earlier this year, especially among nostalgia nuts like us who remember these types of books from the late 1960s and early 1970s as published by Mike Doherty and others.

You can check out the little photo gallery at right here to see a half-dozen of the more than 70 great and memorable images captured by the National DRAGSTER staff in the last five decades. We have body-shredding blower explosions, wild wheelies, Funny Car fires, Pro Stock flips, tire-chucking stockers, and much, much more, including some humor. These books are the perfect gift for that drag racing fan on your list. Heck, buy both editions! I bet you could even fit one in a stocking. It should be available online within the next week or so; look for a home page announcement on this Web site.

Next up is another special publication we've been toiling on this fall, The History of the NHRA Winternationals. This amazing book is the perfect companion to take to next year's 50th Anniversary Kragen O'Reilly NHRA Winternationals and fill with autographs from the heroes pictured within.

The book is an encyclopedia of one of NHRA's most prestigious events, chock-full of stories, stats, and photos to warm your winter days and nights. In addition to an in-depth recap of all 49 previous Winternationals, we have a slew of features, including a look at the facility's rise from parking-lot quarter-mile to Full Throttle Series gem; a list of great Winternationals debuts (cars and drivers); a look at the impressive list of drivers who won their first Wally at the Winternationals; first-person My Most Memorable Winternationals vignettes with heroes such as Don Garlits, Don Prudhomme, Jim Dunn, Connie Kalitta, Shirley Muldowney, and others; and much more. Each feature and recap is illustrated with amazing photographs, some never before seen. Again, this should be available soon, and we'll keep you posted on NHRA.com.

(As a side note, we've also been hard at work on a special-edition 50th Winternationals Web site, which we plan to launch in the next two weeks, but very little of the copy and only a handful of photos from the book will be reproduced on the Web site, which will rely heavily on amazing historic video that our crack broadcasting team has unearthed from its archives. It's going to be pretty cool, but not as cool as the book!)

Speaking of video, if you like your pictures to be moving, we have a lot of shiny silver discs for you, beginning with our rereleases of Drag Racing 1986 and Drag Racing 1987 (just $14.99 each!), the original Wild Rides DVD (just $19.99), or the all-new NHRA Countdown to the Championship 2009 Year in Review (which you can preorder for also just $19.99). Go here to check out the entire collection.

Speaking of the Winternationals, how about this proposal? While Neighbor Ned is still shoveling the driveway next year, you take your someone special to sunny SoCal for the race. You can buy tickets here, including group tickets, for as little as $150 for all four fabulous days. A little too steep for your pockets? Well, we also have a great Kragen O’Reilly NHRA Winternationals gift package in the NHRA store that includes two reserved-seat tickets for Sunday's final eliminations and a copy of the DVD NHRA Racing: The First 50 Years to get you in the spirit. All this for only $109.99. That's a savings of more than 20 percent. Hurry, though, because this offer ends Thursday, Dec. 17. Click here to learn more.

And last, but certainly not least, and available now – no waiting, no long lines, no Xbox demo to avoid – is a freshly baked order of weekly drag racing goodness called National DRAGSTER. Now, I know, some of you have received this gift before and let the batteries expire (so to speak), and some of you voice your displeasure with NHRA policies and procedures with your membership choices, but I'm here to tell ya you don't want to miss out on the new National DRAGSTER coming in 2010.

Even if you (somehow) forget all of the goodies that come with your subscription – I'm talking the amazing audiocast, the discount coupons, the catastrophic insurance, and, next year, live timing (!!!!!) – at the heart of every NHRA membership is a publication on which we're working very hard to make sure you not only want but think you'll need.

I know there's an awful lot of free content on the Internet -- including our very own site here – and you think you'll do just fine scraping together the news from the various sites. Sure, you can, but I think I'm leading ND into a brave new direction next year that will meet all of your news needs and then some. I'm talking about insightful columns, amazing photography, award-winning writing, detailed race coverage, and much more. It's going to be much more like a magazine – without forgetting its newspaper roots – and I think it’s going to be a big hit to have that kind of material before you each and every week. And, unlike with your PC, you can read it anywhere: airplane, bathroom, classroom (ssssh, don’t tell your parents), or shop … thanks to its all-new bitchin' size.

We've already unveiled a few of the new features in these last issues of 2009 – including full-page, workshop-wall-worthy photographs from our impressive and far-reaching library (Terry Vance's Top Fuel Suzuki? Kenny Bernstein's first Budweiser King? Ka-chow!) and a popular new behind-the-scenes column of whos and whats in Bits From The Pits (The Thrash). We have a strong roster of new and continuing talent signed up as columnists to give you the low-down on what's going on and an up-top look at your world – including through this very column.

We'll have a fresh new look inside. Sure, you can call me a shill for the company mill, but those of you who know me know that I take this publication seriously -- have for more than 27 years – and I'm determined to keep National DRAGSTER vibrant and viable, even in a 24x7 Internet world. I think you owe it to yourselves to give it a look. You can get a gander at all of the cool benefits and sign up for a year's worth of drag racing goodness right here.

OK, kids, time for you to head out on the ol' information superhighway (does anyone really call it that anymore?) for your virtual shopping trip. There are only 24 shopping days to Christmas, which means that if you get done today, you can enjoy 23 days of mocking the mallheads and spend the time doing something really worthwhile, like working on your hot rod or your winter tan. The Winternationals is only 71 days away!
 

We've been all over the U.S., and now it's time for another trip back East, where Butch Barnhart of Irmo, S.C., offers for your approval his favorite snapshots. Like the majority of fans, he doesn’t get guardrail access but did some mighty fine sharpshooting from the stands with his Nikon D40X, equipped with either an 18-55mm or 55-200mm telephoto lens. Some of his earlier stuff is with a Minolta SRT-102 with a 135mm telephoto lens.

"I enjoy the sounds and feel of the acceleration and the ability of a fan to be able to talk with drivers and crew that were there," he noted. "Especially back then when the Pros were usually the driver and maybe two or three crewmembers. I still enjoy taking pictures of the cars of today, but then again, I have to do all of my shooting from the stands. I took three days of Indy of the Sportsman classes and then printed some of them and gave them to some of the drivers who came to Charlotte a couple of weeks later. They were all appreciative of them, as I did not accept anything for them, even though some offered.

"It's hard sometimes to get the right shot from the stands because of the professionals on the sides of the starting line, but I continue to take them and hope for the best," he noted. "I do try and pick a spot where there is a space to get the car in without people." Mission accomplished, Butch!

Here we go …

 
I especially like the shot of Kalitta's Mustang below, which, despite what it says on the body about Boss 429 power, still was powered by a 427 SOHC. This is probably 1970, the last year for this model of Mustang body before the racers all went to the Mach I look. That's "Fast Eddie" Schartman's Air Lift Rattler Cougar parked behind "the Bounty Hunter." 

That's it for Fan Fotos. Thanks for playing, Butch!

With all of the "Jungle" cars shown above, this is a good time to mark the passing of one of Liberman's most ardent backers, Steve Kanuika, who died last month. Steve's son (also Steve) had former Funny Car ace Clare Sanders put together the following info for me on Kanuika. Thanks, guys.

It began early. At 17 years of age Steve and his brother opened a small shop in the basement of their folks’ home, a small Pennsylvania cattle ranch. Street racing was big at the time; real American Graffiti-type stuff. Steve did the work on the cars and engines – he had that magic touch -- as older brother Bill talked up the business. Steve would build the motor in the basement, then use his dad’s tractor to hoist it out and into the customer’s car. One of his early efforts was to hop up friend Buddy Corleto’s Buick Century – it was fast, and word of mouth brought customers.

His first dragstrip race car was a ’54 Chevy p/u truck running a 283-inch mouse motor – also their daily driver parts truck. It proceeded to set the D/Gas record in Vineland, N.J., Langhorne Speedway, York, and Lancaster, where Bill Jenkins was the tech inspector. Other Kanuika cars included a B/Dragster powered by a 327 Chevy with a 4-71 GMC blower (in a Lynnwood Welding frame), a C/Gas Henry J, and the most famous, his C/Gas Willys pickup with a 301-inch injected mouse motor. It set the record at 10.80, 127mph and even made the cover of Drag Times.

In the early ‘60s, business was getting to be too much, so Mom finally threw ‘em out of the driveway. Steve immediately opened his first shop in Upper Darby, named Kanuika Bros. Automotive (in an old gas station). Steve’s talents continued to earn him a dedicated following in drag racing circles, and his business boomed - at one time he was operating four Steve Kanuika Speed Shops! Then came the "Jungle Jim" sponsorship, and the shop in Concordville, Pa. (with six employees) became the place where you could find the two "Jungle Jim" Chevy II Novas; it wasn’t far from Jungle’s “pad” in West Chester. Those were glory days - Kanuika and K&G were THE speed shops in the Philly area – no one else was even close.

Steve built his last racer; the ’69 Jungle Jim Camaro Super Stocker, with acid-dipped doors and frame, blueprinted 427-inch rat motor and all of the go-fast “stuff”. It was a 9.80s match racer, very popular, and another rolling billboard for his speed shops. This car still holds a class record! It was driven by Steve, and eventually sold to Dick Collins.

Speed parts were selling, the Jungle cars were winning, and it was all good. . During this time Steve had the success of having both his motors in the '69 Funny Car finals in both of "Jungle's" cars as well as sponsoring some of the greatest cars and drivers of the time. These included no less than Lew Arrington's Brutus, Roland Leong's Hawaiian, Mickey Thompson , Jade Grenade, Neil Mahr's Superpress as well as many other famous names like Dickie Harell , Goeske, and Lewis to name a few. He also was one of the first to offer chassis-dyno tuning and many innovative engine building techniques. Focusing on all aspects of the build and machine work totally in house. He was a true pioneer and a class act for the sport of drag racing. He never gave up the love even in his retirement, he would build motors by appointment, and had been working on several engine design patents.

He is survived by his wife Delores, son Stephen, and daughter Heather. At the time of his death, Steve was in the process of building a blown alcohol Funny Car with his son. That car is expected to be running In the spring of 2010 painted like the Super Stocker as tribute to Steve and driven by Steve Jr.

"It is worth noting," said Sanders, "that I can never recall him having a bad word to say about anyone, ever. Steve Kanuika was a true racer’s racer, husband, a father, a gentleman and one of the really good guys. I sure do miss him."

Okay, kids, that's it for today, and, with the Thanksgiving holiday, the week. I'll see you next week.

I don't get out as much as I used to in my pre-big-boss days when it wasn't uncommon for me to hit well over half of the stops on the national event tour, but they still do let me out of my cage every now and then. Like every good citizen, I have a camera everywhere I go because it's built right into my cell phone, and I chronicled a few of my journeys and experiences this year. With the season now complete and me deskbound for the next three months, I thought I'd trot out this little collection of small-scale pics to show you how my year went. No cell phones were harmed in the making of this column. Here we go ...

Well, unlike this past weekend, February in Pomona could be described in one word: wet. I have a few other words for it, but let's stick with that one. Thursday's qualifying rained out. Friday's qualifying rained out. We actually got in a session Saturday morning but lost Saturday afternoon to more of Mother Nature's moisture. My parking pass also became quite saturated yet proved an appropriate image for the weekend. 

After a four-hour Sunday morning delay, we actually got in the first rounds of Top Fuel and Funny Car and two of the eight first-round pairings in Pro Stock before rain brought an end to the day's activity. We tried again Monday but got completely rained out, but I did spy the Oscar Meyer Weinermobile on the drive home down Arrow Highway. Hot dog!

We didn't finish the race until Tuesday. We were glad we finally got 'er in the books, but it was only the start of a long season of sitting around watching the rain fall.

A month later, I was in Gainesville after a dizzying series of travel woes (click here and scroll to the third segment), where, despite the staffwide horror stories of the past two decades that have been astutely attributed to "The Curse of the Gators," it actually didn't rain. Maybe Mother Nature had the week off or something. Not only did it not rain, but no one that I knew got a speeding ticket on Highway 301;  I'm not sure which is the bigger accomplishment. As we rolled outta town Monday morning up Speedway 301 – I mean Highway 301 – K-Wade and I even had a chance to stop and shop for trinkets for our kids at the kitschy Florida Souvenir Stand along 301. The kids got Florida playing cards, a grandson got a Nemo-themed Florida T-shirt, and no one (despite much temptation) ended up with a dried alligator-foot paperweight. Maybe next year.

Less than two weeks later, I was off to Houston, where even monsoon-like rain upon our arrival and a rain-shortened day Friday (or even photog Jerry Foss' speeding ticket) couldn't dampen the thrill of our behind-the-scenes tour at NASA, courtesy of longtime e-mail pal and Insider fan Todd Bailey. Bailey has worked for NASA at the Johnson Space Center for 20 years, most lately at the Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory (the NBL, as insiders call it), a ginormous swimming pool (40 feet deep, 202 feet wide, and 101 feet across filled with 6.2 million gallons of water) where astronauts practice spacewalks on full-size mock-ups in full space-suit regalia in the simulated weightlessness.

We got to meet and have our photos taken with space-shuttle veteran Michael Foreman, a Navy captain who was on STS-123 Endeavor in March 2008 and just the other day blasted back into space aboard STS-129 Atlantis. We checked out Rocket Park and took refuge from a driving rain inside the huge building that houses a full-size mock-up of a Saturn V rocket. It's a full 36 stories tall and then some. We visited the Space Vehicle Mockup Facility, filled with various hatches, airlocks, and other components for astronauts to train with and, had it not been for a mission currently in space, could have flown one of the space-shuttle simulators. Like I said earlier, there's always next year.

You can read my recap of our space adventure and see a bunch of other outta-this-world pics here.

 
When I finally did hit Chicago six weeks later, racers whom I've known for more than 25 years walked right by me in the pits without even glancing my way. I was the invisible man. It wasn't until some of them were forced to confront me face to face in the media center that I got the double takes and the "What, did you lose a bet?" comments that I so expected. Surprisingly, I didn't get hassled by any security types for the remainder of the year despite my hard-card credential showing that big ol' mustache, and, perhaps even more thankfully, I wasn't detained at any airport security posts nor did I end up on any watch lists. (Maybe next year.)

A week and a half after seeing his new driver, Spencer Massey, win his first Top Fuel crown in Chicago (where -- go figure --  it rained Saturday and Sunday), Don Prudhomme played gracious host to me and Photo Editor Teresa Long for a dream story for this lifelong "Snake" fan. He has accumulated quite a collection of his old race cars and agreed to let T.L. and me come down to his Vista, Calif., shop and roll them out for a photo shoot for National DRAGSTER.

Not only did I get the full guided tour and first-person remembrances of this historic icon, but I also got to help "the Snake" push the cars around the parking lot and actually sit behind the wheel of the fabled white Barracuda. You can read the story of our day here.

The topper to a great day was a ride with "Snake" to lunch in his newly (and lovingly) restored Dodge D-100 ramp truck with the big 'ol yellow Hot Wheels Cuda strapped to its back. You can check out a quick video of that ride above and see what it's like to ride shotgun with Prudhomme.

We landed, absorbed the breaking news that Michael Jackson had suffered a heart attack, and (stop me if you've heard this before) soon found ourselves in the eye of a deluge. We barely made it to the rental car before the skies let loose in a Noah's Ark-worthy blast. The highway was at a near standstill, so we pulled off for a bite and then learned that the King of Pop had left us.

It was a rough week for celebrities. On the way there, we heard that Farrah Fawcett had died and not long after that super pitchman Billy Mays had died, too. Ironically, I had read a profile of Mays on the flight in the American Airlines magazine. I snapped this photo of the magazine on the way home. We'll need some Mighty MendIt to fix the holes in our hearts.

We were treated to great racing as well as one of the trademark Bader family fireworks shows Friday night. They probably spend more money on this end-of-night add-on to the show than some promoters do on their entire advertising budget, but you seldom hear of a fan leaving the Norwalk facility who didn't think he got his money's worth and then some.

It was a heckuva lot better Friday than the one we experienced the year before in Norwalk when water continually seeped up through cracks in the top end and all manner of drainage -- from Top Alcohol Funny Car star Frank Manzo manning a backhoe to Bader Sr. drilling relief holes in the racing surface -- couldn't save the day. (You can relieve that not-so-great day here.)
 
It always seems to rain in Ohio in June -- I remember well that it rained in 1984, postponing my first rides in the Mazi Opel -- and although this year was better than last, we still were betrayed again by Mother Nature.

We fought the rain on and off in Norwalk, including Sunday morning. The forecast looked terrible coming into Sunday, then it miraculously cleared up, and all of the weather Web sites were saying we were fine, even though it was lightly misting during pre-race.

Billy Jr. asked me what I knew about the forecast, and I shared with him what I had heard, which he then shared with a large group of fans bordering the stage while he thanked them for attending the event. I think he said something like, "Don't worry about this mist; I have it on good authority that this will blow through pretty quick, and then we're good for the rest of the day." Of course, within a few minutes, it poured and poured, soaking the track and delaying the start of eliminations by about 90 minutes, and I have the photographic proof below. Sorry, Billy.

Some things never change.

I hit the friendly skies again in September for my 27th straight U.S. Nationals, where, of course, it rained. The wet stuff came down Sunday morning and cost us a qualifying session. I snapped the photo below from the third floor of the Parks Tower, and I don't know if there's a sadder site in all of drag racing than a wet track in Indy. Am I wrong?

Fortunately, the wet stuff was relatively short-lived, and we made history there with Ashley Force Hood's first Funny Car win.

So, it was with great chagrin that I, Waldron, and K-Wade observed this scary-looking set of clouds upon landing – dig that crazy upside-down triangle thing in the middle – that had me feeling like I was in the middle of an episode of Storm Chasers. Unfortunately, instead of a tornado-proof, armored-car-like TIV (tornado intercept vehicle; what a riot that thing is), I was taking my first ride in a lightweight little Toyota hybrid (see photos below), complete with a video-game-like instrument panel and a bird-like appetite for gasoline. Hey, my posse may have been getting laughed at, but we were rolling green and helping reduce our carbon footprint. Either that or they were out of Mustangs; maybe next year.

Other than our Thursday travel day, it didn't rain in Dallas (yeah!).

A traditional highlight for me in Dallas is the opportunity to take in a little other motorsports action, in the form of an annual trip to Cowtown Speedway in Kennedale, about a half-hour ride from the Plex.

Cowtown ("the Fastest Lil' Dirt Track In Texas!") is right across the street from that eighth-mile birthplace of E.T. champions, Texas Raceway, and always seems to have a big show on the same weekend as our Dallas event. This year, it was a full-boat show of everything from winged sprint cars to "bomber" street-type cars and even the small mini sprints, which are powered by 200cc motorcycle engines. Jeromy Hefler, of the legendary Texas drag racing clan, a longtime Division 4 hitter and Texas Raceway mainstay, was racing that night, so it was cool to have someone to root for. He didn't win, but, hey, maybe next year.

 
We caught two days of great action, rooted for our faves as well as the special-edition Shaun Carlson memorial car of Sam Hubinette, and said goodbye to our new friends on that circuit until next year.

And so was this year (despite the rain). Hope you enjoyed the pics. I'll see ya later this week.
 

Because it was so popular and came with a ton of great follow-up from the Insider Nation, I decided to reprint it here, including my original comments in bold and additional information in italic.

Enjoy!

Here's how those early dragsters got their nickname; the driver sat behind the rear tires like a rock in a slingshot.

A couple of engines, four tires, a little extra tubing, a welder, and there's little that early drag racers couldn't -- and didn't -- try.

I looooooooove this shot. The photographer did such a great job of exposing it and allowing you to see every detail, nut, and bolt on the blower. Arthur Trim tells me that this is Connie Kalitta's Logghe-chassised Ford-powered digger, photographed on a chassis dyno in one of Ford's labs.

A few people pointed out that the oil-filler cap on the valve cover of Kalitta's SOHC mill was missing in the shot.

Indy is a place where magical things happen. Look closely, and you can see that "Big John's" battle-scarred 'Cuda has all four tires off the ground.

The great photo of "Big John" Mazmanian's 'Cuda with four-wheel liftoff in Indy was shot by Larry "Max" Maxwell of L&M Photos according to Norman Blake. Also, Bill Burns, in responding to my observation that the car was battle-scarred, wrote, "I’m not positive, but I believe the battle scars are from the famous 'net' at the end of Green Valley Raceway in Texas. There was a big race there the week before Indy one year, and several of the California cars stopped by on their way east. It was the most beautiful Funny Car I had ever seen before its trip over the hill and into the net there."

Not all new ideas were good ones; Exhibit A is Noel Black's two-engine, four-wheel-drive Top Fueler from 1967.

Dan Tuttle dropped me a line to say that Noel Black's twin-engine car actually wasn't a Top Fuel car but that it was a Bonneville Streamliner nicknamed the Rhinoceros, in which he was later killed. "Reportedly, the car was well above 400 when it lost its belly pan," he said. "Apparently, [this photo] was another test."

Fabled quarter-mile photog Steve Reyes, who shot the above pic, tells me the unique-looking car was photographed at Sacramento Raceway.

I found mention of the car in "Landspeed Louise" Noeth's book, Bonneville: The Fastest Place on Earth. Here is a picture of the car with bodywork taken by George Callaway. Noeth says the Rhinoceros name came from the body bumps to accommodate the engines.

Drag racing historian Bret Kepner said that the car was created by Black and partner Bert Peterson at their B&N Automotive shop and was never designed to be a dragster at all. "It was purely a land-speed-record vehicle that because of its bizarre chassis and drivetrain configuration needed extensive testing, and the dragstrip was pretty much the only place to do it," he wrote. "Officially known as Motion 1 but dubbed the Rhinoceros when carrying its full body panels, the car crashed at 382 mph during the SCTA SpeedWeek event at Bonneville in 1970. Black died as a result of the crash."

Call me an astute observer, but I reckon that "Big Jim" Dunn was pretty much done for this run at Lions in the rainbow-hued Dunn & Reath digger.

Who says you need four wheels?

"I'll take Scary Fast Tricycles for $500, Alex."

I got a lot of feedback on the three-wheel dragsters along with solid IDs on both. Cliff Morgan and John Pecora wrote to say that the front-engine car belonged to Kenny Ellis, and Steve Gibbs wrote that the rear-engine car was the Cook Bros., Jahns & Hedges entry driven by Jeff Jahns.

Morgan noted that "Ellis was the most famous with an almost conventional front-motor car, which had a tendency to wheelie down the track, especially in the lights." Added Pecora, "Ken is still at it doing fabrication but is stricken with cancer and is fighting with all he has. This photo, I think, is of the third three-wheeler. I built a complete replica of this car for him and gave it to him and son. His son wants to show it off at various events."

Of the other car, Gibbs reminisced, "One of the things that made the sport so appealing in the '50s and '60s was that you never knew what would show up next. The rules were wide open. [This is ] one of the cars that was nonconforming in just about every aspect. It was a rear-engine sidewinder, three-wheeler, using air jacks (à la Pete Robinson) to launch the car ... all with a fuel-burning small Dodge Hemi. It had a body but was not used much. The car had a short life and crashed at 'the Beach.' Driver Jahns got out of it, but it rearranged his nose. I can't imagine how today's tech guys would react if this car were to show up again."

In the same vein, who says you even need four wheels or three wheels? The famed Leffler-Coburn Iron Mistress coupe had six! In a true example of the sum of the parts not being equal to the whole, Neil Leffler and Bill Coburn each took the fuel-burning Hemis from their competition coupes and paired them for this interesting experiment. It wasn't real fast, but it was spectacular.

We've seen lead weights and tubes filled with lead shot as front-end ballast, but a rock? I kid you not. Clearly, the Red Mountain Boys knew how to rock.

A whole host of people surmised – as I did privately – that the circled fan in this scan of Asher's Garlits explosion photo may have been the fan injured by the shrapnel, some of which keen-eyed readers point out can be seen in the photo. Larry Sutton, who was the starter and who waded into the stands to save the fan's life, confirmed to me that that is the general area where he found the injured spectator, whom Lions historian Don Gillespie indentifies as Tim Ditt.

A previous Insider column on Sutton included his heroic efforts to save Ditt's life, but none could have expected that Sutton and Ditt would be reunited nearly 40 years after this infamous moment, a reunion recounted in this Insider column.

The first rule of running against a jet dragster: Always leave first.

Steve Justice reported that this photo features J.D. Zink in Romeo Palamides' Untouchable going off against Don "Mad Dog" Cook at Fremont.

I did a whole follow-up on the Munstermobile thing here, with some outtake photos of the 1965 "race" at Lions and photos of the coach under construction. A munsterously good read.

The driver's reaction in this photo is classic after his blown Fiat puked all over the Lions starting line.

Bob Nielsen was one of several who wrote to say that the great shot of the exploding Fiat features the Magic Muffler Fiat driven by Jim Miles. "This occurred in 1966," he wrote. "This photo was actually taken by Ron Lahr. What was moderately unique about this photo is the superb timing – parts still coming out the bottom of the engine and the car about to run over the oil pan.

"Jere Alhadeff was positioned a little farther downtrack and caught the same engine explosion milliseconds prior to Ron Lahr’s photo. Alhadeff’s photo shows the car engulfed in the engine explosion flames and the oil pan just starting to depart (it is still immediately under the engine)." I also found that photo on The H.A.M.B. forum, as shown here at right.

The original photo also hit home with a reader named Marty, who used to have the pic plastered on his bedroom wall. "I can't believe you have that photo of the guy runnin' over his own crankshaft in the Fiat," he wrote. "I had that hanging in my room as a kid. It's so cool I just laugh like an idiot at it. Do you know if that photo can be bought in a poster form or where it might be found?"

You can buy the pictures at Dave Wallace's super-swell HotRodNostalgia.com site: direct link.

OK, kids, that's it for the recap. I'm going to tune back in to what's going down in Pomona and the crowning of this year's Full Throttle world champs. It's gonna be a barnburner in Top Fuel!

Sure, Ben and Abe had a 200-plus-year head start on me, though I doubt I could have come up with anything as sage as their words. Although I've been at this drag writing business for three decades, I can’t really say that I've created any new words or phrases to add to drag racing's already significant lexicon or single-handedly did something as cool as give a racer his or her famous nickname, but this column has definitely expanded my audience as I find some of the columns reprinted, verbatim, on other Web sites and message boards (that's a real no-no, for the record) or links to this site (much better).

Most recently, a mass e-mailing of one of my columns from last year, a column originally called Fun with Photos, has been making the rounds of nostalgia-themed message boards and mailing lists, many of which I am on. I find it rather amusing when I receive these e-mails with new introductions added to the column or replacing my original, and also a bit flattering. The photos aren't even from our files-- I harvested them from The H.A.M.B. bulletin board -- and added what I thought were interesting captions to them and of interest to the readers of this column and even those not as intimately familiar with our history.

It was interesting to see heroes like Jim Nicoll among those passing it on to his e-mail friends (me included), but the real kick came Sunday night when I received it again from a well-meaning reader who said, "Thought I would forward this e-mail to you. A friend sent it to me, and there is some pretty cool stuff. You may have a lot of this, but in case you don't, here goes."

That's pretty funny when you think about it.

You can find my original posting here, though the formatting there is a little goofy because it was done on the old NHRA.com template that allowed for wider photos, and the photos stick out into the ads now. Clearly, there is a great interest in these photos and the sentiments I attached to them, so I find it worth reprinting. Those who didn't see it the first time through should enjoy it, and those who have or are looking at the e-mails will now have the stories and details that accompany the pics.

In the interest of a better presentation and reclaiming the work, I redid the layout a little bit and added to it because, in the true nature of this column, I received a lot of follow-up information about many of the pics that I ran in subsequent columns. My original caption will be in bold and the additional info (if any) in italic.

There's a lot to take in, so I'll split this into two halves; look for the second part Friday.

Enjoy!

Back in the day, anything was possible. How about an Offy with a side-mounted blower on Ed Donovan's dragster?

Paul Schwan of Cincinnati dropped me a line about Ed Donovan's side-mounted blower, noting, "The 6-71 blower that was originally used was indeed mounted on the side of a 6-71 Detroit Diesel, or before it was Detroit, it was a GM diesel, or affectionately known as a 'Jimmy Diesel.'

"In either a right- or left-hand 6-71, the side of the engine on which the blower was mounted determined either rotation or direction of the engine; therefore, that mount on the Offy was closer to 'stock' than most people realized."

One thing you can safely say about Ed Donovan is that the man was never boring or without a million thoughts racing through his mind.

Nothing says drag racing like way too big of an engine stuffed into too little car; reminds me of the models I used to imagineer as a kid.

Fred Fischbach had no problem ID-ing the owner of the blown Austin Healey as his old friend Norm Cowdrey. "This is from the mid- to late '60s," he wrote. "Norm had the chassis built in San Fernando by a sprint car chassis builder by the name of Rip Erickson. It was powered by a blown small-block, but I don't remember the cubes. The car was an instant NHRA record setter, and as you can see by the picture, a real crowd-pleaser. It was painted at a body shop in the southwest corner of Tony Nancy's complex where Tony lived and had his upholstery shop. The car was a beautiful lime green with large gold metal flake that had been shot up in the air and allowed to settle on it, then clear-coated. The whole package was totally awesome.

"Sometimes when there was no race for Norm to go to, he would unbolt the blower and put it on his Corvette – underdriven, of course -- and we'd go tooling around the Valley; no big deal today, but then -- big deal.Too much fun."

Bill Holland added, "Cowdrey normally did well in one of the eliminator categories at San Fernando Dragway, where the photo was taken. Norm went on to campaign the Blue Fox Camaro Funny Car. He later was involved in a few TAFC deals, one of which was driven to a Wally win at Las Vegas by Rod Alexander ("Wild Bill's" son). Today, Norm plays with vintage road race cars. I chatted with him a few months ago at the races on Coronado Island, where he ran well with an ex-Paul Newman McKee Can-Am car."

Rear slicks churning, front tires grabbing air, and an acrobatic flagman.

Uhhh, dude? I don't think you asked for a big enough head start.

 
"I was all for it," recalled Ivo, "as I running much better than him and also because I used to do all kinds of things like that all the time. I would give stockers big head starts and run them down on the big end – or even bicycles, anything to take the ho-hum out of single runs -- but I would always make sure we put a good enough spread on the handicap to make sure I didn't get beat by mistake! How bad would that be, getting beat by a bicycle? Although this incident ended up to be even worse than that. 

"The rocket engine had a heart attack before we could have the race, so the guy with the kart still really wanted to get a picture with me racing him. Soooooooo, he suggested to just set him on the starting line next to me and get the picture when I took off. It wasn't a movie, so who would know if he were running or not? 'OK, that will work,' I said! But then once again, old Cecil B. De Ivo had to not leave well enough alone. Attempting to make a good idea better (as I always do), I suggested that they put the kart out about 25 feet or so; therefore, I could get up a good plume of smoke behind me to make the picture more dramatic. Wrong!! Here's the shot they were 'supposed' to get!

"I was a victim of my own stupidity, it would seem (again), BUT -- and here comes that 'but' again -- I was right; it did make a great shot, didn't it?"

A wheelstander with everything but the kitchen sink.

Being able to ID a car is one thing, but being able to figure out at which track a photo was taken always requires some skill. Bill Carrell was "99.9 percent sure" that the Shower Power photo was taken at Thompson Drag Raceway in Thompson, Ohio, because of "the trees and their proximity to the track; the signage with roads identified in that area, specifically Ridge Road and Mayfield; I worked there and can tell a shot of that track from almost any angle; and where else but Ohio?"

Dawn Mazi-Hovsepian, Ohio's secondmost famous female Ohioan (behind The Pretenders' Chrissie Hynde and probably just ahead of Rona Veney) not only confirmed for me that it was taken at Thompson but also provided the year (1970) and the photographer (Charles Gilchrist). Said Dawn, "Gilchrist notes: 'The engine, a stout fuel-injected small-block Chevy, was turned around in the chassis and ran through a transfer case to the differential. The driver (Randy Davis) sat in the fiberglass tub (no water). This bathtub was quick, made full passes on the rear wheels at ease, and people loved it.' "

Who said snakes can't fly? Prudhomme gets air in the lights in Seattle.

Al Kean, who shared his Seattle memories here not long ago, gets credit for this memorable shot of Don Prudhomme's Hot Wheels 'Cuda on fire and flying through the lights in Seattle at the second annual Hot Wheels Northwest National Open in Seattle in 1971. Prudhomme was racing Dave Condit in the L.A. Hooker Maverick in the final race of the day.

"I was watching everything through my camera’s viewfinder," wrote Kean. "The cars staged and launched. I was following the cars, and I thought I saw flames coming out of 'the Snake’s' windows as he neared the finish line. I remember thinking that it must just be glare off something – he couldn’t really be on fire, could he? I kept following the cars and clicked the shutter when they crossed the finish line. I then took the camera away from my face and looked downtrack to see Prudhomme’s car, with NO body on it, still in a wheelstand. It was at least 300 feet after the finish line before the car’s front wheels returned to earth.

"I had no idea what I had gotten in the photo. I had to wait several days for the color slides to get developed after we got home. It was pretty exciting to finally see the photo that I had taken. It was also exciting getting all the attention afterwards. The photo was published in Hot Rod magazine, Funny Car Pictorial, SIR programs, etc. Then track manager Bill Donor gave me a photo pass the next year, etc. The photo has also been mentioned in TV shows, over SIR’s PA, etc."

Hard to believe that today's Top Fuelers evolved from this; from its whitewall tires to its Rat Fink-like shifter placement, I really dig this car.

Bob Post, author of High Performance, the unofficial bible of drag racing historians everywhere, said he believes this is Bill Martin of Palatka, Fla., shown running on the beach in Jacksonville, Fla., in 1953. "One of three slingshots I know of that pre-dated [Mickey Thompson's]," he noted. "Martin later became quite a well-known boat designer."

In looking at this picture, reader Cliff Morgan added that the body was probably one of the many that came from a fuel tank from an airplane. "Lots of guys used those tanks to create cars for the dry lakes after World War II, both front- and rear-engined versions, and some found their way to the drags. This car used the front section, and I can see the bottom of the car under the engine. Interesting design, and the car looked 'high tech' for its time, probably 1953-54."

I love this shot, taken in the pits at Lions. No, not the neat old flip-top panel wagon -- the lady, dressed in skirt and heels. Priceless.

Steve Gibbs had the ID on this great old photo. "This is the gasser of Dale (he) and Al (her) Kersh, of Modjeska Canyon, Calif. Both are now gone. They were fixtures at SoCal tracks for many years, competing in various brackets, and were truly great people. The interesting thing is that Al was never -- EVER -- dressed any differently. She always looked like she just came from an upscale social event -- classy and in heels."

Byron Stack of Gasser Madness confirmed that this is the Kersh Family A/Gasser. "Memory tells me it was powered by a Mopar wedge motor with homebuilt injection," he wrote. "It was a very cool piece and fun to watch."

Again, it's the people who make this shot. The clown, second from left, doing his "Take the picture already" pose and the other guy still slipping on (or off?) his coat, who's clearly not ready for the shot. And that dragster? Not much traction in those rear meats.

Steve Justice says that the great in-car camera shot was done at Riverside Raceway.

(Above) This is a great shot, too, taken from the cockpit of one of Scotty Fenn's legendary Chassis Research chassis that revolutionized the sport. I took some Photoshop liberties with the original to blur the background as the El Camino tow vehicle was a distraction. Love that steering wheel and big ol' brake handle. (Below) This is Fenn's workshop. That's Fenn at far left overseeing work on some of his K-88 and TE-448 chassis.

Another vintage chassis on this cool twin. Always amazing to me to see how primitive the early driver-protection devices were.

Neal Larson of Walla Walla, Wash., worked with early drag racing hero Jack Moss from Amarillo, Texas, so he knew all about this car, the famed Two Much entry.

"The picture was taken around 1961 or 1962," he wrote. "The car's last race was in Hobbs, N.M. We lost one of the engines, so we pulled one out and made a run with it, but the throttle stuck and rolled over; all was well with Jack, but the dragster was a total mess. The roll cage did its job.

"Jack was a member of the Barons Racing team from Amarillo. Find a Hot Rod magazine from September 1957 and look and see the first Two Much and the rest of the team."

So, today, I'm alone in the Publications building, not to be a martyr or anything but to take advantage of the peace and quiet of a dark and empty office to catch up on some stuff. Project No. 1 is to complete a bunch of writing for the special Web site we'll be launching in the next few weeks in anticipation of the 50th anniversary of the Winternationals. As I may have mentioned here, we're also producing a wonderful book to memorialize the special event, chock-full of great old photos, features, and a year-by-year recap of every Winternationals. It should be available before Christmas (stocking stuffer!).

To avoid duplicating the contents of the book on the Web, most notably the recaps and the scores of great photos, the Web site will have a different feel and original content. One of the key elements will be to take advantage of the multimedia potential of the Internet by showcasing a large number of historic Winternationals video clips. It's going to be pretty cool but a lot of work, so I'd better get cracking.

Although I have a full plate, I didn’t want to leave y'all with nothing today (another reason I came in), and I wanted to share what has become a pretty typical thing with this column, and one of the things of which I am most proud. In Tuesday's Fan Fotos edition from Mark Collins, we had a shot of Bennie "the Wizard" Osborn, and Mark wondered what had become of Osborn. Naturally, the Insider Nation was all over it.

One of the first e-mails I got was from Bennie's son, Tony, who assured me that his dad was still very much around and kicking and even enclosed these photos.

"I'm very proud to inform you that my father is doing just fine," he wrote. "He still lives in Sand Springs, Okla., and continues to do mechanic work at his own pace. We have been reliving the past a lot here lately. The championship car that you mentioned for sale was purchased by a gentleman from Tulsa and had it delivered to Dad's shop for a complete AUTHENTIC restoration. Plans are to have the car ready for Bakersfield March 2010 Cacklefest. The WIZARD was at the Hot Rod Reunion in Bakersfield a couple of weeks ago and actually cackled Raymond Godman's Tennessee Bo-Weevil car."

The top photo shows "the Wizard," in the blue and gray striped shirt, with the championship car at a car show on Halloween put on by The Hot Rod Shop in honor of The Tulsa Timing Association. I hope to have a more in-depth look at "the Wizard's" career in a future column.

Our good friend Glenn Menard, president of Texas Motorplex who also maintains the www.division4halloffame.com Web site – Osborn, naturally, is a member of that Hall of Fame -- sent me a link to some great Osborn photos that the man himself had submitted for that site. You can find them here.

Gary Osborn (no relation to Bennie), whose dad ran blown gas dragsters in the 1960s before he partnered with the Sewells and won the 1980 Cajun Nationals with A.J. Seruntine driving, dropped me a note and this photo, which shows Osborn at the Holley NHRA National Hot Rod Reunion in Bowling Green, Ky. Gary was there with Dick Venables, whose front-engine dragster had been restored and is now owned by Rip Wiley. In the photo, from left, are Wiley, Venables, Osborn, and Dick's son, current Al-Anabi Funny Car tuner Dickie.

Tulsan Brian Vermillion, who has an interesting history with Osborn, shared his "Wizard" tale in an e-mail: "Bennie Osborn is alive and well, still living in Sand Springs, in the same house he lived in 40 years ago. He gave up racing in the mid- '70s after his second rear-engine dragster crash and opened up a successful transmission-repair business in his old dragster shop in his backyard.

"I got to interview Bennie at his house over 40 years ago for an eighth-grade speech-class project. Since he was my hero back then, I chose him. He was finishing up his brand-new car for the 1969 season -- I believe it was a Woody Gilmore car -- and I got to sit in it and check things out. For a 14-year-old kid who was ate up with drag racing, it was definitely the thrill of a lifetime. A friend of mine, who is close friends with Bennie, told him this story of me interviewing him, and he remembered me. He even autographed the PR handout that he gave me over 40 years ago, and it still thrilled me today to get it.

National DRAGSTER has a great photo file on the two-time champ, but I especially like this 1970 photo of "the Wizard" enjoying some fine reading material.

"You spoke of the 1967 World Finals. I remember being there with my dad that weekend. I had just turned 12, and the drags were my birthday present. The final AA/FD round almost didn't get run. The skies were as black as I had ever seen them, and it just started to sprinkle as they were beginning to stage. Tree goes green, Bennie gets a slight holeshot and carried it through to the lights. But what I remember was that as soon as the chutes were out (they hadn't even got to the turnoff yet), the skies opened up, and the most godforsaken downpour hit, flooding the track, parking lot (which was a dirt field before the rain), and everything else. But hell, when you are 12, who cares!"

Added Barry Lester, "I live about 20 miles away and pass there almost every weekend and always look over and think I should go see him but never have. I picked up the phone and called him and told him that people were wanting to know where he was. We had a great visit, told him in 1967 he came to Amarillo to race 'Big Daddy.' My buddy and I were staying in the Cowboy motel on Saturday night and going to the races on Sunday. When they pulled that AA/FD in the motel on a flatbed trailer, I almost died! I was over there in a second and was lucky enough to be able to help the mechanic pull the panels off and drop the pan and change oil, which was milky; bored a little to close to the jacket water, he said.
 
"I asked Bennie if it was OK for me to e-mail you; he said, 'Tell them not to send flowers, I am still alive and in the same place.' "

One other quick note on the Texas Fan Fotos: I got a phone call from Gary Clark and an e-mail from Vince Long, who ID'd the car being push-started at Green Valley as belonging to the famed Oklahoma City-based Smith Bros., Frank and Charlie. Charlie drove the famed Plain Vanilla roadster that swept all national event honors in 1964 by winning both the Winternationals and U.S. Nationals, so this probably was Frank in the car, which had a T roadster rather than a Bantam.

Enjoy your weekend; I'll see you next week.
 

Welcome back to Fan Fotos, shots from the private collections of fans everywhere. We're not talking pretty photos taken from the guardrail, but rather those gritty, lightpole-in-the-way, some-guy's-head-in-the-shot images that somehow better reflect our regular treks to the digs.

Today, we reach deep into the heart o' Texas for 10 great shots from Mark Collins of Dallas. Mark started going to the drags in 1964 while in high school. His older brother, Eddie, had been going to the drags at Green Valley Raceway, north of Fort Worth, with his buddies.

"I had been reading all the hot rod magazines and wanted to go check out drag racing, but being the little brother, it was a while before I was allowed to tag along with big brother and his buddies," he said. "That first Saturday night at Green Valley, I was hooked. Thereafter, I must have been at Green Valley Raceway every time they opened the gates. I could not get enough drag racing. The smells, the sounds, the competition, all of it, captured my imagination. I began taking pictures at the races with a six-dollar camera I had had since elementary school. As soon as I could get the film developed, I shared the pictures with my amazed friends at school.

"When I witnessed my first Top Fuel dragster, I thought that nitromethane was the most insane thing I had ever witnessed. The visual and visceral experience was astounding. The fact that the fans could walk right up to the cars and drivers in the pits had great appeal to me. It was easy to rub shoulders with the heroes I watched on the track. It didn't matter if it was a guy from the local gas station or 'Big' himself. Of course, I never really did talk to Garlits because he was too famous. I felt certain he would not be enlightened by a geeky high school kid. Even so, I had a strong desire to get into the driver's seat someday."

In the 1970s, Mark began driving a '23-T Ford roadster with a flathead V-8 built by his friend Ralph Lewis. "Those 12-second e.t.s weren't Top Fueler-type runs, but I was finally burnin' up the strip. We subsequently built a C/D for Competition eliminator and a AA/DA competing in Pro Comp with moderate success. I will always remember the first time we drove into the participant's entrance under the 1974 Winternationals banner. It was hallowed drag racing ground. I felt like I was participating in something special. There we were, just some unknown guys from Texas with a desire to compete on the national level. I'm sure that was the case with many of the other racers, too. Win or lose, I always loved going to the races. I'm still hooked even though I'm only spectating these days."

Here are Mark's 10 favorite Fan Fotos.
 
According to Mark, this cool image of Shirley Muldowney's Funny Car on a ramp truck was taken at Dallas Int'l Motor Speedway (DIMS) during the Springnationals, which would make it late 1971.

Although Muldowney ran almost exclusively in Mustang-bodied floppers (due, no doubt, to crew chief Connie Kalitta's long-running association with Ford), she ran this Plymouth Barracuda at the end of the season after burning up her Bounty Huntress Mustang in a fire at Dragway 42 in Ohio. The car was a loaner from Don Schumacher, one of his former Stardust entries. I couldn't find out which car it was -- whether it was one "the Shoe" himself drove or one of his team cars -- but Muldowney proudly claims that she got it to run both quicker and faster than it did for the Schumacher team.

When I first opened the image at right from Mark's e-mail, I was thoroughly puzzled. This didn't look like any kind of drag racing shot I'd ever seen, fan or otherwise. Mark calls this somewhat humorous photo "Duck," and once he explained it to me, it made sense. "This image was taken in April 1973 at a Top Fuel meet at DIMS. The point of view is from the hot-car push-start lanes at about the 1,000-foot mark of the track. A Top Fuel car had just detonated uptrack, out of sight of the camera. We could see parts in the air, so everybody was ducking for cover. In the seconds following, little pieces rained down, luckily with no injuries. I think the guy pictured worked at the track." Been there, done that.

More than 25 years after Mark snapped this early-1970s photo, Chris "the Golden Greek" Karamesines is still racing. Mark captured the legendary Top Fuel driver checking the spark plugs between rounds, which, in the era before onboard data computers, was part of how these cars were tuned. And, of course, in the days when the teams weren't working in a narrow valley created by a pair of tractor trailers, you could walk right up and snap a great photo like this.

"That full head of hair was still dark in those days," noted Mark. "I remember taking a few photos and getting the evil eye from 'the Greek.' I suppose he didn't like his photo taken. Take note of height and size of the rear wing. No shade, no awnings, and no power tools. And no teardown between rounds. If the plugs look OK, just pour some more nitro in the tank and go again."

Here's another photo from that same May 1965 meet at Green Valley. "This was a Top Fuel meet with a 32-car field," he recalled. "In those days, 32- and even 64-car Top Fuel fields were not unusual. This is the intimidating Vance Hunt fueler. Hunt was a great tuner who always had excellent drivers, Watus Simpson among them. It appears that tiny pressure tank in front wouldn't hold enough fuel for a warm-up in modern fuelers. I recently spoke to Vance at the O'Reilly Fall Nationals at Ennis. He amazed me with the wealth of information he possessed about the current Top Fuel scene. It's always great to see some of the legendary figures of drag racing."

In addition to the aforementioned Simpson, Hunt employed the likes of Ted Arnold, Gary Bailey, Jerry Ellis, J.L. Payne, and some guy you've probably heard of, a young Texan named Kenny Bernstein, who I understand went on to a fair degree of success after his 1966 stint with Hunt. If DragList is correct, this would have been Ellis' ride, which was a Don Garlits chassis.

Mark snapped this photo in April 1973 at DIMS as Bennie "the Wizard" Osborn was climbing into his new rear-engine Top Fueler in the staging lanes. In his slingshot, the Sand Springs, Okla., racer won back-to-back NHRA world championships in 1967 and 1968 at his hometrack in Tulsa, back when the Finals winner was crowned the season champ. Osborn, who never won an NHRA national event away from Tulsa, put it to the big boys in the final at both of those races, beating none other than Don Prudhomme in 1976 and John Mulligan in 1968, denying both what would have been their first world titles.

"Bennie was testing his first rear-engined Top Fueler he built over the winter," recalled Mark. "He simultaneously built the front-engined C/Dragster for my partner Ralph Lewis, which I drove. In fact, he delivered the chassis on this trip, strapping it on the top of his enclosed trailer for the trip from Oklahoma to Texas. I think it was early the following year that 'the Wizard' went on his head in this car in a blowover close to the finish line, and the roll cage kept him from injury. Note the absence of a rear wing. I don't remember why he only had a front-axle wing. Does anyone out there know his status? I do recall that Bennie never cursed that I know of. When someone made him angry, he would call them a 'stinker.' He was always a real gentleman."

I don't know what has become of Osborn, but I know that his championship-winning Top Fueler is still out there; Prudhomme called me a few weeks ago to verify the results of that 1967 Finals because he had somebody trying to sell him the car. Funny, he didn't remember losing that final round. I guess when you've been in as many finals as "the Snake," it's hard to remember any one of them, especially one 42 years ago. Anyone know what became of "the Wizard"?

"Obviously one of the most unique dragsters in history, the Herm Petersen streamliner," noted Mark. "This image is at the 1974 Winternationals. This was my first national event as a participant. Although I didn't qualify in Competition eliminator, I did get to see many of the stars of the sport I had never seen and checked out the California culture."

This great-looking Can Am-inspired Top Fueler of Petersen and partner Sam Fitz made its debut in Pomona that year; the Woody Gilmore-built piece featured a swing-open back deck for easy access to the engine, but, more important, it marked Petersen's return to the cockpit after a horrible crash and fire at Orange County Int’l Raceway the previous July. Petersen was terribly burned – he had second- and third-degree burns over more than 50 percent of his body -- after an axle broke and his dragster overturned. Petersen spent three months in the hospital and almost died twice, but he persevered through the pain and skin-graft operations to bravely return to the cockpit in Pomona. Close friend Denny Bale was quoted in the Kitsap Sun newspaper a few years ago: "We had to lift him in and out of the car. His fingers were all fused. He couldn't hang on to things it hurt him so bad. At the end of a run, he'd have tears in his eyes, the pain was so bad."

Petersen is still out there, a fixture at nostalgia events and the coordinator of a decibel-busting cacklefest contest.

The Kuhl & Olson Da Revell Fast Guys model was the first large-scale (1/16th) Revell model I ever built (it even came with a Carl Olson figure!), so this photo of Mark's, which he says is from Amarillo in 1974, was special to me, too.

"The K&O team were hard runners and had a state-of-the-art trailer," remembered Mark. "It looks downright spartan compared to the pit layouts of today's Pro teams. Just having an onboard water tank was high tech in those days. Mike Kuhl could make it run fast, and Carl Olson was quick and straight down the strip. Take note of the spare engine door above the trailer fender."

I had the pleasure of working with C.O. for many years here at NHRA, and we have stayed in touch. He's a fan of the column (even the ones that don't include him) and a true hero.

And finally, this rather … um … unusually composed (and self-congratulatory!) photo shows driver Joe Monden and the Lewis-owned Foolish Pleasure Alcohol Dragster on which Mark worked in the pit area at the onetime home of the NHRA Cajun Nationals. "I took this photo when we won the Winston Championship Series race in Baton Rouge [La.] in 1976," reported Mark. "Joe is currently a very successful chassis builder and Top Alcohol crew chief working out of Gainesville, Texas. There are quite a lot of Monden chassis running in the Lucas Oil Series."

This car is sometimes incorrectly listed as Fuelish Pleasure, which was actually an A/Fuel Dragster out of Dallas owned by Charles Tunnell; looking at the full-sized pic, it's obvious this is with two o's. The Fuelish Pleasure moniker also was used by Washington state Alcohol Funny Car racer John Hughes and, more famously, by Gary Clapshaw on his strong-running nitro Funny Cars in the 1990s.

"We used the name Foolish Pleasure, which was the name of a famous race horse in the news in those years," Mark explained.

OK, race fans, that's another healthy dose of fan-tastic fotos. Thanks to Mark for playing; he'll receive the home version of our game (well, not really) and our undying thanks (really). I've really been overwhelmed by the response from y'all (keeping in the Texas theme of today's column), and I have plenty more where these came from. I've mentioned it before, but these types of photos, locked away in attics and dusty old photo albums for decades, might well be the last treasure trove from those golden days of racing, and I can tell you that the faithful out here would love to see yours.

See ya later this week.

In anticipation of tomorrow's All Hallows' Eve, today's DRAGSTER Insider offers a mixed bag o' tricks … my treat to you. It's a mix of fond memories and a dash of this and that. And away we go ...

If there's one thing other than death and taxes that one can count on in this world, it's that everyone loves an underdog. For many of us who have been around this sport for a while, Tom Baum was loved. I've rooted passionately for other underdogs in my day – Rodney Flournoy, for example – but "the Bomber" was someone you couldn't not root for.

The Midwest dragster veteran passed away Tuesday, of congestive heart failure at the age of 67, and there'has been a touching outpouring of sentimentality about his loss that outstrips that of other, brighter lights who have preceded him to that Great Dragstrip in the sky.

I first found out about his passing from his nephew, Bill, who summed up his uncle this way: "Not a lot of success on the track but had more friends than anyone else I knew."

While it's debatable that he didn’t have a lot of success on the track – he was a regular in the UDRA top 10 and won the Olympics of Drag Racing in 1988 over a pretty good field -- there doesn’t seem to be any debating his second point.

"The Bomber," at his home away from home: Great Lakes Dragaway

I first met Tom Baum at the 1983 SPORTSnationals at Indy, where he was driving the Lloyd & Co. dragster. It was my first on-the-road race working for National DRAGSTER, and he obliged me with this nice wheelstand. Thanks, Tom!

Mark Bruederle sent me these five pics; Kepner says that MB has the world's largest collection of Tom Baum photos. I believe him!

Our ol' pal Bret Kepner, one of the Midwest's most notorious drag denizens, shared his thoughts, and probably the thoughts of many who knew "the Bomber," in this tribute.

It's a sad day for fans of the underdogs in the sport. As much as he was a determined drag racer, he was a true character. His personality always shown through even when things were worst. He was excited to wake up every morning as long as there was a race car in his garage. He could be hilarious, intense, or nearly nuts, but he was always a friend to anybody ... including those who'd never met him. 
 
"The Bomber" was one of the only individuals who made a living racing on the UDRA circuit through the 1970s and 1980s. He pushed his homebuilt engines to the absolute limit on nearly every run and, by his own admission, he blew up a lot of stuff. Still, when he'd saved up enough money, he would hit the road for the nearest AHRA, IHRA, or NHRA national event and give it a shot. He was a fixture at NHRA WCS events in Divisions 3 and 5 and booked himself for match races against anything including jets, Funny Cars, and fuelers.
 
Routinely, he would finish in the top 10 point standings in UDRA competition. At one time, he was the quickest driver in history at the wheel of a cast-iron Chevy blown Alcohol Dragster. His greatest moment, however, came when he won the overall TAD title in the grueling Olympics of Drag Racing at Great Lakes Dragaway in Union Grove, Wis., in 1988. He considered "the Grove" his home track and had a truly massive following there. Track owner "Broadway Bob" Metzler had a special place in his heart for Baum, who once crashed his first front-engined dragster off Metzler's property in 1960.
 
The Olympics featured category-specific competition for the first two of its four days but always deteriorated into a free-for-all for its last two days. In those final 48 hours, any and all pairings occurred, but the racers still battled for points to determine the overall championship. On the final day of the '88 event, "the Bomber" beat UDRA and Olympics kingpin Tony Zizzo, multi-time UDRA world champ Hal Canode, NHRA national champion Al DaPozzo, and the short-wheelbased Top Fueler of "Diamond Dave" Miller to win his biggest title. It was one of the few times "the Bomber" was ever publicly overcome by emotion.
 
During the 1991 Olympics at "the Grove," Baum barrel-rolled his Fel-Pro Gaskets Xecutioner four times on the first day of the event. He was battered and bruised but loaded the remains of the car into his ancient homemade trailer and headed back to his garage. Twenty-four hours later, he returned to the track and unloaded the same car, rebuilt by Baum alone, and continued to compete in the event.
 
It seemed everybody in drag racing knew him. He was a phenomenal promoter of his own racing team and often displayed his car for charitable organizations free of charge, feeling the "good karma" would come back to him someday. He was the kind of guy you couldn't dislike, even if he had just oiled the left lane from starting line to turnoff with an engine even he knew shouldn't have even been able to fire. He raced hard, drove all night to make an event the next day in another state, unloaded, and raced hard again. He laughed when he lost in the first round and was still smiling when he headed out the gate for an all-night drive home. He was as hard core as they will ever come. Tom Baum was one of a kind.

Jody Schmeisser, a fellow Illini of Baum and a longtime Super-class racer and owner of Pit Pal Products, shared his thoughts with me as well.

Anybody who had an opportunity to ever cross Tom Baum’s path would forever remember Tom as a great-spirited, warmhearted individual. He was known nationwide in the motorsports industry for his support and his character. If you ever had the time to talk to Tom, you would acknowledge that Tom was very intelligent and on top of current affairs. Tom had a sense of humor that can never be replaced; he could one-line you and clearly stop you for a minute because you were in pain from laughing so hard.

Tom spent his entire life in the drag racing community and was known and respected throughout the United States. Tom raced several different types of cars through his racing career. One of Tom’s biggest accomplishments was the first Chevrolet steel-block Alcohol Dragster to break the 200-mph barrier at the inaugural Joliet national event in his hometown Chicago with his famous Xecutioner race car. From the late '70s to late '80s, Tom was in charge of the NHRA display booth that was part of the major showcase in the famous Chicago new-car automobile show that would bring close to a million people in attendance. Tom would carefully pick some of the nation's top drag race cars (including his own) to display for fans and attendees to appreciate. Tom would prepare for months to attend these events and spend 14- to 18-hour days just trying to answer any questions to the best of his knowledge at these shows. He was always a true gentlemen and fun guy to communicate with. He always could bring the best out of anybody. Tom had a special way to always find out how you were doing and really listen. Tom had been a very special person to many people in his life to always help with no obligations in return. Tom will be well-missed forever.

As sad as we are to mourn Baum's passing, his nephew did assure me that "a lot of my schtick is based on 'the Bomber,' so in a small way, he will live on." Good news!

Hey, if you're a fan of good ol' Orange County Int'l Raceway (and who isn't?), if you're on Facebook (and who isn't?), a cool new group has been created that allows racers and fans to share their precious memories (and, best of all, their photos) from "the County."

The Memories of O.C.I.R. group has nearly 200 fans already and about 100 photos of varying quality and content (including some sweet pics from Auto Imagery's Rick Shute). Naturally, there are some fine photos of nitro cars, but also a lot of the bracket and other door cars that made their home there, including many early Pro Gassers. It's great stuff.

You'll see some pretty familiar names among the group's fans, including Roland Leong ("Good, bad and wild times but what memories. Crashed some cars but also won some races."), Roger Gustin, "Jungle Pam" Hardy, Gordie Bonin, Don Moody, Dean Skuza, Della Woods, Vic Edelbrock, Jon Lundberg, and many others. Come join the fun!
 

Former Funny Car owner and driver Jim Wemett, whose cars have been featured in past columns here, passed along this great shot of a current-day him, behind the wheel of his latest ride (a boat), which he's dry-docking for the winter. "Took boat out of the water today," he wrote me. "40 degrees in N.Y."

And how do ex-racers stay warm in those cool climes? Wemett dug out the jacket from his 1980s firesuit, of course. "My kids got a kick out of it," he said. "I knew it was the warmest thing I had."

Fans mostly know of Wemett as a car owner, most memorably of the Wombat Mercury LN-7 driven by Tom Anderson in the early 1980s. That car was an early star of the performance-rich 1982 U.S. Nationals, where Anderson booted it to the first 5.7-second pass by a flopper, a 5.79.at 236.22 on Friday. Don Prudhomme, of course, made that – and every run for several years after – look like last year's news when he rocked Indy with a 5.63 a day later. Wemett, though, also was a driver, wheeling his own cars from 1970 through 1975 before turning the wheel over to George Johnson from1976 to 1979 and Anderson beginning in 1980.

Watching the World Series, I've been intrigued by the Fox Trax stats, which measure a pitch's velocity leaving the hurler's arm and when it arrives at the plate (typically a five-mph decrease), but the stat that got my attention was the time it takes to leave the pitcher's hand and travel the 60.5 feet to the plate. The number, on a 90-mph fastball, was down around .41-second.

Being the drag racing geek that I am, two things immediately came to mind. First, four-tenths of a second in the time between the amber light and the green on our Christmas Tree and a driver's reaction to that accounts for our reaction time stat (which used to express .400 as a perfect light but today is flagged as .000). I know the mechanics of a drag racing reaction tie but wondered what goes on in that four-tenths of a second from a batter's perspective, so I asked the only real ballplayer I know on a first-name basis, former future big-leaguer Bob Wilber, team manager for Tim Wilkerson, who came thisclose to making the bigs. Wilber, as usual, was not at a loss for words.

From everything I hear from Funny Car drivers, I think the act of hitting and act of driving the car are similar in one key way: You make a ton of decisions in a short amount of time, but nearly all of them are learned and instinctive, because you don't have time to think things out.

Basically, those four-tenths of a second it takes a pitch to leave the pitcher's hand and then cross the hitting zone can be broken into two halves. The first two-tenths are all about recognition. You're watching arm angle, arm speed, the way the ball comes out of the pitcher's hand (slightly upward for a breaking ball, and downward for a fastball), and finally spin. The ball might be halfway to the plate before your eyes pick up the spin and your brain processes that into useful information.

The next two-tenths are the execution phase. Your brain has already registered "fastball, outside, good velocity," so now your hips, arms, hands, and eyes all have to coordinate to bring the bat through that exact spot, at precisely the right moment in time, to make contact with the ball. Deception is the pitcher's best tool, so he's trying to make you miss at least one of the judgments you made during the first two-tenths. That's why a good change-up is a brilliant pitch. All the indicators I just mentioned tell your brain "fastball" but the grip is different, and that alone takes 8-10 mph off the pitch. You swing for that fastball, but the ball's not there yet.

Great velocity will also change the methodology. Once you get up into the 96-100-mph range, the pitch is coming so fast you don't have time to see it, register what it is, and then start your swing. You have to start your swing before you've finished the analysis, and then you have to try to adjust as you go. Rule of thumb at the plate: Think fastball, adjust to the curve. If only it was that easy.

All of that happens in four-tenths, and then you have to take that wooden cylinder and make perfect contact with a round ball. Hard enough, even in batting practice, but in the game, there are nine bad guys out there (including the catcher) who are trying to catch what you hit, no matter how perfectly you hit it. No wonder a 70 percent failure rate will earn you a ticket to Cooperstown! Just talking about it, I wonder how I ever got any hits...

For the record, "Bloggin' Bob" spent six years in professional baseball, first as a player in the Detroit Tigers and Oakland A's organizations, and then as both a minor-league coach and a scouting supervisor for the Toronto Blue Jays, so he knows of which he speaks.

On to part two: The 60-foot thing obviously caught my eye as it's a common place for us to measure acceleration. Seeing as how a good Top Fuel 60-foot time is in the .82 range, can someone please explain to me how it's possible for a baseball to cover 60 feet in .4-second, which is less than half the time it takes a 7,000-horsepower Top Fueler to do the same? I was very much offended. So I did some digging.

Simple math tells us a slightly different story:

An object traveling 90 mph will travel 7,920 feet (1.5 miles!) in 60 seconds. Therefore

7920/60 = 60.5/x
x = .458

So, mathematically at least, it would take an object traveling a constant 90 mph .458-second to travel 60 feet, 6 inches.

Of course, however, no pitcher releases the ball right above the rubber. With their follow-through, the ball probably leaves his hand about five feet closer to the plate. Advantage baseball. Also, although the ball is not constantly at 90 mph, it starts being clocked when it's at its highest velocity (the pitcher's arm is in full motion before the release), and a dragster is going from a dead stop. Advantage baseball. Also, drag racers have to accelerate a 2,250-pound hunk of metal. A baseball weighs about five ounces. Advantage baseball. Still, why does this fact bother me?

And, finally, also in the notable losses column, we join our good pal Billy Meyer in mourning the loss of his dad, the can-do Paul Meyer, who passed away from cancer Monday. He was 81.

Paul was a longtime Waco civic leader, international businessman, and philanthropist, but race fans will recognize the name of one of his endeavors, the  Success Motivation Institute, which was branded on some of Billy Meyer's cars in the 1970s. It was the company that his father founded that instilled a basic mantra (if memory serves me) of "Whatever you vividly imagine, ardently desire, sincerely believe, and enthusiastically act upon must inevitably come to pass."

I'm sure that his son, a successful businessman in his own right, used those guiding philosophies to get to where he is in life, including giving drag racing fans, among other things, the lasting gift that is the Texas Motorplex, featuring a concrete surface that no one had ever built.

According to an online bio, Paul Meyer  also  adopted these words of theologian John Wesley for his own and lived them fully: "Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as ever you can." Man, I really like that.

He is survived by his wife, Jane, and five children -- Jim, Larry, Billy, Janna, and Leslie -- brother Carl Meyer, and 15 grandchildren. Paul Meyer's life will be celebrated at a memorial service this morning at the arena previously named in his honor at the Baylor University Ferrell Center.
 

For many NHRA fans, Jay Howell may be among the most unsung drag racing heroes they never knew about. Regular readers of this column may be familiar with him from occasional mentions, but those old-time racers we all know and love certainly all knew and respected Howell for his ability to both build and drive race cars during a heady career in the 1960s.

Not only did he build or have a hand in building some of the most famous vehicles to traverse the quarter-mile on two or four wheels, but he also drove some of them. He's also one of very few trusted by Don Prudhomme to drive one of "the Snake's" cars in his early racing days, which says a lot about how people felt about Howell.

Howell was born in Detroit in 1942, and he and his brother, Jim, were raised by their paternal grandparents after their parents died. Howell found his calling early, cruising Detroit’s legendary Woodward Avenue as a teen, stoking his hot rod dreams.

Howell's first race car was a Buick Special that he bought new in 1962 from Carl Fischer's dealership, where he worked as a mechanic and which sponsored the car. He ran in D/Stock and the following year with a blower in C/GS. After General Motors dropped its factory support that season, Fischer's gave Howell all the engines and spare parts, and he used them to build a lightweight Buick-powered roadster that competed in Middle eliminator at Detroit and Motor City Dragways.

Jay Howell's early blown roadster at Detroit Dragway

He was introduced to drag racing in 1960 by Jim, who was driving Pete Seaton’s Seaton’s Shaker 1960 Pontiac Super Stocker. Howell and Seaton became good friends and later partners in Automotive Engineering, which Howell opened in 1966.
 
Prior to striking out on his own, though, Howell worked for Dick Branstner at Branstner Enterprises in Troy, Mich. Branstner and driver Roger Lindamood had just won Top Stock at the 1964 Nationals with their Color Me Gone Dodge, and Branstner hired Howell to run the operation, which built engines and did chassis work for Super Stock and A/FX cars.

Among the company's major contributions to drag racing lore was the refinement of the Little Red Wagon wheelstander, which didn’t actually begin life as a wheelstander; Howell's contribution is that he took it on one of its groundbreaking "flights."

"The Little Red Wagon was conceived and built by two engineers at Dodge Truck, Jim Schaeffer and John Collins," recalled Howell. "It was powered by a 426 Hemi on gas and carburetors, with a rigid rear suspension. We were playing around doing neutral starts -- transmission in neutral, go to wide open throttle, and punch the Drive button! -- and it would pick the front wheels up maybe a foot or two. Spectators loved it. The truck was more or less being passed around to various teams, and it ended up at Branstner's after the rear suspension had been improved. It was assigned to me for some 'development work.' I ordered a roll cage to be installed and replaced the stock 426 engine with an injected engine on nitromethane.

Howell at the wheel of the Little Red Wagon

"It was late '64, and we were at Motor City Dragway outside of Detroit. I pulled up to the starting line to make a pass, and in the right lane was my friend Tony Knieper in his GTO. The injected nitro motor didn’t require a neutral start to pick the wheels up, but this time, it went up and kept going! The truck always had a tendency to drift right, and, true to form, it proceeded to do its thing. I’m now on the tailgate, and somewhere underneath the front wheels is my buddy Tony. I stayed in it until I saw him drive out from underneath me. I lifted, and it came down like a ton of bricks. It was quite a day. Dodge PR had a photographer there, and one of the local TV stations got it all on film. It made the 11 o’clock news. The rest is history -- well, almost."

According to Howell, the truck was funded by Dodge PR, and Frank Wylie assigned the truck to Bill "Maverick" Golden to campaign nationally.

Continued Howell, " 'Maverick' arrived in town for 'driving lessons' about the time I finished the install of a nitro-fueled, supercharged 426. It was late fall when we all returned to Motor City, and it was cold. I made a couple passes but couldn’t get it anywhere near hooking up. Late in the day, I made a pretty good pass and mentioned to Branstner, 'I think it’s carrying the front end in the lights.' We had a rather vigorous discussion, which I concluded by saying something stupid like, 'Fine, I won’t lift, and we’ll see who’s right!' Next pass, straight up, 147 in the lights. 'Maverick' opted not to drive it that day. I reinstalled the injected engine, and 'Maverick' went on his way.
 
"I have to give Frank Wylie a lot of credit for being a man of his word. He knew I was less than pleased over his giving the Little Red Wagon to 'Maverick.' He came to the shop during the reassignment and took me aside and said something like, 'Don’t worry; I’ll make it up to you.' Did he ever!"

Wylie arranged a meeting with Branstner and Howell and asked Howell to describe the dream car he would like to build and drive. His answer became the Dart Charger, a mid-engine blown, injected nitro Funny Car.

"It was the first Funny Car I built," Howell recalled fondly. "Dick confided to me that the contract was the first million-dollar deal ever for drag racing by Dodge. We match raced it some and took it to Indy in '65 and set low e.t. and top speed with a 9.02 at 164 mph."

The mid-engine Cotton Picker was one of the many memorable cars that Howell built while working with Dick Branstner.

While working for Branstner, Howell also built a car shown previously in this column, the Cotton Picker mid-engine Dodge wagon, for stock-car heroes Cotton Owens and David Pearson, and several altered-wheelbase cars, including Bill Flynn’s memorable Yankee Peddler.

Howell left Branstner later that year to open Automotive Engineering. The Dart Charger was given to Don Garlits, who tabbed Emory Cook to drive. According to Howell, Cook turned the car overbackward in the lights at Detroit Dragway, totaling the car, but walked away unharmed.

Howell's successes with Branstner did not go unnoticed, and when Bill Shrewsberry went looking for someone to build the first L.A. Dart wheelstander, Howell's experience with the Wagon paid off in spades. The car was quickly built and on the way into drag racing annals. The staff at Automotive Engineering, including Howell's brother, Jim, turned out a number of highly memorable, successful, and innovative Funny Cars, including Don Gay’s Infinity GTO, the Ramchargers “Skinny Dart,” and the Seaton’s Shaker Corvair, which Howell even drove for a while and with which he set the speed record at Detroit Dragway in 1967 at 179 mph.

Business was booming for Howell, forcing him to move to a larger shop in 1967. His reputation and success caught the eyes of the famous chassis-building Logghe brothers, Gene and Ron, who – during one boys' night out over skeet (and bull) shooting at Ted’s Blue Rock Gun Club in Warren, Mich. -- offered to buy Automotive Engineering and hire Howell to run the combined operation. Howell agreed.

"It was one of the best decisions I ever made," he said. "They were very talented guys, and I thoroughly enjoyed knowing and working with them. We were turning out Funny Cars at an unbelievable rate, not to mention Top Fuel dragsters, altereds, street rods, and more."

The Prock & Howell F Troop Willys was one of Howell's most popular cars.

One of the Logghes' customers was Tom Prock, who had a '33 Willys A/GS machine. Howell quickly teamed with Prock, and, using a basic Stage I Logghe Funny Car chassis, built a tube-chassis Willys. Howell shortened and narrowed the chassis to fit a B&N fiberglass body, and Al Bergler did the tinwork. With a flip-top body (with one opening door) and a full roll cage, it was the envy of every team but wouldn't pass NHRA tech inspection.

"We took it to the NHRA Regional at Indy, and they wouldn’t let it run," Howell recalled. "Something about the framerails not being original or something like that. Car Craft magazine did a nice feature story on it, which included a cutaway drawing. We ran the car some in '68 and put it in the attic at Logghes that winter. The Hill brothers, Pete and Bill, contacted us about forming a four-car outlaw Nitro Gasser circuit featuring their Willys, our car, Jim Shore's Anglia, and Chuck Finders in another Anglia. We agreed to join, and I replaced the 427 Chevrolet with a 426 Chrysler, and the fun began.

"The circuit, many times, resembled a traveling circus. I was the only one of the group who had a full-time job. Getting back to work on Mondays was always a challenge. We also learned that '33 Willys want to fly from the rear at speeds above 165. That made for some very interesting rides. Picture being sideways in the lights, left rear off the ground, then Bill Simpson’s crossform would hit, and all was well again. The Logghes came up with the solution. A pair of small wings were fabricated and installed on the rear fenders. Tom and I showed up out East for a race. We rolled the Willys out of the trailer, and the Hill brothers and group crack up, pointing and laughing and then dubbing them 'Mickey Mouse ears.' First pass I laid down was a 178! Next week, they all had 'em! The car pretty much dominated the circuit, running consistent 8.0s and 185 plus while pedaling it.

This Logghe shop Funny Car served as a rolling test bed. Photo by Ted Pappacena/www.dragracingimagery.com

That winter, Howell, Prock, and the Logghes decided to build and compete a rolling test lab in the form of a Mustang Funny Car. Prock and Howell sold the Willys ("A mistake," admitted Howell) and transplanted the Willys' drivetrain into the new Funny Car, dubbed Warhorse. With Howell driving and Prock wrenching, they finished fourth in the AHRA series, highlighted by winning all three days of the Summer Nationals in Detroit against a field that included Prudhomme, Tom McEwen, Gene Snow, the Ramchargers, and more. The Drag News headline read “Howell all the way at Detroit!” There's a pretty cool video clip of the car (and others) in action at New York National Speedway here.

Howell decided to retire from racing at the end of 1970, calling it a season even before the U.S. Nationals, but fate had other plans.

(Above) Howell had the honor of running Don Prudhomme's Hot Wheels Barracuda Funny Car in Indy in 1970. (Below) He was part of the first side-by-side six-second Funny Car pass there, running alongside the Candies & Hughes team.

"I was planning a Labor Day vacation with my wife and kids," recalled Howell. "Prudhomme approached me about Tom and me racing his Hot Wheels Funny Car for him while he would race his Top Fuel dragster. I think he offered us something like $250. I told him I’d pass and take the vacation option. We compromised and agreed on a better number (for us).

"He showed up with a brand-new Keith Black stroker motor in it. It was stout! No one had ever run in the sixes at a national event, and Tom and I wanted to be the first. The first pass, it launched, wheels up, right for the guardrail. I shut it off, coasted through, and we put it right back in the staging lanes. Next pass, we were paired up against Candies & Hughes. They were experimenting with a B&M/Crowerglide, and they laid down a 6.83 against my shutting-off 6.99. I had the dubious honor of being the first driver to make a six-second pass and lose!

"Our next qualifying run nearly got us thrown out of the race. Fire burnouts, once very popular, had been banned from NHRA events. We fired up for our final qualifying pass, and Tom’s got that baby hopped up. I pull into the bleach box, and Tom pours down the liquid traction compound on the right side. Normally (remember we’re talking about Tom here with 'normal' in the same sentence), he would come around and pour the left tire and then guide me forward into the liquid. This time, he never shows up on the left side. Next thing I realize, my butt’s burning. Tom has set the friggin' bleach box on fire! I hammer the throttle and did this giant fire burnout. When the smoke clears, Buster Couch is standing in front of the car, and he is pissed! Fortunately, 'Snake' was there and assured him it was an accident. Tom later told me that the engine was hittin’ so hard his ears couldn’t stand the pain, so he just threw the traction bottle at the left rear, and it splashed on the headers, lighting the box."

Howell qualified No. 5 and easily defeated Cliff Zink in round one but fell to eventual winner Don Schumacher in the second frame.

" 'Snake' came by and chatted with us and then went back to the dragster area to tend to his ride. When we fired the car for round two, it sounded like crap! No throttle response and would barely do a burnout. We were done! A month or so later, I asked 'Snake' what he found. He said there were TWO jets, one on top of the other, in the injector. I still don’t agree with Tom and 'the Snake’s' theory as to what happened."

Prudhomme, of course, freed of the distraction of running the Funny Car, won Top Fuel for the second straight time and third overall in Indy, defeating Jim Nicoll in that memorable final round that ended with the front half of Nicoll's digger sliding downtrack in front of Prudhomme after a massive clutch explosion.

Howell did retire at the end of the 1970 season and accepted an offer from the Ramchargers to launch its speed-shop endeavor. He worked there for four or five years before moving his family to northern Michigan.

A few years ago, Howell got a call from Dan Hix, who had come into possession of the F Troop Willys. The car had changed hands quite a few times and had even been raced in Hawaii before returning to the States. Hix found it for sale at a flea market in Wisconsin.

"Pictures were sent, and I was sick," said Howell. "It had been so hacked up! Dan was determined to bring it back to its glory days, and he really did. Steve Timoszyk of Belleville, Mich., is the owner. Steve invited me to attend the Bowling Green Hot Rod Reunion in 2005 to drive it in the Cacklefest. I hadn’t seen her for 35 years! It was a very nice reunion.

"In November 2008, I was honored with induction into the Michigan Motorsports Hall of Fame. It was, to say the least, a pretty humbling experience."

Howell operated a Goodyear tire service center and car wash in Gaylord, Mich., for 13 years and later became a certified financial planner. He retired in 2006, and he and his wife, Diane, sold their house, cars, hot rod, and most all of their stuff and moved aboard his sailboat.

"We’ve sailed the eastern Atlantic from Maine to the southern Bahamas," he said proudly. "If the world situation ever settles down in my lifetime, we'd like to sail to Europe and spend a few years there. Keep your eyes open for a 40-foot sloop that answers to 'Far Niente,' which is Italian for 'Without a care.' Hail us on the VHF and stop by for a painkiller. I’m still racing along, just a little slower now. About 7 knots."
 

Welcome back, race fans, to another installment of Fan Fotos. We're going to take you back a few more years than past installments today, thanks to reader Joe Kerr, who sent me a bunch of photos from his late-1960s Southern California race-going days, primarily at fabled Lions Drag Strip. The photos, true fan photos based on their location behind fences and poles, are cool; I don't think I've ever seen this exact view of Lions, and it gives a great overall look at the facility and how close the fans were to the action.

"The [Lions] pictures are from the 1966 East vs. West Championship. It was a match race weekend event. I don't remember who won the event, but do recall 'Dyno Don' was giving all the racers a workout. I shot the photos from the pitside bleachers, first row, using a 135mm camera, and I believe it was a Yachika. It was an accordion-type camera that pulled out. Nothing fancy; I just panned the camera as the cars were moving, though some were stopped after doing the burnouts.

"Oh boy, what can you not like about going to the drags in the '60s?" he added. "At Lions, you were just about sitting on the strip from the pit side, so you could smell the fuel and rubber from burnouts, and the tingle in your ears from the vibration would make you shudder. The race was close and personal. Back then, racing was not as commercial as it is today. Though I still attend and recently completed a B/FX '65 Mustang Fastback to run the nostalgia events, it's hard to replicate the era and racers of that day. I have been involved with drag racing since 1965 and at 65 will continue to enjoy the sport."

A lot of more recent fans know Richard Schroeder from his popular Smokey Red and Emergency West wheelstanders or as a quality race announcer, but the big guy, who left us in August 2007, was a pretty good "real" racer back in the early '60s with a series of early Funny Cars like the all-steel Emerald Chevrolet-backed Bad Bossa Nova. The near-stock 427 ran 40 percent nitro and mid-nines.

Man, that was a fun trip back to the '60s; thanks, Joe, for giving us a reminder of how it all started for the fiberglass fantastics!
 

Former Funny Car racer Bobby Rowe, who died late last week at age 64, left behind not just a legacy as one of the many great Funny Car drivers to come out of the early 1970s, but also a story of hard work and perseverance. Many know him as the national-record-setting driver of Ed Willis' Mr. Ed Satellite, but he didn’t get there overnight.

Rowe didn't start out in a nitro Funny Car like so many in those formative days of the class, but once he got there, he certainly showed that he belonged. Rowe was Robert Hight before Hight was born, learning the ropes on the crew side of the sport, earning a reputation as a hard worker before getting his shot at nitro glory.

Rowe began drag racing before he had a driver's license. In 1959, at age 14, he registered 14-second times at Lakeland Drag Strip near Memphis with his C/Gas '50 Chevy and campaigned the car for several years. In the early 1960s, the Memphis native was hired by former Division 2 Director Buster Couch to work on the Division 2 certification team at national and divisional events. Rowe performed a variety of duties, everything from working the starting line to tech inspection and fuel check.

After spending four years as part of "Buster's Rebels," Rowe went to work for camshaft wizard Joe Lunati, grinding cams at the business and helping on Lunati's A/Modified Sports entry while fielding a pair of Studebaker M/Stockers, with which he set multiple national records.

His racing career was interrupted in the mid-1960s while he served his country for two years in the Vietnam War, but once Stateside, he returned to the quarter-mile with a P/S '55 Chevrolet, and he and Sportsman legend Dave Boertman traded the national record back and forth.

But the big circus was calling, and Rowe answered. He left Lunati to hit the match race trail, doing engine and transmission work for Bill Taylor's Super 'Cuda and Larry Coleman's Super Ford and for Roland Leong's Hawaiian team.

"I always liked Funny Cars," Rowe told National DRAGSTER in 1994. "I got a chance to crew for Coleman & Taylor's Super 'Cuda, and I just couldn't pass it up. I remember one time I had the ramp truck parked in my driveway, and my mother saw the car. I told her I wanted to drive one someday, and she said the thing looked like a coffin. I said maybe it does, but if I get killed in one, you'll know I died happy."

Bobby Rowe's first Funny Car ride was in Bill Taylor's Super Duster.

Rowe was tremendously successful on the match race scene in Don Schumacher's second Stardust 'Cuda.

Rowe set national records and almost won the 1973 NHRA world championship in Ed Willis' Mr. Ed Satellite. He crashed heavily in this car in Ontario later that year and suffered a broken back.

Rowe's final Funny Car ride was the Rowe-Henderson-Smallwood Vega.

Rowe knew Funny Cars from A to Z, which eventually landed him the ride in Taylor's Super Duster the next year when Larry Reyes left the team to drive for Leong. It wasn't an easy apprenticeship – he almost fulfilled his mother's fear when the car exploded the blower in a ball of fire on his first pass at Lakeland Drag Strip – but within a year, Rowe had reached his first final round at the 1971 Gatornationals, where he was runner-up to Leroy Goldstein and the Ramchargers.

When Hawaiian pilot Butch Maas suffered severe burns in a match race fire in the spring of 1971, old pal Leong came calling, and Rowe took over the wheel of the famed blue and white Dodge and later moved on to drive Don Schumacher's second Stardust Barracuda. The car was a big-time match race winner; Rowe estimated that he won 89 percent of all the Coca-Cola Cavalcade of Stars Funny Car circuit events in 1972. Rowe clinched the series title easily, set 26 track records, and posted the first 6.3-second Funny Car clocking, a 6.38.

In 1973, Rowe moved into the saddle of the car for which most remember him, the Fresno, Calif.-based Mr. Ed Satellite, in which he set the national speed record with a 232.55-mph blast at the U. S. Nationals, which he bettered at the World Finals with a 232.99 while setting the national e.t. record at 6.29. After winning the Division 7 championship, he just missed winning the world championship when he suffered a final-round loss to Frank Hall in Jim Green's Green Elephant Vega.

The year ended horribly, though, as a huge fireball in the car at the NHRA Supernationals carried him into the Ontario Motor Speedway retaining wall, and the impact broke his back.

During his recuperation, and despite still wearing a back brace, Rowe drove Jeg Coughlin's Ford Pinto Pro Stocker at the 1974 Winternationals. The day after the race, the star-crossed Rowe crashed his motorcycle near Ed Pink's shop in Van Nuys, Calif., breaking his leg so severely that he wore a cast for more than a year.

Rowe made his return to Funny Car racing in 1975, partnering with Gary Henderson and T.B. Smallwood on the Rowe-Henderson-Smallwood Hillbillies Vega Funny Car, first on nitro then on alcohol, but soon after hung up his driving gloves.

Although he was no longer driving, he remained in the high-performance industry. He formed a partnership with NFL quarterback – and soon-to-be Top Fuel racer – Dan Pastorini to race drag boats for a few successful seasons. They were blown fuel jet champions in the Southern Drag Boat Association in 1976 and in 1983 won Competition Hydro in the World Series of Drag Boat Racing.

In 1979, Rowe opened Crankshaft Specialties and ran it until selling to his brother, Doug, in 1985 to briefly reunite with Pastorini on the Quarterback Sneak Top Fueler. Although Pastorini won in Atlanta in 1986, Rowe never won a Wally as a driver.

"I would have liked to have won one of the big NHRA races," Rowe said, "but it didn't happen. Still, I can say I've driven a lot of cars, everything from M/ and P/Stockers to Pro Stocks and Funny Cars. I have no regrets about anything. Well, now that I think about it, I'd like to have avoided that wall at Ontario 20 years ago."

A funny line for sure, but there's nothing funny about losing another of our heroes.

Rowe is survived by his children, Jerene Rowe and Robert Rowe Jr.; granddaughter, Brielle; and siblings Jerene Sykes, Tina Dugan, and Doug Rowe.
 

Former NHRA Pro Stock and Sport Compact racer Shaun Carlson was lovingly remembered at the Formula Drift season finale – ironically dubbed Judgment Day – at Irwindale Speedway over the weekend. Carlson, who had transferred his copious talents into the drifting world as a car owner and builder after NHRA's Sport Compact program ended, had died two weeks earlier.

In Irwindale, Carlson's car, driven by Sam Hubinette, was wrapped with special red camo graphics featuring images of Carlson and his trademark Mohawk haircut on its flanks and on the hood.

Before the start of Saturday's action, a moment of silence was observed for Carlson, and a video tribute played. Hubinette's dream of a win to salute his friend ended in the round of eight, and the team finished fourth in the standings.

"I felt we got some extra strength from Shaun above," said Hubinette, who with Carlson won the Formula Drift championship in 2004 and 2006. "We wanted to win for him, and I'm bummed we didn't, but we made the Great 8, which I think is remarkable given all the things the team has been through. I'm so proud of the NuFormz team, and I know Shaun would have been, too."

The team's crew chief, Scott Stanwood, known to most simply as "Chip," added, "Shaun Carlson meant the world to me and this team. We nicknamed him ‘Dad' because he looked over us; he was our mentor. He was so iconic to the drifting and sport compact racing worlds; you can't even put words to it. Shaun would have never wanted us to miss a race. We pushed ahead and made a good representation of the team. We gave Shaun a front-row seat with this paint scheme is how I see it."

Top honors did, however, go to another NHRA connection as another former Sport Compact hero, Gary Gardella, whose front-wheel-drive Cobalt terrorized the Pro FWD ranks, got his second win of the season with driver Ryan Tuerck; they just barely missed winning the season championship with their Mobil 1-sponsored Pontiac Solstice.

Another team of former NHRA stars, Pro FWD world champs Ed and Ron Bergenholtz, also shined at the event as their driver, Justin Pawlak, was the runaway No. 1 qualifier after a near-perfect run in the brothers' Mazda RX8. "JTP" racked up a stunning score of 96.8 out of 100. Tuerck qualified No. 2 with 88.5 points.

That's it for today; see ya later this week.

The First Fifty Years, originally produced for NHRA’s 50th anniversary in 2001, was a forgotten piece of work until it was rediscovered recently. It is an interesting compendium of footage that highlights some of the major stars and accomplishments in the sport since NHRA’s founding in 1951 and serves as the introduction to NHRA’s new line of 15 productions to be rereleased on DVD.

Hosted by motorsports veteran Bill Stephens from the Wally Parks NHRA Motorsports Museum presented by the Automobile Club of Southern California, the DVD doesn’t so much trace the roots of the sport as it celebrates the major performance milestones of the last 20 years while interweaving those narratives with features on some of the sport’s legendary stars.

Bob Glidden’s Pro Stock dominance is explored as Stephens discusses what made him tick, Don Garlits is explained largely through his breakthrough efforts, most notably Swamp Rat 14, the sport’s first truly successful rear-engine Top Fueler, and Shirley Muldowney is introduced via a discussion of the changing front of NHRA brought on by the emergence of female competitors.

The DVD features plenty of nice vintage footage of all three from the 1970s and early ‘80s to accompany the pieces as well as comments from their peers. Of particular note is Don Prudhomme’s candid comments about the first time that he and his peers heard about Garlits’ rear-engine wonder. Many had tried the approach, few successfully, so you can understand Prudhomme’s sentiment when he explained, “We weren’t going to laugh at it, but we were very close to it.” History has shown that “Big Daddy” had the last laugh.

Stephens proves a talented wordsmith, veering from obvious commentary and showing his verbal horsepower on occasion, such as calling the museum “a Smithsonian of straight-line speed.” My favorite line, if for nothing but its un-PC delivery, recalls the feisty Muldowney’s “snarky one-liners and pugnacious disposition.”

Also included is great in-car footage of both historic and modern nature, the former, of course, true rarities in the days before miniaturized cameras were routinely fitted in many cars.

A wonderful segment on flag starters allows newer fans to get an idea of some of the unique gyrations and gymnastics that they employed before the advent of the Christmas Tree. That electronic marvel is introduced via a nice and funny interview with the man whose NHRA career transcended both eras, the late great NHRA Chief Starter Buster Couch. For those us who knew him, I can’t tell you how wonderful it was to see and hear him again, to hear him spin a tale of the nefarious anti-Tree sentiment that pervaded those first years, in his distinct Southern accent.

The production explores in detail the breaking of the 300-mph barrier in Top Fuel and the four-second and 300-mph barriers in Funny Car and, via an introduction to the father-son team of Warren and Kurt Johnson, discusses the breaking of the 200-mph and six-second barriers in Pro Stock. A lot of this footage has been seen, but it’s still cool to marvel at, especially the in-car footage of Kenney Bernstein’s launch on the first 300-mph pass in Gainesville in 1992.

Two of the sport’s most loved and colorful characters, Gary Scelzi and John Force, also are featured, the latter in a hilarious montage of “What the heck did he say?” top-end interviews described by Stephens as “witty, incoherent, and sometimes mischievous.”

With a running time of 40 minutes, the DVD can’t really explore a topic in-depth, and fans looking for tons of vintage footage from the 1960s and 1970s will be left wanting a bit more. Other than the segments on the Tree and milestones noted by the achievements of Garlits and Muldowney, there’s no real tracing of the evolution of the sport, but then that’s probably not the purpose of the piece. It's a great addition to your library and is one of those DVDs you can pull out for your neophyte friends to give them a pocket history of the sport and the gains in performance.
 

The first official release is a dandy and a fine kickoff to the series. You probably couldn't pick a better year than 1986, which provided so many memorable moments, and Drag Racing '86 packs a lot into its two-hour season recap.

Hosted by the late, great Steve Evans and longtime partner and announcing legend Dave McClelland, it's a straightforward event-by-event romp. I was still relatively new to the DRAGSTER staff back then -- it was just my fourth full season on the staff -- but I witnessed a lot of these moments firsthand, and it's a treat to see them again.

By the time you get through the first three events -- the Winternationals, Gatornationals, and Southern Nationals -- you're already out of breath. Pomona, Shirley Muldowney's comeback event from her 1984 Montreal crash, featured her explosive first-round match with "Big Daddy" Don Garlits; the unforgettable body-popping blower explosion by Gary Ormsby's Castrol GTX streamliner; Dave Uyehara rear-ending Ron Correnti on a Funny Car qualifying pass; Ed McCulloch's body-shredding blower explosion in the red Miller High Life Olds Funny Car; and John Force, in his Coca-Cola Corvette, losing the Funny Car final to Tim Grose, his sixth straight of what would be nine bridesmaid finishes.

The Gatornationals, of course, was highlighted by the debut of Garlits' revolutionary Swamp Rat XXX streamliner -- "the design of the future," he calls it -- and Don Campanello's upset win in Pro Stock.

For anyone who was there -- and I was -- the Atlanta event left an indelible impression thanks to Bob Glidden's stunning series of top-end barrel rolls in the semifinals. Seeing Glidden's wife, Etta, horrified at the sight and being consoled by Arlene Johnson, it takes me right back to that day, standing on the starting line, hearing her cries and wondering if we'd lost another Pro Stock champ. We didn't, and, of course, Glidden did the unthinkable by stopping to cover his top-secret intake manifold with his fire jacket, an unforgettable episode in drag racing lore.

Aussie Funny Car racer Gary Phillips' wild ride off the end of the Columbus, Ohio, track also brought back memories for me; comparing my photo sequence to the film footage, they're almost identical. Ditto for Muldowney's scary top-end tire explosion in Montreal, two years to the weekend where she had her near-career-ending accident. I remember watching in horror then -- as I had in 1984 -- as things went wrong, but if you watch the video of this 1986 run, you can truly appreciate Muldowney's superior car-handling skills.

One of the most striking things about watching 23-year footage is how far the race cars have come, not only in technological sophistication, but also in safety. We no longer have blowers leaving the manifolds in a fiery explosion, and even the look of the cars, especially the roll-cage area and wings of the Top Fuelers, seems so long ago. It's also interesting to see some of the tracks we had back then and how devoid they were of things like massive towers and sky-high grandstands.

The most unforgettable moment of 1986 -- perhaps in all of drag racing history -- was Garlits' blowover in Englishtown, and it's captured from numerous angles. I've seen this footage dozens of times, and it never gets old.

As wild as that was, what follows from the Brainerd event is one of the wildest yet mostly unsung incidents of the season, which McClelland calls one of the most exciting moments of the season. Funny Car racer Norm Day lit up his Funny Car in big fashion, then slid off the track and barrel-rolled once, which jammed shut the escape hatch. Grose, who was in the other lane, joined the NHRA Safety Safari in trying to extricate Day, memorably trying to kick in the side of the body. Day got out with only some burns to his hand; the footage is truly amazing.

Indy has the legendary Top Fuel battle between Garlits and Darrell "the Wolf" Gwynn, Billy Meyer's devastating blower explosion, and Mike Dunn's big win. Current fans of the ESPN2 show will get a kick out of seeing a much younger Dunn actually doing what he so eloquently comments on each race weekend.

The recap shows just how dominant Garlits and Glidden were this season as well as the tight battles and different winners in Funny Car before Kenny Bernstein eventually grabbed the fuel coupe title. As the season wraps up, each of the season champs is featured in a nice spotlight with historic footage from their careers.

As Garlits himself said after clinching the season title, "It's been a great year; '86 was great."

And so is this DVD.

To order either of these DVDs, log on to NHRAdvd.com.
 

You would have thought it was Christmas around the National DRAGSTER office yesterday when the week's new issue arrived from the printer. Staffers were running around to one another's offices and cubicles like little kids with a new present.

The cause of celebration is the new-look National DRAGSTER that rolled off the presses this weekend at Conley Publishing in good ol' Beaver Dam, Wis.

I'll admit, after seeing more than 1,300 issues go to print, I might be a bit more jaded than the average staffer or reader. By the time each new issue lands on my desk each Monday, I'm more than intimately familiar with its contents, having been a major part of the planning and proofreading of most of the editorial pages. When the new issue arrives, I usually skim through it to see how some features actually look once they're printed, then I'll size up the overall presentation of the issue, then file it in my bookshelf.

But this one … this one had me – and everyone else -- on pins and needles.

Externally, you might not notice the difference unless you had last week's issue in your hands; it's about an inch shorter and an inch less across the striking image of Memphis Funny Car winner Jeff Arend's burnout and the photo of him and team owner Connie Kalitta celebrating what truly will be remembered as one of this year's most memorable moments.

But, like most things in life, it's what's inside that counts. For the first time in 50 years – we're talking 2,340 issues -- the entire inside of the magazine is not only presented on glossy, magazine-like stock, but it's full color throughout. It's a milestone day for our publication.

NHRA national event Sportsman coverage ... in living color. [View PDF]

Even the Summit Series E.T. Finals are in color! [View PDF]

Yep, that's right. Sportsman stories from the national events? In glorious color! Summit Series Finals coverage? Yep. Member-track stories? You bet. Even the back-page column – by me this week – has a color headshot now. As we opened our issues for the first time, we each seemed to race to different sections and were yelling out and holding open our magazines to different pages … "Hey, look at this. Awesome!"

You might ask what the big deal is; most car magazines have been full color for years. Sure, but National DRAGSTER is not some monthly magazine that comes to you two to three months after it's printed -- that's no knock on those glossy print publications; just the way that business is – it's your weekly guide to your favorite sport.

No one – either in print or on the Internet – shows the love to the NHRA Sportsman racer the way National DRAGSTER does, and we're proud of that. Ask any of our writers, and they'll tell you that their post-event interviews with the Sportsman winners are often the highlight of their weeks. And now to be able to tell their stories and show off their cars in color is a huge home run for us.

Pro coverage, too, which was trimmed back earlier this year to a mix of color and black and white, has returned to its full glory. Even the Joni's Race Shop and Performance Directory ads are now full-color capable!

I've seen a lot of iterations of National DRAGSTER in my 27 years on the staff, 23 of them with me at the top of the masthead, and a lot of improvements, but I have to say that this week's issue has everyone on the staff all revved up – and it's just the beginning.

We'll finish the publishing year – nine more issues – at this size and with the features already in place, then we'll get hard to work not only redesigning the look inside but also in many ways reinventing National DRAGSTER and launching it as an exciting – and in some ways different – magazine in 2010. It's what we need to do and what you deserve.

It's no secret that print publications are struggling in this economy as advertisers and circulation drop off, and it's also no secret that through-the-mail publications such as ours no longer can be on the cutting edge of news the way that television and the Internet can be. By the time that National DRAGSTER is produced and delivered by the U.S. Postal Service, a week or more may have elapsed since the event was held or the story written. Today, that's not good enough. By then, you've seen the race on TV or read the news on NHRA.com.

For the last several months, the leaders of the individual National DRAGSTER departments have been meeting to help create the road map, following tried-and-true business methods. We painstakingly (and, in some cases, painfully) created a SWOT analysis, honestly and openly chronicling our Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (no, it did not involve uniformed men with silenced MP5s breaching the conference-room door, and no flashbangs were used in this exercise ... pity). We crafted a new mission statement and new goals and action items.

One of the clear things to come out of all of this was the need to change the way we do something. Because we already have a breaking-news vehicle – this Web site – to deliver important, accurate, interesting, and timely information to the NHRA membership, NHRA fans, and NHRA's other customers, there's no need for National DRAGSTER to compete with it as it has, on occasion, since its launch in 1995.

Everything you've come to enjoy and expect in National DRAGSTER will still be there -- behind-the-scenes coverage and awesome photos from the NHRA Full Throttle Drag Racing Series national events, in-depth interviews with the stars of our sport, tech, Lucas Oil and local track results, and all of your favorite columns – but we plan to make some changes – some subtle, some not-so subtle – to the way they're presented.

I don’t have a lot of details to share right now, just a million ideas running around my head that we'll put to paper in the coming weeks. I do know that I want to complete National DRAGSTER's metamorphosis from a newspaper to a magazine while having the best that both formats have to offer. What I think that means is more feature material, more thought-provoking stories, and more special features and regular columns. This column eventually probably will become part of that mix; it also will remain online, but I'm not sure in what form.

We have some very talented writers on our staff, each with his or her own style, and I plan not only to give them the freedom to use that voice in National DRAGSTER, but also plan to encourage it. I think we'll get a very interesting publication, written by people who know and love drag racing as much as anyone on this planet.

It would certainly be easier to keep doing what National DRAGSTER has done so well in the last 50 years, but what we want to create is not just a publication that you receive for being an NHRA member, but a publication that you want, period.

Sure, there will be growing pains as we stretch our editorial legs, and there may be tweaks and tune-ups along the way. I'm as excited as I am nervous about the changes, but I know full well that the time is now for National DRAGSTER to in many ways reinvent itself and reinvigorate its current and potential future audiences. A lot of exciting things are coming down the road that I hope will encourage current members to stay with us, former subscribers to give us another fresh look, and new readers to hop on the bandwagon.

As is always my style, whether online or in print, I would love to hear from all three types of readers. If you’re with us now, what do you like or dislike; what do we need more or less of? If you're looking at rejoining us, what made you stop reading us, and what kinds of things will bring you back? If you've never subscribed to National DRAGSTER and have been looking for the right reason, tell me what things will get you over the hump on that decision.

Drop me a line here; I'd love to hear from you. If you're already convinced, you can get yourself a subscription right here.

Senior Editor Kevin McKenna and I attended the memorial service for Shaun Carlson yesterday in nearby Chino. It was held at Shaun's regular place of worship and drew several hundred people whom he had touched in some way in his short 35 years.

There were a ton of his fellow former NHRA sport compact friends, his new drifting pals, and people for whom he had done work over the years. It was a great ceremony, filled with music – sung by his aunts and his two adorable nieces – poetry, and heartfelt remembrances.

His brother Trevor chronicled Shaun's life from start to finish, talking about how when Shaun got into Freestyle MX, he didn’t just go buy a bicycle like everyone else, he built his own (much to the detriment of Trevor's bike, which "donated" some parts). Same thing for skateboards. All of that eventually moved into mechanized mayhem, and the Carlson family garage quickly became "Shaun's shop" and a 24/7 hangout for some of the most car-crazy kids in the region. Tales were told about spare body parts cluttering the family living room, cars being painted in the backyard, and much more.

Many people spoke, including fellow racer John Mihovetz, for whom Carlson had fabricated a special manifold that helped his turbocharged Cougar crack the six-second and 200-mph barriers, and the guy known to most simply as Chip, who ran the NuFormz fabrication business with Carlson.

What came out through all of their words was Shaun's dedication to hard work and perfection in everything he did. No project was too tough, no deadline too tight, nothing impossible. He was a guy who would give anything to anyone, would help anyone, and was loved by everyone. As Kevin said to me on the ride home, spookily reading my mind, "Man, I wish I had known him better."

The service (which was followed by a reception at the Wally Parks NHRA Motorsports Museum presented by Automobile Club of Southern California) concluded with a touching moment and the release of several white doves by family members. Sport compact racer Abel Ibarra – one of the first guys to befriend me and teach me the ropes and the players when I started covering the class for National DRAGSTER in 2001 – raises roller pigeons for relaxation and through a buddy got the doves to bring to the service. I watched Shaun's family cradle the doves lovingly, even planting small kisses on their heads, before releasing them to the skies. It was pretty special.
 

The response to my Fan Fotos offer has been overwhelmingly positive, and I already have a good stock of photos that, combined with other subjects I am working on and the culmination of the Misc. Files (thought I'd forgotten, did ya?), will easily see us through to the end of the year.

I'm really enjoying seeing everyone's submissions because, as I have mentioned, it's where I come from. I was a kid in the stands who fancied himself a future Leslie Lovett or Steve Reyes … if only I had a chance to shoot from the guardrail, dammit! Well, most of you never will (I was lucky!), but that doesn't mean that there aren’t some dynamite shots to be grabbed from the seats and the fences, as we've already seen. And, unlike looking at someone's home movies or vacation slides, they’re actually something we all love: race cars!

Steve Scott is today's guest photographer. A former resident of that current drag racing hotbed known as Brownsburg, Ind. – which would explain his many U.S. Nationals photos -- Steve and his wife have lived in Fort Worth since 2001.

"I saw my first Nationals in '69 and was absolutely hooked," he said. "Nothing like a nitro car to set its claws into you, and never let go. I traveled to races as much as finances would allow in those days, which wasn't nearly often enough. I always made the Nats, up to Byron once for the Funny Car championship deal, Springs in Columbus for many years, and Martin 131 for the Pop Rod Meets; even made it to Edgewater a couple of times, and US 30 once. Since moving down South, I've been to the Dallas race a few times, including this year. Went up to the Fuel Altered, Jr. Fuel race in Denton just the other night. Guess you could say I'm just a drag racing junkie, like so many others.
 
"In addition to drag racing, I always had fascination with photography, and it was a big day when I could finally afford that Minolta SRT101 and a 200mm lens. Man, I'm cookin' now! I can be just like Reyes, Blake, Lovett, Asher, Brady, et al. Those guys were my heroes in drag photography and still are to this day. So I shot the best I could from the stands for the on-track stuff. Even back then, the starting line was beginning to get real cluttered with all the 'real' photogs, vehicles, ladders, gear bags etc., and it was very difficult to get good clean burnout shots. After panning for the downtrack stuff, eventually it all started to look the same to me. I still tried to get some good pit shots, though. While still attending races, I just got tired of lugging around my camera equipment for results that were very similar to past efforts. And the drag racing photo stuff just stopped.
 
"I recently upgraded to the digital age with a Nikon D60 and a couple of lenses. Met Chris Graves of Max Cackle Photography, and he's been very helpful in learning this new camera and giving tips on racing shots. Maybe I can finally get as good at this deal as my old photo heroes are/were, even though I'm just an amateur."

I'd say he's well on his way. Here are Steve Scott's 10 favorite Fan Fotos, along with my background material and comments  ...

The Custom Body Enterprises name had a deep history in drag racing from the late 1960s, from original shoe/owner Phil Castronovo through drivers like Rick Johnson, Tom Anderson, Tim Grose, Bobby Hilton, Al Segrini, and Denny Savage, but other than Castronovo himself, no driver is more closely aligned with memories of the Custom Body cars than Tom Prock. Prock drove it for five seasons – from 1972 through 1976 (when Castronovo again briefly drove it before putting Segrini in the car). Steve captured Prock in mid-burnout at the 1976 U.S. Nationals in perhaps the team's most successful car, this Dodge Dart. It was in this car that Prock, who never was fortunate enough to win an NHRA national event, was runner-up to Don Prudhomme three times – at the 1975 and 1976 Grandnational in Canada (which preceded Indy on the schedule) and at the 1975 Gatornationals. Longtime fans may remember the wacky outcome of that Gainesville final round, where Prudhomme was shut off on the starting line with an oil leak, affording Prock what looked like an easy solo run to his first win ... until the Custom Body car shelled the rear end on its dry hop. Both teams were given time to repair, but Prock couldn't make it back in time. Prock also owns the distinction of being the guy in the other lane in the final at the 1975 Summernationals when "Jungle Jim" Liberman won his only NHRA title. A lot of people know Prock today because of his son, Jimmy, who tunes Robert Hight's Automobile Club of Southern California Mustang for John Force Racing, but the senior Prock – who first came to fame driving the Prock & Howell Willys and later was known for his own hard-running car, the Detroit Tiger Monza – made plenty of headlines on his own.

Joe Pisano and driver/partner Sush Matsubara had a lot of good-looking Funny Cars, and this was always one of my favorites, even though Matsubara was not driving. Behind the wheel, again in 1976 in Indy, is Texan Jake Johnston, who took over the butterfly when Matsubara retired from driving in 1975. Although Joe P later became known for his high-speed Oldsmobiles in the 1980s, his early cars were all Chevys, including this Monza, which Johnson drove under the P&M name through the late 1970s, by which time Matsubara's name had disappeared from its flanks, and it became a Trans Am, then an Arrow (a replica of which Cruz Pedregon will drive at the California Hot Rod Reunion next week), an Omni, and a Daytona before that first Olds Firenza, driven by Mike Dunn, in 1987.

This great shot is from 1975 in Columbus, Ohio, at the annual Springnationals. The one thing about shooting from the stands is it's much easier to get these great "pan blur" shots than it is up close. No, that's not "the Snowman," Gene Snow, behind the wheel, or even the aforementioned Jake Johnston, who used to drive for Snow. The driver is a Texan (despite the 306 permanent number on this Vega), and it's fearless fuel-altered hero Dale "the Snail" Emery. Emery, who wheeled  the notorious Pure Hell fuel altered in the late 1960s, drove a slew of early Funny Cars in the 1970s, including Jeg Coughlin's Ohio-based flopper (hence the Division 3 number), which was the subject of that famous body-tossing blower explosion photo from Ontario in 1974 where the fuel tank lid came uncapped (helping create the rule for locking fuel caps). Emery drove for a quite a few car owners around this time before landing in what would be his final ride, Mike Burkhart's Camaro, which spectacularly went on its head (after a giant nose grind) in Indy in 1977, leaving him with a broken arm. From there, Emery went on to fame as one of Raymond Beadle's key crew guys on the vaunted Blue Max.

Steve calls this photo "Fiberglass Forest" in a riff from one of Steve Evans' great radio commercials ("Man, I miss Steve Evans," he lamented; we all do), and this photo, too, was snapped at the 1975 Columbus event. Obviously (if you read the info above), that's Emery/Snow at front left, next to the Fireball Vega of Harland Thompson. Behind them are Tom "the Mongoose" McEwen's English Leather/Navy Duster, Shirl Greer's Mustang, Jim Nicoll's Good Times Vega, and barely visible, the Blue Max. Looks as if everyone is heading to the staging lanes; how much would you give to be in the stands getting ready for this?

Two great pit shots from the bicentennial-year 1976 Springnationals; at left is the legend himself, "Big Daddy" Don Garlits, checking the nitro percentage before another haul-ass run in his Swamp Rat. At right is a pretty historic photo as it shows Shirley Muldowney cradling her first NHRA Wally trophy after her initial Top Fuel victory. She shared the winner's circle with another legendary Don, "the Snake" hiss-self, as well as Pro Stock winner Wally Booth, who scored one of AMC's rare Pro Stock wins with his and Dick Arons' Hornet, and Miss Winston Mary Larson, who seems downright giddy about the outcome.

Looks as if Dale Funk is about to be wingin' it without the wing on the English, Frakes & Funk Kentucky Moonshiner digger in this fine shot from the 1976 Nationals. This actually was Funk's last race as he had announced his retirement beforehand, and it may have been a timely decision. Things got even scarier for Funk in round one when a massive engine explosion sent him through the lights sideways and on three wheels (as depicted in our recent Wild Rides photo greats book) while losing to Lee Weller. Talk about going out with a bang! By the way, that's former Insider profile subject Bill Pryor in the near lane in the Pryor & Narramore entry.

Steve says this Billy Meyer photo is from the Popular Hot Rodding Meet in Martin, Mich., in 1976 or 1977, but I'm thinking it's more like 1976 based on the Mustang II body. Meyer ran a Camaro in at least part of 1976 and 1977 as I recall – the 1977 one got melted down in a big way in Montreal – which was followed by an Arrow and then the first of those pretty ugly Chevy Citation bodies. Based on the primered portions of the body, it's obvious from this photo that Meyer's Mustang was coming off some sort of nasty incident at a previous race.

Also from U.S. 131 Dragway is longtime Top Alcohol Funny Car standout Bob Gottschalk. Gottschalk had been racing Funny Cars since the early 1970s – first an injected car then blown alcohol cars – before jumping into an ill-fated stint in the nitroburners in the early 1980s. He returned to his alky roots later that decade and raced throughout the 1990s before a career-ending crash in Ohio in 2000.

And, finally, there's this amazing shot. The subject is, of course, "Jungle Pam" Hardy, the comely sidekick of master Funny Car showman "Jungle Jim" Liberman, who became as much a part of his popular act as his long burnouts, fast backups, and never-lift mentality. I've seen a lot of great "Jungle Pam" photos over the years, but I have to say that this one really stopped me for its candid nature and the amazing way in which it's composed, either intentionally or unintentionally. There's JP, surrounded, as usual, by adoring fans, dressed in her trademark halter top (this one from Trick Titanium), and it appears as if she's looking right past and through the multitudes to smile at our photographer, one of those great one-on-one eye-contact moments that we've all had (or at least imagined we were having) with drag racing superstars we can meet freely in the pits.

Okay, that's Steve Scott's super 10. (You can see more of Steve's pics here or visit his Facebook page here, where there also are a lot of photos.) I'm glad he shared them with us even though he admitted, "Getting specific on the details of these photos is a difficult deal, as they were shot 30-some years ago, and I never thought of cataloging or indexing, in some fashion. Like many other fans who took photos of that era, after the initial viewing, the photos/slides were tossed into shoeboxes and languished in a closet for years."

Which is exactly why it's time for YOU to drag out your old Kodachrome slides and FotoMat prints, scan them up, and send them to me here. These homegrown memories are the last great treasures of those golden days that we'll probably see unearthed, and everyone is just dying to see them.

Start sending, guys. I'll see you next week.
 

For as long as I can remember, "Low e.t. can cure cancer" has been a popular saying in the pits, but after yesterday's Miracle Monday in Memphis, I wonder if a win can cure a broken heart.

Jeff Arend's Funny Car win was truly inspiring stuff even if you don't know the guys behind the story like we do. Sixteen months after we lost our great champion Scott Kalitta, the guy who was tapped to follow him into the cockpit of his car – and let there be no mistake that it still is Scott's car, and notice that I did not use the world "replace" because Scott is irreplaceable – overcame a season and a half of heartache and bad luck to score an emotional victory that not only warmed the heart on a chilly day at Memphis Motorsports Park, but also went a long way toward healing all of those broken on that sad June day last year.

Although the DHL Toyota had turned the performance corner a few races ago, no one really expected the team to win a race this year; heck, while the other teams are embroiled in the Countdown to 1, they've been joking with Jerry Toliver about their "battle for 13th place."

From left, crew chief Nicky Boninfante, Arend, Connie Kalitta, team manager Rachel Brunner, and crew chief Jon Oberhofer celebrate in the winner's circle. (Dani Cox photo)

The Kalitta team has won championships and the Mac Tools U.S. Nationals presented by Lucas Oil, so when crew chief Jon Oberhofer proclaimed this victory "the biggest race in the history of this team," that's really saying something. But, you know, I don't think he's wrong.

In Englishtown this season, the one-year anniversary of Scott's passing, the team held a private party in its pit area to remember their fallen brother. They hoped it would offer some closure and that they could at last put aside their grieving and get back to winning. It probably helped a lot for them to focus on the future, but I'd wager a fair sum that they didn't have full closure until Arend tripped the final-round win light in Memphis and the Kalitta name was back in the Funny Car winner's circle.

Todd Myers does the PR for Kalitta Motorsports, and he's a close and dear friend. We've collaborated on a lot of work throughout the years, including the design of the old NHRA,com and many specialty NHRA Web sites – he's also designing the upcoming 50th Kragen O'Reilly NHRA Winternationals Web site for us – and he's a great guy with a heart of gold. That's his photo at the top of this blog. Although he's not in there with wrenches flying, he's still a huge part of the team, and, by that, also one of those whose heart was broken. Among his contributions to aid our grieving was designing the memorial decal after the loss of Scott, allowing us to wear the T-shirts and display the decals proclaiming our love for Scott, and helping deal with the crush of people wanting to talk to Connie and the team.

(Dani Cox photo)

We talked at length last night – me in California and Todd in the Kalitta pit area, where, in Scott's honor, everyone was smoking Swisher Sweets and drinking Coors Light – about what this win meant to the team.

"In all my years in drag racing, I've never seen a team this excited about a win," he said. "After Scotty died, we didn’t know if it was a good idea to bring that car out, but that's what Conrad wanted, so that's what we did. I think we all had our hesitations, and this team has struggled so hard the last year. Most of the crew guys were there when Scott was killed, and just to see them happy again is amazing. Everyone is just so ecstatic that we won, and it was all for Scott."

The team won the race in style. Arend did his job behind the wheel, outpedaling Jack Beckman in round one, then Jon O and Nicky Boninfante tuned the car to two 4.10s and a 4.09 and, in the final, the fourth-fastest speed in the 1,000-foot era.

"Scott's biggest complaint was that the driver couldn't control the car with the way it was set up," said Jon O. "We worked on a lot of things from front to back and reached out to a lot of people in the class. Now, Jeff says the car is much easier to drive than when he got here. You know that Scott is looking down from heaven, telling Eric, Blaine, and Darrell, 'See? Those [expletives] finally listened to me!' Scott and Connie always wanted a competitive Funny Car more than anything. Winning is great, but it means so much more to do it the way we did it."

It was a day that Myers won't soon forget.

"Mondays are always surreal anyway because the pits are half empty," he said. "Then we had to sit through that mess this morning [the rain delay and the cleanup after Daniel Wilkerson's crash], and it's like, 'Are we ever gonna get through this? Come on!' When we finally get to racing, Jeff blows the tires off first round, and I'm like, 'Oh, crap.' He pedals, Beckman pedals, and we finally got some luck. Since Scott died, there's been this aura around the team that we had no luck. I asked Jon O and Nicky what they were going to do for second round, and they told me, 'We're fine; we feel really good about the car because it made some great early numbers, and we know what to do to back it down and make it not only go down the track, but down the track really, really quick.'

Celebration time. You think Todd Myers, far left, is happy? Recalls Jim Oberhofer, "Everyone on the starting line was emotional. I went up to Connie, who was looking at the scoreboard. In typical Connie fashion, he said, 'How the hell did that thing run so fast? Did it fall out of a tree?' " (Auto Imagery photo)

"Second round, it runs a 4.10, the quickest e.t. of the round, and does it again the next round, and suddenly, it's like, 'Hey, we have a shot at winning this thing.' Normally I'll stay in the pressroom, but I had to be down on the line for this one. As we're getting ready to run, I turned around, and I don’t think I've ever seen that many different representatives of teams standing behind us watching. Not really close, but they were all up there, and they were standing behind our car because they wanted us to win.

"When I saw Tony [Pedregon] shut off in the final, I was just praying, 'Please go down the track. Stay in your lane. Stay in your lane. Stay in your lane.' Even knowing that Tony was dead in the water, it's all building, and it was amazing."

If you've ever seen Kalitta starting-line celebrations, you know they can be a bit rowdy, and this one certainly was, but that's more because it was a huge release of emotion and energy and heartache and hope and hurt and tears pent up in the last year and a half. What followed was just as magical.

"You have to tow through the pits to get back to the winner's circle," said Myers, "and as we passed all the pit areas, the teams were clapping and cheering and yelling; they were all so happy we won the race. Jeff handed the trophy to Connie and said, 'This is for Scott.' Connie took it smiled and said, 'Yeah, this is for Scott,' and then he handed it right back to Jeff and said, 'But you deserve this too.'

(Dani Cox photo)

"Conrad had told us before the final, 'Win or lose, I'm going home; I'm not gonna stick around for all this crap,' because that's just the way he is. Getting that e.t. slip that says 'I won' means the most to Conrad. Getting the trophy and getting his picture taken means nothing to him. But Doug [Kalitta] talked him into staying, and he did winner's circle and all the hat pictures, and you could tell he was happy, and I'm glad Doug talked him into staying. It was a great moment."

It had to be a special moment for Arend, too, who was honored to get the unenviable task of trying to keep the Kalitta legacy alive in Funny Car -- I mean, hey, no pressure, right? -- only to have the team struggle for the last year and a half. It's been a long time between wins for Arend – I was there in Reading in 1996 when he scored his only other win, ironically, in the same chassis with which Scott had won in Houston in 1989 -- and a lot of water has passed under his bridge since.

"Everyone is talking about how we did this as a team. Jeff stepped up, all the crew guys did their part, the crew chiefs did their job, and it was just awesome," said Myers. "Scotty would have loved it."

(Dani Cox photo)

“This is one of the best days of my life,” said Arend. “To get this win for Scott and Connie and everyone at Kalitta Motorsports is amazing. It’s surreal, and it definitely hasn’t all soaked in yet. I can’t explain what this win means to me and everyone on our team who has struggled so hard to get this Wally for Connie and for Scott. We turned a big corner today, and we're going to bring that trophy to Scott, that's for sure."

And Scott will get a chance to enjoy it, too. The team plans to take the Wally trophy – the actual trophy, not a duplicate – and epoxy it to Scott's grave in Florida.

Our own Brad Littlefield, who was closer to Scott than anyone on the staff, and who was there that fateful day in Englishtown, was there last night, hugging and crying with the team. He told me that Jon O called Scott's sons, Corey and Colin, right after the win and how Scott's widow called Jeff to tell him what a good job he did driving, which got him choked up. Like all of us.

A Kalitta Funny Car is back in the winner's circle, and so it seems like it's all come full circle. The world isn’t any more whole for the Kalitta team than it was before the win, but it's a little happier place for them, and for all of us.

Yesterday sure turned out better than it started, which was with the unconfirmed news that Shaun Carlson had died. Even though most people didn't know him but from his brief season a few years ago on the NHRA Pro tour, I'd known Shaun well before that from the five years that I covered NHRA's Sport Compact series for National DRAGSTER and the NHRAsportcompact.com Web site that I ran.

We all knew that Shaun had been sick the last couple of years. He'd been diagnosed with Brugada syndrome, which causes abnormal heartbeats and can lead to sudden cardiac death, which is why it's also known as Sudden Unexpected Death Syndrome (SUDS). He took a turn for the worse in February when he had a trio of heart episodes, but he remained firmly involved with professional drifting, in which he was the car owner for former champ Sam "the Crazy Swede" Hübinette and their bad-ass Dodge Viper. Darren Jacobs, my pal at Mopar, had gotten my son and I tickets for the Formula Drift opener in Long Beach, Calif., in April, and I went hoping to see Shaun, but he was back in the hospital again the first day and not that well when he came out for the final day, when Hübinette finished second. I never got a chance to see him and missed him when we also attended the drift event in Sonoma two months ago. I wish I had tried harder.

When I got the news yesterday, I guess I wasn't totally surprised. It took a while for me to confirm his passing – still hoping it wasn't true, I called his fabrication business, NuFormz, and my call went to voice mail, which was full, which did not fill me with hope – but Darren finally got me in touch with his right-hand man, Brad Manka, who gave me the sad confirmation that we'd lost him at the too-early age of 35. I won’t share the details of his passing, but it does sound as if he was stricken suddenly in the night, which points a finger at SUDS.

After leaving drag racing, Carlson was the owner of this Dodge Viper drift machine, driven by Sam Hubinette.

Even though Mopar dropped its support of drifting a few months ago, Darren sent me a great bio on Shaun so that I could write his obituary. Those of you who know me or have followed this column know that I pour a lot of heart into any final farewell story; it's my final tribute to people who have made my life better and more interesting, and even though Shaun wasn't as well-known to many of you, I felt a home-page tribute was definitely in order. It was the right move and meant a lot to a lot of people.

Shaun's brother, Trevor, whom I have never met, dropped me a nice note to thank me for the story, and Rachel Kaizoji, who used to work here at NHRA, passed along this great message, which she said I could share. Before she worked at NHRA, she worked with Toyo on its sport compact program and met and got to know Carlson, who shared garage space with Toyo-backed racer Stephan Papadakis. She couldn't have been happier when he came to our biggest stage.

"I met him at the SEMA Show I think in 2000, but I already knew who he was since he was such a huge star in the sport compact world," she wrote. "I was there to congratulate him and line him up the first time he qualified with the Pros and walked through the POWERade doors [during pre-race introductions]. I was really proud of him. What a loss, but he sure accomplished a lot. He was a pioneer in drag racing even though he was such a young guy, and I know he was really important to so many, especially all those sport compact racers and followers who were happy to see one of their own make it to the Pros."

Shaun first hit my radar screen with a wild winged Ford Focus that he was campaigning before that, a tube-framed wonder that he built as a follow-up to his groundbreaking work of Papadakis' all-conquering Honda Civic. What makes these cars so amazing is that they were front-wheel-drive machines that ran, at the time, in the eight-second zone but later reached deep into the sevens and beyond. If you've ever nailed the gas on a front-wheel-drive of any kind – be it even a rental car – you know that they accelerate very differently than a rear driver, and you're fighting torque steer every inch of the way. Take that and multiply it by 10, and you might get an idea of the kind of skills that drivers like Carlson, Papadakis, Lisa Kubo, Ed Bergenholtz, Gary Gardella, Marty Ladwig, Nelson Hoyos, and other front-wheel-drive stars of the series had under their right feet.

Carlson's Mopar-backed SRT4 Pro FWD car was a winner in NHRA Sport Compact competitiion and set the national record.

Carlson qualified just once in the 2006 Pro Stock season and later took on an engineering role with the Don Schumacher Racing team.

He later built a screaming Dodge SRT4 that set the national record in NHRA's Pro FWD class and carried him to a few wins and some top-five finishes. His partnership with Mopar is what ultimately led him to subbing for Mopar ace Darrell Alderman at the 2004 Winternationals, and he showed his natural skill by winning a round, and two years later, he was a full-time driver for Don Schumacher Racing when "the Don" incorporated Pro Stock into his burgeoning program. He won the job over more than 20 others who applied, sealing the deal with a one-on-one audition in Las Vegas against Mike Corvo during the preseason.

I remember it being an interesting combination, with mohawked and earring-wearing Carlson going to work with then crew chief Bob Glidden, who's about as old school as they get. There were definitely growing pains between the two, and the car never ran as it should have – not sure if it was the driver or the car or both – and Shaun was later given a role in engineering with the team instead.

The message boards lit up with comments and wonder and diatribes about why and how he had gotten the job, but Shaun took it all in stride.

“Yeah, I read a lot of that stuff, and I’m not afraid to admit that some of it hurt,” he told ND Senior Editor Kevin McKenna then. “The fact is that there are a lot of people out there who don’t have respect for sport compact racers. Maybe they don’t like the way we look or the music we listen to or they don’t appreciate the technology that goes into our cars. I’m not really sure where it comes from, but it’s out there. There is a flip side, though. There are also a lot of sport compact racers who have a very negative view of the [NHRA POWERade] series. It swings both ways.

“[I hope] I can help alleviate some of that narrow-minded thinking. I want to be successful because of the faith that Don and Bob have shown in me, but I also want to win over here so people will realize that [sport compact and POWERade Series racers] aren’t that different. We all have a passion for the same thing; we just work in different venues.

“Don has never said anything about my piercings or my hair, and the only thing Bob has said was, ‘As long as you can drive that race car, I don’t care how many holes you’ve got in your head.’ I’m sure Bob’s first impression of me probably wasn’t too favorable, but now that he’s gotten to know me a little, he told me, ‘You seem like a really good kid.’ That’s good because I don’t plan on changing.”

Shaun was an original, and he'll be missed.
 

As the calendar switches from September to October, it's time to clear out the backlog of intriguing stuff that I've accumulated in the last month. Enjoy!

I sent Shirley Muldowney a copy of Steve Heuer's photo of her in the cockpit of her ill-fated Satellite Funny Car (see column below), noting the early-model firesuit shown in the pic, and asked her how much racing had changed over the years. I found her reply both interesting and informative and, from someone with her vast experience and cred, spot on.

"They were so different that to draw a comparison between the two is kinda ridiculous, but I'll give it a shot," she said. "Now the cars don't seem to hike the front end up (both wheels; on a good run; the 1970 cars ran on three wheels to the 1,000-foot mark); drivers' hands don't have to leave the steering wheel to shift into another gear at half-track; drivers doesn't straddle a Lenco; we didn't have throttle stops to regulate the burnout rpm; smart drivers relied on an oil-pressure gauge only; and fire bottles have grown considerably larger in size."

And she was just getting warmed up …
 
Shirley also offered this then versus now list:

• Real firesuits versus "Reynolds Wrap"  
• Full-face helmets  
• Coaches with radio headsets  
• Superior track lighting  
• Prepared track surfaces  
• Super speedways (surface, length, width)  
• Extended runouts versus cornfields  
• Longer wheelbase  
• State-of-the-art engine and running gear components  
• Fuel pumps that live longer than two runs  
• Front and rear wheel brakes  
• Larger dual Kevlar parachutes  
• Guardwall versus guardrail (or none at all)  
• Testing  
• 90 percent nitro versus 100 percent 
• Bathrooms and showers  
• Hotels instead of sleepers  
• Airplanes reservations versus toll booths  
• Kenworths versus Dodge duallies  
• Alan Johnson versus Freddie DeName

"I rest my case," she concluded.

It's amazing sometimes how far we have come and how soon we forget the types of equipment that the pioneers of our sport used. We, the jury of the Insider Nation, find for Ms. Muldowney in the case of Then versus Now. 
 

Speaking of Shirleys, Wally Parks NHRA Motorsports Museum presented by Automobile Club of Southern California curator and historian Greg Sharp (who, with Bret Kepner, always keeps me honest here) passed along a copy of a nice article on Shirley Shahan in the Visalia (Calif.) Times Delta newspaper. Shahan (now Shirley Bridges) had been officially named to the Visalia Riverway Sports Park Pillars of Fame in a unanimous vote by the Visalia Parks and Recreation Commission. The Pillars of Fame is the Visalia version of a sports Hall of Fame. That's Bridges, center, with husband Ken and close friend Marian Cote.

The article noted that she often is confused with another Shirley. "Yes, for the umpteenth time, I am not Shirley Muldowney," said Bridges, whose career largely did not intersect with Muldowney's as she retired in 1972, just as Muldowney was beginning her rise to greatness. (You can read my past column on Shahan's exploits -- parts of which were noted in the newspaper article -- here).
 

My recent Four-wide mania column drew a lot of fond remembrances and thank-yous from those fortunate enough to have witnessed those spectacles firsthand. Dan Lemons dropped me a line to fess up to being the soul brave enough to be the starter at Fontana Drag City when they ran the four jet dragsters side by side.

"I was the foolhardy guy standing in front of the four flamethrowers with a flag in my hand," he admitted. "Even with the firesuit on, I got burned on the back of my neck and ankles, but I wouldn't have missed it for the world. All us old guys have left are the memories." Indeed!

Lemons now owns Lemons Headers in Paso Robles, Calif. I checked out his Web site and found it functional yet lacking a little pizzazz, so to thank him for his contribution to today's column, I propose he adopt one of the following slogans for his business: "Get Some Sour Power!" or "Lemons Headers: We'll squeeze more power from your engine" or "Lemon-aid for your horsepower woes" or, my favorite, "Be the top e-lemon-ator with Lemons Headers!" Dan: Contact me to discuss the terms of licensing these wonderful sayings <g>.
 

Insider reader Jack "J.R." Hodson wanted to know the identity of the four Funny Cars shown in the pic at right, which I had found cruising some bulletin boards, but the photo was so small I couldn’t really help him. "Looks like an Opel Kadett farthest from the camera, then a somewhat-looking Candies & Hughes 'Cuda, a somewhat-looking USA 1 Camaro, and then a Buick Skylark or possibly Nova closest to the camera," he offered. I told him not to fret, that I was sure that the Insider Nation soon would give us the answer, and, sure enough, they did.

Not only did I get the answer, but I got it from one of those involved, Ron Pellegrini. "It was 1968, and the four cars were Jack Ditmars with the Mini Brute, Pat Minick with the Chi-Town Hustler, the Out of Sight Camaro (cannot remember the driver), and myself with my Beware Buick. I remember the day well as I crashed on a later run … slow roll and 173 on the roof through the lights, but that's another story."

"Hey do I get a Dewey button or a brownie point for getting the four manufacturers correct?" inquired Hodson (obviously showing his age) after I passed along Pellegrini's response.

Old pal Chase Knight also responded with more details about four-wide racing in Florida that helped round out the picture down South. "The Miami-Hollywood track did have four actual racing lanes in its final incarnation," he wrote. "The original push-down road to the west (left) of the original dragstrip was widened to accommodate two proper lanes and had its own Tree and timers. The 'new' track had about 1,000 feet less shutoff than the primary track and was used for the slower cars. All the lanes were used at the same time, but not usually with any attempt to start all four vehicles together."

Mike Korpi sent this sad photo of the former Gary Clapshaw Spirit of Las Vegas Top Fueler in a heap Down Under. Korpi was one of the original crewmembers who helped Lonnie Strode build this car in 1999 for Clapshaw. This car holds a couple of places in history as it not only was the car that Clapshaw drove to a stunning U.S. Nationals runner-up in 2000 but also was the car that "Big Daddy" Don Garlits drove in Indy the following year when he ran his first four-second and 300-mph passes. This accident apparently took place a year ago at Western Sydney Dragway.

"I found these pics surfing the other day, and I am sick at what has happened to it," wrote Korpi. "I had more than 60 hours in just polishing the roll cage. What a waste. I am devastated. I am still crying."

Turns out that the car was owned by Aussie favorite Steve "Pommie" Read, who had the throttle hang open on his final qualifying pass. "I slid my foot out of the pedal to try and pull the throttle off, but no hope; by this time, I knew I wasn't going to stop," he posted on his Web site. "The car was on full throttle for 7.35 seconds, and on overlaying the data we recovered on our fastest run, we saw it was quicker than the at pass. At 300 mph, you travel at over 450 feet per second; after the finish line, you have about four seconds at that speed before the track ends and you are in the sand. Approaching the end of the track and still having to use two hands on the wheel, I thought, 'This is going to be BIG!' When suddenly the fuel ran out, the throttle unjammed, and I got the chutes out; by this time, I was almost in the kitty litter. I concentrated on keeping the car dead straight so as to go in head first, with approximately 15 feet of car in front of me to act as a crumple zone, I had to hope that was enough. At the last second, I pulled my hands off the wheel, and then a mighty WHOOMP, and the car stopped dead. My first thought was, 'That was not too bad,' and then the fuel tank exploded, and the fire came into the cockpit. I had no pain apart from my left hand, so with it getting a little hot in the car, I got out over the front of the car and trod straight into a tyre full of water. By this time, the rescuers had arrived, and they were all falling about in the tyres as well, which I thought was quite funny!"
 

Speaking of cars in pieces, good friend Dave Wallace Jr., responding to Steve and John Bell's impressive collection of drag racing flotsam and jetsam in an earlier column, passed along this funny photo of him and his pals at the 1988 U.S. Nationals, where Brad Tuttle had vaporized the body of his Nitro Brandt Thunderbird in the lights.

"The nose fit so nicely onto this rent-a-rocket that I was able to drive it back to my Indy hotel from the track," he noted.

From left are veteran lensman and Lions Dragstrip historian Don Gillespie, Dave Wallace Sr. and Jr., and Jeff Burk (pre-Drag Racing Online). Dave Jr.'s brother, Sky, shot the photo and also "subsequently chopped the nose into five suitcase-friendly souvenirs with his always-handy Dremel tool," noted his proud brother. Sweet!
 

Speaking of second generations, on a little more modern note, former National DRAGSTER Editor and frequent Insider contributor Bill Holland passed along this photo he took recently of current ND Associate Editor Brad Littlefield, left,, and former ND Associate Editor Todd Veney, with the subject line Sons of the Old Pioneers.

"Nope, not the old country western singing group," Holland noted. "I snapped this picture of Brad Littlefield and the Toddster chatting at Indy. Obviously, they are sons of two prominent Alcohol Funny Car pioneers."

Brad's father, of course, is Mert Littlefield, of Littlefield Superchargers fame and and a longtime alcohol and nitro Funny Car driver. Todd's dad is the talented Ken Veney, cylinder-head wizard and a former nitro and alcohol flopper ace. Both of their sons have followed them into the cockpits, Brad licensing impressively in Dad's car and Todd boldly starting his own operation from the ground up and driving for others in a promising career that netted a divisional win in Columbus, where he left on and beat Frank Manzo (not that he has the photo of that final round as his desktop wallpaper on his laptop or anything), as well as three national event runner-ups.

Much to their dismay, neither has a ride, which might explain Veney's reaction to the photo that I forwarded to him: "From the look on our faces, I'd say it was from when Brad and I were discussing whether either one of us will ever drive a race car again."

We all brag to our friends who favor other motorsports about how great drag racing is and how the drivers are so accessible, right? Well Jim Pedley, writing for Sporting News, really nailed it with this article. Check it out here.

Hey, who doesn't love a good road trip, right? I mean, you, the open road, some good tunes, and your favorite hot rod. For many of us, it's heaven. But I doubt that any of us would have dared embark on the road trip that Dave Schaub took recently. He set out in his his Roy Brizio-built '32 Ford Model A roadster to see if he could visit all 49 states in the continental United States in nine days to raise money for Ronald McDonald House to help terminally ill children. It was an ambitious plan that would have him cover 9,800 miles in 216 hours.

He launched from Needles, Calif., Sept. 8, headed for Tulsa, Okla., then to the deep South until the Florida panhandle, then up the Eastern seaboard to Buffalo, N.Y., then back west. His biggest day notched 12 states, and even when he reached the West Coast again and Washington, his journey wasn't over. He had to head up north through British Columbia to reach the small town of Hyder in southeast Alaska.

Schaub kept a time-stamped receipt for gasoline and other items in each state he visited and used a GPS satellite device to allow Internet users to track his progress in real time on Google Maps through his Web site, www.49in9.com. He even made it to Hyder ahead of schedule, completing the trip in 8 days, 16 hours, and 48 minutes. I am certifiably impressed.
 

And finally, there's this. I received an e-mail from Amy Caetta bragging about her big win at the Wiener Nationals. Yes, Wiener, not Winter.

Apparently, the fast-food chain Wienerschnitzel, with a sly nod of the hat to our own fabled Winternationals, hosts a little drag race for dachshunds, and her little guy, Presley, a 2-year-old brown dachshund, turned out to be the top dog, the Fastest Wiener in the West. The race was held last month at the Los Alamitos horse racing track here in Southern California to raise funds for the Seal Beach Animal Care Center. The 2009 Wiener Nationals featured 98 wiener dogs from across Southern California competing in a record 13 races, the most in the 14-year history of the event.

This month, Presley will be in the city of Placentia's parade, and in late December, she will be racing other wieners from around the nation in San Diego (Holiday Bowl Parade) to compete for the title Top Dog and the chance to ride on top of the Wienerschnitzel float. The win was featured in local newspapers.

Check out the video at right to see the hot dog run and then jump into Amy's happy arms.

Doggone, that was a fun column. I hope you enjoyed it. See ya next week!

Welcome to Fan Fotos, the sequel! Steve Heuer – and quite a few others -- took advantage of my offer two weeks ago to display their 10 best fan photos, and here they are. Again, the purpose of this is to show off your fan-type photos – which means no pro-shot stuff from the guardrails (unless you snuck up there when the officials weren't looking; then you get bonus points), and I don't care if there's a telephone pole or fellow spectator's head in your way, and, of course, they must be photos shot by you. I'll be running more of the submissions throughout the weeks ahead, but Steve-o is up first.

Steve has been going to the drags for a long time. The photo at right is of him (and, obviously, not taken by him; although it's a clear violation of my rules, I'll let it slide) at age 12, at his first drag race at New England Dragway in 1972, standing next to Tim Kushi's car. Like so many of us, it was dear ol' dad who gave him his first in-person introduction to the sport (many of us had long been rabid magazine buyers before we ever got to the digs for the first time, saving up allowance for a copy of Drag Racing USA or Super Stock).

The rest of Steve's photos are also from the 1970s, a great period for Funny Cars, which make up the bulk of his submission.

"Maybe these are not the 10 best, but a representative synopsis of some great memories!" he added.

I couldn’t agree more. If you have 10 Fan Fotos you'd like to submit, pass them along to me at pburgess@nhra.com. These must be photos taken by you and not pro-shot kinds of images; I want those down-and-dirty fan photos. Please include as much info as you have for dates and locations and what's going on in the photos.

That's it for today; I'll see you later this week.
 

Sunday's four-abreast extravaganza at zMax Dragway was a sight to behold, even on TV, my vantage point for the weekend. National DRAGSTER Associate Editor Candida Benson, who was covering the event for us for NHRA.com and has been around the drag races long enough to see plenty, texted me, "OMG coolest thing ever!!!!!!" (yes, six exclamation points).

The eight drivers who took part in the two pairings – one each for Top Fuel and Funny Car – were equally as enthusiastic, especially the two winners, Spencer Massey and Mike Neff. Both won their four-car matches on a holeshot, and in fact, Massey's great light helped him reach the finish line ahead of Antron Brown and Brandon Bernstein, both of whom had better elapsed times. I bet that Massey, who had a better reaction time than all three, would like to have that triple play added to his reaction time stats as well as the three "round-wins."

As could be expected, all eight drivers were exicted and honored to be in on the history-making exhibition, using such descriptions as "exciting" and "honored" <g> ... except, of course, for John Force, who related it to something about charging the cheerleaders shower in high school that's better left unexplored. Then again, if you were the quarterback of a team that didn't win a single game, it's understandable why your highlight took place off the gridiron.

Long before zMax was finished, I wrote a couple of columns about four-wide drag racing in the past, and it seems like a good time to share that information again, but with some new info and new pics.

Though a lot of the four-car racing was done at Byron/Rockford Dragways in Illinois and in Budd's Creek, Md., it was a widespread phenomenon from coast to coast. I've received e-mails from both coasts with tales of four-car bashes of various types, including all manners of race vehicles. (I even found a reference in Hot Rod magazine that back in the 1930s, the SCTA class finals runoffs on the dry lakes at Muroc sometimes featured up to a dozen cars[!], which obviously was a lot easier on the lake's wide-open spaces and with a flag starter and human win judges than what would have been required for computerized timing.)

(Above and below) Top Fuelers versus Super Stockers? You betcha.

Rico Paris, near lane, took on three other fuelers at Rockford (Ill.).

Four-wide jets in Fontana, Calif.

Four-wide floppers!

Four-across door cars in York, Pa., in 1969 with the cars of Bill "Grumpy" Jenkins, "Dyno Don" Nicholson,"Jungle Jim" Liberman, and Sox & Martin.

(Above and below) The four-car race in Fresno, Calif.; from left are Jim Herbert driving the Lizard, Berry Bros.-Stark, Raitt-Hyatt Syndicate II with Dwight Salisbury driving, and Gotelli-Safford.

Veteran Mark Pieri, Top Gas winner at the 1966 Springnationals and a three-time Division 3 Top Gas champ (and multi-time UDRA champ) who also competed in Top Fuel as well as Top Alcohol Funny Car and Dragster, took part in one of the craziest four-car bashes ever in October 1964 in Byron, Ill., pitting two fuel dragsters against two Super Stockers.

Pieri is in the far left lane in the Chicago-based Guzzler entry of Bud Roache and Don Mattson; the late Ron Correnti, another grizzled fuel-racing veteran, was in the stocker next to him. Next to Correnti is the famous "Greek," Chris Karamesines, and Pieri said he thinks that Ed Reshanski was in the far right lane.

“If memory serves me right, the door cars were staged 50 or 75 feet behind the starting line," recalled Pieri. "The flagman waved one flag for them to start, and when they reached the starting line, he waved the other flag for ‘the Greek’ and I to give chase. It was an exciting race. We only did this one weekend, a two-out-of-three-type deal, and, fortunately, we didn't have any problems.”

Domenic Paris, son of former Top Fuel racer Rico Paris, also passed on a pic, which he believes is from the same weekend at Rockford Dragway as Pieri’s pic.  “I was maybe 6 or 7 when this photo was taken, but I remember it like it was yesterday,” he wrote. “My father is in lane one.”

Chuck Rearick raced a Jr. Fuel dragster at Rockford and Great Lakes Dragway in the 1960s when they were mixed with the Top Gas cars. With four cars hitting the starting line at the same time, confusion sometimes reigned. “With push-start cars from the big end, it always got interesting with four cars trying to make the turnaround in the staging area,” he recalled. “What made it more fun is we did not have reversers, so the crew had to pull us back and forth to get us lined up. You also had to keep in mind that it was a four-lane racetrack, because if you forgot and kept it in the center of a two-lane track, you took out the lights … which Ron Leek tried to charge us for.”

Stephen Justice sent me a newspaper article from a May 7, 1967, four-car match in Fresno, Calif., at the track’s inaugural Golden Nationals that featured a unique team format. Gotelli & Safford were teamed with the Syndicate II team while Jim Herbert was paired with the Berry Bros. and Claude Stark. The format awarded points for first- through fourth-place finishes in three rounds, with first place getting four points, second three points, third two points, and fourth a single marker. Safford-Gotelli won the first round, ahead of Berry, Herbert, and the Syndicate, which broke the rear end and was replaced in round two by Dwight Salisbury at the wheel of the Armenian dragster. The results were identical in the second round, so the teams were tied at 10 points apiece. Herbert won the third round, ahead of Stark, Safford, and Salisbury. The final score was 17-13 for the Herbert and Berry Bros./Stark team.

Justice also remembered Fontana Drag City running four jet dragsters at the same time (Doug Rose in Art Arfons' Green Monster, Lucky Harris in Malone's US-1, J.D. Zink in Romeo Palamides' Untouchable, and Al Biscay in Palamides' Untouchable Twice).

Vic Raupe of Guthrie, Okla., remembers seeing four abreast at fabled Green Valley Race City in Fort Worth, Texas, in the mid-1960s. “Because of the huge number of mid-‘60s muscle cars, track owner and great promoter Bill Hielscher used the superwide track for four cars at a time,” he wrote. “This made for more time trials and an early end to eliminations to meet curfew hours. I remember one Saturday night, there were so many Chevelle SS396s, GTOs, and others of this era that in eliminations three cars would lose and one would return for the next round.”

Floridian Wayne Albert was told of four-lane racing at Miami-Hollywood Speedway, using the staging lanes that were parallel to the track, and Jim King of Lodi, Ohio, reported four-lane racing in the long history of Dragway 42 in West Salem, Ohio.

One interesting note that came out of all of this four-wide mania was an interview that John Force Racing publicist Dave Densmore did with crew chief Austin Coil, in which Coil not only talked about the famed Chi-Town Hustler participating in four-wide racing but also about driving one of the Hustlers in a four-wide race at Rockford in 1969.
 
“We had both our new car and our old car out there because we were testing the new car to make sure it was all right,” Coil said. “Somebody didn’t show up who was supposed to be there, so they made us an offer to run both cars. I drove the new one, and Pat Minick drove the old one. I think we made three runs.
 
“I drove [the Chi-Town Hustler] a couple times, later on,” Coil added. “The last time I drove was in Jacksonville, Fla., in, like, February of 1970, maybe.”

Wow, who knew?

OK race fans, that's it for the day, and also probably for the week. I'm leaving Thursday for Dallas for the O'Reilly Super Start Batteries NHRA Fall Nationals presented by Castrol Syntec and, unfortunately, I have a huge load of stories due for National DRAGSTER between now and then, so I'm not sure I'll have a column on Friday as usual. Apologies in advance.

The John Force-Tony Pedregon top-end tempest at Indy (now apparently smoothed over with the help of mutual friend Bob Tasca III, if you read Wednesday's transcript from the NHRA teleconference) got me to thinking about great rivalries in our sport.

Rivalries can be created and stoked by any manner of real or artificial devices, but the most prevalent seem to be created by either close competition or verbal jousting. We've seen all kinds of rivalries, from the respectful and good-natured to the bitter and hateful, and even some that have been manufactured, by one or both parties. Sometimes they're just good ol' clean fun, with the fans enjoying two champions trading wins back and forth, and sometimes they're mean and nasty, which keeps the fans on the edge of their seats, hackles up, and defending their driver to the end. A good rivalry sells tickets and T-shirts and generates reams of ink for both drivers.

Although the Force-Pedregon brouhaha may end up as just a minor dustup (though it surely won’t be forgotten), only time will tell if it stands the test of history as a legendary rivalry like some of those mentioned below. This column is not intended as a comprehensive guide to all rivalries over all time but rather a fun look back at a select few that strike my fancy for various reasons.

Stone-Woods-Cook versus "Big John" Mazmanian

The players: Fred Stone and Leonard Woods had been fielding supercharged gas Willys machines since 1960, first with K.S. Pittman at the wheel, then, beginning at the 1961 Nationals, with Doug "Cookie" Cook in the cockpit, leading to the formation of one of the most famous teams in drag racing: Stone, Woods & Cook. When fellow SoCal gasser owner "Big John" Mazmanian traded in his Corvette for a Willys, the die was cast for one of the great all-time rivalries of the 1960s. Fueled as much by hype and rhetoric in a series of ads in the trade papers as by supercharged gas, the two teams battled relentlessly, S-W-C with Olds power and "Big John" and driver "Bones" Balough with Chevy motivation.

The magic moment: Although the two teams raced innumerable times in class and match race competition, one race really sticks out, but it needs to be heavily prefaced. Two weeks prior to the 1964 Winternationals, the two teams met in a hotly debated impromptu pairing at Lions DragStrip; Mazmanian earned bragging temporary rights when Balough beat Cook on a holeshot, 10.23 to 10.15; the back story, however, was that Balough's win came on a rerun after Cook had reached the finish line in front the first time around but had put a wheel off the track in the process. S-W-C got revenge at Pomona, where Cook's holeshot and 10.03 elapsed time gave the prestigious A/GS class win to Stone, Woods & Cook against Balough/Mazmanian's better-but-later 10.02, giving both teams a chance to scream to the papers about supremacy.

After their Pomona win, Stone, ever the pot-stirrer, insisted that if "Big June" (as he mockingly called him) wanted another shot at S-W-C, he would have to put up $3,000 "for the honor and privilege of racing them." That winter, Mazmanian had replaced his Chevy powerplant with a 467-cid Chrysler, and after Balough uncorked an unearthly 9.77 in winning the Bakersfield March Meet, S-W-C quickly followed suit, abandoning their Oldsmobile for a 440 Chrysler.

Lions manager C.J. "Pappy" Hart finally got them both to the bargaining table and offered a $1,000 winner/$600 runner-up two-of-three proposal for the two giants to duke it out at Lions May 2. An overflow crowd packed Lions that night to witness the shootout. Balough won the first go-round, again on a holeshot, 9.96 to 9.91. Ninety minutes later, they returned to the line, but this time, Balough was too quick for his own good, red-lighting to tie the score as both drivers shut off early. Drag News' Ralph Gudahl wrote of the pre-final scene, "It looked like a sale at Macy's as everyone pushed to the fences, hung from poles, anything to gain a full sight of the course." The rubber match went to Cook and the blue Willys, 9.93, 141.06 to 9.99, 141.06. Despite their sharply traded pre-race barbs, members of both teams shook hands and congratulated one another, but the fans were the real winners.

Don "the Snake" Prudhomme versus Tom "the Mongoose" McEwen

The players: Mother Nature's battle became drag racing's when Tom McEwen, the promoter, and Don Prudhomme, the die-hard racer, created Wildlife Racing to bring The Jungle Book to life, thanks to sponsorship from Mattel toys that made them household names in the grubby paws of every little kid who could stick together two pieces of plastic orange track and let gravity do the rest. Prudhomme had long been "the Snake," and the wily McEwen, knowing that a mongoose was one of the few animals that could beat a snake, chose his nickname accordingly. McEwen, who already had made a name for himself hustling sponsorships for his race team, had an in at Mattel, where his mother worked as a secretary and his stepfather as a lawyer. That earned him entrée to company VP Art Spears in 1970, and before you could say "Jackrabbit Special," the two each had a Funny car and a Top Fueler, decked out not only with Hot Wheels colors but accompanying deals from Coca-Cola, Plymouth, and Goodyear, who were all eager to hop on to the fast-moving express. The two match raced exhaustively against one another, with Prudhomme generally getting the upper hand. Although the team only lasted three years, their battles, real and imagined, raged on, and fans never got tired of seeing them race one another.

The magic moment: Prudhomme won it all. Four championships and 49 national event wins; McEwen accrued just four NHRA Wallys. McEwen had never beaten Prudhomme in an NHRA final, and "the Snake" personally stopped McEwen from winning four times -- in the Funny Car finals at the 1975 Fallnationals, the 1976 Springnationals and Summernationals, and the 1978 Springnationals — but McEwen got the one that mattered most, the 1978 U.S. Nationals. In a storybook ending, McEwen, still grieving the loss of his son, Jamie, to leukemia just weeks earlier, upset Prudhomme in the final round at Indy. McEwen, overcome with emotion, sat in the car at the top end, and Prudhomme slithered his way beneath the body to join his old pal, rival, and occasional thorn in the side in a truly emotional and unforgettable moment that a few years ago was voted the Most Memorable Moment in U.S. Nationals history.

Shirley Muldowney versus "Big Daddy" Don Garlits

The players: You could probably define the history of Top Fuel from its start to its present day with just their names. Don Garlits, the grizzled and experimental hot rodder from Florida who set the bar for fuel racers everywhere, and Muldowney, who went from Schenectady, N.Y., street racing waitress to champion driver without the benefit of a deep background in automotive technology yet broke ground just as important as Garlits. While "Big Daddy" was down in the dirt checking the bearings, Muldowney, though not adverse to getting dirty, was tending to her growing legions of fans in the Women's Lib era of the early 1970s.

In the 1960s and '70s, Garlits was old-school popular; he built, tuned, and drove the cars, and to him, utilitarian mattered most of all. He was a drag racer's drag racer, yet part of a dying breed as the 1980s and '90s roared into view. Muldowney represented the newer breed. Sure, she had earned her driving stripes in gas dragsters, but she represented a new school: the driver. Her job was to drive and to attract fans and sponsors, whose addition to the team were becoming almost as important as horsepower. She paved the way for and inspired not only other women but men as well. How many of today's top nitro jockeys are not required to work on the cars? Yeah … 99 percent of them. Muldowney's immaculate driving skills were worth more than their weight in nitro, and, like Tony Schumacher and Larry Dixon today and Joe Amato and Gary Ormsby before them, she took care of business in the cockpit and at the ropes.

For Garlits and Muldowney, their different styles both separated and congealed them, giving one another ammunition in their well-publicized verbal jousts, but behind it all, you were always left wondering where the jabs ended and where the respect began.

Muldowney told Hot Rod Magazine, "Don't think Garlits and I didn't hate each other. I hated him and he hated me. But I still respected him. I have always respected him. What, are you kidding me? He's Don Garlits, 'Big Daddy.' We're very good friends now, but back then he just hated a woman kicking his ass. He hated my guts. He was awful. They rode him terribly if he lost. It was horrible."

The magic moment: Wow, where to start? Their track time might well be bookmarked by U.S. Nationals appearances decades apart: Muldowney's first Top Fuel final, against Garlits, at the 1975 U.S. Nationals (where, after winning his semifinal race, he's famously caught on camera at the top end, clucking in shock, "The lady dragster driver is in the final …") and, for us bleeding-heart fans, their side-by-side qualifying pairing at the 2001 U.S. Nationals. Between, they matched raced scores of times before delighted crowds, often as the night's highlight, their fevered efforts to one up the other softened by moments such as when Muldowney, from her hospital bed after a near-career-ending wreck in Montreal in 1984, exhorted Garlits to "go kick their butts" at Indy that year, which he did, and he even briefly served as a consultant for her after her comeback. But for me, one of the all-time-great Garlits-Muldowney moments was the final round at the 1982 Gatornationals (oddly enough, that final and the 1975 Indy final were the only two NHRA national event finals in which they battled).

There they were, in Gainesville, on Garlits' home turf; they qualified fifth and sixth, favoring Garlits by only a few thousandths of a second, 5.783 to 5.788. Garlits had knocked off the newest female contender, recent March Meet winner Lucille Lee (who also would win in Atlanta six weeks later), Johnny Abbott, and Jim Barnard with a best of 5.72, and Muldowney's pink Pioneer Special entry had recorded blasts of 5.80, 5,82, and 5.90 in trailering Mark Niver, Jody Smart, and Connie Kalitta. Muldowney's 5.90 defeat of Kalitta earned her lane choice against Garlits, who had run just an engine-wounding 5.94 against Barnard, setting the stage for a whopper of a final. Diamond P's Steve Evans interviewed her before the final, and although my memory of the entire interview is a little fragile, I do remember her being asked to rate Garlits as a starting-line driver, and her response about "Donald" was classic: "Marginal," she replied. Garlits, who had to change engines before the final, did get the drop on her at the green, .469 to .484, but that was the only time he led as she wheeled her way to her 12th win on a 5.86 to 6.28 decision.

Shirley Muldowney versus Connie Kalitta

The players: Connie Kalitta mentored Shirley Muldowney and her husband, Jack, in their fledging fuel days and ultimately ended up as much more to Muldowney after her divorce from Jack. She became "the Bounty Huntress" to his "Bounty Hunter," but the relationship was short-lived. Together they won the 1977 NHRA Top Fuel championship but split up soon after, and, after two rebuilding years, she won the 1980 crown without him -- even kicking off that season by besting Kalitta in the Winternationals final – and again was the champ in 1982. He was there for her in 1984, after her grievous accident in Montreal, to offer her a flight home on his chartered jet, but since then, it's been an on-again, off-again relationship (currently and most likely permanently off).

The magic moment: The two raced dozens of times in national event competition, but the most remembered is the final round of the 1982 U.S. Nationals. It would be their last final-round joust, and it was a great one: Kalitta was in the midst of a great season and had already defeated her in the final in Montreal, and neither had won the U.S. Nationals yet in their great careers. Muldowney qualified No. 2 behind Gary Beck's otherworldly 5.48 with a 5.57 and ran 5.56, 5.62, 5.65, and a final-round 5.57, 251.39 to best Kalitta's 5.66, 241.28 in the then quickest side-by-side pairing in drag racing history.

Warren Johnson versus Scott Geoffrion

The players: Sure, this could have been Warren Johnson versus Greg Anderson or W.J. versus Bob Glidden, but those might be less interesting. There's no doubt that W.J., Glidden, and Anderson are the kings of Pro Stock in the last three decades, and, despite their on-track ferocity, it's a good bet that there's now more than a bit of mutual (albeit unspoken and certainly delayed) respect for all that each has accomplished. W.J. even famously once said about losing to Glidden, "I never take losing to an individual personally," to which Glidden countered, "Johnson could lose to anyone and not care unless it was me. He couldn’t stand losing to me … I suppose that if a rivalry existed between Warren and me, it was because he couldn’t stand it when I was beating him."

Regardless, the Pro Stock rivalry that always intrigued me was "the Professor" against his student, the late Scott Geoffrion. W.J. gave the young New Jersey kid his first ride in 1991, but Geoffrion forsook his mentor and in 1992 joined the Wayne County Dodge team, where he experienced the bulk of his career successes, some against his teacher. W.J. whipped Geoffrion like the proverbial red-headed stepchild in final rounds from 1992 to early 1994, beating him five straight times before Geoffrion finally flunked "the Professor" in the 1994 Atlanta final and again that year in Dallas. Geoffrion's teammate, Darrell Alderman, had won the championship in 1990, '91, and '94, with W.J. winning the two between, and the skepticism about the source of the Dodge Boys' power no doubt fueled the ornery feelings.

The magic moment: It's Houston, March 1994, and the Dodge Boys were hot off a 1-2 finish in Phoenix, where Geoffrion beat W.J. in the semifinals and teammate Alderman in the final, and they qualified 1-2 in Houston, with Geoffrion atop the pack with a 7.03 and Alderman second at 7.061; W.J. sat third with a 7.065. Geoffrion handily beat Jerry Eckman, Mark Pawuk, and Kurt Johnson with his best run of eliminations, a 7.07. W.J. had mowed down Steve Schmidt, Jim Yates, and, in a huge semifinal clash, Alderman, with a 7.07 that earned him lane choice against Geoffrion.

Both drivers lit their pre-stage bulbs and then sat without moving for nearly a minute as the crowd – which favored Geoffrion based on announcer Dave McClelland's pre-burnout poll – buzzed above the idle of their engines and Geoffrion's occasional rap on the throttle. W.J. later said that he knew that Geoffrion had been instructed by team boss Dave Hutchens not to stage first and had not even bothered to warm his engine before the run.

After 30 seconds, Chief Starter Buster Couch ordered both to stage. Neither would comply, so Couch ordered them to back out of the beams and shut off their engines. After a few minutes to cool down, Couch ordered them to restart and told them to stage within 10 seconds, which both did, barely under the wire. Geoffrion got the slight jump, .460 to .477, but W.J.'s cooler engine pulled him through to a 7.07 to 7.10 victory. Words – and invitations to swap punches — were offered by both at the top end.

Johnson later explained, "I'm no virgin at this. Everybody knows that Scott was instructed to stage last, so I was going to sit there and wait for my Social Security check if that's what was necessary. It was a game to teach the kid a lesson."

Geoffrion retorted, "I don’t know what all this lesson stuff is about since I cut the better light. He's just a whiner."

The Dodge Boys had the last laugh – finishing the season 1-2 ahead of Johnson, though W.J. surely drew belly laughs the next year in Houston when he and Geoffrion were paired in qualifying. As they prepared to stage, a trio of dogs jumped the guardwall on the top end, and W.J. and Geoffrion were shut off on the starting line. Never one to miss an opportunity to needle, W.J. later quipped, "I didn't know what was going on until someone on the starting-line crew told me there were dogs on the track. My response was, 'I know, he 's in the other lane.' " Ouch.

Joe Amato versus Gary Ormsby

The players: Almost since his debut in Top Fuel, Joe Amato, with crew chief Tim Richards, was a serious player. In 1983, just their second full season, they won three times and finished second behind Gary Beck and scored four times the following year to win their first of five titles in the next two decades. Ormsby had returned to Top Fuel in mid-1983 after a long absence and won his first title at the 1984 Winternationals, at Amato's expense. That didn’t really strike the match to light the rivalry because for his first several years, Ormsby's Lee Beard-tuned entry was a fifth-place-type car while Amato was always among the top three. Ormsby's Castrol GTX mount really came to life in 1989, when he won six times en route to nosing out Amato for the title. They raced three times in the final that year, and Ormsby won two – they were an even 5-5 in final rounds against one another in their rivalry, and only once did each win more than one time in succession – and Amato struck back the following year to regain the championship. Amato and Ormsby dominated 1990, with each winning six times (on a 19-race schedule), and the championship came down to the final round in Pomona. Ormsby died of cancer in the summer of 1991 or there's no telling how great this gentleman's rivalry could have become.

The magic moment: Ormsby entered the 1990 season finale trailing Amato by 254 points, but by setting low e.t. (with a 5.01, then worth  50 points) and qualifying ahead of him by two positions (No. 1 to No. 3, for four more points), he was exactly 200 points (or one round-win) behind Amato going into eliminations.

Amato, who had defeated Ormsby, 4.96 to 5.09, in Saturday's $50,000-to-win Top Fuel Classic final, was steadily consistent Sunday with runs of 5.02, 5.02, and 5.03 for wins over Wayne Bailey, Eddie Hill, and Gene Snow. Ormsby was in the five-teens in trailering Jim Head and Don Prudhomme but earned lane choice for the race of his life with a 5.02 to 5.09 semifinal win against Kenny Bernstein. With a final-round win over Amato, he could tie him to the point. It was the perfect storm.

Ormsby staged last and left first … but too soon. G.O. red-lighted, but it probably didn't matter as his green and white machine quickly went up in smoke. Amato went right down the track and, to add insult to injury, bettered Ormsby's low e.t with a track record 4.93. The final points tally, 16,058 to 15,558, didn’t reflect the closeness of the battle, but Amato still left Pomona with his third championship, tying him with Don Garlits and Shirley Muldowney.

John Force versus Whit Bazemore, Al Hofman, Cruz Pedregon

The players: When you're at the top as long as John Force has been, there are a lot of people gunning for your head, and when you have a near-monopoly like Force did – plus the biggest and highest-paid team – it's not hard for people to get their noses out of joint and eagerly take shots at you, verbally and physically.

Certainly Whit Bazemore, Al Hofmann, and Cruz Pedregon (and probably a few others) could be counted as having legitimate rivalries with Force, ones that went to varying degrees of hostility, outspokenness, and determination. Hofmann probably was the driver most like Force, a from-the-ground-up junkyard dog who asked and gave no quarter. Hofmann never won a world championship, never finished ahead of Force in the standings, and had a dismal 13-43 record against Force (4-9 in final rounds), yet he still may have been the opponent whom Force feared most because, like him, he was hungry.

Pedregon was a winner in the alcohol ranks before he turned Pro, and being in the saddle of the well-funded McDonald's entry certainly didn’t hurt his successful bid to end Force's two-year championship run in 1992. Of the three, Pedregon fared the best against Force, winning about a third of the time (hey, you take your successes where you can) but holding a losing record of 53-25.

I asked longtime Force publicist Dave Densmore which of the three he thought Force might consider his top rival, and Dens picked Bazemore, which surprised me. Bazemore certainly had the worst record of the three against Force (46-10), but "ol' Baze" had a way of getting Force's goat every time. Never afraid to speak his mind no matter the topic or the political correctness, Bazemore, who at various times reportedly was considered a potential Force hire, surely knew how to get Force riled up, making him dangerous on another front.

The magic moments: For Force and Hofmann, I'd have to say it was the 1996 Winternationals, where Hofmann, who had beaten Force seven times in 12 meetings the previous two years, overcame Force's psychic .401 light to win, then added fuel to the fire in the pressroom by jabbing at Force, who was standing nearby. "Some guys come to the races with two or three cars, three crew chiefs, and a bus. I've got one car and one crew chief, so obviously he's a lot more worried about me than I am about him," he said, a smirk playing across his face. Force fired back, "Where do you get this stuff, Al?" then muttered to those standing by, "Al has a lot more winning to do before he catches up with me." Hofmann took his turn, telling the media, "John must have been brain-dead to have a reaction time like that. Obviously he was worried." Yeah, these two guys loved each other.

For Pedregon and Force, it was, of course, the final round of the Dallas event, with Pedregon on the verge of taking Force's hard-won championship crown. Force smoked the tires but refused to give up and finally smacked the guardwall, disqualifying himself, but kept after the throttle, whipping the car relentlessly and bouncing off the wall a few more tires like a crazed bull trying to chase down Pedregon in the lights if for nothing more than a moral victory. Force actually flipped the car at the next race, in Pomona, overdriving a tire-smoking qualifying run and turning his car turtle. Pedregon clearly had gotten into his head, and the proud and usually unflappable champ certainly was flappable (and flippable).

For Force and Bazemore, Densmore pointed to their 1999 final-round battle in Atlanta as a key moment for Force. Bazemore left on Force, .492 to .527, but Force chased him down to win by just .001-second, 5.147 to 5.182 .

Tony Schumacher versus Larry Dixon, Doug Kalitta, J.R. Todd, and "Hot Rod" Fuller

The players: Because he's sponsored by the U.S. Army and for the last five years has run over everything in sight, let's compare Tony Schumacher to an Abrams M1A1 tank and his rivals to the munitions used against him. Larry Dixon is the only guy other than Schumacher to have won the championship since 2002 and the only other guy to win Indy this decade. He'd have to be like a TOW missile, about the only thing that I can think of that can take out the Abrams. They've traded wins, and although Schumacher's 2008 dominance blew out the candles a bit on their rivalry, Dixon driving for ex-Schumacher tuner Alan Johnson certainly has rekindled it. Doug Kalitta is probably more like a Sherman tank -- capable of inflicting damage to Schumacher in his day, but his best days in this rivalry are temporarily behind him. I’d equate J.R. Todd with a land mine. He certainly couldn’t go head to head with Schumacher every run but was fully capable of ambushing him and taking him out. Rod Fuller largely created the rivalry against Schumacher himself, and because "the Sarge" gave it little regard, Fuller is almost like machine-gun bullets bouncing off of Schumacher's shell yet still plenty noisy and occasionally capable of causing wounds.

The magic moments: Pick any one of the four Indy finals where Schumacher and Dixon raced, and you have an instant classic. After trading wins in 2002 (Schumacher) and 2005 (Dixon), Schumacher won again last year, so you can bet Dixon was looking to even the tally this year and perhaps also a little eager to stop Schumacher from tying Dixon's hero, Don Garlits, with eight Indy wins. Plus there's that whole Alan Johnson thing. Schumacher won again and holds a staggering 11-4 final-round edge on Dixon, but I'm not sure I've ever heard a cross word from either of them about the other. They may have thought it, but they never said it.

You can't think about Schumacher and Kalitta without thinking of "The Run" at the 2006 Auto Club NHRA Finals, and it wasn't even a race betweeen the two. Kalitta entered the season finale with an almost insurmountable lead, and the only way Schumacher could pass him was to go three rounds further in Pomona. When Kalitta reached the semifinals, Schumacher's options narrowed. Although Kalitta lost in the semi's, on a painful holeshot to Melanie Troxel, and Schumacher won his side, "the Sarge" entered the final not only needing to win but also to run at least 4.437 to reset the national record for the 20 bonus points; a win alone would leave him six points shy of Kalitta. With Kalitta watching from the top end, Schumacher lit the win lamp and the scoreboard with an improbable 4.428 to earn the championship by 14 points.

Todd has been an occasional thorn in Schumacher's side since he upset him in the final of the 2006 Denver race – followed by a mocking salute as he stood up in the cockpit – and, with a 3-1 mark, he's one of the few with a winning final-round record against Schumacher. The race we'll always remember, though, took place last year in Dallas, with Schumacher on a record-breaking tear. Schumacher had not lost a single round from early July through that late September day, racking up seven straight event wins and winning 31 straight rounds – both records – before facing Todd in the Dallas final (pictured). With the smart money favoring yet another win by the Army juggernaut, Todd whipped a holeshot on Schumacher and emerged with a stunning 3.912 to 3.910 victory.

Fuller beat Schumacher in the final to win his first Top Fuel title – in Memphis in 2005 – and quickly proclaimed, "To be the man, you have to beat the man, and today we were able to do that." The two dueled for the championship in 2007, with Schumacher winning again, but surprisingly, Fuller owns a 2-1 final-round advantage over Schumacher, yet it seems that it was a few choice words that stung Schumacher most. After Fuller beat him in the 2008 Madison final (pictured), Fuller said that the Don Schumacher Racing DSR initials really stood for "Dark Side Racing" (à la Star Wars), to which "the Sarge" bristled, "You can throw names out, but the right word to say is 'champion.' We earned that name. The rivalries will come later in the season. If you are going to make a rivalry, step up. Me and Doug Kalitta had a great rivalry and never had to say anything."

OK, race fans, that's it for today. It's time to check out this year's real rivalry: NHRA versus the rain. The wet stuff is coming down in Charlotte, and there's an iffy forecast for the weekend, so we'll keep our fingers and toes crossed. See ya next week.
 

After all, those of us in the business all started in the grandstands and on the other side of the pit ropes, snapping shots of our heroes with whatever camera we could get our hands on. As a fan, I went to the races with everything from a self-developing Polaroid to a 110 Instamatic to a full-blown 35mm rig and shot everything I saw. The fan photo has that distinct look; it's the spot from exactly where you and I and every hard-core fan has sat or stood. In the grandstands peering past fellow spectators or light poles. In the pits, as close as we dared get to the work without having to duck a flying 9/16 open end.

Insider reader Kent Ewer knows the drill. He spent a lot of time at the track in his younger days, frequenting Minnesota Dragways and Brainerd Int'l Raceway before moving southwest for the almost antithetical weather of sun-baked Tucson, Ariz. He passed along some of his favorites from those days that I thought I'd share and introduce another semi-regular wrinkle to the column that I will call Fan Fotos.

Ewer didn't include any captions (other than the naming of the photos that designated the track), so I'll supply those. I've also taken the (very light) liberty of cropping some of the photos and color-correcting them in Photoshop (an overzealous one-hour photo technician who liked yellow?) to give them a better look, but not too much. They are fan photos and supposed to be a bit imperfect, right? (No offense, Kent!)

OK, that's the set. Thanks again to Kent for sharing. If you have some Fan Fotos you'd like to share, send  your 10 best shots to pburgess@nhra.com. Please include as much info as you have (date, place, what's happening in the photo if not obvious, etc.), and I'll take it from there.

I'll catch you later this week.
 

Generally, I grab the folders from the National DRAGSTER library, prop my feet up on my desk, and let my fingers do the walking, using a mixed bit of criteria to decide whether to include the photos. First off is the neat-o factor: How cool is the photo? Did it stop me in my tracks or cause a nostalgic, heart-tugging flashback? Then I weigh the quality of the photo; some really great subjects are in some really crappy photos. Then I have to judge the researchability of the subject – is there enough info in the photo (car name, car number, location, etc.) or on the back of the photo to start digging around? I start pulling out a photo here and there, hoping I end up with 10 good ones. By the time I was done with the two L folders, I had 25; not good. So I painfully pared it down to the standard complement of 10, which are presented below. Enjoy.

OK, that's it for the L files. Sorry about missing a column update earlier this week, but Tuesday was a travel day home from Indy, and I spent it and Wednesday working on our coverage of the event for National DRAGSTER. By the time I could even think about doing a column, it was late Wednesday, and I decided that rather than rush into something that I was just going to update Friday anyway to concentrate on ND and save my brainpower for a Friday column.

Enjoy your weekend; I'll see you next week.
 

Indianapolis also may be known as the Circle City, named for its original layout that featured a circular commons that held the governor's mansion (later razed; today the area is Monument Circle) and not for the "other" famous racetrack located nearby (which is actually an oval, but there's already an Oval City, in Ohio not far from Akron … look it up), but this weekend it lives up to its other nickname, the Racing Capital of the World.

I spent the night musing about what might be coming our way this morning as we head out to O'Reilly Raceway Park at Indianapolis for our first day of the 55th annual Mac Tools U.S. Nationals presented by Lucas Oil. Sure, the race began Wednesday, but we were still in Glendora then, battling deadlines and flying ash and choking smoke from those pesky brush fires, and yesterday was a travel day.

We have our ongoing Indy staff blogs cooking here if you want to catch up on more of my Big Go musings and those of a quartet of my fellow National DRAGSTER staffers.

Along the way, I compiled some miscellaneous Indy stats and facts I thought you’d enjoy. With a tip o' the hat to the ever-prolific and prodigious Bob Frey,

DID YOU KNOW THAT…

… there have been 334 U.S. Nationals winners in the past 54 years?

… 67 of those drivers have won the Big Go more than once? Two drivers have won it nine times, one has scored eight times, two have been victorious seven times, five have titled six times, another has won it five times, three have scored four times, 15 have done in three times, and 38 have scored twice. (To save you the math work, 267 drivers have won it just once.)

Bob Glidden won Pro Stock at the U.S. Nationals nine times, including this 1987 victory that he collected in the midst of a four-year winning streak in Indy.

… four drivers have won the U.S. Nationals four straight years, three of them in Pro Stock? Bob Glidden accomplished that amazing feat of dominance first (1985-1988), followed by Warren Johnson (1992-1995) and Greg Anderson (2003-2006). They are joined by Top Alcohol Funny Car's Pat Austin (1988- 91).

… three drivers have three-peated at Indy? Tony Schumacher and Frank Manzo both have won Indy three years straight twice in their careers. Schumacher did it in 2002, 2003, and 2004 as well as 2006, 2007, and 2008, and Manzo in 2000, 2001, and 2002 as well as 2005, 2006, and 2007. "Big Daddy" Don Garlits did it once (1984, 1985, and 1986).

 … 24 drivers have doubled up in Indy, winning two straight years? Glidden (1973, 1974 and 1978, 1979), Don Prudhomme (1969, 1970 and 1973, 1974), and Dave Schultz (1987, 1988 and 1993, 1994) all did it twice, and Joe Amato (1987, 1988), Brad Anderson (1984, 1985), Dale Armstrong (1974, 1975), Gary Beck (1972, 1973), Kevin Helms (1998, 1999), Kurt Johnson (1996, 1997), Doug Lambeck (1998, 1999), Ed McCulloch (1971, 1972), George Montgomery (1959, 1960), John Myers (1996, 1997), Cruz Pedregon (1994, 1995), Larry Pritchett (2002, 2003), David Rampy (1998, 1999), Scotty Richardson (1995, 1996), Joe Smith (1974, 1975), Glen Treadwell (2005, 2006), Angelle Sampey (2001, 2002), Lee Shepherd (1980, 1981), Gene Snow (1966, 1967), Terry Vance (1985, 1986), and Lee Zane (2003, 2004) all pulled off the feat once.

… no driver has ever won two classes on the same day in Indy, though several have come close. Austin was the first with his Top Alcohol Funny Car win and Top Fuel runner-up in 1991, and he has been followed in the near-miss category by Richardson (1996 Stock win, Super Gas runner-up) and Rampy (1998 Super Comp win, Comp runner-up).

… with a Top Fuel victory, Schumacher will have won eight of 10 U.S. Nationals this decade and will tie Garlits as the class' winningest driver in Indy?

Top Alcohol Funny Car star Frank Manzo is poised to become the winningest driver in U.S. Nationals history if he collects his 10th Indy win this year. His win in 2002 here also was his milestone 50th victory; he now owns 84 wins.

… Top Alcohol Funny Car wunderkind Manzo has the chance this weekend to become the winningest driver in U.S. Nationals history – regardless of class -- with a 10th victory? He also has two runner-ups here.

… Manzo has won the U.S. Nationals six times this decade?

… until Manzo tied him with an Indy win in 2007, former Pro Stock kingpin and home-state favorite Glidden had been the winningest driver in U.S. Nationals for nearly 20 years, since his last win here in 1988? How good was he?

… Glidden also has six runner-ups in Indy?

… the only person to beat Glidden more than once in an Indy Pro Stock final was Shepherd? He did it back to back in 1980 and 1981.

…  four drivers have scored in three classes in Indy? Pete Biondo and Richardson have both won in Super Stock, Stock, and Super Comp, and Jeff Taylor has won in Comp, Super Stock, and Stock. Montgomery also won in three classes in the 1960s (when class names shifted quite a bit), scoring twice in Little eliminator and once each in Middle and Sportsman.

…. Biondo has won twice in each of those classes, and Richardson just missed becoming a four-class winner when he was runner-up in Comp in 2007?

… only four drivers -- Prudhomme, Kenny Bernstein, McCulloch, and Jim Head -- have won the U.S. Nationals in both Top Fuel and Funny Car?

…  Prudhomme not only did it first, winning in Funny Car in 1973 after three previous wins in Top Fuel (1965, 1969, 1970), but with additional Funny Car wins in 1974, 1977, and 1989, he's the only driver with multiple wins in both classes?

… McCulloch is still the winningest Funny Car driver in NHRA history, even though his last fuel coupe win at the Big Go was in 1990?

John Force has won the U.S. Nationals four times, including with this special-edition gold car in 1998, but has DNQ'd the last two years.

… John Force has a chance to tie McCulloch at five wins this year, but that he's failed to qualify in Indy the last two years?

… Force hasn't qualified No. 1 at any NHRA national event since he qualified on the pole at the U.S. Nationals in 2006? That's a span of 66 races, the longest such drought of his Pro career.

… of the 17 NHRA events, past and present, at which Force has logged as many as 20 starts, the U.S. Nationals is the only event he has won fewer than 40 rounds (39)?

… Antron Brown has the chance to become the first NHRA competitor to win at the U.S. Nationals in both Top Fuel and Pro Stock Motorcycle? He earned two-wheeled titles in 2000 and 2004 and is a favorite to win this year in Top Fuel.

… in addition to Prudhomme, McCulloch, Bernstein, Head, and Brown, 12 drivers have wins in two classes: Darrell Gwynn (Top Fuel, Top Alcohol Dragster), Austin (Top Fuel, Top Alcohol Funny Car), Jeg Coughlin (Pro Stock, Super Gas), Snow (Sportsman, Comp), Ronnie Sox (Pro Stock, Super Stock), Vance (Pro Stock Motorcycle, Top Fuel Bike), John Lingenfelter (Comp, Super Stock), Rampy (Comp, Super Comp), Dave Boertman (Super Stock, Stock), Larry Morgan (Pro Stock, Super Stock), Bob Riffle (Comp, Modified), and Pete Shadinger (Comp, Little).

… three of the four Coughlin brothers – Jeg, Mike, and Troy – have won Indy titles? Family patriarch Jeg Sr. was a runner-up in Little eliminator in Detroit in 1959. Looks like John's turn next.

The late Dave Schultz is still the winningest Pro Stock Motorcycle rider in U.S. Nationals history and will be for a long, long time.

… even though his last triumph here was 15 years ago, the late Schultz is still the winningest Pro Stock Motorcycle pilot in Indy history with six wins? He'll hold that record for a long, long time as only one other active rider (Steve Johnson) has more than one win.

… Gary Beck (1972) and Larry Dixon (1995) are the only Pro rookies to have won the U.S. Nationals in their first start in Indy?

… only two drivers -- Rick Santos (1993, 1999) and Bill Reichert (2006, 2008) -- have won Top Alcohol Dragster more than once at the U.S. Nationals?

… Mick Leiferman probably holds the record for Indy frustration? He reached the Stock final three straight years (1975, 1976, 1977) and finished as runner-up all three times. He has never won the U.S. Nationals.

… John Smith also is a three-time Indy runner-up without a win, finishing second in Pro Stock Motorcycle in 1993, 1995, and 2000?

… 20 other drivers have reached an Indy final twice and failed to win?

Will this be Ron Capps' year to finally win Indy?

… current NHRA Full Throttle superstars Ron Capps, Doug Kalitta, Tony Pedregon, Brandon Bernstein, Rod Fuller, and Andrew Hines have never won the U.S. Nationals?

… Capps has not only never won the U.S. Nationals but never reached the final here? Fuller has an Indy runner-up, but it was in Super Gas, in 1998.

… Former world champs Eddie Hill, Gary Ormsby, Mark Oswald, Chuck Etchells, Dick LaHaie, Scott Kalitta, and Jim Yates never won at the U.S. Nationals?

… Al Hofmann, Tommy Johnson Jr., Bruce Allen, and Jay Payne are among the list of drivers with 10 or more wins without a U.S. Nationals win?

… Comp racers Tom Trisch and Treadwell went exactly 10 years between their first and second Indy wins? Trisch first won Indy in 1971 and then scored again in 1981, and Treadwell went from his 1995 win until 2005 before he won again here. Treadwell didn't wait 10 years before capturing his third, however; he also scored in 2006.

… the record for the longest time between multiple Indy wins is 22 years? Al Corda won Stock in 1971 and in 1993.

And, finally, did you know that …

… I'm out of Did You Knows?
 

Mopar was looking for a complete list of all Mopar-powered Top Fuel, Funny Car, and Pro Stock wins in NHRA national event history, which isn’t as daunting a challenge as it sounds, at least on the surface. The early NHRA Media Guides are a pretty good place to start because they have complete lists of all Pro winners, organized by event, so it was a matter of traipsing through all of the current events and all of the discontinued events (Le Grandnational, Cajun Nationals, Golden Gate Nationals, et al) to pick out the Mopar wins.

Darrell Alderman scored three world championships and 29 Pro Stock wins for Mopar, including at the 1991 Mac Tools U.S. Nationals.

Pro Stock, of course, is pretty cut and dried as teams are required to run an engine that matches the car manufacturer, but Funny Car and Top Fuel are a little more messy. Obviously, in recent years, almost all Top Fuel and Funny Car racers have used an aluminum aftermarket version of the Chrysler Hemi, and back in the day, there were a lot of other engine choices, some of which are not clearly delineated in the Media Guide. Fortunately for me, after some clarification, Mopar was only interested in body styles in Funny Car and the accomplishments of Mopar-sponsored Top Fuel racers Don Garlits, Darrell Gwynn, Mike Dunn, and Tommy Johnson Jr. Whew.

It should probably come as no surprise to anyone – Mopar fan or not – that Garlits is still the leading Mopar winner of all time with 35 victories and three championships (1975, '85, and '86), all in Top Fuel. It also shouldn’t come as earth-stopping news that Mopar's all-time Pro Stock hero is Darrell Alderman, one of the 1990s' Dodge Boys who ruled the class with his Daytona and Avenger entries to the tune of 29 national event wins and three championships (1990, '91, and '94).

(Above) Don Prudhomme's first Funny Car win was in Indy in 1973 with this Plymouth Barracuda, which he pressed back into service in 1974 (below).

After two incredibly successful years with a Chevy Monza, "Snake" returned to the Mopar camp with this successful Arrow.

Prudhomme's final three seasons with Mopar were in Dodge Omnis and highlighted by a pair of Englishtown wins in 1980 (above) and 1981 (below).

What did surprise me, however, is that until Ron Capps' Funny Car win in Las Vegas earlier this year, the winningest Mopar Funny Car racer of all time was … ta-da … Don Prudhomme! That's a pretty stout statistic in my book considering that "the Snake" hadn't competed in a Mopar-bodied flopper since the 1981 season and is best known for doing his winning in a Chevy Monza.

But, yes, from his start in the class in 1970 with a Plymouth Barracuda until 1975 (when he unleashed the vaunted U.S. Army Monza on the pack) and from 1977 (when he retired the Monza in favor of a pair of Plymouth Arrows and a trio of Dodge Omnis) through 1981, Prudhomme racked up 14 Funny Car wins for Mopar. Capps now has 16 wins for Mopar (in Stratus and Charger entries), all in the last four years, since his first Mopar victory in Madison in 2005.

"The Snake's" first Funny Car win was, appropriately, at the 1973 U.S. Nationals, where he had already won three times in Top Fuel. Prudhomme drove the Carefree Gum-sponsored 'Cuda to victory, then won the Gatornationals the next year, also in the 'Cuda (reskinned in Army livery after shelving his trick-laden-but-heavy Army Vega following the Winternationals), and won Indy again that year in the 'Cuda.

After 13 wins in the Monza, Prudhomme debuted the Arrow in 1977 in spectacular fashion with a victory at the Winternationals – his third of four straight wins there – then won the Summernationals and Indy (again!). The Arrow won the Winternationals again in 1978, the Springnationals, and Le Grandnational in his final championship season. He switched to a Dodge Omni in 1979 but won just one race, Le Grandnational, yet still finished second in points behind Raymond Beadle's Blue Max Arrow. The1980 season brought just two wins – in Gainesville and Englishtown – and a disappointing sixth-place finish. He went a full year between victories; he did not score again until back-to-back wins at the 1981 Summernationals and Grandnational. For 1982, Prudhomme slipped into a Pontiac Trans Am, which he stayed with through the end of his Funny Car career in 1989.

Capps' former Don Schumacher Racing teammate, Gary Scelzi, is the only other Mopar Funny Car driver in double digits with 12 wins from 2003 Sonoma to 2007 Richmond, and Chuck Etchells is a surprising fourth on the list with nine wins … surprising only because people forget just how good Etchells really was, especially with Tim Richards in his corner. Some of the other Mopar Funny Car winners surprised me, such as Tom Hoover, whom for some reason I can't see in anything other than a Corvette but who won twice in Dodges (Daytona, Avenger), and Kenny Bernstein, whom we usually associate with Ford or Buick, also had a pair of Mopar wins (Arrow, Omni) in 1980-81.

With 35 wins, Don Garlits is still the fifth-winningest Top Fuel driver of all time.

Garlits' 35 Top Fuel wins – the first at the 1963 Winternationals and the last at the same event 24 years later – are still an amazing feat considering that there were only four races on the annual schedule through 1969 and the slate didn’t reach double digits until 1976, and especially because Garlits wasn't a regular campaigner in the early 1980s. The most races that NHRA ever held in a season when he was racing full time was 15 (1986). Yet his 35 wins still rank fifth overall in NHRA Top Fuel history, more than 20 years after his last victory.

Gwynn undoubtedly would have challenged Garlits' numbers; his 18 wins were more than halfway there in a Top Fuel career that spanned just five full seasons before his tragic, career-ending 1990 accident. Dunn, who drove for Gwynn, is the only driver on two Dodge lists, with 12 Top Fuel wins and four Dodge Funny Car wins (of his 10 Funny Car wins) in cars owned by Roland Leong and Ed Abel.

Yeah, I know; it doesn't look right to see Bob Glidden in anything but a Ford, but he scored seven wins (and the championship) in 1979 in this Plymouth Arrow.

The late Scott Geoffrion, Alderman's Dodge Boys teammate, racked up nine Pro Stock wins for Mopar, tying legendary Ronnie Sox for second for the marque's success in the factory hot rod class. Sox was Mopar's first doorslammer legend, collecting six wins in Super Stock before nine in Pro Stock and at one time was NHRA's winningest driver. Surprisingly, Ford superstar Bob Glidden – who probably has a blue oval tattooed over his heart -- is the fourth-winningest Mopar Pro Stock driver with seven wins during the 1979 season when he campaigned an Arrow. Dodge's brightest Pro Stock star today, Allen Johnson, also has seven wins and is sure to eclipse Glidden's number shortly and no doubt will zoom past Geoffrion and Sox, too, within the next calendar year.

All tolled so far, 12 Mopar Pro Stock drivers have accumulated 69 wins for the Pentastar brigade, and 43 Mopar Funny Car drivers have collected 149 flopper wins in all manner of Mopars, including Arrows, Omnis, Barracudas, Horizons, Stratuses (Stratii?), Chargers, Daytonas, Challengers, Dusters, and Demons. The Mopar-sponsored Top Fuel drivers listed above have nabbed 67 wins, making for a grand total of 285 wins.

OK, that's today's quickie column (Jim Dunn, 1981 World Finals winner, Fireman's Quickie Plymouth Horizon! Stop me before I stat again!) during another busy week. Two days from now, I'll be Indy bound for my 27th U.S. Nationals. I and four of my DRAGSTER pals (Kevin McKenna, Brad Littlefield, Candida Benson, and Kelly Wade) will again host running blogs, keeping you up on what's going on behind the scenes to complement NHRA.com's usual swell coverage of the Big Go. We plan to launch the special section late today with introductory columns, so look for an announcement on the home page.

I'll have something new and Indy-related to post from the track Friday, so I'll see you then. If you’re at the race, be sure to flag me down and say hey.
 

Wednesday's shindig at the Wally Parks NHRA Motorsports Museum presented by the Automobile Club of Southern California – the opening of our exhibit, "National DRAGSTER: From the burnout box to your mailbox for 50 years" – was a rousing and well-attended success. The press turnout was great for a Wednesday afternoon, and we were graced by the presence of several luminaries who came to share the day with us.

The exhibit runs along the south (front) wall of the museum to the right when you enter the museum. You can’t miss it because there's the world-famous Albertson Olds of the late, great Leonard Harris poised in front of a giant wall appliqué of the famous photo taken years ago at Indy of a National DRAGSTER photog capturing a Top Fuel burnout. A larger-than-life version of the front page of National DRAGSTER's coverage of the car winning the 1960 Nationals sits on an easel next to the car.

Rounding the corner, the first thing you see – that you can’t help but see – is a 15-foot by 15-foot version of the Feb. 18, 1966, National DRAGSTER front page with a tight photo of a burnout-smoking Top Fuel tire. On the long stretch of wall between the two bookends are large-scale reproductions of numerous National DRAGSTER covers and features that tell the story of how ND has covered the sport in the last 50 years. There are special groupings for women in drag racing, performance barriers, and the like. A special case salutes late ND Photo Editor Leslie Lovett that includes some of his cameras, National DRAGSTER shirts, photo credentials, and photos; another case is filled with old issues of Tie Rod (DRAGSTER's mid-1950s predecessor) and old tools of the trade, such as a photo-sizing wheel and grease pencil. Above that is hung a list of the 15 editors of our great publication alongside "issue zero," which was a preview of National DRAGSTER's first issue, a nice sales tool to send to advertisers and sponsors.

There's also a nice tribute section to National DRAGSTER's first editor, Dick Wells, who was my co-host for the afternoon's festivities and currently serves on NHRA's board of directors. We also were proud to have on hand three other former ND editors: Bill Holland (1969-74), Jim Edmunds (1974-1982), and George Phillips (1982-86), representing the editorial leadership of the magazine's last 40 years (our 11 predecessors lasted less than nine years total!).

As mentioned, the turnout was great from our fellow members of the Fourth Estate, including Drag Racer''s Randy Fish, hot rod know-it-all Pat Ganahl, publishing magnate (and former Funny Car driver) Jim Adolph, local newspaper motorsports writer Louie Brewster, and others. I was also honored to see that Dave Wallace, one of the deans of drag journalism and a longtime buddy and sounding board for me, made the several-hundred-mile trek to be with us and to hang out for the afternoon's Twilight Museum Cruise.

Adolph wasn't the only racer in the place, as we also were graced with the presence of a couple of Winternationals legends, "T.V. Tommy" Ivo and Carl Olson, plus second-generation racer John Lombardo Jr., hot rodding legend Alex Xydias, and Miss Hurst Golden Shifter herself, Linda Vaughn. (We had sent invites to the other local stars like John Force Don Prudhomme, Ron Capps, etc., but they were in Indy for testing). In the mixer time before festivities kicked off, I got a great chance to talk to Ivo about his infamous 1974 Winternationals top-end rollover, an episode that he looks back on fondly (no doubt in part due to its positive outcome!) as just another of the grand adventures in his life. I promised him we would speak at greater length about it in the future as it's sure to be among the nominees on the list of greatest Winternationals moments that y'all will be voting on later this year.

Once we got everyone seated, my boss, NHRA Vice President-Publications Adriane Ridder, welcomed everyone to the proceedings and spoke about the dedication of the employees past and present and acknowledged the hard work of those who helped prepare the exhibit under the leadership of Paula Gewertz and Teresa Long. Rey Oruga, who is the art director of National DRAGSTER, also directed the exhibit with help from members of the current staff (in alphabetical order), Nicole Cintron, Barbara Doonan, Jerry Foss, Marc Gewertz, Lisa Handy, Matt Hurd, Carl Landkammer, Jeff Mellem, Debbie Pierce, Juan Torres, Lorraine Vestal, Richard Wong, and yours truly) as well as the museum staff.

Adriane then introduced Wells and me, and what followed was a long segment, all unrehearsed, with us trading tales about our relationships with Wally Parks, the challenges of the job in our eras  – to which we both agreed probably had an equal degree of difficulty, but in far different ways – and shared funny stories. Wells is a gifted storyteller and shared some great tales, including how the print-shop foreman refused to print the first issue because they hadn’t been paid, so Wells had to roust Wally out of bed in the wee hours of the morning; Parks paid with a personal check to get the first issue printed.

There was a lot of Wally reminiscing, and, of course, the subject of his infamous memos came up. I've mentioned here how Wally wouldn’t think twice about pointing out – sometimes harshly, sometimes kindly – errors or missed opportunities, and it turns out that he didn’t limit his critiques to the DRAGSTER staff, according to Wallace and Ganahl. From all of that came one of those light-bulb moments for me as Wells told how Parks used to send critical letters to Drag News, DRAGSTER's scrappy rival, under the pen name Parks Wengard. That unusual name was also part of Parks' e-mail address for years, and I never thought to ask what it meant; I mean, the first part seemed obvious, right? It's the man's last name, right? Nooooo ….

Turns out that Parks Wengard spelled backwards is, well .... Drag News Krap, Wally's own little dig at his main competitor. And so now I know …

Our little chat went very well and smoothly; I'm not a big public speaker, but I had fun, and it looked like Wells did, too, and the audience seemed to enjoy our interaction and stories and appreciated our ongoing reverence for Parks and our mission.

We fielded a few questions and comments, then everyone feasted on a buffet lunch accompanied by much bench racing and "remember whens." I hung out as long as I could, but we still had the current issue of ND to ship (hey, who picked Wednesday to do this deal anyway?). I came back to the office, put the issue to bed, then headed back to the Museum to watch the Ewald brothers do a mini Cacklefest and to take part in the car show as a celebrity guest. Adriane and I picked a very clean '57 Nomad that you'll be able to see in the pre-race parade at the Auto Club NHRA Finals later this year.

Our exhibit is scheduled to be at the museum for a good long time, at least through next year's Winternationals, so be sure to stop by and check it out. I'm sure it will stir up your great old memories, too.
 

The Wayback Machine is on the fritz today (how convenient) because there's a whole lot of present-day stuff I want to talk about. So, I'll take off my history-professor hat and replace it with the current-events-teacher hat for the day.

Tomorrow is a huge day for the National DRAGSTER staff as we'll be gathered at the Wally Parks NHRA Motorsports Museum presented by the Automobile Club of Southern California for the grand opening of a special exhibit celebrating National DRAGSTER's golden anniversary. Titled "National DRAGSTER: From the burnout box to your mailbox for 50 years," this wonderful tribute to one of drag racing's oldest and most storied publications will feature reproductions of past issues, photographs from our archives, and all sorts of memorabilia and mementoes from the past five decades, including a tribute to late, great ND Photo Editor Leslie Lovett.

A huge tip o' the editor's cap to Membership Promotions & Marketing Manager Paula Gewertz, Photo Editor Teresa Long, and other members of the Publications staff who worked long and hard (even repainting the walls!) to bring this collection together. They spent untold time researching the contents and preparing and arranging them with the kind of attention to detail for which this proud publication has long been known.

The opening will kick off at 1 p.m. with a press conference. We will be honored to have on hand NHRA board member Dick Wells, National DRAGSTER's first editor, with whom I will share the dais to welcome everyone to this celebration of drag racing's leading weekly.

Bill Holland, ND editor from 1969 through mid-1974, will be there, as will George Phillips, the guy who for three years preceded me in the saddle. Both are local -- Holland runs a very successful advertising business in the nearby San Fernando Valley, and Phillips still works at NHRA, now turning his skills toward moving pictures in the Broadcasting Department. I'm Facebook friends with ND's second editor, Bruce Tawson, but he lives in Denver. Parks, of course, also served briefly as editor, as did the late Steve Evans. I'll be thinking of both of them and Leslie tomorrow.

The list of former ND editors is kind of like the list of former U.S. presidents: There aren't a lot of us around anymore, or at least with whom we're still in contact. Plus, there have only been 15 of us. It's not a big pool to draw from. Throw out Wally's one year at the helm in 1982, which was a pretty big transition year at the paper (and my first here), and there have only been four of us for the last 40 years: Holland, Jim Edmunds (Holland's successor, mid-1974-81), Phillips, and me.

The plan is for Wells and me to banter a bit, comparing his era to mine, and perhaps field some questions, then open the exhibit at 3 p.m. Tomorrow is also one of the museum's Twilight Cruise nights, so we should have a good turnout. I'll be back Friday with some photos, but you need to stop by and see it for yourself. It is scheduled to be there through both this year's Automobile Club of Southern California NHRA Finals in November and next year's 50th Anniversary Kragen O'Reilly NHRA Winternationals.
 

Speaking of next year, we were excited to release the 2010 NHRA Full Throttle Drag Racing Series schedule, and I'd have to say it has the most changes of any schedule in recent memory. There are a couple of highlights in there for me, including the addition of a second Charlotte event and a shake-up of the Western Swing.

I wasn't part of the schedule-making process, but I'm sure considerable thought and planning went into picking the dates, especially for the first Charlotte event, which will take place in late March, just after the historic Gatornationals. The two don’t really draw from the same market as you might think, and it's going to be great to see the cars at zMax Dragway in the cool of late spring. On a personal note, I might even get to finally go there; the first two years, the event has been held two weeks after Indy, and with all of the coverage we do here, it’s hard for me to sneak off in the middle for a road trip.

Adding that event also created a ripple effect that moved the Houston event from that date into mid-April and behind the first Las Vegas event, moving Houston from the fourth event to the sixth. Atlanta, meanwhile, got bumped from the sixth spot into the eighth position and mid-May. With all of the rain we've had this year – someone recently told me that only four or five of the 17 events this year have not in some way been affected by rain – any changes in the schedule might well be home runs.

Bristol moved from the eighth spot on the schedule to the 12th in what will be a very busy June with four events on back-to-back-to-back-to-back weekends, beginning in Chicago before hitting Englishtown, Bristol, and then back west a bit to Norwalk. I'm not sure what we're going to call that string of events (suggestions, readers?), but it will be every bit the grueling and demanding segment as the traditional Western Swing.

If you want to sweep the Western Swing in 2010, you'll have to finish it in Denver.

Speaking of which, I guess I can’t really call it "traditional" anymore as Denver, which has opened the Western Swing for the last 20 years, now becomes the final event of the annual sweat fest. From 1989 through 1998, the swing went Denver-Sonoma-Seattle before Seattle and Sonoma switched places in 1999. Interestingly (from a statistical point of view), there were four Swing sweeps with each venue in the final spot; we'll see how long it takes before Denver has its first sweep-clinching victory.

The schedule change, which gives teams an easier road back home en route to Brainerd, will shake up the crew-chief routine a bit. As Mike Dunn wrote in his Final Take column after Seattle, a lot of teams have trouble backing off their more-more-more mile-high Denver tune-up when they head back to sea level in Seattle, but now they'll be going the other way and then heading to Brainerd, which also has a little bit of altitude.

Memphis moves from early October to late August and will be the final event in the regular-season Countdown to 10. Memphis in August can be a cooker – 87 degrees, 44 percent humidity today after several days of 90s – and will make a challenging event for teams as they try to lock up spots or battle their way into the top 10s.

Next year's Mac Tools U.S. Nationals will kick off the Countdown playoffs.

The fabulous Mac Tools U.S. Nationals presented by Lucas Oil now becomes the first race of the Countdown to 1, which I rather like. Two years ago, in the first year of the Countdown when it had three stages, Indy was the first race of the Countdown to 4 playoff semifinals, which I thought brought some extra zing to the race. Of course, seeing it be the final event of the regular season with all of the last-minute battles the last two years has been really cool, too, but maybe overshadowed the event in some ways, at least to me.

There have been on-again, off-again talks within and outside of NHRA about ways to make Indy more than just another stop on the schedule. It's not really even that now – what with all of the grandeur and history – but those who remember points and a half (the race used to be worth 1,500 to the winner instead of 1,000) and 32-car Top Fuel fields remember what helped make Indy the monster it is.

(On a side note, and now a moot point with the schedule change, I got a compelling letter from my pal Steve Bell, who suggested, "Indy is the last event to set the field for the Countdown, but most of the positions are set by then. What might be more interesting is that the winner of each of the Pro classes gets the 10th spot in the Countdown. If the winner is already in the Countdown, then the racer in the 10th position would fill the spot. This would give more interest to the event and more urgency to the guys on the outside. What do you think?" I think it's an amazing idea but perhaps fraught with other issues.)

The other cool thing about making Indy part of the final six events is that all of them now will feature Pro Stock Motorcycles, instead of five of the six as happens this year.

Reading + fall weather = national record bonanza. Can't wait for 2010!

The oft-rain-delayed Reading event, which was at its best in its original mid-September date that yielded national records by the score, will now take place in early October, around the time that the track traditionally has hosted the Sportsman-class recordfest known as the Dutch Classic, so look for big things there. The season concludes, as it has since 2001, with Las Vegas and the return to Pomona.

And while we're still on the topic of 2010 (and Pomona), plans are storming along for the 50th-anniversary celebration of the Big Go West that will kick off the year. I'm part of a six-man planning committee charged with making the event a can’t-miss race. There's going to be a press release probably next week that will go into more detail about some of the special treats we have lined up to stoke your nostalgic fever, including static and rolling nostalgia iron, special guests, special social events, and more. If you attended the 50th U.S. Nationals in 2004, you have an idea of what's in store, but we'll have our own California spin on it.

Our Publications Department will launch a dedicated Web site for the event this fall that will include text and photo history of the event as well as tons of great video, and it also will serve as the voting portal for a fan vote to select the greatest moments in Winternationals history.

We're also in the midst of creating a book that we hope to have available by Christmas, detailing year by year the Winternationals' history and filled with features about the track, the event, some of the great debuts, and much more. You’re going to want a copy of this book, especially if you're coming to the race, which will be attended by many of the same drag racing superstars who made so much history there.

(Speaking of books, the second installment of Wild Rides, our collection of photo greats, will be available for purchase soon through Amazon.com. Filled with some of the wildest [and weirdest] moments in NHRA racing history and photographed by the staff of National DRAGSTER, it'll make a swell Christmas [or birthday] gift for the NHRA fans on your list. I'll drop you a link here when it's available.)
 

My pit crew gasses 'er up. Good times.

Just chasing our shadow down the road

Obviously, a lot is going on here, and with Indy just about a week away, it's only going to get crazier, which made it nice to have a little weekend getaway. As I told you last week, my son, Chris, and I went to Sonoma, a little 1,000-mile road trip of male bonding. It was great to be out on the open road, just me and him, talking about girls, cars, baseball, hockey (not in that order). It's about seven hours each way, and I don't think we listened to much music. We just chatted or rode silently in that way-cool way that only guys can do (if you’re silent for more than a few minutes riding with the other gender, you always seem to get a "What's wrong? Why are you so quiet?"), taking in the scenery, listening to the roar of the engine and the hum of the tires on the road. Two best buddies just running down the highway looking for adventuret. Do yourself a favor; take a road trip with your kid.

The boy is 20, and who knows how many other chances I'll get to bond with him like that, so I soaked in every great moment. Even though we weren’t on the way to a drag race (the only thing that might have made the trip better) and our favorite drifting racers didn’t fare so well, it was still a great trip. I got to see my folks, including the old man, who just turned 80, so I wonder too how many more chats I'll have with him. Pops even braved the heat to come out with us on Saturday to watch this newfangled style of motorsports and walked away a fan. My 17-year-old nephew also tagged along and enjoyed himself. Yep, just four guys, with a 60-plus-year age span, enjoying the sound of revving engines and inhaling the sweet perfume of burning tires. I'll have to get them to Pomona later this year and show them how it's really done. At least my ride will be shorter.

With it being the weekend of Maple Grove, I went to great lengths to stay in touch with what was going on there, packing an air card for the laptop to watch qualifying results on the drive up Friday and results on the way home Sunday and using the new mobile-phone app at the race to keep track of qualifying away from the computer. It was in an interesting way to "watch" a race and obviously just the tip of the technology iceberg. All in all, a great weekend to give me a chance to catch my breath for the marathon of Indy ahead.

OK, gang, that's the current-day update. I'll be back Friday with a new column. Thanks for reading.
 

With surgically repaired "Little Brad" (we can make him faster, stronger … we have the technology) and Candida holding down the fort for National DRAGSTER and NHRA.com this weekend, I'll be in Sonoma with my son, Chris, laptop in hand for a mini working vacation, attending the Formula Drift event. As I mentioned in April when we attended the FD opener in Long Beach, I have a lot of old drag race pals in that series who were veterans of NHRA's sport compact scene, including Gary Gardella, Ed and Ron Bergenholtz, Stephan Papadakis, and others, and it’s always good to see them. And now with Ford as NHRA's official car, we can openly root for Chris' favorite wheelman, Mustang madman Vaughn Gittin. I'll still be helping cover the race (posting photo and video galleries, team reports, etc. each night from my sister's house, conveniently located in nearby Santa Rosa, home of former Top Fuel ace Frank Bradley) and following the Reading event on NHRA's new mobile-phone app.

But anyway, on to this week's column. After Tuesday's return to the Misc. Files, I decided, without further ado, to go right to the next letter of the alphabet, K, for another 10 treats from the National DRAGSTER photo library of semi obscurity.

OK, race fans, that's the K file. Just as I was submitting this article to copy editing, I got an e-mail from Dennis Fiend, who runs the awesome TwoToGo Web site, dedicated to twin-engine cars. He's just completed a staggering K project of his own, pulling together 50 years of photos of the legendary "Golden Greek," Chris Karamesines. There's some cool stuff! Check it out here.

OK, I'm outta here and northbound. I'll see ya next week.
 

Anyway, when we last left off July 3, you were out buying fireworks, and I had just published the H edition (I'd done the I version way earlier … long story), but since then, we all got waylaid with The Fred Files and One-Hit Wonders, so today we arrive at J. I can’t tell you the number of racers named Johnson in this folder: John Johnson, Ron Johnson, Tom Johnson, Jim Johnson -- the list goes on and on -- but I was able to get a fair mix of other surnames anyway. Sit back and enjoy!

Most fans associate the Flying Dutchman name with Al Vanderwoude, but a number of drivers actually campaigned under his memorable moniker, including Tom Johansen in 1972-73 in this wildly stretched Ford Maverick. Johansen had campaigned a pair of Sour Grapes Dodges (a Charger and a Challenger) before joining forces with Vanderwoude.

Previous Misc. Files:
The Misc. Files: Welcome to the 'A' list
Bob Bommarito, and welcome to the Misc. Files
The Misc. Files: From C to shining C
The Misc. Files: D-lightfully D-verse
The Misc. Files: An E-Ticket ride
The Misc. Files: Meet the F Troops
The Misc. Files: The G Force 
The Misc. Files: H is for 'heroes'
The Misc. Files: The I's have it

A little follow-up to a few items in Friday's entry. John Bell wrote to thank me for showing off his stuff, including the pile of junk at right that used to be parts of race cars. He wrote that the Moby Dick remnant is from the 1977 Gatornationals and that the Blue Max shards are from 1976 "from a crash and burn in southern Florida" that were gifted to him by friend Mark Zarkos. I was surprised to learn that the Mike Burkhart detritus is from Dale Emery's infamous nosedive in Indy in 1977 ("Funny thing is Norman Blake and I could have had the entire tail section, but we couldn't figure out how to mount it to the back of my '75 Civic!").

Bell also noted that there's a small chunk of "Slammin' Sammy" Miller's white Mustang that he torched, also in Indy, back in 1973 that Bob Gerdes at Circus Custom Paint gave to him, and the root-beer-colored dragster cowl is from Vic Anderson's Pro Comp dragster, which crashed in Indy in 1975. I had identified the Magum Force fragments as belonging to Norm Day (who had a car of the same name), but reader Art Pavluk told me it was from the Swensen & Lani version of the car. "It was either a Vega or Pontiac Astre that was destroyed at a Wednesday night match race at Raceway Park in ‘77 or ‘78. Arne Swensen apparently suffered severe foot injuries, which, along with the financial setback caused by the crash, ended the team's career. My info could be wrong (you may want to check with Lewis Bloom), but I feel pretty confident." DragList shows that car (it was an Astre) still active in 1979 and that Swensen took some rides in the Philadelphia Flyer Challenger in 1979, though it doesn’t say if that was before or after the wreck.

Bruce Wheeler had a partial answer to Fred von Sholly's "three dragsters" photo. "That's my car in the middle," he wrote. "Crew guy Bert Toulette and driver Bub Reese flanking the car. The car on the right side of this shot might be the Creitz-Donovan-Carbone car, and that person leaning over the car might actually be Bob [Creitz] himself. Shot was taken in '69, possibly at the June event in the attached Drag Times ad." The attached ad (click here) is cool in its own right, showing an all-star eight-car lineup for the track's East vs. West AA/Fuel Dragster Championships: Don Garlits, Don Prudhomme, Tom McEwen, Connie Kalitta, Beebe & Mulligan, Creitz-Donovan-Carbone, the Frantic Fueler, and Wheeler's Wheeler Dealer, all promising to "do burnouts just like the Funny Cars for the first time in the east." According to Bruce, "Beginning in early '69, some [Top Fuel] cars had reversers, and they actually did bleach burnouts 'just like the funny cars.' They weren't as smoky (or as long) as those done by today's' cars, but they were 'burnouts' in the true sense of the word."

OK, fans, that wraps up today's column. I'll be back later in the week with something new and shiny. Well, something new at least. Thanks for reading.
 

K.C. Spurlock scored his first nitro Funny Car win at the 1990 Winternationals and won the race again four years later.

The recent one-hit wonder columns have unleashed a torrent of responses, many from those of you trying to keep me honest, asking about the inclusion (or lack thereof) of certain drivers. For example, one reader (the names have been removed to protect the not-so innocent) wondered why K.C. Spurlock wasn't on my one-hit Funny Car list. He remembered that K.C. Spurlock had won the 1994 Winternationals and (bonus points) even that he had runner-upped to Cruz Pedregon at the 1994 U.S. Nationals but forgot that Spurlock had scored his first Pro win at the 1990 Winternationals, in a dual upset with first-time Top Fuel winner Lori Johns.

Another reader thought I had left my good pal Pat Austin off the Top Fuel list, and though Austin is probably best remembered for the first double-up win – Top Fuel and Alcohol Funny Car at the 1991 Topeka event – he actually won five times in Top Fuel to go with his 70 Alcohol Funny Car wins. Yet another recalled Tom "the Mongoose" McEwen's heart-tugging win at the 1978 U.S. Nationals – shortly after the death of his son – but forgot that "the 'Goose" first won in Ontario, Calif., in 1973 and that he also won the Cajuns and Northstars in 1986. I did get busted, though, by Todd Berube for leaving Clare Sanders off the Funny Car list (1969 Winternationals; since added), though he was only 50 percent right as he also thought that Leonard Hughes' '70 Gatornationals win was his lone win, forgetting that Hughes also won in Englishtown the following year.

Tuesday's story also inspired an e-mail from former Funny Car racer Bob Pickett, driver of the Pete Everett's Pete's Lil Demon entries, Mickey Thompson's Grand Am, and so many more. Pickett no longer lives in Granada Hills, Calif. (a hometown in SoCal's San Fernando Valley that he briefly shared with Don Prudhomme); he has relocated to Florida, where's he's still competing, albeit now as a tournament salon skier (being in Florida, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that's a form of water skiing, not snow skiing). He dropped me his phone number, so I'll be giving him a call soon to share his story. Even now, 27 jaded years later on the job, it's still a thrill to hear from racers I grew up watching and cheering for -- but have never met as they had left the sport before I became part of its inner circle – and know they are reading my musings. I saw Pickett for the first time at Irwindale, in 1972, where he was driving Everett's Demon; here's the somewhat fuzzy photo from 12-year-old Phil.

Within these walls works the Funny Car winner of the 1981 Springnationals.

I also tracked down Craig Epperly, but not in time for Tuesday's column. He's still SoCal-based and now vice president and chief operating officer at CSI Electrical Contractors in Santa Fe Springs, Calif. I'm setting up a time to talk with him for details about those early-1980s heydays, but the company bio describes him thusly: "Some may think that Craig Epperly is a quiet, unassuming man. Although that may be true, there is another reason for his lack of verbosity – he's always thinking and planning. Always! Craig has an illustrious career spanning over 30 years, 25 of which have been spent in supervision. His areas of responsibility with CSI include design-build projects, initial job setup, manpower scheduling, schedule compliance, foreman training, and total project quality management. Among his hallmark traits include his ability to execute a plan seamlessly and his well-earned respect and admiration of CSI employees. A consistent and valued part of the CSI management team, Craig is well-known for his supportive and nurturing nature, along with his philosophy of 'action speaks louder than words.' "

I heard back from Craig this morning, via e-mail, and he responded, "I have a lot of great memories from those days. Henry Harrison and Amos Satterlee were a big part of my success, and I will never forget that." He says that he still follows NHRA and attends both races in Pomona plus some nostalgia Funny Car races with Steve Plueger and Paul Trabue.

I've also been exchanging e-mails with Jay Howell, a long-ago racer perhaps best known for the Prock & Howell F Troop Willys. He has an amazing career story – he also helped build memorable cars such as the L.A. Dart wheelstander, Don Gay’s Infinity GTO, the Ramchargers' "Skinny Dart," Seaton’s Shaker Corvair, and many, many others. He also holds the unique (I believe) honor of being the only driver other than "the Snake' himself to drive one of Don Prudhomme's Funny Cars in the 1970s; he wheeled the yellow Hot Wheels Barracuda at match races in Indy in 1970 while Prudhomme was campaigning his Top Fueler. To me, that's interesting stuff. I had first heard from Howell after showing the rear-engine Cotton Picker Funny Car he had built in the C edition of the Misc. Files, in which I dubbed him "legendary"; he blushed as well as one can via e-mail, and we began a dialogue. It's been going on for a long time, partly because he's enjoying the retired life -- sailing the Atlantic along the East Coast "from Maine to the southern Bahamas" with wife Diane in their 40-foot sloop Far Niente (Italian for “without a care”) – and partly because of some health issues on his end, but he completed a career recap recently for me that I plan to share here soon.

My recent article saluting Ford's long history in the sport (and my own with Ford) elicited a couple of very cool images. The one at right was sent to me by reader Bob Robillard and shows one of the earliest Tasca Ford entries, a 406-powered Ford Galaxie driven by Dean Gregson, shown here at Charlestown Dragway in Rhode Island in 1963. Gregson was the first special high-performance manager for Tasca Ford after Bob Tasca Sr. founded the division for his successful dealership in 1961.

Wrote Robillard, "Living in Rhode Island most of my working life, I remember Tasca Ford from the beginning, and my high school butted up to Tasca's dealership lot. After hearing that you are a Ford fan, I decided to send you this pic." I've taken the liberty of cropping the photo to just show the Tasca Ford; you can see the whole image here.

The second image is of Raymond Beadle's Blue Max Mustang burning out under the lights at what looks like Orange County Int'l Raceway. What's great about it is that it's a drawing (technically a "photo illustratiion"), not a photo. It was created by John Bell, whose work I have shown here before, and depicts what he calls "his favorite Ford." I'd be hard-pressed to argue with him; the '75-'76 Blue Max was one bad hombre. I've shown it small here for the sake of space; you can see a bigger version here.

The final image, also sent to me by Bell, shows some of the collection of race car parts that he and his brother, Steve, who has been shooting the drags forever, have collected over the years.

Without a super-close examination, it's easy to pick out the flanks of one of "Big Mike" Burkhart's Funny Cars, some body panels from Jim and Alison Lee's Top Fueler, a chunk of Steve Gold's Jerry Boldenow-driven Moby Dick Corvette Funny Car (later campaigned by Ezra Boggs), two pieces of the aforementioned Blue Max Funny Car (I can think of at least two occasions that might have wrought the Max asunder -- his Gainesville barrel roll in 1982 or his body-shedding final-round wheelie in Columbus, Ohio, in 1975), and what looks like a serious chunk of the side of the Swensen & Lani Magnum Force Funny Car. What a collection!

The Fred Files, a quartet of columns featuring the early 1970s work of former Division 1 photographer Fred von Sholly, continues to draw mail. Richard Bibey wrote, "I grew up a literal stone's throw away from the Cecil County Drag-O-Way. Seeing all of these pictures have brought the memories flooding back. The test sessions at Cecil by 'the Grump' was something I had forgotten about. When I heard someone there, I would hop on my 20-inch-slick- and parachute-equipped bicycle and ride in. If there was anyone there, I was there. Us kids would race from the starting line to the finish line on our bicycles (I couldn't pedal that far now if I had to). I remember Bill Levitt in Quickie Too setting the track record one night and then arguing with one of the other neighborhood kids that Joe Jacono beat John Collins in the Mongoose 2 by a mile. I had parts in the basement from just about every Funny Car that crashed there. I wish I still had them. Mom got tired of walking around them and had the basement cleaned out one day. I have collected drag racing stuff for years. I just gave my entire collection to my niece's little boy. He had no interest in drag racing before. His eyes lit up, and the kid can't stop thinking about drag racing now. After these pictures and stories, I now have the same feelings again." Bibey also thinks that he spied himself and his two cousins in the background of the attached Fred Files photo, hanging at the fence (behind the smirking kid with the front-row seat). Could be!

Speaking of von Sholly, he dropped me a line to let me know that he's updated his PhotoBucket photo site with several hundred more photos; the total now tops 800. "They are not all great photos," he said, "but I feel that many are better than no picture at all since they are rare. I've left them all, the good and the not-quite-so good. If anyone wants their money back, I'll promptly send a refund!" He also has been pleased with the comments you've sent him. "I've been receiving many very nice and complimentary e-mails from all over the country and even one from Ireland," he wrote. "Evidently, everyone who used to work at Cecil County still reads your column! It's very gratifying."

Fred couldn’t just drop in without a gift to share, which is the photo below. "Attached is an interesting picture that I just found," he wrote. "It shows three dragsters on the starting line at Cecil County. On the right side of the photo, bending over the dragster, is Al Procopio, the owner-operator of Cecil and a co-owner of Capitol and Aquasco Raceways. Al was very inventive and always came up with new promotions. For the life of me, I can't remember the plan that night, and I took the picture! (Getting old isn't all it's cracked up to be!) Maybe one of your loyal readers can remember if you think it's an interesting subject and photo. I don't think they ran side by side as the picture suggests."

OK, readers, time to show off that Insider know-how. Drop me a line and let me know if you remember what was up.

And finally, there's this little gem. At right is a not-so-great photo I grabbed at speed with my phone on the way home from lunch (the Original Tommy's … great chili dogs and chili fries!) on the eastbound 210 Freeway just east of Irwindale Avenue. Yes, that Irwindale. Anyway, just off the freeway, about a quarter-mile's distance from the site of fabled Irwindale Raceway, is this billboard purchased by Citizens Business Bank. It's one of a series of billboards that the bank has created to salute valued partners of its bank, which began in 1974 in nearby Chino and has grown to nearly 50 branches, including one in Fresno, Calif., which might well explain why the valued partners featured here, more than 200 miles south of Fresno, are the Scelzi brothers: our ol' pal Gary and brothers Mike and Jim, representing their Fresno-based business, Scelzi Enterprises, which creates custom truck bodies.

The brothers and their business also are featured on the bank's Web site with five other valued partners (including the Tournament of Roses, which hosts a little New Year's Day get-together each year in Pasadena, just up the freeway from the sign), and they are featured in the company's annual report with their testimonial about the bank. ("Citizens Business Bank takes care of all our financial needs, which has helped our business grow and prosper. We continue to be successful because our banker takes the time to understand our business and customize solutions for our needs.") Both include this bottom photo of the brothers at work; the same image, minus the background, is what adorns the sign.

Even though he's no longer racing with us (for now), it looks as if it's still hard to get away from what Scelzi Sez.

OK, race fans, that clears out (mostly) the overflowing Inbox for now. I'll be back Tuesday with something else new and exciting. Maybe the next Misc. Files, maybe a Bob Pickett or Craig Epperly story, maybe the Jay Howell story, or maybe something completely different that hits my radar screen. Thanks for reading.
 

Friday’s column about Top Fuel’s “one-hit wonders” inspired a lot of comments (and two quick corrections). Perhaps the biggest surprise for people was hearing that there had been fewer than 100 winners in the category, which is pretty surprising for a class that’s been around for 46 years.

After Larry Dixon (Jr.) e-mailed to remind me that I had left his dad off the list (I had sorted the winners by name, and because we no longer refer to the son as Dixon Jr. anymore [at his request quite a few years ago], the name of his dad, winner of the 1970 Winternationals, had been lumped in with all of his wins), the total grew to 42 one-time winners. The second correction, as noted by several, was that Bobby Vodnik’s win in Indy in 1963 was actually a Top Eliminator win because nitro was not allowed at Indy that year. This further screwed with my percentages and dropped the total back to 41 one-timers (See? I was right all along!); that correction dropped the one-time-winner percentage to 44.56 percent, which is still pretty staggering. Think about that for a second: More than four in 10 drivers who won a national event in Top Fuel were not able to do it again. Tell me it’s not hard to win in Top Fuel!

Anyway, the most intriguing challenge was issued by reader Jon Sammels, who bet me a six-pack of my favorite beverage that the percentage of first-time winners in Funny Car was even higher. Naturally — and thirstily — I accepted.

Jon’s logic was interesting. “If the Funny Car pattern follows Top Fuel, a lot of these ‘one-hit wonders’ also will be in the late 1960s and early 1970s, where the careers seemed a bit shorter,” he wrote. “And with powerhouses like John Force, Don Prudhomme, Kenny Bernstein, and Tony Pedregon hogging up a lot of the wins, there’s not going to be a lot left for everyone else to grab multiple wins.”

Even though Top Fuel had about a three-season jump on its flip-top nitro brethren, only 19 more winner’s trophies had been awarded, 658 to Funny Car’s 639 (the NHRA schedule only had four or five events on the calendar in the mid-1960s). Eighty-three different drivers have bathed in the glow of an NHRA national event Funny Car crown, and though the average number of wins of all Top Fuel drivers combined is 7.14 (657 divided by 92) and Funny Car was only slightly higher at 7.69 (639/83), there were considerably fewer one-shot winners. Of the 83 winners, more than a third (30, or 36.14 percent) were not able to repeat the feat.

All things considered, the numbers still were pretty close, so I’ll go easy on Jon and expect a six-pack of Diet Coke on my desk in the next week or so.

I found it interesting that it takes six wins in each class to crack the top 25 and 18 in each to make the top 10. Looking a little deeper into the numbers, I found that 15 Funny Car drivers have two wins versus 13 for Top Fuel. Close!

As I did in Top Fuel, I developed a matrix, which can be found at the bottom of this column, charting not just the lone wins for the 30 but also any Funny Car runner-ups and wins in other classes. (Unlike in Top Fuel, though, I ordered these chronologically rather than alphabetically, which I think shows a little more of the trending that took place.)

As in Top Fuel, it’s hard to call a lot of these guys “one-shot wonders.” Scott Kalitta, of course, only won once in nitro Funny Car, in Houston in 1989, but was a two-time world champ in Top Fuel with 17 wins. Ditto for Tony Bartone, who may only have cashed in in Seattle last year in Jim Dunn’s fuel coupe but also owns 27 Top Alcohol Funny Car wins (including two already this year) and three in Top Alcohol Dragster. Melanie Troxel may only have the 2008 Bristol race on her Funny Car win résumé, but she also has four Top Fuel wins (and 11 runner-ups) and two Top Alcohol Dragster victories (and two runner-ups). Tommy Grove never won again in Funny Car after scoring at the 1967 Springnationals in Bristol, but by that time, he already owned two other wins, in Stock at the 1964 Winternationals and in Comp in Bristol the year before (in what essentially was a Funny Car).

Butch Maas drove dozens of cars over his drag racing career, but his Funny Car victory at the 1971 Winternationals -- and car owner Roland Leong's fifth in eight years at the event --- was his lone NHRA national event win.

Dave Beebe scored at the 1973 Springnationals, and although he didn’t appear in another Funny Car final and never won another national event, he was runner-up in Top Fuel at the World Finals in 1966. Ditto for Gary Clapshaw, who didn’t duplicate his 1995 Mid-South Nationals win in Funny Car but did take a surprising runner-up in Top Fuel to Tony Schumacher at the 2000 U.S. Nationals. And what about Larry Reyes? The popular pilot flew Roland Leong’s Hawaiian Funny Car through the lights backward at the 1969 Winternationals, then came back and won the race the next year. Leong won the Winternationals again the next year, with Butch Maas, whose victory was the only one of his much-traveled career.

As in Top Fuel, quite a number of one-time winners were just that — they had no wins in other classes and never made it back to a final again in any class, let alone in Funny Car; this was especially true in the class’ first year, when guys such as “Fast Eddie” Schartman, Doug Thorley, Maas, “Slammin’ Sammy” Miller, and Larry Fullerton match raced more than they campaigned on the national event tour.

Schartman, driving Roy Steffey’s S/XS Mercury Comet, became Funny Car’s first world champ when he defeated Don Nicholson in the final at the World Finals in Tulsa, Okla., in 1966. Schartman set both ends of the S/XS national record at 8.61 and 172.72 mph. Fullerton duplicated that feat six years later in Amarillo, Texas; the veteran racer’s only visit to the national event winner’s circle with his popular Trojan Horse Mustang was at the World Finals and earned him the world championship. Dave Condit, the longtime driver of the notorious L.A. Hooker flopper, drove the Plueger & Gyger Mustang to his only win at the 1974 Supernationals, though he was a bit upstaged by the drama of Shirl Greer’s fiery and brave world championship bid and the 6.16 national record set by Dale Pulde in Mickey Thompson’s Grand Am. Earlier that year, Greer had recorded his only national event win, in Montreal.

As you can see from the list, a large portion of these one-time Funny Car winners — 14, in fact — were from the 1970s; there are only three from the 1990s and four so far from the 2000s, though I expect Bob Tasca III to no longer be on this list at the end of the year.

Certainly two of the longest long shots on the list are Craig Epperly, who drove Don Tate’s Superstar Plymouth Horizon to the win in Columbus, Ohio, in 1981, and local Pomona favorite Sherm Gunn, who won the World Finals in 1984 in the event’s first year in Pomona. Neither driver had been to a final before, nor did they return to a final.

Craig Epperly's lone victory, at the 1981 Springnationals, was clinched with a final-round defeat of world champ Raymond Beadle.

Tate had dabbled with nitro as a partner to the Trillo Bros. (several T ‘n’ T cars, including fuel altereds and Funny Cars), but after Jim Trillo crashed their Funny Car in 1980, they split, and Tate took the Superstar name with him. He hired Epperly, and the addition of respected crew chief “Famous Amos” Satterlee certainly helped produce that moment of magic in Columbus, which was capped by a surprising final-round victory against then reigning season and event champ Raymond Beadle. The event had been delayed a week by rain and resumed on the second Sunday, a Bristol 2008-like long day of on-again, off-again racing that didn’t conclude until 1:30 a.m. Monday. After beating Tripp Shumake, Tom Anderson, and John Collins in the first three frames, Epperly left slightly on Beadle, .497 to .504, then held on for a narrow 6.210 to 6.214 victory.

Epperly finished the season a respectable sixth, but the team broke up at season’s end for unknown reasons. Epperly continued to wheel nitro Funny Cars for four seasons, driving for Joe Pisano, Anthony Almada (the A Team Daytona), and the H.B. Gold team of Billy McCahill and “Uncle Beavs,” Gene Beaver. Epperly’s brother, Rocky, later made headlines as the driver of former airplane racer Frank Taylor’s Dago Red Top Fueler, which set the national record at 257.14 at the 1983 World Finals at OCIR.

Sherm Gunn defeated Kenny Bernstein, Don Prudhomme, Billy Meyer, and Mark Oswald en route to his surprising victory at the 1984 World Finals.

Gunn, who had established a solid reputation as a chassis builder, had campaigned both alcohol and nitro Funny Cars since 1975 (preceded by years in gassers and an alky-burning altered) but primarily ran on the West Coast, where he was a staple at match races at Irwindale and OCIR. His national event nitro Funny Car successes to that point in a four-year career consisted of just a pair of round-wins, yet he beat four of the era’s best —Bernstein (on a holeshot), Prudhomme, Billy Meyer, and, in the final, Mark Oswald. Gunn certainly looked to be, well, outgunned in the final as Oswald had shoed the Candies & Hughes/Old Milwaukee Firebird to a pair of 5.70s (and a class-history-best 261.62-mph shot) in the opening rounds; Gunn’s best was a 5.91 to defeat Meyer in the semifinals. Gunn left slightly on Oswald, whose mount blew a head gasket in a brief blaze of fire before it hit the 100-foot mark. Gunn fired off his best run of the meet, a 5.87, to make it official. Oswald probably forgave Gunn the upset victory because Gunn’s defeat of championship hopeful Meyer in the semi’s clinched the 1984 world title for Oswald.

OK, so there you have it, Funny Car’s “one-hit wonders.” The only question now is who is going to bet me about Pro Stock’s solo acts?

What do the bands Starland Vocal Band, Paper Lace, and Big Country have in common with Top Fuel heroes Carl Olson, Clayton Harris, and John Mulligan?

Though many of you may know those groups as one-hit wonders, many probably would be surprised to learn that each of those widely respected nitro digger pilots claimed only a single NHRA national event Wally in their long careers, a fact that leaped out at me after last Friday’s final Fred Files, in which I shared the unlikely tale of Arnie Behling’s lone Top Fuel win at the 1971 Summernationals.

They’re certainly not alone. In fact, 41 — nearly half — of the 92 drivers who have scooped up the 658 wins in NHRA Top Fuel history did so only once in the class. I find that a pretty startling factoid worthy of a whole half-hour Lewis Bloom segment.

I feel a little bad calling those drivers one-hit wonders because they all had other spectacular accomplishments in their stellar careers. In Olson' case, there's also a March Meet win and a huge and emotional victory at Lions Drag Strip's Last Drag Race, both of which I know he places high on his list of accomplishments, plus three NHRA national event runner-ups, membership in the Cragar 5-Second Club and Bonneville 200-mph Club, an IHRA Top Fuel world championship, and a lifetime of service to the high-performance industry in one fashion or another. And although Harris and Mulligan's national event win list also has just one entry, each has multiple runner-ups and national records to his credit, and each has a revered place in the annals of drag racing history.

On top of that, for them and many of the 39 other one-race winenrs we need to consider that they competed in an era in which there weren’t as many national events on the calendar and they either match raced substantially -- which, for many, even held a higher importance than the national event stage --  or competed with other sanctioning bodies.

On the other hand, given some of the class’ dominant drivers over the years and their staggering win totals, it’s maybe a little more understandable. Tony Schumacher, with 59 victories, owns almost 9 percent (8.96) of all NHRA Top Fuel triumphs since Don Garlits won the first title at the 1963 Winternationals. Garlits, with 35 Wallys, still ranks fifth overall. Between Schumacher and “Big Daddy” reside Joe Amato (52), Larry Dixon (47), and Kenny Bernstein (39), and it’s only a matter of time before Dixon eclipses retired Amato’s total. It takes just six wins — J.R. Todd’s total — to be among the top 25 Top Fuel scorers of all time. But this column isn’t about those with a Top Fuel Wally space problem on their mantels. It’s about the other 41.

But what constitutes a one-hit wonder in drag racing? Especially when you consider what an honor and a thrill it must be to win in drag racing’s top class even once.

To be fair, that 41 number is probably not legit considering that it includes current drivers such as Spencer Massey, Morgan Lucas, and Hillary Will, who scored their breakthrough Top Fuel wins within the past year or so, had all won in the alcohol classes, and are far from done winning in Top Fuel. The list also includes guys such as Ron Capps, who has 29 Funny Car Wallys to keep his lone Top Fuel keepsake company (Seattle 1995); Tom McEwen, whose feel-good Top Fuel win at the 1991 Englishtown event was preceded by four Funny Car wins, including at the U.S. Nationals; Dave Settles, who scored five Top Fuel runner-ups after his 1974 Gatornationals win, which was preceded by four Pro Comp triumphs; and Bill Mullins, whose 1985 Columbus, Ohio, caper stands beside previous wins in Top Gas and Alcohol Dragster.

Bob Noice, Jimmy Nix, and Jim Bucher also won in Top Gas and Hank Johnson in Alcohol Funny Car, and a goodly portion of the list also posted at least one runner-up.

So I created the chart at the bottom of this column of all of the one-hit wonders. Reviewing that list, you can see that there are only 12 drivers whose only NHRA win was in their only NHRA final in Top Fuel: Art Marshall, Bob Gibson, Chip Woodall, Cristen Powell, Don Moody, Hank Westmoreland, Jim Barnard, Jim Walther, Jimmy King, Larry Dixon, Rick Ramsey, and Stan Shiroma.

Art Marshall's lone Top Fuel win, at the 1972 Grandnational in Montreal, is especially significant as it was the final win by a front-engine Top Fuel car.

It’s a pretty interesting group of winners. Marshall’s victory, at the 1972 Grandnational, was the final win by a front-engine Top Fueler and quite an upset for the unheralded 23-year-old speed shop salesman from Springfield, N.J. His car, the ex-Don Prudhomme high-back Hot Wheels dragster, was owned with Don Young and sponsored by Van Iderstine’s Speed & Auto, where Marshall worked. Theirs was the lone front-engine car in the field, yet he set down hitters such as Olson, Harris, and, in the final, Jeb Allen. Allen was hot off a Summernationals win and probably would have won the race had not a leak gushed water under his tires on the launch, causing him to lose traction.

Shiroma’s victory was the last Top Fuel win with a true Chevy engine, and he beat Rance McDaniel’s Rodeck in the final for it. Sixteen years later, McDaniel would claim his lone win at the World Finals in 1993. And it would be extremely difficult to call Moody a one-hit wonder given his portfolio (as my previous story on him will attest) and the fact that his one win, at that historic 1972 SuperNationals, was capped by a jaw-dropping 5.91 pass.

There are some other interesting things to notice overall in the list. Three of the drivers — Vodnik, Johnny Abbott, and Terry Capp — couldn’t have picked a better place to notch their lone victory: the U.S. Nationals. As lone wins go, that probably has to be tops; a lot of drivers (people like Capps, for example) have lots of wins but none in Indy. And what of Gerry Glenn and Jim Walther, whose only wins were at the World Finals, in 1971 and 1972, respectively, but were crowned world champ on the basis of those wins? I’d say those two guys did a pretty good job of cherry-picking a win.

It’s also interesting to note that five of those wins were at hallowed tracks such as Old Bridge and Pomona, which host prestigious events good for the résumé, and that unlikely venues such as Atlanta and Seattle have had their share with three each. I was in Seattle for two of them, including Michael Brotherton’s wild win in 1992. In qualifying, he had tipped Darrell Gwynn’s Coors Light car onto its head at quarter-track, but the team, led by Ken Veney, worked through the night and came back to win the race Sunday.

All of these drivers may have only had one day in the NHRA Top Fuel winner’s circle, but, as I mentioned earlier, what an accomplishment even that is. Each of them is among only 93 drivers in 46 years who, through a mixture of will, skill, and sometimes luck, outlasted the best the day had to offer and won in the most exotic class in the world’s fastest form of motorsports. One-hit wonders? Nah, more like wonderful one-hitters.
 

My first behind-the-wheel experience was in the cab of my stepfather's Ford F-250 as a young teenager, nervously guiding the yellow pickup two blocks down our street, an obstacle course lined with parked cars that threatened to jump out and bite the truck's significant bumper.

The truck became my first highway freedom – the folks seldom let me drive their Thunderbird – and I drove the wheels off of that truck, down muddy alleys and around town, and made it live up to its Ford Tough slogan. My stepfather still has it all these years later.

A few years ago, I taught my son how to drive behind the wheel of his mom's Ford Expedition and handed down to him our black '95 Ford Bronco 4x4 as his first vehicle, a keepsake that he pampered until the cost of fueling its massive V-8 caught up to him and we got him into a 2-year-old V-6 Mustang that he's hot-rodded with a K&N Filtercharger, dual exhaust, and low-flow, high-noise mufflers. My oldest daughter drives a Ford Excursion, trusting it not only to safely carry two of my grandchildren to swim lessons and school but to tow the family boat.

Yes, we're a Ford family, which is why yesterday's long-rumored announcement that Ford has become the official car and truck of NHRA certainly went down well in my little corner of Glendora.

If you’re a longtime reader of this column, you'll know my affinity for early-'70s Mustang Funny Cars. Cars like the Blue Max, Trojan Horse, L.A. Hooker, Plueger & Gyger, War Horse, Brutus, and Keeling & Clayton California Charger and the cars of Mickey Thompson, Tommy Grove, Connie Kalitta, Jerry Ruth, and many, many others delighted fans from coast to coast.

Tommy Grove: Mustang's first Funny Car winner, 1967 Springnationals in Bristol

Danny Ongais drove Mickey Thompson's 'Stang to Ford's first Indy Pro win in '69.

The only car to defeat Don Prudhomme in 1976 was Gary Burgin's Mustang II.

Ford Funny Car wins also came in Thunderbirds; Mark Oswald nabbed a trio.

Whit Bazemore is the winningest Mustang FC driver outside of Team Force.

Bob Glidden won nine Pro Stock world championships for Ford and claimed national event titles is six Ford models, beginning with a Pinto.

Don Nicholson won Mustang's only Pro Stock world championhip in 1977.

I did some research a few weeks ago for Susan Pollack, who handles PR for Bob Tasca III, and came up with 25 national event wins for non-John Force Mustang Funny Car drivers from 1967 – when Grove scored the first – through 1998, when Whit Bazemore won the Chicago race. (Surprisingly, Baze, with six wins, is the winningest non-JFR Ford driver; I would have bet the house on Raymond Beadle.)

Add in Tim Wilkerson's two wins and longtime Ford man Tasca's Gainesville title this year to go with the 116 earned by Force drivers throughout the years (himself, daughter Ashley Force Hood, Robert Hight, Eric Medlen, Tony Pedregon, and Gary Densham), and you have nearly 150 Mustang wins. Other Mustang drivers to win NHRA national event Funny Car titles: Danny Ongais, Larry Fullerton, Dave Condit, Shirl Greer, Gary Burgin, Billy Meyer, John Lombardo, Gordie Bonin, Gary Clapshaw, and Dale Pulde (in Bazemore’s car).

Add to those pony-car wins Kenny Bernstein's dozen or so wins in his aero-trick Bud King Tempos. I'm not sure that a Pinto ever won an NHRA Funny Car event, but I know that Mark Oswald won a trio in the Candies & Hughes Thunderbird, and Beadle got a hat trick in his Blue Max EXPs. There's probably one or two along the way I missed, but it won't be long before we're celebrating 200 Ford wins in Funny Car.

Of course, Ford power has been winning NHRA Professional races for five decades; Top Fuel icons such as Kalitta, Don Prudhomme, "Sneaky Pete" Robinson, and others used Ford SOHC engines to power their rails.

Ford's first Professional NHRA world championship was in 1972, when Fullerton and the Trojan Horse won Funny Car at the World Finals in Amarillo, Texas, back when winning that lone event meant being the season champ (though drivers had to earn the right to compete there).

Pro Stock icon Bob Glidden carved Ford's First On Race Day slogan into the history books of the factory hot rod class with event wins and championships in all manner of Ford vehicles, from Pintos to Fairmonts to Thunderbirds to Probes – and won national event title in Mustangs and EXPs.

Glidden won an amazing 49 times in the 1980s – all in Fords – and had a string of 21 straight years with at least one win. He scored his first win in a Ford – a Pinto that he drove to glory at the 1973 U.S. Nationals in his home state of Indiana – and scored his 85th and final victory in a Ford – his Motorcraft-backed Probe at the 1995 event in Englishtown – and only seven wins of that magnificent total were in a car that didn't bear the famed Ford blue oval.

Pinto pilot Wayne Gapp earned Ford its first Pro Stock honors by winning the World Finals in 1973, and Glidden followed the next year with the first of Ford's points-earned titles. Ford Pro Stock drivers won five of the first seven points-tabulated world championships; Glidden won the title in 1974 and 1975 in his Pinto, "Dyno Don" Nicholson won the 1977 title in his Mustang II, and Glidden was on top again in 1978 and 1980 in his Fairmont.

Interestingly, only four Pro Stock wins have been Mustangs, two by Glidden in 1975 (when he was driving a '70 Mustang to take advantage of a weight break for longer-wheelbase cars) and two by Nicholson in his Mustang II in 1977.

Although Ford fans have not had a major name to cheer for in a few years, that tide clearly has already begun to turn. Erica Enders and Jim Cunningham have been working this season to sort out their new Mustang, and Ford diehard Robert Patrick has announced his intention to return to Pro Stock next season, but all eyes probably will be on 16-time NHRA national event winner Larry Morgan, who announced earlier this season that he will campaign a Mustang in 2010.

I'm looking forward to the Ford era of NHRA Drag Racing, and with the Force team, Tasca, Wilkerson, and the new Ford Pro Stock teams on point, I think we'll see a lot more blue-oval entries First On Race Day.
 

While I've only been able to show you, through the four installments, a small sampling of the more than 500 images he sent me, they've been a pretty good representation of his varied and talented work from the early 1970s, primarily at East Coast tracks.

Although the 12 images and descriptions below are the last ones that I'll offer here, Fred and I do have a parting gift for you at the end of this column that I am absolutely certain will spin your world upside down. But no rushing ahead to see it, OK? Enjoy the slice of East Coast history below; there's some great and historic stuff here.

OK, so what's the big surprise? Are you sitting down?

Response to the publishing of some of Fred's photos here has been so overwhelming that he's graciously and generously offered to put several hundred images – including some stuff not on my CD – online for your enjoyment.

"Several people have suggested that I try to make some money from these photos, but NHRA has provided a lifetime of fun and excitement for me, and I don't feel that I should charge others to share my enthusiasm for the sport," he told me. "If you ever saw the movie Pay it Forward, you'll understand why I feel this way.
 
"I have added and will continue to add more pics as I find time to scan them in to my computer. I've added some from the DC Rod & Custom Show from 1970 and a few color shots from the '90s. Please urge fans who view the site to add comments to any photos, especially if they know something interesting about the sport in those days."

Wow, what a deal! You can find his gallery here.

I would just like to add a caveat here, please. Although he's making these photos available for viewing and downloading, please respect that these images are still his property. He shot them, and he still holds the copyrights to them, so please don’t use them commercially in any way. Also, repay his kindness by sharing your memories with comments on the photos so that others may benefit. You can also thank him personally here: fjvs@live.com.

OK, race fans, that's it for the week. Back next week with more fun stuff. As always, thanks for reading!

Honestly, I could probably run several hundred of his pics for weeks to come, but then I'd probably have to share the byline on this column. Instead, I'm going to pick the best 24 of the remaining and run them in two 12-photo installments, one today and one Friday. It seems that lately I've been heavy into the photo mode – the Misc. Files, the Fred Files, Al Kean's Seattle pics – and haven’t been writing as many feature stories as I used to and would like to get back to. I'm still eager to finish the Misc. Files (we're only up to J) and will mix those in as we go along.

But today, once again, belongs to von Sholly, former Division 1 Photographer (the capital P means he was the official guy, charged by then Division Director Darwin Doll with covering the races and sending photos to National DRAGSTER and other publications). Here's a dandy dozen.

OK, gang, that's it for the day; back Friday with the final installment of the Fred Files.

One more thing: Last Thursday marked the two-year anniversary of this column; my, how time flies. We're still going strong some 260 columns later, thanks to your support, your stories, and your readership.
 

Okay, so I felt a little guilty leaving you with nothing. Just couldn’t do it. I tried. So here's another great story from Fred von Sholly and a classic photo of "Jungle Jim" Liberman burning out at Cecil County Drag-o-Way to illustrate his point.

"Your comment about the 'multicolored flags' reminded me of a funny story from the late '60s when Connie Kalitta was scheduled for a match race at Cecil County. I was the track photographer at the time. Connie's race car arrived at the track for the race, but Connie was not with the team. We were told that he was flying in.

"What we didn't know was that Connie was literally flying himself in directly to the track and wanted us to stop the races so he could land his plane on the dragstrip. He called the timing tower to ask if there were any wires crossing over the track. We told him that there weren't. He said that the would 'buzz' the track before landing. We were ready for Connie when he flew over. We stopped the races as promised, and Connie started his approach to land on the track. He was almost on the ground when he made an abrupt move up to clear a string of those 'multicolored flags' that was strung across the track. We forgot about them, and Connie had no idea what they were. He thought they might be a power line. Needless to say, Connie wasn't real pleased when he finally landed, and he let everyone know it. Ooops!
 
"It ended up raining, and the race had to be postponed. Late in the day after almost everyone had left the track, Don Prudhomme asked if he could use a telephone. Unfortunately, the tower was closed and locked, and the only phone was inside the tower. No one remaining at the track had a key to get in. Cecil County was really out in the sticks, and there were no phones nearby. All of a sudden, Connie produced a briefcase and threw it up on the hood of a truck and opened it. Lo and behold, it contained a wireless telephone. Connie raised the antenna and got a dial tone, and Prudhomme was able to make his call. This was in the late '60s when only Connie and James Bond had a telephone in a briefcase. We were all very impressed."

 

Al Kean has been a loyal reader of this column from the start and also of National DRAGSTER. The Canadian race fan might best be remembered by his fellow fans for grabbing this amazing photo of Don Prudhomme's Hot Wheels Barracuda soaring through the lights at Seattle Int'l Raceway's Hot Wheels Northwest National Open in 1971. Kean shared his memories of that magnificent memory with me in a past Insider column (scroll down to the middle of it).

Anyway, after seeing the recent columns here showcasing some of former Division 1 photographer Fred von Sholly's great East Coast pics, Kean thought he would like to share some of his stuff, too! As a teen living just across the border in Victoria, B.C., Kean had frequented the Northwest tracks such as Seattle and Puyallup beginning in 1968 at the suggestion of his older brother. Even after moving some 500 miles north to Prince George, once he got some wheels, he began making the long trek south for the drags.

This last Christmas, while digging decorations out of the closet in his basement, Kean came across a box of slides from back in the day and had them scanned and placed on a CD, which he proudly sent to me with an index document seven pages long detailing the whos and wheres of the more than 300 images.

What's really cool to me about these images is that they are true fan photos, shot from the fences and grandstands and wherever Kean could get a decent line of sight on the cars (although it's clear in some of them that security may have been a bit lax in letting him get closer than most fans on occasion!). They remind me a lot of the photos I grabbed at OCIR and Irwindale – lots of shooting around heads and poles, some unfortunate misses (focus, frame), but some real gems, too. I've taken the liberty of cropping some of them for your viewing pleasure and left others as is. So, before we put the 2009 Seattle event in the rearview, here are a dozen images and a look back at Seattle from more than 30 years ago.

Okay, those were some pretty keen Kean photos, eh? Thanks for sending them in, Al!
 

I forwarded Fred a bunch of messages from readers eager to chat about the good old days or looking for photos of their cars and reconnected him with a couple of old pals. Makes a fella feel kinda good, y'know?

Anyway, so below is the first full course of your memory-invoking meal, 10 more great images. Enjoy.

Okay, there's another heapin' serving of the Fred Files for your weekend enjoyment. I'll be back next Tuesday with more fun and games. I have a couple of cool columns in the works that may or may not be ready for prime time by then; if not, I'll roll out the next edition of the always popular Misc. Files, letter J.

Although he is part of the legend of one of drag racing's great forks in the road, even the most hard-core fan would be hard-pressed to finger Timothy Daniel Ditt's place in the sport's history. For nearly 40 years, he has been largely anonymous, known only to many as the unknown and blurry figure in the grandstands, ominously circled in a crude hand-drawn oval on a famous photograph.

On March 8, 1970, Tim Ditt was just a 16-year-old fan like any other teenager, drawn to famed Lions Drag Strip that cool day to see the stars of the sport at the season-opening AHRA Grand American. He left the famed facility not the way he expected, in an ambulance and in peril, clinging to life at the end of a well-placed thumb in his armpit that stemmed the flow of lifeblood from his unconscious body.

Ditt was not at ground zero for the explosion heard 'round the drag racing world – the disintegration of the two-speed transmission in Don Garlits' Swamp Rat 13 front-engined Top Fueler that led "Big Daddy" to design the sport's first successful rear-engined dragster from his Long Beach, Calif., hospital bed – but he was at the cruel end of it when a random piece of debris nearly severed his left arm. Only the quick action of Lions starter Larry Sutton likely saved his life as the cowboy-hatted SoCal legend jammed his thumb onto the pressure point in Ditt's underarm and, like Peter and the dike, kept it there for the long ride to the hospital, where doctors completed the job of saving his life.

Top Fuel racing then was at a pivotal and, some might say, very experimental point in its history, and this near-tragic incident also paved the way for rules for better containment and other safety devices that have given our sport the tremendous safety record it enjoys today. Ditt is glad to be here to see it.

Larry Sutton (minus his trademark black cowboy hat!), left, was reunited with Tim Ditt, right, whose life he saved nearly 40 years ago at Lions Drag Strip.

More than 39 years after that fateful day, Ditt and Sutton were reunited at Sutton's Wrightwood, Calif., home, where they posed for this photo -- with a cardboard stand-up of "Big Daddy" – and where Ditt, now 56, learned firsthand of the day that changed his life, a day that until just recently was nothing but a jumbled memory.

Sutton dropped by the office yesterday to give me this photo, thanking me for my small part in the reunion. It had been my article about Sutton and his heroic actions and the help of Todd Hutcheson, nephew of former Top Fuel racer George "the Stone Man" Hutcheson, who is writing a book about that period in the sport's history, that got the two together.

It was an emotional moment for both, Sutton told me. "He's got a wife and two kids and some grandkids, and he told me he's had a wonderful life he wouldn’t have had if it weren't for me," he said. "I'm just glad for him to finally have some closure. He knew he was part of drag racing history but wasn't sure of much else that happened that day. He told me all he remembered was looking down at his injured arm and then falling backwards, then he remembered a real hard pain in his armpit. That was my thumb."

Hutcheson, who with co-writer Mickey Bryant hopes to release their book, Don Garlits, RED, early next year on the 40th anniversary of the incident, went to great pains to track down Ditt. He had a personal attachment to the incident because he, too, had been there, standing close enough to Garlits' side of the track to be bathed in the oil of Garlits' parts.

Hutcheson, a photojournalist for United Press International who has traveled the world covering royalty and rock stars, the Olympics , and more, used his reporter's nose to track down Ditt, beginning with nothing more than a name, then scoured phonebooks and the Internet before finally finding him in May.

"When I finally got ahold of him, he was overjoyed that someone else knew something about the incident," recalled Hutcheson.

Ditt, who underwent six hours of surgery on the day of the accident and 10 more surgeries in the next four years, finally met Sutton Saturday. Before driving off to meet his savior, he dropped Hutcheson an e-mail that read, in part, "I've prayed that I would live to have a chance to say thank you to the person (or persons) who saved my life. I'm really hoping I'll do more than cry and hug him. 39 years of feelings put on my mental back shelf, with no answers or closure may be over."

What a great moment and a great ending to an amazing story.
 

Wow, it's been a busy week, and I've been swamped in all sorts of meetings that have sucked away the precious time I had planned to dedicate to a new installment of the Misc. Files for today, but my loss is your gain with an intriguing peek at some goodies ahead.

A few months ago, I was contacted by Fred von Sholly,  the Division 1 photographer in the mid-1960s for then Director Darwin Doll, but he also was the track photographer at Cecil County Drag-o-way, which featured a lot of match races.

Fred wanted to know if I was interestied in having a large collection of his images from that era to add to the National DRAGSTER archives.

"I don't want anything in return," he wrote. "I just feel that someone out there might appreciate seeing these photos."

Are you kidding me? I know a lot of people who would!

Fred recently sent me a CD from the late 1960s and early 1970s with images of early Top Fuelers, Funny Cars, and Pro Stockers at Cecil County as well as at legendary East Coast facilities including Aquasco, York, Capitol Raceway, and Raceway Park, some of which are in the montage at right. I've been going through them and will present some next week. There's some great early stuff of "Jungle Jim" Liberman, Don Garlits, Don Prudhomme, Don Schumacher, and much, much more – a lot of stuff that I'm pretty sure has never been seen or at least for a long while. He sent more than 500 images, and while I'm obviously not going to be able to share them all, I will cherry-pick through them and give Fred's artistry another day in the sun. We've seen a lot of early stuff from the West Coast, but not as much from the East, so this could be fun.
 
I also had asked Fred to share some of his memories from that era, and he responded right away with a couple of gems about Pro Stock hero Bill "Grumpy" Jenkins.

"I was good friends with the owners of Cecil County Drag-o-way," he wrote. "Back in the late '60s and early '70s, Bill Jenkins used to test his cars at Cecil whenever the mood struck him. I asked the owners to let me know when Jenkins was coming to test.

"One day they called and said that he was coming. When I got there, Jenkins was the only person on the track. I think he had one guy with him. The track caretaker was running the clocks. Bill had a car carrier with a big vise attached. I arrived just in time to see him sawing a new Holley carburetor in half. Jenkins wasn't very talkative, but since he and I were the only people around, it was hard for him to ignore me. He explained that Holley didn't build a carburetor that really suited his needs, so he decided to just 'make' one using the large primary halves of two Holley carburetors. He sawed both of them in half and epoxyed the two primaries together and secured them with a metal plate, as shown in the accompanying photo.
 
"He then bolted this creation on his manifold and started making some test passes. I really don't remember the actual speeds, but I do remember telling friends that he was running about 10 mph faster than the national record for Pro Stock. I don’t think that the carburetor was legal for NHRA races, but Bill did a lot of match racing in those days. He always kept a rag over his carburetor while working on his car in the pits with people around. This is what was under that rag!"

And another ….

"Every time Jenkins showed up at the track, other racers tried to get a glimpse of anything new on 'Grumpy's' car. He was such an innovator that people followed his lead as the new Pro Stock class was just developing. Back then, match races between racers like Jenkins, Don Nicholson, Dick Landy, Sox & Martin, and many others were able to fill the stands at the local tracks. 
 
"One week, someone came running into the tower to announce that Jenkins had shown up, and he had 3/16-inch holes drilled in the top of his headers right near the flange that attached the headers to the engine block. These mysterious holes were the main topic of conversation around the track for the next few weeks, and Jenkins wasn't talking. He did seem pleased that his modification was causing so much speculation and interest. I heard all kinds of theories from increased pressure and cool air being introduced at this point would produce a venturi effect, blah, blah, blah. Everyone had a different theory as to why 'the Grump' had drilled those holes in his headers. Before long, everyone was drilling similar holes in their headers, and while they didn't understand what they were supposed to do, they all bragged about lower e.t.s and increased mph as a direct result of these eight little holes.
 
"After a month or so, Jenkins couldn't keep the secret to himself anymore. He decided to let everyone in on his much copied speed 'secret.' Jenkins explained that a V-8 motor is essentially eight one-cylinder engines connected together. In order to blueprint the engine, he had to make each cylinder as close to the others as possible. One way to gauge if the cylinders were equal was to measure the temperature of the exhaust. So, the simplest way of doing this was to stick a $2 thermometer directly in the header pipe of each cylinder and compare them. In other words, the 'mysterious holes' that made everyone's car run better were solely for the purpose of inserting a thermometer! They did not enhance performance in any way. Shortly after, the popular little holes that had appeared on most of the cars in the pits went away."

That's a great story, and certainly not the first time I've heard of this monkey-see, monkey-do phenomenon or the furor created by an unknown item suddenly appearing on certain race cars: Witness "the Terrible Towel" incidents of Kenny Bernstein in the mid-1980s and Gary Ormsby later that decade. Those terry-cloth diversions just about drove their opponents insane – what were they hiding under there? The details are a little fuzzy, but I also remember Ken Veney telling me how he had playfully added an extra bolt – I believe he even had painted it red – to his intake manifold and, after he ran another trademark low e.t. blast, the clamor that arose from his peers.

Anyway, I'm going to leave you with a handful of von Sholly pics to whet your appetite and give you an idea of the treasure trove he has bestowed upon us, which will make a nice complement to the Misc. Files; we'll call them the Fred Files. Thanks for sharing, Fred!

Another Pro Stock icon of the 1970s,  "Dyno Don" Nicholson in his Maverick; love the multicolored banners over the starting line!

Gene Conway's Corvette Funny Car, circa 1970, the follow-up to his popular Destroyer Jeep Funny Cars

The late, great Lew Arrington and his popular Brutus Mustang; crew chief listed on the car as "Head Grump: Dutch Irrgang"

Before Warren Johnson, "the Professor" was Kelly Chadwick, near lane, shown with Arne Swensen in Swensen & Lani Mustang

"Big Daddy" Don Garlits in Englishtown, probably 1971 or '72, judging by the front-engined car in the other lane

I keep a running folder of such correspondence and empty it out every now and then. Today is one of those "nows."

Bret Kepner passed along this trio of photos he shot during a test-n-tune event in September 2003, when Larry Gould and partner Fred Bach showed up to "try out some ideas" on their SOHC Ford nostalgia AA/FD. "This photo shows Larry and his son (an accomplished oval track racer who grew up thrashing under a blown fuel Cammer), walking Freddie back from the burnout."

"This picture shows Larry doing what Larry was meant to do; he's simply standing next to an idling Cammer adjusting the barrel valve to what he could hear and feel was the proper setting. Larry is infamous for his almost-catatonic laid-back starting-line ritual. Without frantic running or frenzied rushed movements, he would calmly fire the car, back up his driver, make fuel-system adjustments, and, with an almost uninterested facial expression, guide the car into the beams. He may as well have been watching the evening news on TV."

"This photo shows Bach as he inched to the line before cranking out the quickest Ford-powered fuel run ever, a 6.23, before all of a hundred street car spectators."

Reader John Schultz has been a Ford fan forever, especially of the blown nitro-burning 427 SOHC. He got a Gould & Bach T-shirt at his local track in Wisconsin when the team appeared there. "I was not familiar with Larry at the time, but my eyes got real big as I gazed upon his 427 SOHC motor in the pits," he wrote.

I keep in regular contact with Bret Kepner, surely one of the most knowledgeable among us drag racing historians. He's always able to add a detail or two about some of my subjects and couldn’t resist a more detailed addition to my information on Ford Cammer enthusiast Larry Gould, as shown in the G edition of The Misc. Files.

"I was pleased to see a mention of Larry Gould. Here are a few facts about one of the most focused, hard-core humans I've met.
 
"Gould's first flopper was actually an ex-Nicholson '68 Cougar purchased from Sid Foster/Larry Coleman. When he blew the body off at an East Coast match race, the only replacement available on short notice was a '71 Charger, which he had painted to bear the name Trojan Horse, (complete with a beautiful mural), referencing the hidden SOHC Ford in Dodge clothing. The Charger eventually ran a 6.52, 236.22 at New York National Speedway in '75 for a factory-block Ford speed record that stands to this day.

"Gould later campaigned a gorgeous red-on-white '73 Mach I, which remained in action until the blue/flamed Mustang II debuted in '78. That car was raced continually until the EXP debuted at the 1982 AHRA Gateway Nationals at St. Louis, where, with immaculate black paint still tacky, the new ride sailed off the end of the old SLIR with no parachutes on its first run.
 
"The EXP debuted with Cammer power and, after repairs, stayed that way until the 1986 season, when Larry teamed with Floridian Al Herring and put a KB Hemi in the chassis. The duo was more competitive than ever, (mostly in IHRA competition) and maintained the same match race schedule Larry had kept since the late '60s. Gould was infamous for booking dates at very, very small tracks east of the Rockies; he honestly enjoyed the backwoods facilities over the modern strips. I remember he anxiously awaited his annual date at Green Valley Raceway in Gadsden, Ala., telling me in the late '70s, 'Every time I go down there, it's like the crowd has never seen a fuel Funny Car before!' 
 
"Larry still owned the EXP when he started driving the Wade/Youngblood American Dream Cutlass. In fact, the Mustang II is still around now competing on the nostalgia Funny Car circuit. He still lives in the St. Louis suburb of Belleville, Ill., a stone's throw from the 61-year-old Belle-Clair Speedway dirt oval at which he has always campaigned a circle-burner even throughout his drag racing career. As you may have expected, all his stock cars have been Ford-powered and Ford-bodied, too.
 
"Gould's racing career is extensive, but he will forever be known as one of the most determined Ford fanatics and most inventive 'backyard engineers' in the sport's history. He was enamored with the SOHC engine since its debut and spent the majority of his career refining the concept with his own innovations, including replacing the engine's complicated chain-drive internals with a gear-drive configuration of his own and revising the powerplant's electrical system all the way to moving the distributor/magneto location.
 
"Throughout most of his life, he has searched for and acquired every SOHC motor produced and eventually owned almost all of them. He began casting his own heads and blocks in aluminum using a foundry he built in his backyard. He remains not only the owner of most of the surviving SOHC engines and paraphernalia but also the most knowledgable human ever to run one of 'em on nitro. Anybody who has ever met Larry Gould will always envision him, with his ever-present cup of hot coffee in hand, working on, talking about, or developing new ideas for the Ford Cammer."

Also from the G Misc. Files, I heard from Roger Garten after I mistakenly remembered that his War Horse Funny Car was painted purple, correcting me that the car was dark and light blue with metal-flake silver. The good news is that he and Mike Tocco have re-created the car, and it should be ready to race for the 2010 nostalgia season. "The War Horse is about ready to ride again," he said triumphantly.
 

Ah, the love for "the Snake" just goes on and on here at the Insider. Phil Claypool passed along the two photos below of his copy of Hal Higdon's book on Prudhomme, Six Seconds to Glory. "I got Don to autograph it at Sacramento Raceway soon after it was published. I had taped a news article to it also. A great memory." I, too, remember the book, though I never owned a copy. I do remember though that either Drag Racing USA or Super Stock & Drag Illustrated serialized it in their magazine for several months, so I did get to read it.

John Totten passed along the great pic at right that he calls "Two Dons," featuring "Big Daddy" Don Garlits and Prudhomme. "A friend and I had the opportunity to attend the 1973 and '74 Springnationals at National Trail," he remembered. "To get the use of my sister's little 110 camera, I had to take along my 13-year-old kid brother. Wow, was it worth it as I now have a binder of the photos I took. My 49-year-old 'kid brother' now has programs from both years full of autographs as well as racers' handouts.
 
"This is my favorite photo of Prudhomme and Garlits. The Dayton papers were really writing about how much the two disliked each other. This photo was taken the day after the article. I couldn't tell you what the conversation was about as I was in awe."

"Thanks for your articles. They really bring back a lot of good memories. My favorite racers have now passed on. Dan Geare, Dean LaPole, and Fred Totten, the owners and builders of the King Camaro Funny Car -- Chevrolet-powered with some of the first Arias heads. Fred was my cousin, and we would spend hours long distance talking about racing in the past and present."

"Snake" and "Mongoose" fans should be on the lookout Nov. 1 for a new book on their long rivalry. Written by Tom Madigan (who wrote Fuel & Guts: The Birth of Top Fuel Drag Racing), Snake vs. Mongoose "takes readers into the world of two men who changed the world of drag racing forever. Madigan tells the story from the beginning, when engine builder Ed Donovan, with a nod to The Jungle Book, dubbed his driver 'The Mongoose' -- the one creature who could strike faster than a snake. The book chronicles the bad press, the toe-to-toe standoffs, and some of the best races in drag racing history. And within that story, Madigan captures the transformation of drag racing from the gritty, gut-driven sport of the '60s into the full-fledged money-making machine of our day." Like Fuel & Guts, the book will be published by Motorbooks; I've been promised a review copy, and I’ll let you know when I get it.

After the first story on the restoration of Don Prudhomme's Dodge D700 ramp truck, Mike Downham wrote, "If you get a chance, ask Prudhomme about the night Bob 'Weasel' Brandt used the ramp truck to haul Brandt's 240Z street car with the blown small-block Chevy to Irwindale for a grudge match with some unsuspecting street racer."

Instead of asking "the Snake," I went straight to Brandt, who verified that he had, in fact, done the deed, but with Lil' John Lombardo's truck. No further details were made public, but surely the statute of limitations has passed.

Rick Kirkpatrick wrote, "Phil, I have read your articles since day one, and you or Bob Frey would know the answer. Everyone else I talked to thinks I'm nuts. I have followed and participated in drag racing since 1963. I was 16 in 1967. I think in the late '60s, some fuel teams were experimenting with a 180-degree crank. I know they dropped the program. Am I correct in assuming that they wanted to fire two cylinders at once? I remember hearing and reading about it but cannot recall what it was about. Either a yep or a nope would answer my question. Thanks."

I wasn't sure whom Rick might have been remembering from the 1960s, but I did know that Gary Beck has experimented with a 180 crank more recently, so I dropped his good pal Henry Walther a note along with Rick's e-mail. His response:

"Gary Beck tried a 180-degree crank in 1977 or 1978. That was before I joined him. It was a short-lived experiment. The idea behind the 180 crank wasn’t to fire two cylinders at once, although that could have been done. There were two other reasons that prompted its use.

"The first was to try to lessen the load on the No. 2 and No. 4 main journals, which during that time frame was a big problem with the late-model Hemi. The 180 crank did take the load off of No. 2 and No. 4, but it transferred it to No. 3. As you know, the No. 3 journal in the 426 is the thrust bearing, and when it started taking a beating, that wasn’t a good trade-off. It was a tougher fix than the other journals.

"The second idea was that by using the 180 crank, you had a selection of firing orders that could be incorporated. Keith Black had a favorite firing order for use with the ‘flat’ crank that would prevent two cylinders, whose intake ports were close to each other, from firing one after the other and thereby robbing the second firing cylinder of air/fuel. In theory, this would help even out the distribution in the intake manifold. If it could do that, then there was a potential gain in performance to be had.

"Unfortunately, there was no performance gain ever realized, and the cost of repairing blocks increased, so the 180-degree crank was soon relegated to the ‘another bright idea’ bin."

Thanks, Henry. By the way, ND readers should be on the lookout for a Walther-penned "Where Are They Now?" piece on Beck in an upcoming issue of National DRAGSTER.
 

Valerie Harrell, daughter of the late Chevy Funny Car great Dickie Harrell, wrote after I republished "Dry Hops In Heaven," which, of course, included mention of her famous father, and "Chicago: The Name Game," which included her companion of nine years, well-traveled nitro vet Dale Pulde. "At my request several years ago, I asked Pulde to name the cars he has driven/tuned, and that included the Chicago Patrol," she wrote. "So far to date, he remembers 70!" Here's the list to date: www.wareagleracing.com/stats/index.htm. Pretty impressive résumé, I'd say.

"Berserko Bob" Doerrer had a note to add to the NHRA chronology from the 1972 media guide, in reference to the 1962 introduction of the first traction-mix compound for dragstrip asphalt by NHRA and Shell Oil. Reports B.B., "It was called Plio-Pave, and Vinnie Napp used it when Raceway Park was repaved in the spring of 1968 before the Springnationals. The issue was that it took the mix a long time to cure and was very soft. We spent many days putting water on the surface to help it cure. It eventually came around, but for a few weeks, Vinnie was sweating it out."

Bill Duke enjoyed my article on the unique Durachrome Bug Funny Car and the inclusion of some Left Coast injected Funny Cars sprinkled throughout recent Misc. Files columns. "I had the fortune of seeing both versions [of the Bug]," he wrote. "The first model when it showed up at Irwindale sans lettering; handled like a shopping cart. I appreciate the acknowledgement of the West Coast injected circuit cars, too. Black-and-white photos don't do justice to the Henderson Bros Corvair. Giardina's Dumbo 'Cuda was a rare bird, running only briefly after getting sorted out. It was unique in that it was one of the few cars not relying on the big-block Chevy, Steve McCracken's Tequila Sunrise being the other exception. I believe the Dumbo car later became the Hicks and Son West Coast Gambler the following year."

And finally, there's this. Jeff Mittendorf has a huge "Snake" and "Mongoose" fan/memorabilia collection and passed along a link to photos of the "fully functional/fully landscaped 1/43-scale dragstrip" in his home. "It was created to resemble an early 1970s dragstrip," he wrote. "The Tree can do bracket or Pro countdown, and I measure r.t./e.t./mph just like NHRA does with sensors in the track, and those all show on the scoreboards. To get down the track, you actually have to shift the cars." You can see more details here. Nice work, Jeff!

OK, race fans, that's it for today. Be sure to check out the upcoming issue of National DRAGSTER for the full-color spread of Prudhomme's Funny Cars from our recent photo shoot with "the Snake," and stop back Friday for another column. Thanks for reading and, as always, for contributing.
 

Poor ol' H, often the unforgotten and silent letter in words such as "rhyme" and "hour" and "honest" and even sometimes in "homage," but today it gets its chance to be loud and proud and bring you some of the sometimes overlooked but never forgotten heroes from the deep recesses of the National DRAGSTER photo archives. Here we go!

Great story. That's it for another dose of drag racing alphabet soup. I gotta get the "H" out of here now and get ready for the Fourth of July. Y'all be safe.

Previous Misc Files:
The Misc. Files: Welcome to the 'A' list
Bob Bommarito, and welcome to the Misc. Files
The Misc. Files: From C to shining C
The Misc. Files: D-lightfully D-verse
The Misc. Files: An E-Ticket ride
The Misc. Files: Meet the F Troops
The Misc. Files: The G Force 
The Misc. Files: The I's have it
 

Our dear ol' pal Richard Brady, a longtime Division 3 photographer and a steady source of dependable and indispensable help to the National DRAGSTER staff at more than a dozen Full Throttle Drag Racing Series national events this season, has been combing through his photo files and posting great old pics on his Facebook page, and his treasure hunt also turned up a gem that caught my eye: a 1972 NHRA media guide. He shared it with me at the Summit Racing Equipment NHRA Nationals in Norwalk.

I have a nice collection of media guides from the early 1990s, and they surely have changed throughout the years. For those not familiar with this type of publication, it's a compilation of facts and information that helps members of the media do their job. Today's NHRA media guides have hundreds of pages with extensive driver bios and career records, historic points listings, a recap of the previous season, and information about NHRA, its series, the cars, and much more. They're an invaluable tool even for us supposed know-it-alls.

I wasn't aware that NHRA had a media yearbook, as this one was called, way back then. In fact, just last year, Director of Media Relations Anthony Vestal and I were trying to figure out what might have been the first year of the media guide, and I'm sure we didn't arrive at the early 1970s.

Brady actually had a 1971 media yearbook on him, but the 1972 book seemed more well-prepared, so I eagerly dove in, and even a jaded history nut like me was thrilled at the time-capsule contents.

The first thing that caught my eyes was a staple of every media guide, a list of the sport's winningest drivers. Here was the score heading into 1972:

Ronnie Sox: 15
Don Garlits: 7
Gordon Collett : 7
Dave Boertman: 6
Gene Snow: 6
Don Prudhomme: 5
George Montgomery: 5
Ray Motes: 4
Don Nicholson: 4
Bill Jenkins: 4

At first brush, my thought was, "The all-time winningest driver has only 15 wins?" John Force, of course, is the all-time leader now with 126, and 15 doesn't even get you in the top 25 anymore; you have to have 36 Wallys on the shelf to make the top 25 these days. How far we've come in 37 years. (Fifteen wins would, however, still get you an 11th-place tie with Al Hofmann among Funny Car drivers, rank you 13th in Pro Stock, and tie you with Dick LaHaie for 14th in Top Fuel. ... 77th overall still.)

Of course, once I got my head out of … well, you know … I realized just what an amazing number Sox's 15 wins were. To that point, there had only been 49 national events, and Sox had won 15 of them, or nearly a third. And, truth be told, he had won 15 of them in 37 races, beginning with his first, in Factory Stock at the 1964 Winternationals. And he had twice as many wins as the next driver!

By my count, the Norwalk event was the 680th national event in NHRA history, so -- apples to oranges -- that would be like Force having more than 200 wins. Of course, Force didn't get his first win until race No. 220 in NHRA history, so he's won 126 in 460 races, which ain't shabby either.

As I continued to read through the guide, there was a whole section on new rules for that season, and a lot of it had Mr. Sox's signature all over it. Although Sox had added five Super Stock wins, he won nine times in the newly created Pro Stock class in 1970 and 1971, including six of eight in 1971. Mopar had grabbed a seventh win with Mike Fons' Challenger; Nicholson's Maverick had the only non-Mopar win.

To combat the dominance of Sox's Hemi, three weight breaks were added to Pro Stock in 1972 "with an eye for increasing popularity and competition."

Through the class' first two seasons, all cars ran on a 7-pounds-per-cubic-inch weight break regardless of engine type or design. Beginning in 1972 and lasting until 1981, NHRA controlled runaway situations with the weight breaks, which became a huge source of controversy (as they can be today in Pro Stock Motorcycle) and a real pain for the NHRA Tech Department.

NHRA kept the existing 7-pound break for cars with staggered-valve wedge engines like the 396 Chevy and 427, 454, and 351 Cleveland Fords but socked it to the Hemis (and the SOHC and 429 Boss Ford engines) with a 7.25 break. At 426 cubes, that amounted to a 106-pound weight increase. And it showed. Only Don Carlton was able to score for Mopar in 1972 while Bill Jenkins won six times for Chevy thanks to the addition of the third break and some innovation by NHRA.

Automakers had just begun to focus on smaller compact models, and NHRA wanted them to have a place in the innovative class. In addition to adding a 6.75-pound break for smaller wedge engines such as the 302, 327, and 350 Chevys, 340 Chrysler, 427 and 352 Fords, and 360 and 390 AMCs, cars with a wheelbase of less than 100 inches – such as the Pintos, Vegas, Colts, Crickets, and Gremlins -- were allowed a minimum weight of 2,000 pounds as long as they used 366-cid or smaller engines; cars with a wheelbase of more than 100 inches had a 2,400-pound minimum weight with no ceiling on cubic inches. (Of course, no one would build a 500-cid engine like we have today and carry a 3,500 weight.)

The weight breaks were finally abandoned in 1982 when NHRA switched to a mandatory 500-cid powerplant.

Another interesting change in 1972 was the absorption of all 1971 Stock classes into Super Stock to create a "strictly stock" class below it. Today's Stock cars are allowed many go-fast modifications and engine tweaks, but if you ran a Stocker in 1972, not only weren't you allowed such basic amenities as headers, slicks, racing cams, and manifolds, but you also had to drive the car to the track instead of trailering it. Wow.

The guide also includes a timeline of great accomplishments not necessarily listed in the current version, which tends to present a bigger-picture/top-story kind of timeline. The 1972 guide includes these milestones; some of the first may be disputed in other circles but nonetheless make for a handy reference guide for your future bench racing sessions (items in quote marks are reprinted as they appeared):

1953: First 140-mph speeds recorded

1954: 166 events sanctioned; introduction of first comprehensive insurance program

1955: Flywheel shields (scattershields) made mandatory

1956: First rulebook published

1957: First eight-second elapsed times

1958: Don Garlits records first unofficial 180-mph clocking

1959: "Parachute braking device introduced, soon made mandatory for all cars running in excess of 150 mph"

1960: National record program established; spectator count exceeds 1 million

1961: Nationals moves to Indy

1962: Tommy Ivo runs first seven-second pass, a 7.99 at San Gabriel; Tommy Grove makes first 11-second clocking with a stock car, 11.93 at Fremont; first "traction mix" compound for dragstrip asphalt announced by NHRA and Shell Oil

1963: "NHRA lifts ban on special fuels and re-creates fuel dragster class"; first live televising of a major drag race as the Nationals is televised on Wide World of Sports; true handicap starts introduced with Christmas Tree

1964: Driver-licensing program established with testing procedure required for dragster drivers; Manufacturers Cup program established

1965: "Forerunners of today's Funny Cars make their appearance in the form of FX class machines designated by NHRA"

1966: First seven-second run on gas as John Peters' Freight Train runs 7.99; Shirley Shahan becomes first female national event winner at Winternationals; Connie Kalitta runs "first accredited 220-mph pass" at 221.12 in Ford-powered dragster

1967: 1,315 cars set entry record at Nationals; Ed Miller scores richest purse ever by a driver for winning Stock world championship, $10,000, which includes bonus posted by Hurst; first official six-second pass, by Don Prudhomme in winning Springnationals; SEMA-approved chassis required in Top Fuel; contingency program unveiled; first $100,000 cash purse at Nationals

1968: More than 2,500 NHRA-sanctioned events are completed; World Finals shown live around the country on closed-circuit TV; $150,000 purse at Nationals

1969: First all six-second 32-car Top Fuel qualified field at Springnationals in Dallas

1970: First $300,000 purse, at Springnationals; Leroy Goldstein makes first six-second Funny Car run, a 6.92 in Indy

1971: "Advent of rear or mid-engine dragster offers first major concept and design change since debut of slingshot dragster"; onboard fire extinguishers made mandatory in Funny Car; Jerry Ruth makes history as the first driver to win in two classes at same race, scoring in Top Fuel and Funny Car at a Division 6 event; Wally Parks, Don Garlits, and Ronnie Sox visit the White House during a special presidential reception for auto racing; Pro Start Tree introduced (one amber instead of a countdown of five ambers); fire burnouts banned

Today's media guides also include a glossary to help neophytes decrypt the sometimes arcane vernacular of drag speak, but I got a real charge out of some of the glossary entries from the 1972 edition, which broached over into pop culture. These are the exact definitions provided; I couldn't make this stuff up.

Anchors: brakes

Bad scene: unpleasant situation

Bash: a racing event

Boss: great, outstanding!

Eyeball: inspect or examine something

Fuzz: police

Handler: driver

Honk: run fast

Joe Lug Bolt: competitor who runs only on weekends, periodically

Juice: special exotic fuel

Lunch: damage engine or other parts severely

Nerd: not hep

Out to lunch: not with it

Ratchet jaw: person who talks too much
 

That was boss! What a great find. Thanks to R.B. for showing me the guide and allowing me to spend a few days with it. Okay, ol' ratchet fingers here has to honk it on outta here to finish his National DRAGSTER work from the Norwalk event or the copy editors will think I'm a nerd. That would be a bad scene. I'll be back later this week with a new column, which tentatively is planned as the next installment of the Misc. Files, the letter H. You can eyeball it here Friday!
 

Response to Tuesday's recap of our fun-filled day with Don Prudhomme was, predictably, off the charts. I'd posted a teaser photo on Facebook last Thursday when we got back that elicited a ton of comments that included many uses of the words "cool" and "awesome" and then more once I'd posted the link there Tuesday.

E-mail response also was strong (and many of you generously have offered to be an unpaid assistant the next time we do something like this; you're such givers), filled with great photos and remembrances from those who had seen the cars and the famed hauler in their glory and were grateful that "the Snake" had opened his doors to us.

"You lucky son of a gun!" raved Canadian reader Jim Millard. "Knowing how busy 'the Snake' is, I realize that interviews with the man must usually take on a time limit, but, not only a day with 'the Snake' but also a chance to see, touch, and even sit in one of a true legend's historical past race cars has to be wayyyy beyond the dreams of any of us old geezers. Holy crap ... lunch and story time as well!! (Who paid?) I've written in the past about meeting 'Jungle Jim' and Pam and how much of an impression they left with me, but 'the Snake' also raced up here in Ontario at the old Golden Horseshoe Dragway and Cayuga Dragway Park. With 'Snake,' it always seemed that he was all business. Each and every run, although match racing, was more important than the last run. The record books speak for themselves as far as national event stats are concerned. It's kind of funny that a 56-year-old still has heroes, and for me, some of the stars from '60s and '70s drag racing still fill that bill, but Prudhomme is at the top of that list."

For the record, "Snake" paid. (All this and a free lunch? Man, it just kept getting better, didn't it?)

Bill Reilly of Bill Reilly Toyota in Atlanta had his own Prudhomme brush with greatness a few years ago. "I, too, was a big fan as a kid in the '60s," he wrote. "Fast-forward many years when I was an executive for Southeast Toyota Distributors LLC. I became friends with Alan Johnson when he was running the White Cap Toyota Celica. I remember about 2002, I was sitting on a golf cart at the starting line at the U.S. Nationals when Don Prudhomme sat on the seat next to me. He said a few words to me, and I remember thinking, 'Wow, I can't believe I am sitting here at the U.S. Nationals next to "Snake"!' I sat there thinking about the hundreds of hours I spent poring over Popular Hot Rodding, Hot Rod, and National DRAGSTER memorizing every detail of 'Snake's' cars and his transporter. I have to admit, I must have been a little starstruck that day because I don't think I had anything intelligent to say back. Seeing those cars and the famous transporter brought back some great memories. Thank you to Don and his guys for sharing those pictures and the article."

Chuck Didion added, "As I am 11 years older than you, I do have a few more memories of 'the Snake' and his bud Mr. McEwen and their match races at Lions. I started my love of drag racing when I was only 14 years old. I had a cousin who was older, and he took me to my first drag race at Lions for a night race. I still remember the first time I saw a TFD run. They push-started those rails, and my heart started to pound. With the green light my ears burned, my knees were knocking, and my heart was coming out of my chest; what a rush, as it is still today. I still follow drag racing as a loyal fan and look forward to the Saturday and Sunday races on TV. Again, what a great article. Long live 'the Snake.' "

Frequent Insider commentator Tom "Fasthair" Scott was one jealous fella. He ranted, "When I saw you sitting in the white Hot Wheels car, I wanted to punch my monitor! 'The Snake' looked like he was having just as much fun as you were, if that's possible. What a gracious host. Just for the record, it is no contest, 'the Snake' is the only one that looks right at home there!"

Old pal Dan "the Sign Man" DeLaney, who I first met while hanging with the Mazi family back in the 1980s, dropped me this line. "Just a short note to let you know that you are the envy of all 50-plus-year-old 'kids.' Not only being at 'Snake's' and pushing those beautiful cars around but to be able to sit in the 'Cuda … they would still be prying me out of that thing; better yet going for a ride in the hauler with 'the Snake' at the wheel. It just gives me goosebumps seeing that thing restored with the 'Cuda on the back. The paint and lettering on those early cars are why I'm in the sign business today. Seeing Kirby's logo on the 'Cuda and Youngblood's lettering does me in every time. Truly a time long gone, but to us purists, they were the best-looking things out there! Youngblood, Nat Quick, Glen, Stratton, Circus, Kirby … we can all thank them for what they did for our sport, and Prudhomme's cars are a great example of that. Again ... it must have been way too cool! Now where's my orange track?"

Dan, you guys might not have been able to take the real ride with us, but there's a little surprise for you at the end of the column. If you can't wait (c'mon, where's your self-control?), then click here.

The coolest e-mail I received, though, was from Bob Brandt, Prudhomme's longtime right-hand man, who saw the ramp truck and Funny Car in person last Sunday at the LA Roadster Show in Pomona, where "Snake" was showing it off. Brandt was hanging out with some of his old pals: "Snake," Roland Leong, and "the Old Master," engine guru Ed Pink. He included the pics at right.

"The truck is almost 100 percent in the original configuration as when we raced," marveled Brandt. "Willie and 'Snake' did an outstanding job refurbishing and rebuilding it. Steve "Okie" Bernd was the crew guy with us in those days, but there were times that 'Snake' and I traveled together in the truck and raced with the help of others at the track as crew guys always didn't work out with our schedule. We raced a lot during the Hot Wheel days, all across the country, nonstop! Those were the real days of hittn' it.

"We were always on the road and racing. In those days, they didn't have the nitro available at the racetracks; we had to pick up fuel and carry it within big tanks on the truck … same with racing oil. Due to the number of match races and displays, picking up fuel and oil was somewhat of a hassle.

"Our truck was much nicer and safer than other rigs being used in that era," he added, "especially with air brakes and real truck suspension, wheels, and tires. The crew-cab design was also ahead of its time for production trucks. The truck was a real crowdpleaser. We were able to carry a spare engine complete from the intake manifold to oil pan as well as many spare parts. The truck was almost as popular as the race car. A lot of good memories while touring with the Hot Wheels truck, 'the Snake,' and 'Mongoose.' Those were the good old days for sure. A lot of work and long hours, but we loved it!

"Seeing all of the old cars restored actually gives me chills. They look better than ever, the Army cars, the Pepsi cars, and the others. Now if they could only give me the once-over!"
 

So, bummed out that you didn't get to ride with Teresa Long and me in the famous "Snake" hauler? Well, we've got ya covered! Check out the video at right, which T.L. shot with her new Nikon D90 digital camera, which also records high-definition video! She had it rolling as we were rolling and got some great and very candid footage of "the Snake" behind the wheel driving us to lunch.

That's Willie Wolter in the backseat behind "the Snake" and me in the other backseat (trying not to grin too much) while Prudhomme and he chat about the truck and "Snake" works them gears and rolls that big ol' steering wheel (and blasts the air horns!).

Teresa shot a half-dozen or so segments – it wasn't really a planned thing; she just started shooting to memorialize the moment; we're kind of kicking ourselves now for not steering "Snake" into other topics – and worked with one of our senior graphic designers, Jeff Mellem, to edit them and stitch together this little short film.

It can’t quite capture the feel of the real deal, but I thought you'd enjoy it nonetheless.

I'll be in Norwalk all weekend covering the Summit Racing Equipment NHRA Nationals for NHRA.com and National DRAGSTER and won't get back to G-town until late Monday. I'll have some tight deadlines for ND when I crawl back into the saddle here Tuesday morning, so my next column might not be until midweek. As always, thanks for reading and contributing.
 

From the cramped confines of the back bench seat, if I squint just right, I can pretend this is my dream come true, that I'm on the road with Don Prudhomme in the 1970s, crisscrossing the country with "the Snake" from match race date to match race date.

As he was nearly 40 years ago, "Snake" is in the driver's seat of his Dodge D700 ramp truck, behind the trash-can-lid-sized steering wheel, deftly rowing through the cogs of the 5-speed split-axle tranny as the bright yellow transporter chugs up a hill, the matching Hot Wheels Barracuda strapped to its back. It's the ultimate surreal time-warp fantasy for this lifelong Don Prudhomme fan.

As a kid, I dreamed about being a crewmember on Prudhomme's Funny Cars, and this may be the next-best thing. I've just spent the last two hours pushing (and furtively stroking the flanks) of some of his famous floppers of the last several decades around the parking area of his SoCal shop for a photo shoot for National DRAGSTER, and now we're off to lunch – me, "Snake," ND Photo Editor Teresa Long, and Prudhomme's right-hand resto man, Willie Wolter.

"The Snake" is proud of this piece of rolling nostalgia – perhaps more so than of any of the half-dozen retro floppers he owns; more perhaps than the sum of all of them -- and rightly so. He and Wolter spent the last 16 months lovingly restoring it to its glory, and we made quite a sight lumbering down the freeway, a screaming yellow zonker with a pristine '70s Funny Car riding on top. It's not your typical freeway commuter, and I can’t help but notice the appreciative stares and wide-eyed gawks of people passing us as we head out to lunch.