One Hundred and Fifty
Dragsters
and Drag Bikes from the 1960s & 70s
*Look
for  labels:
new additions.
I
like the ingenuity and the low cost of going fast you used to find find in
drag machines. Most of the following pics were taken at Santa Pod in sixties and mid
seventies. I shall try to re-arrange this
section more logically, into separate groups of coupes/altereds, bikes,
and dragsters, although it will mean breaking up mass "collections" of
photos and facts kindly donated by fans such as David Montgomery, Peter
Hyde, Brian Taylor. Simon Ambrose, Phil Brown, Bryan Whitfield, Barry
Jackson, Mal Hawkins, Charlie Middleton, Nick Cleveland, Steve
Kimberley, Michael Tickner, Mike Kason, and others. Three
dragsters from the early sixties: two visiting Americans and one
brilliant British blown hemi; and see the puzzled expressions and
body language of the spectators.) 
Above: yes, it's "Mooneyes", brought over by Dante Duce. 
Above: Mickey Thompson's Ford-motored machine
You
didn't recognize it, did you? Paul Manders from Liverpool, ex
stock-car racer and later funny-car racer, built this sophisticated
rail.
All three photos occur as links with notes later on this page.
One
more attention-catcher before going on to the rest: only in
Britain could you find someone who'd dream up, build, and then ride
this device.
 
August 2010: Rick
Young was not only a stock car racer in F2s and F1s --- as a youngster
he also helped out with an early British Altered coupe, THE LIQUIDATOR:
a chopped-roof Popular. After running "only" a Jaguar engine in
it, the team of Chick Barrett and Mike Cornelius stuffed a big Ford V-8
in, and added four fat SU carbs on top. Here it is outside someone's garden.
November 2009: Mark Crisp sends these two classic 70's photos of two great cars "boiling the hides". First the Stones Tee-Rat
at Santa Pod. Second, a rare photo of a rare visit: on the
Silverstone circuit's Club Straight, Dennis Priddle threatens to blow
the roof off the Woodcote grandstand as he tromps on the loud pedal in "Mr Revell".
February 2010: LONG MARSTON --- Mark Crisp watched the racing when in 1980 the 'National Drag racing Club'
[ the names and groups changed constantly in the early days]
put on a big drag race at Long Marston, and Mark's programme
gives us the names and the vehicles: Lavishly illustrated Cover;
page 1 with organisers names and LM set-up;
page 2 tells how to join NDRC;
page 3 showing a list of fixtures;
page 4 showing John Lloyd's bike and Richard Taylor's Altered;
centre-spread with list of entries;
and finally a later page showing two dragsters.
Trivia:
it costs 25 pounds to land your plane at Long Marston Airfield, and
you are asked NOT to fly over the nearby prison at Long Lartin
---. The drag strip uses the SW
end of the main runway, under the name Shakespeare County Raceway
(previously 'Avon Park Raceway'.) Don't confuse this with Long Marston in Yorkshire, which also has a [small] airstrip.
Don't
worry about the planes at LM or at any airstrip. There was a famous incident in 1983 in
Canada when a Boeing 767 ran out of fuel at 40,000 feet over Manitoba
and the pilots spotted a tiny disused airfield, and glided in to land
safely --- in the middle of a drag race meet, whose competitors
kindly scooted out of the way when they saw the big bird wiggling its
wingtips.
More Mementos from Mark--- does anyone have a collection of Santa Pod pit passes like these?
October 2009: Thanks to Barry Redman for this bit of nostalgia, a 1964 Blackbushe programme cover ---
which brought back for Barry the teenage memory of a 40-mile round trip
by bike from Slough, with friends including fellow
stock-car-racer-to-be Pete Webb. August 2009: Thanks to Mark Crisp
for unearthing these two drag-race flyers from 1970 and 1971.
First, who can tell me where "Martlesham Heath is? Of
course you knew it was the decommissioned RAF fighter base near Woodbridge in Suffolk, and the NDRC ran a
meet there on 3rd May 1970. The airstrip is now buried under a "new old village" development. And in 1971, the NDRC ran this Blackbushe meet on 8th August. Mark also has this Santa Pod programme cover from 15th June 1969, showing the Marshall-Dickson "Good Vibrations" Pop. January 2009: "Whose car is this?
I came across it on the NHRA website, and its is clearly a British
scene, with the old WW2 control tower in ruins, ancient runway surface,
and the very English-looking 'students-and-someone's-dad." I am
guessing 1964-ish, and it is similar to a flathead V-8 rail around that
time called "The Clanger Special", which even ran some hill climbs. Anyone recognize it?
Let's group all coupes / altereds together (66 photos so far).  In 1965,
Perkins Diesels (Peterborough) Open House had the
Wright brothers of Lincolnshire bring their two hot-rods; this one is a
bright yellow Rolls-Jag-Bedford abbreviated pickup. It also
raced at Santa Pod. July 2009: A
treat here from Paul Hicks: the Ford Model Y was Britain's
classic hot-roddable car, and among the enthusiasts who chopped and
customized Ys were members of Manchester's Dragons Hot Rod Club. First, the Model Ys of Clive Lingard and Mike Butler. Then, in 1964 the BHRA put on "The Big Go" at Duxford, and here is Clive's Y taking on a mini.
See those neat exhausts? It was the ordinary Ford
side-valve, with twin carbs, and Clive put in some respectable 21-sec
runs --- and before anyone grins, I recorded a near-new Anglia
that same year, doing 21 seconds with its 105E ohv motor and streamlined body. Close-up of the engine compartment.Before-and-After: --- scroll down to see what Britain's early hot-rodders could do.
The
rad grille is now from a Morris, the motor is a whopping 425 cu.in.
Oldsmobile, driving a Jaguar gearbox and Jaguar rear axle, and Avon
Turbospeed tires --- but that canvas top stayed on. Paul ran this rod at the 1965 Drag Festival. Paul and Clive were founder members of the Dragons club and competed in both the '64 and '65 festivals. Mystery
car? I've
had this snapshot (approx 1965/66) for years, an early Santa Pod
pic, and never identified the car or engine or driver. Looks like it could have a Jag
6-cyl under the hood. Simon
Ambrose kindly
identified the body as a Microplas MISTRAL, possibly on a Buckler sports car
chassis. Simon believes this car may later have used the little Daimler
2.5 litre V-8. David Montgomery donated many photos to this site, and here it's the Allard Dragon
Anglia. In
1965 I watched a team of Allard mechanics furiously installing a
supercharger from a Dragon onto a Corsair -- a rush job that allowed no
time to re-jet from methanol to petrol. Thanks
to hot-rodder Brian Lucas for these snapshots from 30 years ago:
"Invader" was
the name. Colin Mullan's car circa 1974, Firenza body hiding
a 283 small-block. May 2010: Mark Crisp sends this photo of the same car. [Mark was watching at the 'Pod when the Hillbillies Vauxhall flipped over the guard rail at high speed --- those were the days!]
Dennis
Priddle and Ed Shaver both drove "The
Sizzler", but the engineering was Mark Stratton's;
427 cu.in Chev motor.
This
competition altered (and it was 'altered'
in this pic) was called ITSAVIVA.
In 1973, this 288 cu.in Chev powered car had just rolled
5 times after its chute caught a cross-wind. This
same dented
Vauxhall Viva. Alan Wigmore rolled it at 120 mph, sheared off a wheel,
shifted the motor in its mounts, and after climbing out rather
bruised, Alan decided to confined his energies to NDRC organizing. The Viva
was painted by AW's father who ran Pop's Paints in Stanmore,
N. London.
Last
pic shows Invader
and Wild Thing together in 1972. Collin Mullan's
Invader and Bob Venison/Brian Gibson ran the Wild Thing.
In
circa 1974, here's a beautiful coupe called Kerbdozer,
at Santa Pod. Charlie
Middleton tells me the driver's name was Mike Kason. Thanks
to racer Mike Kason for filling in the facts: Kerbdozer had
a 427 Ford "side oiler" motor, with which Mike clocked
148mph in 10.71secs. (Later he went big time in a nostalgia
fueler at 235mph / 6.4 seconds.) Mike's "red
face" moment was in Easter 1976
when a lost pin left Kerbdozer's gearbox in reverse, unknown to
him. He floored
it and hurtled backwards into his push car in front of 35,000 fans. To
add to this, when a frustrated Mike understandably tossed his helmet
onto the track, the scrutineer barred him from another run until
he'd gone away and bought a new helmet . Along
these same lines, I saw a visiting Swedish gas coupe racing at RAF
Wroughton (Wiltshire); its abortive first burnout skidded their car
into the christmas tree, dismantling it, and the team were instantly
disqualified from the meet ---- a long way to come just be be kicked
out, and the Swedes were not happy campers that day. This
next section includes over 30 (thirty!) new old photos, courtesy of
Bill Taylor, showing great British cars and bikes of the 1969-1972
era at Santa Pod. My
thanks to Bill, now like me an "ex-Brit" in Canada,
for these photos, which Bill converted from slides: from
32 + years ago, these machines remind us how British racers were
learning the ropes of drag racing. Note: it
will take me some time to edit and organize and annotate the
photos, so if they are in no special order, or lack information,
be patient. ALSO,
if you have additional facts or stories connected to these
machines, please e-mail
me
The
best of British engineering: The
T bucket runs a tiny 2.5 litre Daimler V-8, hemi heads, just behind
the famous Minivan 'Stripteaser'; this
shot shows clearly Stripteaser's driver sitting against the back
door, and the six exhausts in a shrouded stack going up through the
roof.
Cliff
Jones built this 2.5 litre Daimler hemi rod, Opus
One, racing it in 1967, then installing
a small-block Chevy the
next year. Opus One went on to the Stones team. Cliff
was busy: he partnered Mike Treutlein with
the Crescent Coupe, and raced karts at Rye
House with Johnny and Tim Brise, and was a
friend of the late Alan Wigmore. Thanks
to Cliff for the info and photos. Opus
in the pits with
underage driver? Opus
versus Wild Thing; Opus's beautiful Daimler motor; and Opus
on a run / or fire-up lane. Here
the Pontiac
GTO of Cliff takes on a Jag under blue English
skies.
Blown
Hemi altered: a serious motor in front of the brave
driver of the 'Sneaky' altered, run by the 'Blue Flash' team. Rear
end shot. Phil Elson ran the car, changed the body to a yellow
T-bucket, passed the blue body on to the Aardvark team of US airman
Freeman Rogers who promptly re-painted it in green/brown camouflage.
'Midas
Mist' was a Jag powered altered body looks like one of a legion of fibreglass
'sports car' bodies turned out in the fifties and sixties,
most of which went to cover up wheezing 1172cc side-valves
but this one had to work for its living. Midas Mist
gets a fast
push. This car was run successfully by Rob and Pete Skinner,
the fibreglass body being a "Falcon", picked up for a fiver
from someone's garden! Its 3.8 Jag engine was a never-quitter
for several years.
Another Jag
altered, this one with a Shorrock blower and SU carb. Here
is the older version,
called Travel Agent, later rechristened "Travel Tee":
but not the oldest. Here's a faded b/w photo from my own
files from 1965 or '66: "Travel Agent" in its earliest form:
The body is from a Bond mini car, a plastic 3-wheeler originally
equipped with a Villiers two-stroke bike engine. Simple
and sturdy, but probably a devil to drive, with the Jag motor (and
those lumps weigh about 650 lbs without gearbox) mounted way up
because weight transfer was the gospel back then.
Travel Agent was run by a Surrey team, of driver Alan Sherwin,
John Crosby, and Ray Webster. Sometimes
wearing a Jago "T" body, this long-lived car was
still being raced by Sherwin in 1980, with a Rover V-8. In
1973, a G.Francis was running the car, with the Jag Six lowered
to a more sane angle.
Next,
Jaguar power again, in the famous 'Stagecoach' altered,
an Austin 7 body.
'Metronome' was
unbelievably dangerous-looking: minimal bodywork, maximum motor.
Built by Mark Stratton with a Bond Bug plastic body. Here it
lines up beside the Hillbillies equally-powered
Fiat Topolino.
The
popular Popular: 'Motor
Psycho'.
Opus
was the trade name for a little British hot-rod kit, mostly
fitted with 4-banger Cortina engines. This one got
stuffed with a fuel-injected big-block Rat Chevy. In
contrast, here's the teeny lightweight Pony
Express, 4-banger Weber'd, with faired-in rear wheels.
Next,
Kevin Pilling's 'Pure
Seven' looks to me like an Opus kit (Bill
T reckons an Austin 7 sports body and a Chev motor) (oh-oh, Brian
Lucas reckons an MG 'TD' body and a 440 Chrysler motor), (and
yours truly is staying right out of this!) with
a tube front axle on mags. 2006
update: Phil Brown
further narrows the i.d. to an Austin Seven Avon Special style. The
motor is a monster 440 inch Dodge wedge, Carter carb, pump gas,
twisting a 2-speed Caddy box and an Olds rear end. Rear mags from
a Lola racer, and a Bootsie Herridge front end! Harrison (a
genius mechanic) and Herridge both helped a lot. Kevin
Pilling Gets the Facts Straight: 2006: The
motor is a 413-inch Ramcharger Wedge enlarged to 440, which had
replaced a weak Olds lump. The original Pure Seven car
cost all of 25 pounds to get to the line at Santa Pod. Kevin
had to struggle against its squirrelly behaviour, until one day an engine mount broke and
the car ran straight. When the mount was fixed, it went "pear-shaped"
again, so goodbye to the rt.fr. mount and hello success! Kevin
says that looking back on the team's best ever 168mph and 9.6 secs
gives him a shiver today: the madness of youth! The car was
an Austin Seven rebodied by Swallow. A B&M Clutchflite
replaced a destroyed Cadillac transmission. The
440 motor eventually went into a circuit racer, but not before
the Rose Brothers had hammered it mercilessly at the 'Pod in
their heavyweight Dodge Challenger
"Stock". Kevin's engine-building skills were vindicated
because the 440 never broke or failed under the punishment.
Thanks
to sharp-eyed Bryan Whitfield (himself an accomplished hot-rodder
with some monster cars to his credit) for adding facts to my previous
brief and inaccurate description here. This photo is of Freddie
Whittle's second SHUTDOWN. Until now I had unthinkingly described this as a "plastic" American
Bantam: Not so. Fred Whittle was a genius with metal, and he formed
this body from aluminum sheet, including all the compound curves,
by hand and using an "English wheel". Bryan reports
that Freddie had never seen a Bantam in the flesh (so to speak),
and using as reference ONLY a photograph in Hot Rod magazine and
a 16" slick and a 392
valve-cover that he happened to have, for scale, did all the
drafting to reproduce this perfect Bantam. Freddie was
that very English phenomenon, the reclusive master-craftsman working
on his own in a crowded yard with a hundred projects on the go in
half a dozen workshops a fair definition of "heaven" for many of us!
Freddie Whittle's Shutdown Mk I, Chevy-powered
Altered. 1932 Ford-based
body, 265-inch motor, later upped to a 283. In
the background, a basic Jag altered with non-fancy engineering
so many people had so much fun with those cars you
could get something on the strip for under a hundred pounds. The
wreckers' yards were full of Jag motors.
Remember
the little square Austin
A40?
Look at this severely chopped version.
'Wild
Honey' injected (Chevy?). Phil
Brown has
been enormously helpful and patient in supplying many facts for
this drag-racing section, and I'm very late in adding this bit
that this is a Swedish car piloted by Lars Torngren, which
won Senior Competition Altered in 1971.
Here in the mid-1970's, a Fiat Topolino called Crusader . Next, my favourite kind of race: Kart vs Car. This kart was called Strip
Kartoon, had a 500 Triumph twin engine, driven by a Mr Bottoms first
name -?) Thanks to John Hennessy for
correcting the earlier kart identity. John
himself raced a Chicken a la kart kart, and other wild men
in this league were Brian Parkins (Keel kart), Ken Penfold on Patience,
and Pete Mobs also on a 500 Triumph kart. And
a red plastic copy of ---? "Mister Shift". Thanks to Charlie Middleton for identifying it as Vauxhall Victor
copy, probably the ex-Hillbillies car once driven by Roland Pratt. Another mystery car: a patriotic T rod
in the fire up lane at the Pod in circa 1973. Nick
Cleveland does it again: Mick Saunders called his car ANIMAL, ran
a 283 Chevy, and did 117 @ 10.9 secs in 1975. Peter Hyde's snapshot caught not only the world's fastest 1933
Willys "gasser", but gazing at the car on the right,
is STIRLING MOSS whose driving skills were
tested when he did one or two 11-second runs in
one of the two wild Willys gas coupes during the festival. Dodge
Boys: Dave Strickler and Bill "Grumpy" Jenkins
broke our eardrums with this "A/FX"
machine. The thing was BIG and it went like the blazes.
And from Mal Hawkins the super-stock Lawman sedan.
Gary
Goodnight, a US team member in 1964, identified this photo as being
of K.S.Pittman's '33 Willys A/Gas Coupe versus Dave Strickler's AFX. Here's the ever-popular Popular WILD THING again. Classic
big saloon, a chopped Zodiac called
ROCKY II. Your average villain's motor in them days, gov. This one was Al O'Connor's car, which
had earlier been a street-strip ride. In
later versions it grew huge wheels and a regular Zodiac grille. Al
was famous for his "AL'S GASSER" Pop, built
by Mick Gleadow as
"Motor Psycho".
Classic
small delivery van: "Alleycat" is
the name, and back then narrowing a back axle
was not a
do-it-yourself job or a standard garage deal. AUGUST 2009: Thanks to Rupert Lloyd Thomas
for adding that "Alleycat" was the pet of four guys from Morden/Epsom,
their driver being Chris Wilson. The tires were rock-hard
circuit-racing items, and the driveline suffered a rather extreme angle
to the rear diff. This lovely van was written off in a towing
accident.
'Imagination
4": although featherweight Lotus Sevens had their natural habitat
on road circuits, this
one got supercharged and front-end-hiked, in the Altered class. Rick
Fielding built this racer (all versions of
this car were called "Imagination"), and its motor went into Rick's Topolino altered
in 1973.
'Panic' by
name, and panic was probably a driver reaction with this baby,
a BSA Scout chopped and channeled, with a neat little wooden
pickup bed, and a parachute that may not have been justified
by the carburetered motor but maybe the handling and
brakes called for a chute! Originally
built by Mark Stratton as an early 'Hustler'. Panic was run by the
Pages: Gary, Clive, and David. BSA
Scouts, in the 1930's had 1200cc 4-cylinder side-valve
motors. The
BSA company advertised them as
"low slung sports tourer for sporting people" and
British drag racing kept that motto alive.
High-class
Parisian boulevard cruiser: Owners Club members
may not all approve of seeing this beautiful Facel
Vega HK 500 coupe being
hotted-up and cut-up and painted-up for drag-racing. French
and aristocratic,
Facel Vagas were so elegant, and one of the first European
cars to use big Chrysler V-8 motors. Some
history is reaching me right now from Facel Vega
enthusiast Glen Tyzack: this car was first registered
10th March 1961, original pale silver-grey paint. It was later rebodied (crash, 1960's)
and painted BRG. An insurance write-off in
1970 probably sent it to a scrapyard, but this
car and a twin were
salvaged and raced by John Reynolds, until being
broken up in the late 1970's. Some cannibalized parts of this car may now
reside in an owner's club FV. More: This
car still exists, chassis HK1 CE5; it was built
as an automatic but with no power steering. In
the ethics of car connoisseurship, the reg plate
visible in the photo SHOULD be 704 CLH, the
number that 'belonged with' the engine sitting
under the hood of this car.
The
Facel was probably that raced by Martin Kent, who won
the 1966 'production saloon' crown at Santa Pod. Facel
owner and historian-enthusiast Richard Stevens has
kindly sent me copious pages of information tracing
the extraordinary lineage of this and another Facel
Vega, which both had multiple owners, crashes, insurance
write-offs, and much 'cannibalizing' and swapping of
powertrains a detective story for you
if you're a Facel fan and if you are, you probably
know there's a thriving Facel
Vega club
This
Facel, or at least a 'hybrid version' of it, is now owned
in Belgium, and its new owner inherited a photo album of its
exploits at Santa Pod. The
album that accompanied the car to Belgium included these images: car-and-driver; press
photo of a Pod race; owner's 'family-tree' notes; and race
results. The Drag Fest series brought big-motored door slammers such as the Dodge Boys A/FX, the K.S.Pittman Gas coupe, and the Ronnie Sox Ford A/FX.
 Next, three photos of the similar-but-different CRESCENT COUPE that Cliff Jones ran with
Mike Treutlein and team. In the States it had run under the name "Chicken Coupe" The
motor; then in
the fire-up lane; then on a
run?; and three
proud racers. I
had earlier confused the two cars, but you can see the different
body/window treatments; thanks to Cliff Jones for pointing this out (Cliff stays up to date with the racing scene, including taking in the 2010 Pomona Winternationals with Pete Crane.) Is there anyone who doesn't know this riddle:
"Why does a chicken coop have two doors? Because if
it had four doors it would be a chicken sedan ----". Phil
Brown
adds: the Ford Pop that became Wild Thing was a 1955
model purchased for just £5. Bob and Brian, under the team
name RAT
FINK DRAG RACING installed a 3.4 litre Jag 6, and eventually ran
14.25secs at 98.7mph. Brian Gibson later stuffed the 327 cu.in. Chevy
in, producing 11.9 sec et's and 119mph Brian Taylor sent the photo below of the lovely Jaguar D-Type look-alike Altered "Poison Ivy". In July 2009, Gerry Robb contacted me with the suggestion that this is an Elva body.
Elva had a splendid history, with many different renditions of
the sports car body and chassis ---- Elva fans out there ---- ? August 2009:
Thanks to several Elva experts, I can try to explain the car. An Elva
Mk 1 alloy body was used to make a mould, which was then used by Ashley
Laminates for their Ashley sports car. An Ashley engineer then
moved to Falcon with a mould, where that body style was repeated.
We'll probably never know for sure whether the car shown below
was once called a Falcon or an Ashley, but one expert settled for a Falcon Mk 2 [illustrated]. 
Tony D. was to be the only driver, so here he is doing a fitting for
the seat and controls, and looking like he's already hit 100mph ---.
Next, Tony watches Harry tinker, as you look at the Ford 1600 block, headless, in the frame. Here, right above the diff, is the steering box,
a Ford unit tipped on its side, with an extra-long drop link to give
maximum steer for minimum input. More build and race photos
in no special order: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13.
Here are the three adventurers: David Berry. Tony Densham. Harry Worrall.
Worrall
had earlier built a famous 750 special (the 750 Motor Club was for the
geniuses who managed to make blinding fast racing cars using old Austin
7 components ---),
in the late 1950's alongside Tony Densham. David Berry
worked on the building of both that special and the WorDen slingshot.
Later Harry Worrall worked on Tony Densham's famous
COMMUTER fueler. Tony passed away in early 2008, in the Channel
Islands.
Take this test: look at this photo of bystanders reacting to a dragster blasting off ---- a US top fueler, perhaps?
Now look at whose car produced that effect: "Little Big Man". Go to http://www.stripduster.co.uk for the full and marvellous story of Harold Bull.
I
have had this b/w snapshot in my files for more than 44 years,
originally sent to me by Dave Maltby, young fellow-member of
the BHRA, of Mickey Thompson's
first visit to Blackbushe. Some related photos appear
further down the page, but this nicely shows the car and the admiring
British spectators.
Malcolm
Dyer kindly sent scans of a 1960's Santa Pod program: the
resolution is good, so enlarge them and read the familiar names! One; two; three; four; five; six. Some of us are ancient enough to recall the exceitement of supercharged
"slingshot" dragsters, built in Britain, hitting 160 and
170 mph, with 8 second elapsed times wow People like
Martin Kent racing a Gordon Keeble (later to drag a similarly aristocratic
Facel Vega) John Wright's bright yellow "Kool Kams" Bedford-Jaguar
with a Rolls Royce grille. Malcolm's superb colour slides are viewable on this website:
the bike engines are a joy to behold what enginering
they did back then.
Pathe
News film of the Brighton
Speed Trials: wild action along the narrow and not-so-smooth
promenade by US and British dragsters! www.Britishpathe.com
contains hundreds of old newsreel clips, both free (low-res) and
for sale. Also, the first Drag
Festival, which I think was filmed at Chelveston but please
correct me.
Pioneer
Ken Cooper's flathead slingshot "Bazooka": Barry
Jackson, now in Australia, sent me that photo over a year ago
and I misplaced it: Ken Cooper, "the flathead king" from Sutton Coldfield
and long time BHRA devotee built Bazooka. [Barry
J. races a screaming turbo rotary engined Chevette with a soft-pedal
time of 10.97 and 132 mph. ]
Thanks
to David Montgomery, one-time BDRA member, for the following mid-sixties
Santa Pod snapshots.
Possibly the original "Worden" dragster of
Tony Densham, whose 'Ambica' company name appears on the van. JULY 2009: Mystery car: whose is it? Thanks to Paul Hicks
for spotting the "Purple Heart" dragster built and driven by his old
buddy the late Clive Lingard. The V-8 is a 317 cu.in. Lincoln,
driving through a Pilot gearbox, to a Cadillac rear axle. Among
the coupes and doorslammers
higher up this page you will see three photos that Paul also sent me,
of the truly pioneering Dragons Hot Rod Club, formed in Manchester in the early sixties. Another Allard Dragon four-cylinder job.
Ken Bunce's "Barons
Barrow" with
a 2.4 Jag motor, and not much rollover protection. Whose is this Stripduster
Rival?
A later version of Alan 'Bootsie' Herridge's
Caddy-motored rail, V8 rail, and
just visible in the background is Dragster Development partner'
John 'Hardluck' Harrison's Healey-4 rail. Classic featherlight British work: but tis that a Vicent V-twin or a JAP in the back Vinnie or Jap ?
David also
sent some historic 1964 Drag Fest (Blackbushe) snapshots Allard
Dragon: Garlits and the Dos/
Palmos cars pitted together: "TV" Tommy Ivo Tony Nancy's "The
Wedge" MARCH 2009 correction -----
This photo was incorrectly labelled as part of the "Geronimo" team --- it is indeed Ken Cooper's famous flathead
Ford dragster, "Bazooka II" and that's Ken climbing into the cockpit, and
that's Ken's push car, probably the Zephyr that Ken got from Tony
Beadle. My thanks to BHRA Pioneer Tony Whitehouse, a long-time
hot rodder and car club member, for putting me right. AUGUST 2009 update: Bless
him, Ken Cooper is still top man in the 'World of Flatheads', and
right now is building ANOTHER Ford V-8 side-valve dragster, with his
son [info, and Ken's motor, courtesy of ex-stock car racer and Ford Pilot wizard Mick Gamble.] A
blurred shot of two Jag
powered dragsters, one a rear-engined look-alike of Tony Nancy's
'Wedge'.
Tony
Densham's COMMUTER, the
ex-Mickey Thompson fueler.
Doing
things the hard way: John "Hard-Luck" Harrison was
a determined man. Not satisfied with his first Dragster
Developments carbureted Healey rail, which earned him the nickname,
he went overboard with this beauty: TWO
Healey 4-bangers, and BOTH motors were supercharged
. Apparently Harrison had based Twin Jinx on the famous
double Freight Train, specially designed for two motors. Oh-oh,
look what happened: a big fat 429-inch V-8
was dropped in it in 1999, producing 10-second runs, and the
owner, Dave Armstrong, tells me that's being tossed
out for TWO 318-inch MoPar V8's . Dave's
dragster has passed to buddy Alan, with plans for a big-block Chevy.
Two
more slingshots: in the background the Red
Witch, a classic Jag rail, and the little rail is the original
WorDen 4-banger dragster. Glen
Tyzack worked on the WorDen built by Tony Densham
a 1500cc from a Ford Classic, on methanol, with a home-built
injector Glen made out of an Austin oil (gear) pump! Stock
gearbox running 3rd and 4th. Its back wheels were from a 'D'
Type Jaguar of all things. .See the
Jowett Jupiter push-car? (No, the rad grille proves it's the
open Jupiter sports, not the Javelin saloon). Nearly half a century before the Subaru,
this was running a hot twin-carb horizontally-opposed 4. Rare
and desirable, and yet amazingly the prices are as low as 10-15,000
pounds today.
They only ever built 900 of them, and folks like John Surtees
and Peter Ustinov owned Jupiters. Thanks to Peter
Hyde for the following vintage 1964 photos he snapped at the Blackbushe
round of the first "International Drag Festival", and
at Santa Pod, Duxford, Debden, and Blackpool:
The
classic sixties' dragster format: Tommy Ivo, who managed
to coordinate a television career with a drag-racing career, brought
over this candy-apple red fueler. It
obviously bewildered the young "gentleman" in the cap - who thinks he looks like
Rolling Stone Keith Richards?
Here
Peter snapped Tony Nancy's revolutionary (but not completely successful)
rear-engined "22" dragster. I
had forgotten, but Peter reminds me that this car too crashed and
disintegrated. Nancy lost his other front-engined rail at
the Chelveston round when a borrower ran it into the 1/4 mile marker
barrels.
Last,
a snapshot of what in 1964 and 1965 constituted a sort of 'standard
British dragster', given our engine supply in that era: a
Shorrock-blown Jaguar. Can anyone identify the car and its
driver? Barry
Jackson, now in Australia, sent me this photo over a year ago
and I misplaced it: Ken Cooper, "the flathead king" from
Sutton Coldfield and long time BHRA devotee, built Bazooka
2. Barry races a screaming
turbo rotary engined Chevette with a soft-pedal time of 10.97
and 132 mph. Alan "Bootsie"
Herridge was a
hero and is missed by those who recall the rough 'n' ready early days
at Podington, Gravely, Duxford, Blackbushe, etc. Here's his second
rail, "PULSATION" , a Caddy: . The BHRA had a car show in the grounds of Woburn Abbey, which I think was the first appearance of "Pulsation", and my fuzzy camera work does not quite do justice. As
usual with any snapshot from the mid sixties, we see the traditonal mum
+ dad + kid in their Sunday best casual --- what innocent times. Alan had earlier run an amazing
rail with a 1930's straight-8 Buick motor, blown on alcohol; I think
it just squeezed under 12 seconds before smashing its pushrods. But
here is the fancier and more famous 1970's rig Firefly
Hayes,
Middlesex, was a Mecca for racers. The "Dragster Developments" team
was behind Herridge, and their other star was John "Hard
Luck" Harrison, who campaigned neat and tidy machines
like this 4-banger Healey slingshot [Blackbushe 1965-66]: 
I wonder
if it's maybe Herridge in the car? Those
two worked and raced together, and the helmet, goggles, and posture
look awfully similar to Alan's in the Caddy photo above: any takers?
Here
come five more home-builts; not fancy, but they were part of that
magic era when someone walking through the pits could imagine building
a racer in the back garden. Nobby Hill's "Hound-dog"
blown Jaguar slingshot. To be fair, Houndog was high up in sophistication
and fabrication for those days. Here's another shot of the car, thanks
to Jon Spoard of "Nostalgia Drags" site fame: Houndog2 This second photo was printed in the
International DragFest's 1964 programme; amazingly, it must have
been taken by someone standing near me, at Santa Pod, within a few
minutes of my taking the previous photo! Quite a coincidence to discover
this pairing after 35 years.
Next:
four more basic
"oldies" : two with simple carburetted V-8s, then an even simpler
Jaguar bolted into a basic slingshot frame plus plenty of bright paint; and
a pocket-size "rocket".
Oldie #1, then Oldie #2 , and Oldie #3 which was built and driven by Jeff Theobald
of Exeter.
Below we see the
"Weekend Warrior II", of Alan Blount, whose
name appears with team colleagues Marriott and West on the Bedford van.
The chap in the tie and cardigan gave me a lift to the track that
day. 
Thanks
to Michael Tickner for these pics from 32 years ago. Rivalling the
multi-name Californian teams of that era, these guys were the Fry-Tickner-Sturgess-Burns-Siggery gang. A
beautifully simple slingshot powered by an injected Oldsmobile. This
was Britain's first unblown dragster into the 9-second bracket, which
won Mike a whole entire TEN POUNDS. The press piece is by Brian Sparrow,
who I recall drove a MiniCooper at permanent valve-bounce. Geronimo off the line.
Next
a shot of the motor.
And
finally, the happy team,with Mike in the hot seat. Later the car was handled
by John Siggery, the crew chief in 1969, with great success. Eventually
they "tipped the can" to 85% nitromethane and ran 9.52
at 156 mph. Racer's View from the roll cage. Waiting for
a dry track at Santa Pod with the crew: Mike Tickner on the right,
John Siggery 3rd from right hope I got that right!
Finally,
the poor thirsty dragster waiting for its alcohol while driver and crew refuel themselves at their favourite "pit stop",
the Chalkdrawer's Arms in Colney Heath, Herts. "Sorry, officer, was I speeding??" Alan
Allard being pushed. The front-mounted blower indicates that this
old 354 hemi engine comes from Alan's dad's pioneering British slingshot,
circa 1961/2 (Sydney Allard, builder of those sports cars
of the 40's and 50's.) Alan's slingshot
Can
you identify this dragster? A distant shot, and it could be Santa
Pod or Blackbushe help me, someone. Thanks,
Nick Cleveland. The
dragster is the Stones' HEMI-HUNTER, and the shot is either 1975
or 1976; they ran it in Pro Comp and later added "fuel".
A
Blackpool racer in the 1960's, Paul Manders, raced a Jaguar-powered
stock-car but wanted to tackle something trickier. A double-supercharged Chrysler
dragster: for the time an advanced bit of engineering (two blowers
mounted transversely over the vee how did he build the
drives?). Here it is under construction, but I don't know the
rest of the story. Blackpool-based Slingshot. Later,
in 1988, Paul ran a funny-car, hitting 188 mph in 7.5 secs.
Allards
tried to retail ready-made dragsters, but it didn't catch on big
among England's do-it-yourself maniacs; here's their little blown
Cortina-engined Dragon Nice enough, but I wish I had a snap
of Harold Bull's tiny "STRIPDUSTER", a pint-size 700-lb
slingshot with a hard-blown BMC "A" 4-cylinder, a little
jewel built by a master crafstman. Doug
Harler, now of Knoxville, Tennessee, tells me he ran one of
these Dragons in "middle dragster" class, and pushed-started
it with a ferocious Dodge Charger, which he also dragged:
probably Britain's "fastest push car" in thoe days.
Mickey
Thompson brought his slingshot to Britain in 1963, 488 cu.in Ford, bewildering the
natives, ahead of the big-money "INTERNATIONAL DRAG
FESTIVAL"
invasion the following year. [photos
from Dave Maltby, BHRA member back then] Thompson
left it in England, in storage. In 1964 the BHRA brought it to
Perkins Diesel Open Day at Peterborough, and here I am as a skinny youth
(left) with Dave Withers, scrubbing off the oxide that forms on magnesium.
 See
the little Allard Dragon behind? Blown Ford Cortina 1500cc 4-banger
motor. Look at our clothes.
Can you imagine any 19-year olds nowadays, going to a HOT ROD
show in slacks and sports jackets or suits?
this is 46 years ago.
Alan Allard son of Sydney: The front-mounted blower
and motor came straight off Sydney's pioneering slingshot. English
rain didn't stop them.
Alan Allard vs The Chev: Blackbushe
airport when they HAD to run some cars for the hungry
fans, despite an insanely wet track. The Chev is the Gary Goodnight
team car, here run by an English
racer. June 2009 update: "Dos Palmos" [above]
was raced at the 1964 Drag Festival by Bob Keith, who in 2009 is
restoring the fabulous Kent Fuller fuel dragster that Bob ran in the
1965 Fest, and which will be preserved in a new Australian drag race
museum (Bob ran the Fuller car in Oz . in 1966). Kent Fuller is
helping Bob Keith with this project. [Thanks to Bob Keith for this info.] BTW, Bob is trying to contact Bill Weichelt (below) about the Dos Palmos rail --- anyone who knows Bill W. please e-mail me. 'Asmodeus'
was just one of the names attached to the original 'Dos Palmos' slingshot during its life in the UK. Bob Keith/ Gary Goodnight brought it over for the '64 DragFest,
then it went to Croft Racing Partnership, and then to the UK based American Bill
Weichelt, crewed by the Pages. Bill for a while lived in Ipswich
and built limited-production sports cars called Tridents (based on TVR's). Both Bill
and the dragster eventually returned to the US. Thanks to Chris at TRAKBYTES
and Gary Goodnight for that info.
The
unofficial blessing of Britain's newborn
drag-race scene was the visit of US racers for the DragFest series.
Anyone in the UK back then who knew the term 'drag racing', also
knew the name "Big Daddy" Don Garlits, who was the
ultimate ambassador. No-one who saw those events ever forgot it.
For
me it was the Chelveston round, and locals talked about it
for the rest of the year. 
He popped the clutch on this car that weighed only 1320
lbs nowadays NHRA fuelers must weigh a minimum of 2300
lbs they're carrying 1000 lbs of weight penalty. Sneaky
Pete Robinson in the 1960's built a fueler that weighed only 980
lbs.. See the push-van? It had a Thunderbird V-8 motor, and remained
in the UK after Garlits left. It was famous round North London
still in 1968, when a workmate of mine was scorching its clutch
and tires people would lean over at the traffic lights and
offer cash-on-the-nail for it. Visible in the van are Don Garlits's two little daughters.
Future 'Geronimo' pilot Michael Tickner is second from
left in front of the fence, sweater and white shirt: four years
later Mike was racing an unblown Olds slingshot at Santa Pod.
THE
NEXT 3 SHOTS WERE THE SUBJECT OF MUCH DEBATE
AMONG VARIOUS FANS A
shot of Hemi-Hunter vs Roz Prior, 1977? She (Roz) was British champ that year.
Next, the great Don Garlits, rear-engined, at Santa Pod, mid-1970's, and
one of Norm Hill's "Houndog" racing
"Asphalt Alligator" thanks
to Gary Tindle for these late early
70's photos, and to Nick Cleveland for identifying via magazine shots.
Tony Nancy "22": here at the International DragFest 1964,
this gas dragster known as The Wedge was still fighting the handling
gremlins that plagued rear-engined designs throughout the years
until Garlits figured it all out. Nancy also brought over a beautiful front-engined rail, ( It was
the one called "22 Jr" ) which he naively loaned to Dante
Duce, a stranger to Tony, for the Northamptonshire round and
Mr Duce drove it smack into the 40-gallon marker barrels at the
end of the quarter KABOOM, everything forward of the engine
block was smashed off. Thanks to US team member Gary Goodnight
for correcting the car numbers. Gary
was with the Goodnight-Keith-Williamson AA/GD team.
A
year or two after the first Drag Festival, the American Barnes
team brought their "Ultrasonic" fueler to Santa Pod: 
ABOVE: check the extreme
caster (kingpin) angle that required the pit crew to tip the front
wheels back upright by hand when it was moving at walking pace. Another
shot of "Ultrasonic", from Mal Hawkins; and a "new"
shot I just unearthed, taken with my 48-shilling Brownie Cresta
lots of pan, and plenty of darkroom fudging. Mal tells me that
Bud Barnes is rebuilding the car for nostalgia races.
Same
year, a Blackbushe press photo of a
wheels-up burnout (Danny Ongais's "Mangler")
provided an education for new-to-drag-racing Brits.
The
pioneering British racers were famous for their backyard ingenuity. Here is a
little slingshot powered by a Bristol
2-litre 6-cyl of all things, built by Colin Glass. In the background is the tiny "Wicked Lady", powered
by a 500cc single Rudge motor, of Tony Gane. Here is the 1966 US team's "Ford T" bodied dragster pretending to be an altered.
Mooneyes came to the UK and ran 9.99 secs, 164 mph
on gas. See the "Fibreglass Repairs" pickup? FR built
the first body on that insane Rolls/Merlin/Spitfire-engined road car of John Dodd in the sixties. [see http://www.spainvia.com/Merlincar.htm for the rebuilt car today in Spain] More Mooneyes. Many
years ago, probably 1980, I snapped this shot of an alcohol dragster
leaving the line at Seattle International Raceway, USA. I kept it
because of the dramatic tire distortion visible --- compare the top left of the tire with the bottom. Brian
Lucas took these great snapshots:
-
Next
is The Commuter cooling down
after a run in the hands of Tony Densham;
this was the 427-inch ex Mickey Thompson car, I believe. Look
behind it and you can see the wheelstander Corvette of Roy Phelps
/ FibreGlasss Repairs. Then, the archetypal British snapshot
(I took dozens) a glimpse of Commuter through
the fence rails.
Now
for some bikes (27 photos):
Thanks
to Peter Cozens for spotting the identity of the low-slung screamer shown
below. It
was built and raced by a young man named Adrian Reynard from
Oxford Polytechnic, apprenticed to veteran sprinter George Brown. It's
a Royal Enfield motor that Enfield had abandoned after they quit road
racing. Adrian broke some world records at Elvington on this bike in 1970-71,
using a longer fairing. Adrian Reynard's story goes like this:
Built Reynard Formula 3 car, which won its first race from pole position.
Built Reynard F3000 car, which won its first race from pole position. Built
Reynard Indy Champ car, which - yes, true. Jacques Villeneuve
won the Indy championship in a Reynard. Adrian
worked for BAR, Honda, and a slew of others, and is running
huge race engineering shops in the USA. REYNARD'S
RIDE How low can you get?
Here
is another single, but this one is a 4-stroke
motor with a blower. Any takers?
Only
in England, surely take a Lambretta
scooter and stuff a big Triumph twin in (on?) it. It's
a 500cc motor, and Keith Lee was the intrepid rider. UPDATE JULY 2010: Keith Lee writes: "That shot must have been taken just after I had
been thrown off it following a wheelie away from the line - hence the rather odd
handlebar angle! I managed to buy new forks, and got running again for the
following day's eliminations at Santa Pod. That must have been
1971. I raced the bike for more than 2 years, after which
it became Robin Read's first vehicle to race as part of the Readspeed team. He
wisely moved on to 4 wheels after that. I was quite
involved in the sport for many years, and am just completing the first book on
drag bike racing in Britain, which looks back at the first 20 years of the sport
as it developed. It is due for publication in September. I have included a link to the publisher's
website:
Double-engined supercharged
Triumph, with a seemingly-narrow rear tyre. Nice piece
of work. Weird-looking frame/panels on this experimental Triumph drag
bike. Identities, anyone?
Dark
photo of a Vincent sidecar
combo.
Clive
Waye's landmark piece of engineering, the Drag-Waye,
ridden here by Howard German, 1964. Do I remember right, that
Clive used some aerospace engineering techniques, electron-welding
or something for the con-rods? Anyway, it's a flat-four
VW motor, and the simple notion of copying the slingshot format
had never occurred to anyone else Thank
you Bill Taylor. Peter Hyde: gives us Maurice
Brierley's supercharged 1000cc Vincent.
In
1965 or '66, here is the famous Neville Higgins on his supercharged Vinnie
10000; Neville usually named his bikes "Jindivik" after
a brutal Norse god or monster.
Peter
Hyde himself, racing at the Pod in 1966, on his sidecar outfit: so stripped-down-basic that the
"passenger" was 140lb of iron weights maybe he
couldn't pressgang any volunteers. Peter points out that for world
records, a live passenger
was obligatory; Peter
himself took perhaps the world's LOWEST dragstrip ride at Elvington
in Yorkshire when he volunteered as passenger on a sidecar sprint
outfit.
Peter's
bike at Blackpool. You are looking at a works
Matchless scrambles engine, GS80 500cc. single-cylinder. "Severely
re-worked"
is Peter's description of the motor. The Castrol R bottle is
the fuel tank. The 12.5:1 compression and 'untunable' DellOrto
carb were on the limit for petrol, and when Peter upgraded to methanol
the next day, he ran a scary 15.6 second time over the cracked and
lumpy Church Lawford runway, and you'd better remember that that
time would beat a then-new E-type Jag.
Love
the name: "QUASIMODO" Supercharged
Triumph, tank-in-frame-tube. Charlie Rous was the rider,
here at Debden in 1964. See the blurring spokes. (In
that same era I watched a "Quasimodo The Hunchback" wrestle
against
"Giant Farmer Haystacks" at Wellingborough Drill Hall,
in the 5-shilling seats, and the Farmer fouled and there was
a small riot; we believed everything we saw, too.)
"The
Lads": Peter is at the left, with his bike #145. The
arms-crossed chap is Ron Holland who today is helping a Bonneville
streamliner project (V-8 motorbike). Bike 144 is "Geronimo",
with Pete Dodd in leathers; it has a 500cc Velocette
Venom thumper on nitro and ran in the low 14's. Peter Hyde
had the dubious pleasure of a flat-out passenger ride in this
outfit at Elvington in Yorkshire. Thanks
for those photos to Peter Hyde, now in Canada.
Moonraker", rider
Ian Richardson, was a lovely piece bit of British do-it-yourself genius:
a 2,000cc flat-four special, engine built from four Manx Norton singles, with a custom DOHC head by Butterworth,
the engineers who cooked this up. 
Nick
Meikle later supplied a SUPERCHARGER for this bike (like it wasn't powerful
enough?): a Rootes/Wade diesel blower. Photo taken in 1967 at Santa Pod by Mal Hawkins.
"Red
Baron" was Mal Hawkins' own piece who'd have thought
of feeding a 50cc (that's fifty) Honda on nitromethane and
methanol? Mal did
it, in 1968, and forced the little screamer to a 19.8 second quarter
mile e.t. Pretty good
when you know that the Dutch Kreidler factory put their works GP
rider on their best GP 50cc and managed 17 secs. The tiny motor
had an 11:1 compression ratio (shaved head), and drank nitro @
50% ratio.
Pegasus was a supercharged and twin-motored Norton
with a blower, run by Derek Chinn and Ian Messenger [Thanks
to Pod commentator Mike Cazalet and [1973-77] race director Syd
McDonald for correcting a previous error in Messenger's name.] Pegasus
Here's
a different twist on the same story, with Triumph power; Steve
Kimberley spots maybe a Weslake bottom end, which he says would
finally keep Triumph rods from scattering across the strip. Triumph
Twin-Twin. Now see below ---->: March 2009: Thanks to the keen eyes and keener memory of Pat Neal, who recalls that double Triumph device was built by Fred Wells,
who ran a motorcycle shop in Kent. Fred installed two Triumph 500
twins in this bike, and brilliantly incorporated the blown intake
charge from the front-mounted supercharger through the top frame tube to
feed the two engines. Fred further demonstrated his ingenuity by
building, of all things, an ovebored Triumph Cub (236cc) that burned
75% nitromethane. If motorcycle fans in that era put "Cub"
and "con-rod" in the same sentence, it was usually to describe a major
blowup. Fred's son Steven went on to m'cycle road racing success. Pat
Neal and his father used to compete in sprint events at Duxford, and
Pat later got into pro stock and top fuel racing with Steve Wollatt.
Pat also raced a Manx Norton and a TZ350. Like myself,
Pat is now on Canadian soil, where his wife Linda has moved on from
winning in Formula Atlantics to running a deafening alcohol dragster at
170mph in 8 seconds.
Don
Hyland brought his lovely, simple twin-motored
Triumph drag-bike to Britain in the mid-1960's.
The
next bike is all BEAST. Its
rider claimed to have 40mph of wheelspin while travelling at 120mph.
Direct drive chain from a big reduction-gear straight to the back
wheel. He started it on power rollers, then pushed it on its roller-mounted
jackstand to the line; he simply kicked the jackstand over-centre
at the green light. Recognize a V-8 Chevy Corvette fuel-injected
motor when you see one?
In April 1999 I spoke to E.J. Potter,
and he was planning a once-only comeback appearance at the
age of 57 with "THE WIDOWMAKER" V-8 bike. He's published a book (below), appropriately titled MICHIGAN
MADMAN. It has photos of his truly insane machines, and tales of his CRAZY stunts on the track and in his workshop. $15 US from PO Box 968, Vero Beach, Florida 32961. EJ's toll-free
phone number for ordering was (in the States) 877-262-3626. 
I
told him about my old snapshot, shown below. "Was that the
time I hit the wall?" Potter asked. No, I think that happened
a few days later, and his book has a photgraph of the nasty result. He said
the engine used to shake something rotten because it had no flywheel really the
spinning back wheel had to act as flywheel. Buy this book, see
his Allison-engined station wagons, his jet trike, his electric
"slot-car" Austin. Click
here for Potter's Book Cover.
Here's Madman Potter burning off the line at
Santa Pod, courtesy of Mal Hawkins: Smoke Show; and
here is a my terrible fuzzy photo,
the excuse being the distance and the little plastic camera in my
shaky hands.
Light,
low, simple; Yamaha twins were fun to watch and didn't need
a professional to engineer them. Santa Pod in the mid 1970's:
Three
snaps from a Santa Pod qualifying day June 1999: these brutes have
sure changed in 25 years. A Dutch builder/rider brought over this
overhead-cammed V-twin of 1600cc capacity, blown on nitro, V-twin. Same huge capacity for this Parallel twin which was "home-built" on
CNC machine tools. Check out the tire on this 4-cyl fueler. Fat-tired
4. ( I think it's Steve Wollat, who I saw run 6.9 secs
and 196 mph on a not-quite-dry track! Steve can run the 1/8 mile
in 4.4 secs at 161 mph, and do the first 60 feet from standstill
in ONE SECOND. Some British fuel bikes (try the great Brian
Johnson) have hit a stunning 194 mph in 4.04 secs in the 1/8 mile. Brian
Johnson did 234mph in 6.12 secs in 1999 [thanks Neil Smith for the updates].. Please e-mail
me if you know the drivers and tech data for
any cars Ive wrongly described on this page. Love those jets Seattle in the 1980's.
Want
to read the biggest, best, and most intelligent book on drag
racing? Robert C. Post: "High Performance:
The Culture and Technology of Drag Racing 1950-1990",
published by Johns Hopkins University Press, in the US. The ISBN is 03020100 999897969594 5432. The
author is a technical historian at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington
DC, but also a lifelong drag-racer. He has photos you won't believe,
including the horrifying 1970 Garlits clutch explosion at the instant
his dragster was being cut in half by the blast. Not a cheap quickie
survey about 400 pages, and costs a bit, but has fascinating
quotes and interviews with everyone from the fifties on, and very
thoughtful analysis of why people build and race dragsters.
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