Friday, July 04, 2008
Look, up in the sky, it's the Kite Cycle!
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I had little trouble summoning the name “Bob Correll” from my memory banks after watching him and his Kite Cycle soaring through the Southern California night on so many occasions, sparklers sparkling from the wing tips as he glided over 18-wheelers and, my favorite, the 64 Funny Car lineups. I remember one time when he didn’t quite clear them all, landing on the back window of some innocent gas-powered Mustang Funny Car, leaving a tire mark down its back, but most of the time, he easily cleared his obstacle.
On the surface, it didn't look like too tricky of a stunt once he got airborne. Surely the landing would be softer than some of the back-breaking touchdowns the regular bike jumpers made. My 16-year-old brain even thought at one time, "Heck, I'm a pretty fair motorcycle rider; dude, I bet I could jump with that damn thing." (I did, after all, successfully land a neighborhood-record jump over six trash cans and a second, more breathtaking mark of clearing seven small neighborhood kids. Shhh. Don't tell my mom. Or theirs.)
Of course, from what I could see, just getting airborne was the easy part. Crosswinds, downdrafts, and Mustangs also apparently were all part of what made it tricky. I think I only saw him eat it the one time, but it was always a great sight to watch him soaring through the evening sky still heavy with nitro fumes.
A lot of guys did the whole sliding-behind-the-bike thing, from Lee “Iron Man” Irons all the way up through the fairly recent “Krazy Keith” Kardell, who performed at NHRA national events well into the 1990s – and there have been hang-glider-equipped motorcycle jumpers since, but Correll was the original.
So, while waiting for David Rampy to return my call to interview him following his Comp win in Norwalk – victory number 69, tying him with Kenny Bernstein for sixth on NHRA’s all-time win list – I put on my researcher cap and went fishing. What I found blew me away.
It turns out that the famed Kite Cycle -- - a 450cc Yamaha attached to a 12-foot hang glider, was brought to us by the same genius who invented the car-munching metallic monster known as Robosaurus AND, for you Evel Knievel fans out there (talking to you, Drummond!), the infamous steam-powered X-1 Sky Cycle for Knievel’s not-so-successful Snake River Canyon jump.
This amazing man is Doug Malewicki, president and “chief scientist” for AeroVisions Inc., a company he founded in 1974 and incorporated in 1980 “for the purpose of developing, promoting and commercializing his numerous inventions.”
According to his Web site, in the early 1980s, Malewicki set two Guinness world records by getting more than 150 mpg at freeway speeds on cross-country runs in a car he called the California Commuter and now is focused on SkyTran, “a super-aerodynamic, lightweight, high-speed, low-cost, on-demand” personalized rail-bound transit system (which might have also set a Guinness record for most adjectives) that will get 200 mpg at 100 mph.
He has also been working on a micro-turbine-powered jet pack that will provide an eight-minute flight capability on $30 worth of fuel. Sign me up, Doug!
Malewicki, 68, a senior structural loads analyst on the Apollo/Saturn V rocket project that carried man to the moon in 1969, earned a master's of science degree in aeronautics and astronautics from Stanford University and a bachelor's of science degree in aeronautical and astronautical engineering from the University of Illinois, so he obviously knows a little bit about flight, which might explain how Correll set a 423-foot world distance record with the Kite Cycle.
Malewicki also brought the world a two-man Delta submarine rated to depths of 1,200 feet (unlike those great comic-book subs we all tried to buy), a 152.2-mph world-record pedal bicycle, a turbine thrust-powered motorcycle, and White Lightning, a world-record Bonneville Salt Flats electric car that ran 245.524 mph.
Malewicki also holds a dozen patents in aviation, robot, medical, toy, and transportation fields, two of which are for Robosaurus, a “58,000-pound, fire-breathing, car crushing electrohydromechanical beast” (still more adjectives!). In addition to delighting race fans across the country, Robosaurus has been featured on the big and small screen, in the 2002 movie Waking Up in Reno and in a 2006 Toyota Tacoma pickup TV commercial.
I guess I missed my chance to own the beast when it went on the block at the Barrett-Jackson car collector auction back in January and was sold for $575,000 (not including auction fees). The lucky winner not only got the Robosaurus but a host of accessories to operate and maintain the robot, including transmitters and receivers, special-effects controls, a tool kit for loading and unloading, operation manuals, touch-up paint, and spare parts.
I had spoken to Correll some years ago after receiving in the mail this wild design, drawn by Dave Peters, of a proposed new jet car modeled after the famed SR-71 Blackbird. This wild-looking machine had the driver in the faux left-jet-engine tub at the rear of the machine. Unfortunately, it never made it past this point in the process.
I’ve since lost touch with him -- DragList.com showed that he’d moved from California to Florida, where he had campaigned a jet-powered motorcycle -- and there's an appalling lack of stories on him on the Web, but I'll keep hanging in there (pun intended) and digging for info. He left an indelible impression on me and a lot of other car-crazed teenagers.
Wednesday, July 02, 2008
A little bit of this, a little bit of that ...
Former U.S. President Calvin Coolidge once said, "Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan 'Press On' has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race."
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The Bader family likes to call a visit to their wonderful track "the Norwalk Experience," and for me it truly was an unforgettable one. Certainly anyone who has known and watched Hector Arana toil on two wheels the last 18 seasons or ever spoken to the likable Pro Stock Motorcycle rider had to be happy to see him finally cash in after nearly 150 starts.
And to see Doug Herbert standing on the winner’s podium, beaming through his tears, fulfilling the promise he made earlier this year to do well “for my boys,” sons Jon and James whom he lost earlier this year, warmed the hearts of all in attendance, fans and vanquished foes alike.
I’ve known and liked Doug since he was running an Alcohol Dragster, and through his NHRA.com blog (one of the original group with whom we started) and through the time I’ve spent with him since that sad day in January, we’ve become closer, so I just had to hunt the big lug down for a congratulatory hug in the winner’s circle, and omnipresent photog Marc Gewertz stealthily caught the exact moment that Herbert crushed my ribs.
The inspiring victories of Arana and Herbert were just part of a huge get-better weekend for the NHRA community that also included an ongoing salute to fallen world champ Scott Kalitta, who remained heavy on the minds of those in Norwalk. His father, Connie, was greeted by the fans with a standing ovation when the nitro cars hit the track for the first time in qualifying.
Yellow and red ribbons were tacked to shirts alongside photo buttons of Kalitta, waving from the POWERade stage, and the memorial logo was in evidence everywhere, on decals and especially on T-shirts worn by most of his fellow nitro drivers throughout the event. The various Kalitta teammembers wore the white T-shirts in place of their regular uniform shirts during the first qualifying run for each car, and many of the drivers wore their firesuits undone to the waist to display their shirts during driver introductions Sunday morning, forgoing sponsor photo ops to honor their friend. Even John Force, seldom seen without his Castrol shirt, was on the starting line in the second round to watch Robert Hight, proudly still wearing his Kalitta T-shirt.
After all of the tears and solemn moments, one of the funniest came as Hector Arana was conducting his media-center interview after defeating Craig Treble in the final round, when from the back of the pressroom came a final question.
“So, how scared were you of that bad [mother] in the other lane?”
The question came from Treble, who had been alerted to Arana’s interview by ND's Candida Benson, and the fun-loving rider just had to drop in for his final needle of the weekend.
For all the hassles with the water seeping up through the track Friday and dodging rainstorms Saturday and Sunday – including a brief but very intense storm Sunday that, had there been gullies in Norwalk, would have been called a “gully washer” – it was a race that I’ll never forget.
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“Like you, I grew up in the ‘70s, and ‘the Snake’ was my hero and still is! In the third grade, my teacher made us write a letter to our hero.
"I didn't have Prudhomme’s address, but that’s who I was writing to even after she told me not to because I didn't have the proper address and I wouldn't get a response.
“I sent the letter [addressed] to ‘Don Prudhomme, Granada Hills Ca’; that was it. A month later in the mail, I get a mysterious letter from California with no return address with not one but TWO autographed handouts of ‘the Snake’s’ Carefree Funny Car and dragster! I respected my teacher and I was a shy kid, but I made sure the next day at school she knew that ‘the Snake’ sent me not one but TWO autographed pics, because he's the man! Those are the most prized handouts in my collection.”
Yes, fans, Prudhomme was THAT big in the 1970s. Send a letter to him addressed just to his city, and they knew where to find him. You gotta love that.
Mark Collins also enjoyed the article and my personal photos from the 1976 Winternationals and trumped my ticket stub with not just an actual participant’s tag from the event, but one autographed by “the Snake” hiss-self.
At the time, Collins and partners Joe Monden and Ralph Lewis were running a AA/DA in Pro Comp. Nearly 30 years later, Collins brought it with him to the 2005 event in Dallas to have “the Snake" autograph it. “The ticket put a wide smile on his face,” recalls Collins. “He told me it brought back a lot of great memories of a very successful Funny Car.”
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Reader Craig Sanburn said he remembered that Jim Epler’s Eckler-sponsored new-gen C5 Corvette also had a nasty reputation. I reached out to Jim’s wife, Susan, who confirmed that the car seemed a bit cursed.
“Jim’s first Eckler’s Corvette debuted at Indy in 1998,” she recalled. “It was a big deal with a Friday night unveiling on the starting line right before the run. If my memory serves me right, there were 1,034 entries at that event, and the Corvette won the Best Appearing Car award. I think I remember it as being very evil handling. Jim could probably fill in the details, but I know they made a bunch of changes after a few initial near misses. His final race was Sonoma 1999 where he lost most of the body in an explosion. Jim left that team because of safety reasons. Craig Sanburn has it right – that car blew up a lot, and Jim had a family to consider. I only worried when Jim was worried, and when he was concerned, I knew it was time to go another direction.” The photo at right is from the ND files and shows what was left of the car.
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Another reader recalls seeing Tom Hoover's 1979 Showtime Corvette, which featured a beautiful Kenny Youngblood-designed white-over-black paint scheme that had the name done in an airbrushed neon letter effect, have a bad fire at the Springnationals in Columbus and end up in the catch net at the end of National Trail, which destroyed that body.
I searched through the Columbus results from 1979 and 1980 and found no mention of the incident – in surprising Tim Wilkerson-like fashion, Hoover was the points leader at the time of the 1979 event and was runner-up to Raymond Beadle at the 1980 event – but I’m not saying it never happened at a different time or place.
Our old Insider pal Simon Menzies sent along a bunch of clippings from his unforgettable ”Corvette moment,” which came during qualifying for the 1977 edition of the fabled Manufacturers Meet at Orange County Int’l Raceway and is captured here in a great motor-drive sequence by OCIR regular John Shanks and published in Car Craft magazine. Other images of the inciednt also made it into the Los Angeles Times.
The car is the Jim Jackson BB/FC Corvette, which completed, in Menzies’ words, an “unintentional but spectacular 180-degree turn.” The car got loose and then slid sideways near the big end, and when it spun around, it shed the body, and the chassis lightly tapped the guardrail. Damage was minimal, but the fans loved it.
Menzies’ explanation was simple and to the point. “I removed the rear spoiler extensions to see if she would mile an hour better,” he said. “Big mistake.”
And finally, I’m really closing in on the Favorite Car poll. I spent a good portion of the rainy downtime in Norwalk compiling all of the favorites – and you guys sure have a lot! -- then dividing them into multiple categories based on era and type of car.
The categories will be as follows: early dragsters; early Funny Cars; early door cars/roadsters; ‘70s Funny Cars; ‘70s Top Fuelers; the 1980s; and exhibition cars. There are about 16 cars in each grouping, so we’ll vote on them separately, then come up with subsequent polls that feature the best of the best. Hopefully I can get this together by next week.
See ya Friday.
Monday, June 30, 2008
Mondays with Murray: Don Prudhomme
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I’m not ashamed to admit that I kept a Prudhomme scrapbook – which I still have – that was filled with my own pictures of the man as well as articles clipped from local newspapers about “the Snake” and the racers he ran and won, ticket stubs, stickers, and more.
It also included the column reprinted below, written by the late legendary Los Angeles Times sportswriter Jim Murray. Two weeks ago in this column, I announced that, through the generosity of Murray’s widow, Linda McCoy-Murray, and the Jim Murray Memorial Foundation that promotes his legacy and awards annual scholarships to aspiring journalists, I would be allowed to reprint some of his columns, especially those written about our drag racing heroes.
So, today, as I wind my way home from Norwalk, I proudly continue this semi-regular week-opening feature, Mondays with Murray, with the article below, published in the Times Jan. 29, 1976, as that year’s Winternationals was getting ready to fire up and on the heels of Prudhomme’s barrier-breaking five-second pass the previous October in Ontario. In keeping with the scrapbook theme, the photos that accompany it are my own from that race.
Fastest ‘Snake’ by Jim Murray
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But, racing is hardly a drag when you make $300,000 a year out of it.
I always thought a “top fuel eliminator” was the 8-cylinder gas-guzzling bucket of bolts I drive around. I never thought of fuel eliminating as a sport.
But Donald Ray Prudhomme makes more money doing less in a car than any automotive genius who ever lived. Not A.J. Foyt, not Henry Ford, Gustav Daimler or the inventor of the self-starter or chairman of the board of General Motors gets as much money out of the internal combustion engine as he does - $6,000 a second.
By comparison, A.J. Foyt works the black gang in the hold of a ship for his money, Franco Harris is a steeplejack walking steel beams in 100 m.p.h. winds by comparison.
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Foyt drive 500 miles at a crack for his millions. Don Prudhomme drives 1,300 feet. Foyt’s drives laid end to end would probably stretch around the world several times. Prudhomme’s wouldn’t take you to the drugstore. Some people take longer to back out of the driveway than he does to win 30 grand.
And, talk about fuel eliminating! Some Indianapolis 500 cars get 2.8 miles to the gallon. Stocks get four. Dragsters get 188 feet to the gallon. They use up seven gallons every six seconds, every quarter-mile run. This is undoubtedly the most expensive 1,320 feet in the world. Because drag fuel costs $7 a gallon. Since the car starts with 11 gallons on the start line, and proceeds to use it all up at the rate of nearly two gallons per second, a run is really a drag for the party paying the fuel bills. I mean, how would you like to have to say “Fill it up” every six seconds?
They call Don Prudhomme “The Snake,” because of the speed with which he strikes at the start line. Also, because he is so cool, he seems to have no body temperature.
He is the best there is at his sport. He is the only man in history to break the 6-second standard in his specialty. His run of 5.98 seconds last year set the world record of 241.43 m.p.h.
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Drag racing is a sport in which a guy comes out with a machine that looks like a cross between a praying mantis with baby carriage wheels, and/or a giraffe who has just been beat over the head and sprawled forward, and they refer to these Martian vehicles simply as “dragsters: or “fuel eliminators.” They look more suitable for a moonwalk than a race.
Then, they come out with only slightly modified sedans which don’t look too dissimilar to street jalopies and these they call “funny cars.” The Snake” drives funny cars.
Drag racing is a sport which began on a strip along Sepulveda Blvd. at 2 o’clock in the morning back before the war where first prize was a night in jail and the clockers were cops. It has grown into a $3 million run for the money each year, and more than 5.3 million people paid to see it last year, an astonishing turnout for a sport in which the hero is a sparkplug and the action goes by so fast it makes the one-round knockout seem like a marathon.
The U.S. Army is The Snake’s principal sponsor and his car is a 240-m.p.h. recruiting poster, a far cry from the old “Uncle Same Wants You” cardboard cutouts in the post offices. But, the Army gets in a lot more winning circles with Prudhomme than it does with the State Department.
The Snake won six of eight “nationals,” or major tournaments last year, and the world championship points in his sport. You might say he’s the Jack Nicklaus of drag racing – except that Jack walks five miles a day for four days for his money. The distance Snake goes would probably be just a full drive or a spoon and an eight iron for Jack.
The Snake will defend his championship at the Pomona Winternationals this weekend. He has a full year ahead of him. Upgrading his appearances as defending champ, he may have to work as much as a full 80 seconds this year.
Reprinted with permission by the Los Angeles Times.
Courtesy of:
Jim Murray Memorial Foundation
P.O. Box 995
La Quinta, CA 92247-0995
Ph/Fx: 760-771-8972
E: Murrayscholars@aol.com
www.jimmurrayfoundation.org
Friday, June 27, 2008
Norwalk, and The Big Dig
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We’ve all heard the fable of the little Dutch boy who used his finger to plug a leaking dike in Holland and remained there all night to save the land.
Well, the NHRA Safety Safari and Summit Motorsports Park team could have used an army of him and probably still lost the battle with Mother Nature that they waged for more than five hours late Friday afternoon.
Action was halted just before 4 p.m., early in the event’s first Pro Stock session, as rainwater, heated by a steamy day, percolated up through cracks and expansion joints in the asphalt shutdown area and puddled in numerous areas.
After a torrential week and a half of rain – 13 inches in the last 10 days according to track owner Bill Bader Sr. – the saturated soil beneath the track finally said “Enough” and up it came in more than dozen spots.
NHRA and Norwalk workers initially mopped, dried, vacuumed, blew, and toiled over the water, but every time that they cleared a crack, the water quickly seeped topside.
It was like a nightmarish game of Whack-A-Mole as water kept reappearing or popping up in other places every time backs were turned.
To make matters worse, a huge rainstorm was bearing down on the facility that only promised to add to our woes.
The great thing about the people in the sport is their vast expertise. Jim Head, an engineer by trade, weighed in with his opinion on how to improve the drainage. After a Caterpillar unit on display on the Manufacturers Midway was brought to the scene, Top Alcohol Funny Car champ Frank Manzo, who runs a construction business, hopped aboard and commenced the digging before being replaced later by a local Cat dealer. A large trench a couple of hundred feet long – and several perpendicular to the track -- was dug alongside the right guardwall to give the water somewhere to run to from under the track. Grooves also were recut horizontally in the track to aid the blowing of water to the trench.
Every manner of sweeping and track drying, flame-throwing equipment was put into action to repeatedly go over the areas, and when the anticipated storm fizzled and drifted south, things looked promising.
So typical of his nature, Bader himself was not only supervising but was hands on as well, helping vacuum water out of holes drilled through the surface.
“In my entire history I’ve never seen the volume of water come up through the racetrack that I have seen today,” he said later. Bader has owned the track since 1974.
Just as it looked like the situation was under control and NHRA Senior Vice President-Racing Operations Graham Light had issued a 10-minute alert, water also was coming up at places on the actual quarter-mile, which also were quickly attended to, but, again, at this point it seemed like a losing battle was being waged.
As night set in and no complete resolution was in sight, NHRA officials made the decision at about 9:15 that, in consideration for the safety of the competitors, racing was done for the day.
A heartsick Bader got onto the PA and made and long and passionate apology to the fans who have helped the track grow over the years and guaranteed fans a complete voucher for the day and then turned loose an impressive fireworks display as a final "thank you" to the fans who sat patiently for hours waiting for the action to resume.
Tomorrow's going to be a busy day as we play catch up, but it won't be from the lack of effort after an heroic day of trying to plug the unpluggable.
Friday, June 27, 2008
Return to Norwalk
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The old place sure looks different than it did in the 1980s, when the right-lane grandstands were about 30 rows high. From my vantage point in the media center, which is just behind the starting line on the left side, I can see the staging lanes where 24 years ago this summer I excitedly/worriedly buckled up into Frank and Linda Mazi’s supercharged Opel for my first passes toward earning an NHRA license in Competition Eliminator. You can read the entire two-part story that ran later that year in National DRAGSTER here, on Dawn Mazi-Hovsepian’s site. She did a great job of recreating the article the photos (many of which she took), and you can get a glimpse of 1984 Norwalk in a few of the pics and a look at a (much) younger me. Ah, those were the days.
The first order of business was to track down Bill Bader Sr., who had been so gracious to me way back then and allowed us to make the licensing runs at his track, risking financial ruin and ridicule to let the kid behind the wheel of that wild machine when people were probably asking him and Frank the drag racing equivalent of "You’re gonna send a kid like this up in a crate like that?” I’ve known and liked Bill for years (even when he was Mr. IHRA) and took to heart his reprimand for missing last year’s inaugural event here.
I asked for him in the main office, and the girl looked at me as if I’d asked if Kermit the Frog were in.
No, Bill Sr. was “out among ‘em,” as we like to say and, as I could have expected, catering to the “Norwalk experience,” no doubt, and making sure everyone is having a good time and have what they need. I made a quick lap of the pits, figuring I could spot him by the huge crowd of people swarming around him but came up empty. I did get to ogle the 30-deep line for the infamous “pound of ice cream for a dollar” booth and the “Roast Beef Sundae” offering: mashed potatoes, roast beef, and gravy in a sundae-like bowl topped with a cherry tomato. Brilliant idea. (Update: Little Brad just brought a pound of ice cream to me and 'Dida in the pressroom, melting all the way -- the ice cream, not Brad. What a guy!)
I rode back to the media center with Jim O. and Hillary Will, who were heading off to a drivers meeting and, having not been in E-Town, was able to express my condolences for the loss of Scott.
I ran into Bill Jr., got a warm family-like hug, and asked where his dad might be. “He’s probably out there somewhere grading a road,” he said pointing out onto the grounds. “You know him.” He promised to send the Big Kahuna my way when he finds him.
It’s great to be here, and some of the team are really glad to be here after their travel nightmares yesterday. Photogs Teresa Long and Marc Gewertz had flown out of Orange County (Calif.) yesterday morning at 6:45 a.m., heading to Chicago and then on to Cleveland, and planned to be here in time for the Kalitta memorial service at 7 p.m. Me, Little Bradfield, and ‘Dida were stuck on a 12:40 p.m. flight out of Ontario to Phoenix, where we had a two-hour layover and then a four-hour flight that was scheduled to arrive in Cleveland at 11 p.m. We were all quite envious that the photo team would be here, get to attend the memorial, and probably be in bed before we arrived.
That envy lasted until Brad checked in with Marc and found out that, after a two-hour wait on the runway, their flight out of Chicago had been canceled – it was raining like hell in Cleveland – and that their options at that point were very limited: try to get on the one later flight, on standby, or fly this morning on a flight that went first to New York and then back to Cleveland, with both legs also on standby. Slim odds either way.
They opted instead to drive from Chicago to Cleveland, a good six-plus-hour drive, and waited for their luggage to be offloaded “in about an hour.” The hour came and went as did their hopes for a good night’s sleep. They were joined in their misery by Susie Arnold, longtime publicist for Kenny Bernstein, who finally stepped to the plate and offered a cool $100 to one of the airline workers to “expedite” the retrieval of their three pieces of luggage.
They grabbed a rental car and headed out for the long ride. We, meanwhile, were just preparing to board to Cleveland and figured we faced an unknown destination once airborne. Columbus? Cincinnati? Indy?
Well, turns out we had zero problems and even arrived ahead of schedule. I called Teresa to gloat and learned they were still three or four hours out. Seems like the early bird got the worm indeed. She had been up since 3:45 a.m. Thursday to drive from her home near NHRA headquarters down to the OC airport, and it was now looking like a 24-hour day. For Marc, this was the second straight year he had been forced to drive from Chicago to Cleveland for this event, so I guess I won’t be booking my flight with him next year.
We finally rolled into our hotel – the fabulous waterpark-themed Kalahari Resort in Sandusky, Ohio – about 12:30 a.m., checked in, and made sure that Teresa’s room was going to be held for her. She wouldn’t arrive for another three-plus hours, and she and Marc didn’t hit the rack (separately, of course) until 5 a.m., but they were out here bright and early for today.
Speaking of today, and even this weekend, looks like I might get the unfortunate opportunity to reprise my Bristol rainy-day blog. There’s reportedly a major storm headed this way for early evening, so the chances of getting in both sessions seem dubious. Bill Jr. told me they’ve had five inches of rain here since last Friday. The rest of the weekend is apparently going to be a weather crapshoot, but we’ll hang tough and keep you in the know.
I may update this entry if and when that happens, so check back later.
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Wednesday mash-up
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I’m proud to debut here this week’s cover, a fitting tribute to Scott and to the winners of the event. It’s always a challenge to put together a cover that has to speak not just for the event but also for the significance of the event, and few people will remember Englishtown 2008 without thinking about Scott. We found the perfect photo of Scott to accompany the great selection of images of the winners from the event, including Tony Schumacher and Alan Johnson sharing the Top Fuel trophy with Jim and Jon Oberhofer and Greg Anderson looking up and thinking of Scotty.
I knew all along I wanted something with Scott on it. We played with a few ideas and how to portray Scott, and we all really liked this smiling image. It's how I think we all want to remember him. It was originally a color photo, but we converted it to black and white, and the impact and juxtaposition with the color winners photos just feels right.
It may be the last time Scott ever appears on a National DRAGSTER cover – he’s been on it about a dozen times during the years – and we wanted to get it right.
I’m also proud that my Monday column on Scott had the desired impact on so many of you who took the time to share with me your thoughts. Thank you.
I also want to share this great photo of Scott that I got from Bret Kepner. Many of you know him from his television work on various drag racing categories, and we’ve been friends for a long time (dating back to the infamous 1,000-foot club at Indy) as Bret also is a very good drag racing journalist and historian (and, as “Mr. Dirt,” a pretty damned good bracket racer, too). It’s a great photo of Scott, and when I hear Bret tell the story, I can almost hear Scott.
“I was doing interviews at the last turn at Dallas for the Pro Modified TV show in 2003 when Scott Kalitta beat Doug Kalitta in the semifinals with an historic 4.50, 333.95,” he recalls. "As he jumped out of the car, I pulled a little point 'n' shoot camera from my pocket as I went up to Scott to congratulate him. As I reached out to shake his hand, I held the viewfinder to my eye while I jokingly announced, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, I present the fastest man in the world ... Scott Kalitta! He responded with a loud, drawn-out, ‘Hell, yeeeaaahhh!’ when I snapped the shot.”
It’s perfect. Thanks, Bret.
Anyway, I’m actually writing this Tuesday night at about 7 so I can post it first thing Wednesday. In addition to pulling together Bits from the Pits first thing Wednesday – we always hold off until the final day to get in whatever breaking news we can – and going over my notes from my interview with Mike Dunn for his hugely popular Final Take column, in which this week he shares his memories of Scott, I have a ton of last-minute things to do before I head out Thursday to Norwalk, and I’m going to lose the entire afternoon Wednesday to an NHRA.com meeting about some major, major things we plan to implement hopefully later this year or very early in 2009.
So, speaking of Dunn ... as I was looking through my files for a story to entertain you guys with today, I remembered this great tale that Mike shared with me a few weeks ago about a crazy match race back in the early 1980s, when things were a little different out there. I think Scott would have enjoyed it, and I hope you do, too.
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“We were running a match race one time in Rockford, Ill., on Father's Day as I recall, and I was driving for Roland [Leong], so this was 1981 or ’82. After two rounds, Billy Meyer and I ended up in the final round, but it started to rain. Now, I’m not talking about a light drizzle; I’m talking about a steady rain.
“The [promoter] told us that if we wanted our money, we had to run the final. We told him, ‘We’re not going to run in the rain,’ and he said, ‘Then you’re not getting paid.’ So we raced.
“We went up there and I tried to do a burnout, but the track was so wet it couldn’t build enough heat to even smoke the tires. I was probably in the throttle 10 seconds just to get to the Tree. I backed up and got ready to stage, and Roland was signaling me to put it in high gear for the launch to try to calm it down. I did a dry hop in high gear, but it still spun. I knew it was going to spin the tires no matter how I launched, but I thought if it was in high gear the wheel speed but be too high to drive, so I put it in low. I found out later that Billy left in high gear.
“The light turned green, and I just kind of rolled into the throttle, and when I got to the end of the concrete pad – which was only about 50 feet long – I put it in high and rolled into the throttle a little more. I got to about half-track and was zipping along pretty good, maybe going 120 to 130 mph, and I could hear Billy behind me getting really loose – whoop, whoop, whoop.
"Then it hit me: How am I going to stop this thing? So I lifted. Billy, who was sideways and all over the place, saw me lift and got back onto it and came flying by me. He lifted right as he got to me. I was like, ‘What?!” and got back into the throttle one more time. He heard me, so he hit his throttle again. He probably went through the lights at 120, and when he hit the brakes it actually sped up because it was raining and he was on slicks. He had to pull the chutes and barely got stopped before the end of the racetrack.
"I did some stupid things driving in my early days like not lifting when I should have because I was only 25 years old and didn’t want to lose a race – even a match race, whether it paid more or not to win --- but that was one time I made the right decision.”
Response to last Wednesday’s request for your favorite race car has been overwhelming, and the e-mails keep pouring in. There’s a huge variety of selections and great tales to share.
Because there are so many choices (and many of you submitted a dozen or more spanning all eras), I’ve decided that I need to break it down a little bit.
The plan is to go through them all and pick the 16 most popular choices in several categories, such as by decades or by class – I don’t have all of the details worked out yet -- then hold a series of polls to develop a final 16 somehow. You guys really made this very difficult on me. Thanks.
Anyway, once we have a “field” of 16, we’ll begin the final polling (or maybe even series of eliminations polls, from 16 to eight and possibly even four and two) to select the people’s choice.
Okay, that's it for now. I'll check in with you guys Friday from Norwalk, where I haven't been for, oh, 24 years ... if you don't remember why I was last in Norwalk -- and even if you do -- you'll probably enjoy reading this: Altered States.
Monday, June 23, 2008
So long, Scott ...
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The kid who everyone in the pits used to jokingly refer to as “Eddie Munster” for his passing resemblance to the kid from the TV show grew up to be a world-class racer, a two-time NHRA world champ, a husband, a father, and, yes, a monster on the track.
I heard it said over and over again this weekend that Scott was a racer’s racer, and in that fraternity, there’s probably no bigger compliment. Scott would race you hard, but he’d race you fair. He’d hate you on the starting line but bust out the brewskis with you later that night.
I think that because he grew up in the sport, it makes it that much tougher for everyone who saw him go from an eager young wrench-twister, working on Shirley Muldowney’s car or his dad’s cars, to becoming a world champ. Guys like Don Prudhomme and Kenny Bernstein and Jim Dunn could chuckle to themselves watching this hungry young lion looking for seat time and wanting to be the next big thing and then watching him become it.
My endearing memory of Scott is seeing him walk around the pit area always wearing – at minimum – his fire boots, and usually his entire firesuit, off to the waist with the arms tied around his middle. Where some might have thought that to be the act of a poseur, I always thought Scott wore it as a badge of honor, a badge of pride. He was a legitimate fuel racer, and maybe, perhaps like Cinderella’s slipper, those boots remained on so that the dream would, too.
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Mike Dunn made a point on this weekend’s ESPN2 shows to talk about how much his famous father, Connie, respected Scott’s driving ability. It’s no secret that the two sometimes, especially in Scott’s earlier years, fought like cats and dogs, but the kid did the old man proud. Connie’s a tough sumbitch, no doubt, but you know he’s hurting, and we hurt with him. It seems that we were barely able to finally tuck away our grief at the loss of Doug Hebert’s boys, and then this. It’s the old saying that parents aren’t supposed to have to bury their kids, and, as a father, I can’t even bear to begin to think about thinking of that prospect.
As any parents will tell you, when their kids take off in the family car and don’t check in at the expected time, the worry is of monumental proportions. When Scott took the family car, it wasn’t to tool down to the Dairy Queen for a Blizzard, but they both knew that and respected the risks that are endemic to any motorsport.
I wasn’t in Englishtown this weekend, and I’m glad for that. Because I was home, I was able to drive into the office late Saturday night and build a Scott Kalitta tribute page for NHRA.com. It’s a sad ritual I’ve now done three times – for Scott, and before that for Eric Medlen and Wally Parks – but it’s kind of peaceful to be sitting in my office with no one else here, thinking of ways to honor the fallen. It was unbearably hot in L.A. Saturday and because the building was empty, the air conditioning wasn’t on. It was a bajillion degrees inside, so I stole a fan from the National DRAGSTER library room, stuck it on my desk about a foot from my face, turned it on, and let the memories of Scott wash over me.
I had grabbed his rather thick collection of files from the photo library and thumbed through them and came across the images you see here, which brought a smile to my face.
Cory McClenathan and Scott were good buddies and spent 1994 – Scott’s first championship year -- trying to one-up one another in the practical-joke department.
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“Scott and I were great friends,” Cory Mac told me today as he sadly piloted his motorhome toward Indy, “and back in our early days, we were always at each other for number 1 and 2. Dick LaHaie was his crew chief and Jimmy Prock mine, and those two guys were great friends, too. Back then, we all used to travel with the rigs, and without sponsors to worry about, pretty much everything was fair game, and money was no object. He didn’t play fair, so I didn’t either.”
Cory Mac had a lot of help from the Oberhofers, Jim and Jon, on Kalitta’s team in pulling off the pranks.
“One of my favorite was in Atlanta, I think,” Cory recalls. “I had Simpson make me up a pair of pink parachutes, and had ‘I [heart] Cory Mac’ sewn on it. They snuck them onto Scott's car, and he didn’t see it until he got out of the car after he'd pulled them.”
There’s also this little episode, from the 1994 Englishtown race, where this aerial message was displayed to the crowd, courtesy of Cory Mac and his assistant, Ellen.
Scott, of course, had his comebacks.
“Probably the one that he got me best was when I checked into my hotel one day,” recalls McClenathan. “We always used to stay at the same hotels, and I was in the bathroom putting away my toiletries when I noticed that the shower curtain was closed. I’ve never walked into a hotel room where the shower curtain was closed, so I was already a little leery. I could make out a shadow behind the curtain. I was like, ‘You gotta be [kidding] me.’ I pulled back the curtain, and there was a cardboard stand-up of Joe Amato. It scared the crap outta me, and I jumped back 10 feet.
“Another time I had lost a bet to him for something, and he made me go up to the starting line to accept my No. 1 qualifier award at some race holding a giant pink bunny. He’d also make up bumper stickers and fake handouts of me that said 'I love Scott Kalitta’and give them to fans to bring down to me to sign. It was always good fun, and there was always a group of crew guys standing around waiting to see the reactions on our faces.”
Sunday in Englishtown was hard on everyone. You could see it on the faces of the drivers and owners and crewmembers and hear it in their voices, but it was also good to hear Jim O say that they spent a lot of time laughing about memories of Scott.
No moment was more touching moment than when Robert Hight pulled his Mustang into the right lane for his bye run when Scott should have been in the other lane. The various Kalitta teammembers still on hand stood in for Scott in his lane, some of them holding hands – Hillary Will between Jim O and Jon O – and Hight, in a stirring salute to his fallen comrade, idled his car down the lane. There were no concerns about getting lane choice for the next round, for this was about more than winning a round or a race.
I’d read hours before about Hight’s actions – of his own making, with the approval of team owner John Force and crew chief Prock --- and knew what was to come as I watched him stage on TV, but even still it choked me up something fierce. I remember a similar moment, at the 1996 U.S. Nationals, when the No. 16 qualifier, scheduled to run Blaine Johnson, who had died on the pass that pushed him to the No. 1 spot, also idled down the track in round one. That driver was Tony Schumacher, who was just getting his feet wet in a nitro dragster, at the wheel of the Peek Bros. car.
It was somehow fitting then that Schumacher won Top Fuel, and, as always, he was gracious in victory and eloquent in his comments about Scott and about how his Army friends had asked him to win the race for Connie, whose airplanes routinely carry out the sad task of bringing home the remains of our fallen soldiers.
It was fitting, too, that Tim Wilkerson won Funny Car, as his own son, Daniel, is following in his dad’s footsteps, as Scott did Connie's. It might have been a touch nicer to have Mike Neff beat "Wilk" in the final, as Neff’s crew chief is John Medlen, Eric’s father. "Wilk" dedicated the win to fathers everywhere, and we all felt a twinge.
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Scott left behind a loving wife and sons and a tremendous legacy. It will live on in his team and in the future wins of Hillary, who cited Scott’s tutelage as instrumental in her fuel dragster progress, and it makes me feel good to know that he was with us long enough to see her win.
It will live on anytime someone sees a driver manhandle a Funny Car back on course and gallantly stand back on the throttle.
It will live on for as long as the sport does, for as long as champions are crowned and their names go into the history books next to his.
If there’s a heaven, and I believe there is, Scott’s saddling up next to Eric Medlen right now, with Blaine and Darrell next in line, on a quarter-mile of smooth, tacky racetrack. He’s reached the finish line on this earth, but he races on for eternity, in our hearts and in our memories.
So long, Scott. And thanks.
Friday, June 20, 2008
They left their hearts in San Fernando
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Four days each week, in the modest
But more than 50 years ago, beginning in 1955 through 1969 on this same patch of land, it was dragsters and door cars that were unloaded and shown off to eager customers at a friendly little place known as San Fernando Raceway.
In the long and proud lore that surrounds early Southern California dragstrips, a lot of attention has been paid to legendary facilities such as
Those who ran there, those who watched there, and those who worked there remember it fondly as a little place where anything could happen -- and usually did. Whether it was the unveiling of a new and untested technology, a record-breaking run, or a misguided airplane landing on the strip, something was always happening at the place affectionately known by locals as “the Pond.”
(There was no pond at “the Pond”; the name originated by a racer whose name has been lost to time who said he would rather race at San Fernando than at a more competitive venue such as Lions because at San Fernando he was “a big fish in a small pond,” and once local Olds gasser favorite Dick Harriman proclaimed himself the ”big fish,” the name stuck.)
We’re fortunate that one of the principals of San Fernando Raceway was Harry Hibler, a former hard-luck Top Fuel racer (dubbed “Hand Grenade Harry” for the sometimes explosive nature of his rides) who later became an icon in our publishing world during a 30-plus-year career at Petersen Publishing, where he was the longtime publisher of Hot Rod magazine and thus knows a thing or two about storytelling.
Hibler, a member of the SEMA Industry Hall of Fame, was a tech inspector at the track under the stewardship of Frank Huszar and co-manager (and LAPD officer) Darrell Morgan from 1955 until 1960, when he became the manager. He was the manager until the strip closed in 1969 and provided me with vivid details about the track.
San Fernando Raceway was one of the first purpose-built dragstrips in the country and pre-dated the opening of Lions by a few months. Fritz Burns and Bill Hannon, land developers of such projects as Panorama City, Marina del Rey, and several hotel complexes, owned a parcel of land next to the old San Fernando Airport and built the racetrack in 1955 after Huszar, owner of the famed RCS chassis shop, convinced them and Los Angeles city officials to help find a way to combat the rising scourge of street racing.
“There were several unique features that set ‘the Pond’ apart from most tracks [then and now],” he said. “First of all, the spectator parking lot sat about six to eight feet above the 'hot car' pits and the track itself, so spectators could sit in or on their cars and watch the show or sit in the stands that were located near the starting line.
“The other unique feature and one that was a bit unnerving to some of the drivers running there for the first time was the fact that the track actually went under a bridge at the end of the shutoff area. In fact, the sand trap was located under the bridge, which was nice since it was protected in case of rain. The total length of 'the Pond' was actually more than
“One other thing 'the Pond' had that was great, especially for new drivers, the left-hand side of the track was lined with bushy-type trees that were tall enough for a driver to use as a reference point when he was ‘smoked in,’ but no one who ever drove into them was ever injured. Also, the trees stopped at the finish line, so a driver also knew when to pull the chute. The real reason for the trees being planted where they were was to act as a noise barrier, but you know racers always improvise.”
In addition to being the track manager, Hibler was the ambulance driver, not only for the dragstrip but also in the event of a mishap at the airport; when the ambulance had to run next door to the airport, all racing had to stop.
And even though the racetrack was equipped with the required FAA markings to keep pilots from landing on the quarter-mile, sometimes a wayward pilot would try to land on the dragstrip, sometimes when the cars were running!
“I have heard a lot of stories about the plane that landed on the track during a run by Tony Nancy,” he said. “The fact is the plane did touch down just after Tony cleared the lights, so it didn’t miss Tony's parachute by more than a few feet. The FAA official in that area caught up with me and had me identify the plane and sign a document as such and promptly pulled the pilot’s license.
"Over the years at San Fernando, we had one plane land/crash upside down in the spectator parking lot, two that caught their wheels in the wires at the end of the runway, one that blew a tire on landing and nosed over, and one whose left wheel brake locked when it landed and wound up crashing into one of the commercial buildings at the side of the airport and catching fire.”
Hibler, himself a racer when he was hired, was a racer’s kind of track manager and showed it in many ways. He not only helped racers work on their cars and aided them in borrowing parts from their competitors, but he also warmed their cars when their drivers were MIA and, on occasion, though it was against his orders, would even make a run for a team, not telling his own staff “so they wouldn’t get in trouble if I got caught.”
He never aligned the track with any sanctioning body that courted them because, through the owners, he had plenty of good insurance (which back then was the prime benefit of sanctioning-body affiliation), and as an independent track, they could adapt existing rules to better suit their needs. The track was open for testing during NHRA’s fuel ban and welcomed racers who wanted to try their new innovations that other track managers shied away from as long as they followed the track’s guidelines.
Dick Landy tested his first altered-wheelbase car at "the Pond," and Hibler helped Jim Deist assess the correct mounting location for the parachutes on the first Dodge Chargers “funny cars.”
“We took the car to 'the Pond' one evening, and Jim drove while I rode in the trunk, and when he knocked on the floor, I pulled the release. The first couple of passes, the chutes didn’t deploy well because of where they were mounted, but before he headed back to his shop, we had worked out the details for both the mounting and release positing. My only comment on this is: I should have been strapped in when the chutes finally opened.”
“ 'The Pond' was a place where the racers went to try new ideas out and to compete, but as much as anything else, to have fun,” he continued. “One Sunday, present were the teams of Don Moody and Dave Zeuschel and John Wenderski and Ronnie Winkel. Somehow, in the usual banter about competing, someone said that some of the drivers could build engines, but engine builders could never drive. One thing lead to another, and so I put together a race with Zeuschel driving their car and Winkel driving their car. This turned out to be the highlight of the day as each one of them was in and out of the throttle several times during the run: smoking the tires, lifting, smoking the tires, etc. Everyone there enjoyed this action, from the racers to the spectators, so we repeated this scenario on other occasions.
“Another thing: We always believed the racers were the show, and none of the dragsters, altereds, etc. ever paid to get in the gate. We also had another tradition I don’t know any other track had: Every month, we gave 3,000 general admission tickets to a charity, and they got to keep all of the money they raised from selling the tickets."
“We did in three hours what most tracks did in eight or more hours,” Hibler said proudly. “We ran an eight-car Top Eliminator. Top Gas, and Little Eliminator open shows every Sunday in addition to all of the classes. Everyone showed up early and made runs with the headers closed until 12:30, then they all uncorked until 3:30, and the stock classes then corked up and did eliminations. The racers all knew the drill, so they sometimes watched the clock closer than I did and even went so far as to help a competitor get back to the line in time.
“Our average total number of cars competing each Sunday was over 400 ‘street’ (stock, modified, etc.) cars and 30 to 40 ‘hot’ cars (AA/F, AA/A, etc.). The most outstanding day I can recall was after two weeks of the annual PDA meet at Lions being rained out on Saturday night along with Irwindale,
“One of the people I respected most in the sport was 'Pappy' Hart, and every time we got together, his first question was, 'How do you get so many cars down the track in three hours?' I don’t believe I ever really answered his question.”
Tom Jobe, a third of the successful 1960s Top Fuel team the Surfers – along with Mike Sorokin and Bob Skinner – who were regulars at San Fernando, remains in awe of Hibler’s efficiency.
“How Harry Hibler could run that show so well without a harsh word to anyone always dazzled me,” he said. “Legendary stuff, done by a legendary guy.
“We always tried to race two days a week if possible to try out our ideas and get in more experience. That often meant running at
“For anyone that missed the
“The local [noise ordinance] made for a quick three-hour thrash to warm it up, get in a qualifying pass, and make the three runs of an eight-car show (assuming you got to the final round). This might sound hectic, but it was no big deal for most of the competitors. The toughest part of the deal was the ferocious competition you faced and the fact that there was no break rule in those days, so when you got beat, you were done for the day.
"Life's worst fear? In my mind was getting paired up with Brissette's car in the first round because you knew Brissette's car could make one pass hazing the tires right through the lights going five or 10 mph faster than any other car at the track had ever gone ... no one was ‘saving it for tomorrow’ because everyone had at least five whole days and nights to get ready for the next weekend.”
(One memorable story about the Surfers at "the Pond" that Hibler recalls was the team winning Top Fuel one day with a cardboard patch duct-taped over a hole in the block. They ran the final with a couple of cylinders with no pistons in them.)
The Brissette car that Jobe referenced was the Brissette & Sutherland entry, tuned by still-active nitro wrench Jim Brissette and driven by Paul "the Kid" Sutherland, who were the scourge of local Top Fuel racing and at San Fernando made a still-well-remembered world-record pass of 219.54 on Oct. 3, 1965 after running 216.34 the weekend before. "The rest of us were hard-pressed to run 209," recalls Jobe.
Still, track management had other challenges beyond errant airplanes. The track had just eight paid employees (the remainder who helped run the events were volunteers) and operated on a pretty low budget, and although Top Fuel paid $250 (and a case of oil) to win, some racers were beginning to find it hard to make ends meet.
Hibler – “everyone’s hero,” as Jobe dubbed him – displayed the skills that later would make him a great advertising salesperson as he hustled up giveaway products, including oil, spark plugs, tools, and other goodies, to supplement the winnings, and sometimes he even dug into his own pocket “to give a racer 25 or 30 bucks to get home on.”
For the Surfers, that tipping-over point came in 1966. “It was a very sad day when our per-run cost got to $62.50 and we had to win just to break even,” said Jobe. “We never went back to
The Surfers weren’t the only ones feeling the pinch of the increasing cost of being competitive. Gradually, the number of cars competing at "the Pond" dropped to 10 to 15 fuel and gas dragsters.
“The good news then was that there were so many cars that were always being built and tuned that there was always a good show at 'the Pond,' but the name guys were harder to get there simply because they could make more money at other tracks,” said Hibler.
Yet the fans loved the place. Steve Quercio, who was John Force’s earliest marketing guy and who sold Drag News at
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Cliff Morgan, who has been a fan for decades and corresponding with National DRAGSTER for as long as I’ve been here, grew up in nearby
“I went to a lot of other tracks, like San Gabe, Lions, Irwindale, OCIR,
“One race that comes to memory was Barry Kaplan in the Super K Jr. Fueler running against Don Prudhomme’s AA/FD in late 1968. ‘The Snake’ had debuted the car at that race, ran a 7.49 half pass. Anyhoo, they raced in Top Fuel, and ‘the Snake’ got sideways and had to shut off, so Kaplan won. Everyone talked about that for weeks! The track closed in 1969. We went out there one day, and the gate was padlocked. Next week, the same thing. No last race; it just closed, and that was that.”
For 15 seasons, San Fernando carved a legacy all its own, but, as was the case with just about every Southern California track, the region’s urbanization spelled a death knell for "the Pond," and other factors contributed to its late-1969 closing.
“There were more people moving in around the track to live, and as a whole, they were becoming more and more hostile about the noise,” recalls Hibler. “The other main reason it closed when it did is because construction had started on the 210 freeway, and there was between 300,000 and 400,000 yards of dirt to get rid of. The track owners made a deal for them to dump it, grade it, and compact it on the racetrack itself, which resulted in leveling the entire property off with the parking lot level and increasing the value of the place by a couple of million dollars. They cut the deal as a last-minute thing and had to start accepting the dirt immediately, so they told me to just shut it down.”
Twelve-year-old Wallace Jr., working the main pit gate at
My journalism colleague and historical go-to guy, Dave Wallace Jr., who probably has forgotten more history than this column will ever print, worked at San Fernando beginning at age 12 (and supplied info and many of the photos that accompany this article from his own and Hibler’s files), also blames another source for the drag racing’s racer and fan doldrums: the Vietnam War.
“More than 2.5 million of us served there,” Wallace said. “The peak occurred at this very time (1969), with more than 500,000 troops there simultaneously. Moreover, for every serviceman actually stationed there, approximately 2.5 others were necessary in ‘support’ roles. By the end of 1969, the Vietnam-era draft had been going hot 'n' heavy for more than five years. Starting around late '67, you could see the results by declining numbers of spectators and, especially, stockers in the staging lanes. LBJ started drafting virtually every able-bodied male who hadn't carried 12-plus units -- continuously -- of college immediately following high school. Full-time college students were exempt, so the vast majority of soldiers were, like me, lower-to-middle-class, blue-collar kids, averaging 19 years ‘old.’ Needless to say, that's the same group of baby boomers responsible for booming drag racing and muscle cars in the mid- to late '60s. All of this affected ALL dragstrips, but the smaller tracks were more vulnerable because they depended more heavily on the 'back' gate (vs. spectator income from pro shows).”
“Over the years, 
Hibler loved his racers and, until the bitter end, no one fretted more about their safety than he.
The good times at San Fernando Raceway may have ended and the laughter died a little bit when the track did, but it’s clear that the memories live on in the hearts of those who left theirs at
Wallace stopped by the former site of San Fernando Raceway earlier this year during an "off" day for the swap meet that now operates there. (Top left) The main sign on Glenoaks Boulevard used to promote the drag races; the protruding, square section used to read "Every Sunday!" (Top right) The racing surface bordered the wash and fenceline. (Above) The snack bar and restroom still are in their original locations.
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Calling all fans: Pick your fave!
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Which, as usual, got me to thinking …
This being an election year and all, I think it’s high time that the drag racing electorate nominates its all-time favorite drag racing machine. And what better place to begin the vote than in this column, with some of the most knowledgeable drag racing fans in the kingdom.
So, dear readers, here’s my challenge to you. Drop me an e-mail at the address above, telling me not only which is your all-time favorite drag racing vehicle but why. Please be as specific as possible, including personal remembrances, etc. The more you write, the better your chances.
So, one might ask, what criteria should one invoke in such a noble and important selection process? Glad you asked.
First off, go with your heart. Was there a particular car you always rooted for because of sentimental reasons? Maybe the driver or crew was kind to you or maybe it reminded you of your first car or the first model you ever built all by yourself. I always had a soft spot for Pisano & Matsubara because of the latter.
Perhaps it’s a brand-loyalty thing; maybe you grew up helping your dad work on his Mustang, so you’ve always had a soft spot for Fords.
Maybe it was just the paint scheme, eye-catchingly designed and artistically painted. Perhaps it was the body choice, a rare bird like a Jeep or a Lincoln Continental. Perhaps the sponsor or the car name meant something to you.
Maybe it was the car’s performance, how it always kicked ass and took names. Or maybe it was the driver’s showmanship, with half-track burnouts and wheel-carrying passes.
Maybe it was a revolutionary or one-off car, like the Super Mustang, Jim Dunn’s rear-engine Barracuda flopper, Kenny Bernstein’s aero-influenced '84 Tempo Funny Car, Don Garlits’ Swamp Rat XXX or “Big’s” first rear-engine car, or Dick Jesse’s Mr. Unswitchable.
And don’t limit yourself to the traditional. Think motorcycles, wheelstanders, jets, and rocket cars as well.
For me, personally, it’s not hard to come up with a list that’s long and thorough. In no particular order: Don Prudhomme’s Army Monza (as bad as they came and my teenage hero); the Keeling & Clayton California Charger Top Fuelers (prettiest cars I ever saw); Mickey Thompson’s Revelleader Grand Am (swoopy and unique body style and ran like heck); the Warren & Coburn Rain for Rent Top Fueler (my other heroes, with a car to match); Don Schumacher’s first Wonder Wagon Vega (pretty and functional); “Wild Bill” Shrewsberry’s L.A. Dart wheelstander (a great showman and a bitchin' car); the Pat Foster-driven Chicago Patrol Funny Car (neat gimmick!) and Barry Setzer Vega (if you have to ask why, you haven’t been reading this column long enough); Bill Bagshaw’s Red-Light Bandit Pro Stocker (great colors, and he was from my hometown of Culver City, Calif.); Larry Huff’s Soapy Sales Funny Car (a real lowrider packed with pretty aero work, including Moon-type wheels); John Collins’ Pioneer Audio Express 280Z (looked racy and a clean paint scheme); I could go on and on, but you get the idea.
Feel free to crib from my list, or let it be the inspiration for yours. So sit back, close your eyes, remember your trips to the drags, and get busy with your lists. After a reasonable amount of time, I’ll compile a list of the top 10 or 20, and then we’ll hold a vote.
The power is yours. Write me here. Write me now!
Monday, June 16, 2008
More cursed Corvettes
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Our own roving lensman, Richard Brady, has been shooting NHRA race cars for five decades, so it’s no surprise that he’s been ringside to see the curse in action, as evidenced by this shot, which shows the ill-fated Invader Corvette mentioned in Friday’s column sending up some pretty serious smoke signals.
“I was the track photographer at what was my home track (then called Byron Dragway) that day in July," he said. "This show was the annual Manufacturers Fuel Funny Car Showdown, and the spectator appeal for this show was a sellout each year with spectators filling the stands on both sides of the track and also sitting on a high berm opposite the pits side. It was one of the best shows for your money, and all the greats were there.
“I recall that the Chi-Town Hustler, then driven by Pat Minick, was to run the Invader Corvette car, driven by Gary Scow. After doing the usual crowd-pleasing burnouts and backing up, they both tripped the pre-stage blubs and sat there for what seemed like minutes, then moved into full stage and the Tree was activated, and they were off! It was close all the way, but as they neared the finish line, the Invader car blew the motor, catching the car and body on fire, and came to rest sideways at the end of the track.
"As the track photographer, I was allowed to keep my personal car right beside the tower in case I needed to get to a crash. I ran to my car (a beautiful ‘69 SS 4-speed big-block Chevelle) and made for the far end. As I neared the cars, the body was pretty engulfed in flames, but Scow was out of the car and being attended to by the far-end ambulance crew while other Funny Car drivers and crewmen struggled to rip the body off the car to save the chassis! Minick helped and so did Arnie Beswick, who was also at the event running his own car!
"I pulled up alongside but far enough away so as not to have my Chevelle in the way, left it running, got out and started shooting what was going on. It was by brute strength that these guys were able to rip the body off the chassis, and the last shot I took was of just the body laying on its roof burning. To my knowledge no was hurt or burned, but the sequence I shot was interesting to say the least.”
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Good e-pal Howard Hull, who grew up and worked at OCIR, remembers the Corvette curse.
“I remember Corvettes,” he reminisced, "the Mako Shark Funny Car sliding all over the track at OCIR. I remember going down to the top end and climbing up the hill to see the Funny Car on fire. It was like yesterday that ‘Goose was telling [track operator Bill] Doner, Steve Woomer, and a few other racers one Friday evening after qualifying over a vodka tonic how he thinks he fixed the airflow problem on his car. [Raymond] Beadle had the vodka; I went to the Irvine Store for the tonic and was a hero! Force’s Wendy’s 'Vette was quite a good car with Steve Plueger twisting the wrenches, but it was sideways with John driving it.”
He also had his own personal brush with the “women in the pits distracting the crew” legend.
“John Collins was racing and would let me help and learn on the car,” he remembered. “I was taking notes on why we would do different things and how the car would react to the changes in the engine, as in the case of the copper gaskets. John made the finals and had to change some pistons, so I went to work, and John replaced me with another guy who was working on other cars and thought he was God’s gift to women. I, of course, was pissed and stood by as he crimped a gasket and didn’t put the asbestos powder along it either. Why didn’t he do it correctly? He was busy flirting with the girls in the pits and joking and laughing. I pointed this out to one of the Condit brothers; he looked at me and just smiled. The car launched, and at about the 300-foot mark, the gasket pushed through, and the race was lost. Next race, the Condits asked me to help on their car!”
David Hapgood, senior field editor at draglist.com, whose initial letter sparked the Friday column, pointed out that, contrary to my report, Tom McEwen was not driving a Corvette when he finished 15th in the 1976 points but rather his red, white, and blue Duster.
“His first Corvette wasn't until 1977, that evil-handling yellow car you mention and the one you have pictured in the article,” he reports. “But McEwen didn't break the Corvette curse with that car, either: instead, he fared poorly at NHRA meets and crashed it off the end of the track at Thompson, Ohio, sometime in late July or early August, and the damage was heavy enough that he had to cancel match race dates for the next couple of weeks. It was his 1978 silver English Leather 'Vette that finally won Indy and did in the Corvette curse.”
Addressing the issue of getting into a car from one side or the other, column regular Don Roberts, who wheeled a variety of famous Top Fuelers and Funny Cars in the late 1960s and early 1970s, wrote, "In all the years I drove, and all the cars I drove, the only side of the car to get in was the driver left (sitting in the car) side. There was no other way to get in a car. No superstition, just the way it was.”
And why was that?
“I only did it because that is how I had seen all my heroes do it. I didn't want to change anything they did.
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The car that Roberts crashed was the infamous Jade Grenade Top Fueler (shown here, sadly, in black and white), which met its demise on this very windy day in Epping, N.H. The car, as you can see, had the front wheel pants, which later were outlawed as they were very susceptible to crosswinds and led to more than one crash.
“I do think the wheel pants had something to do with that car going over,” Roberts said. “During the 1975 season, there were accidents with cars that had wheel pants. Dick LaHaie had a very bad accident at Indy that year. At the end of the 1975 season, the wheel pants were legislated out. There were many cars that ran wheel pants that made runs that never had a problem. Wheel pants were a fashion statement of the mid-1970s, and, as with most fashion statements, you either loved them or disliked them. Now, if you ask Tom Ivo about wheel pants, he would tell you he never had a problem. He may have made more runs in different cars with wheel pants than anyone. I certainly believe what he says."
Interesting, for me, however, to note that Ivo’s car had the wheel pants on during his famous crash in Pomona in 1984.
And finally, speaking of green cars, reader Robert Nielson thought it appropriate to mention that the green-car jinx was an American thing.
“Green was used extensively in European racing; remember the color British Racing Green?” he wrote. “In the early 1960s, a couple of Indy cars broke the green superstition. Without doing any in-depth research, I do recall Jackie Stewart's Ford-powered Indy car having been painted British Racing Green, even though he was a Scotsman. I also recall that Andy Granatelli -- of STP and Indy fame -- was one of the more superstitious Indy car owners when it came to the color gr