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

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

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

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

Longtime NHRA Competition Director Steve Gibbs remembered the incident well.

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

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

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

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

Still, I think it’s pretty cool footage.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Al Hanna helped Shirl Greer into his borrowed equipment.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Check it out!

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

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

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

Check it out!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(Gregory Safchuk photo)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thanks for reading. See ya next week.