Well, devoted dudes and dames of dragdom's days distant, it's due time to dive back into the delectable depths of the DRAGSTER Photo Department drawers again, digging to discover dandy dragstrip diamonds to digitize and document to delight you demanding diehards.
Don't dawdle, Daddy-O. Disengage those daydreaming doldrums and despair, draw yourself a double daiquiri, if you dare, as your dedicated, dependable, dauntless, and determined drag detective delves deep to document this diversity and then doles out a delicatessen of dazzling dragly delights, downloaded and delivered directly to your desktop.
Guess which letter we're covering today … that's it! Destination D!
Gary Dye ran Top Fuel for 15 seasons out of the Chicago area, beginning in 1970 with a front-engined car after Don Prudhomme and Chris Karamesines signed his license at Rockford Dragway. This photo was shot in 1972 at a UDRA event at Quaker City Dragway in Salem, Ohio, where he lost in round one to Dick LaHaie. I tracked down Dye through the Internet and found that he retired from racing in 1981 and now is retired from his job as an engineer for Navistar International.
"I ran that front-engined car for about two years, then switched to the rear-engine car," he said. "Both cars were R&B chassis. I ran mostly with the UDRA. My first circuit win was in Coon Rapids, Minn., near Minneapolis. I beat Tom Hoover in his Ford overhead-cam-powered car in the final. I was runner-up in points two years straight (1975-76); Dick LaHaie was the points champ both of those years. We raced all over the Midwest with UDRA and also ran some Division 3 events. My last year of driving my own car was in 1979. I then drove another car for Steve Mugerhauer from Oshkosh, Wis., for two years and then retired.
"Those years of running the car were the best times of my life. I still watch the races on TV every weekend that they are on. My wife asked me one time if I would want to drive a Top Fuel car again. I told her if somebody wanted me to drive I would be there in a flash."
Today, Dye enjoys working in the radio-controlled-airplane field, a childhood passion. He does work for some of the manufacturers of large-scale radio-control models, writing instruction manuals for Yellow Aircraft, one of the largest manufacturers of scale models of World War II fighters and jet models, and he travels to numerous events around the Texas area to demonstrate them and promote sales. He also is a sponsored demo pilot for Horizon Hobby, one of the largest hobby supply houses.
He's also still into cars and has a '32 Plymouth three-window with a Corvette LT1 drivetrain.
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When I first came across this Ed Worley-snapped photo of Ben Diener and wife Mary posing with their injected dragster in the DeSoto Memorial Speedway winner's circle, I had two thoughts: 1) I suddenly feel very claustrophobic; and 2) I never heard of Diener. Turns out that this enclosed-cockpit dragster was quite a runner in Division 2 in the early 1970s, perpetually battling Jerry Gwynn for Pro Comp honors. Before that, Diener competed in Super Eliminator and Comp as far back as the mid-1960s. Diener eventually left the cockpit and founded Dienerbilt, a well-known street-rod-building emporium with a slew of car-show awards to its credit that today is run by his son, Douglas. According to their
Web site, Mary died last year.
Speaking of DeSoto, I couldn’t pass up this photo, also taken by Worley. I'm not sure if it was filed in the D folder because of DeSoto or because of E.T. winner Lance Dupre, second from right, but I love that he's being congratulated by conquistadors like the one that long adorned the track's logo.
The track, which opened in 1973 (previously owned by Art Malone and now known as Bradenton Motorsports Park), probably only had this interesting winner's circle ritual for a short time.
Like the logo, the name was a tribute to the man for whom it was named, Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto, who landed in Bradenton in May 1539 to begin his trek through the southeast United States (it's not just a racing column, it's a history lesson!). For the record, from left are chief technical inspector Gene Tharpe (who somehow was excused from the costume party), Bob McEnnan, Al Redmon, Dupre, and Bob Porter.
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Here's another twofer for the D Files: Larry Dobbs in the Kardiac Kids Datsun versus Leroy Dewdney in his Fly'n-High Mustang in a Division 1 Alcohol Funny Car battle. Dobbs, who hails from Canada, has had a career that has spanned four decades, first in stockers, gassers, and gas dragsters before switching to Alcohol Funny Car in 1981 with longtime partner Fred Speight. Together they won two Canadian championships through the 1980s. Dewdney, who was based out of Virginia, also had a lengthy career and campaigned a variety of Alcohol Funny Cars from the early 1980s as both an owner and a hired gun and later fielded an alky-burning altered.
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Speaking of alky floppers, here's the late Bob "the Gator" Dalton taking on the wheelstanding Jersey Stud Vega of Bruce Pillar at Maple Grove Raceway in this 1978 shot by longtime Maple Grove lensman Harold Hoch. Dalton ran in Alcohol Funny Car from the early to late 1970s, starting with an injected Vega that he wheeled in four seasons before getting this slick Vega, which he dubbed Frantic Monza in the long tradition of K&G Speed Associates-backed cars such as the Frantic Ford and Frantic Duster.
I've always had a soft spot for AMCs – my first car was a '74 AMC Javelin hand-me-down from my parents that I quickly hot-rodded into a pretty decent runner – so when I saw this Jere Alhadeff photo of Larry Derr's injected '70 Javelin, I knew it had to run here. I couldn't find a lot of info on the car other than that it was Chevy-powered. According to the caption on the back of the photo, Derr had low e.t. at this Sept. 18, 1971, Lions show but red-lighted in the final.
Speaking of early Funny Cars, here's Bob Davis' Jolly Green Giant II '66 Corvette at Irwindale Raceway in this 1971 Tim Marshall photo; that's actually Denny Savage behind the wheel, as he became the driver of the car after it was sold by Davis. The 'Vette became a well-traveled car but began life as the follow-up to Davis' Competition Paint & Body Jolly Green Giant blown S/FX Impala, which was a popular car but too heavy and not very aero friendly.
According to Vern Scholz in an article for
Quick Times, Davis found a water-damaged Corvette at a dealership and modified it to accept the drivetrain from the Impala. Both cars eventually were sold and ended up in Washington, where the Christensen brothers stretched the Corvette body, painted it blue and white, and mounted it atop a new and lighter chassis and renamed it the North West Knight. The car eventually ran low sevens at more than 200 mph. The brothers sold the car, and it disappeared for a time before Forrest Leblanc resurrected it as a bracket car, under the name Addiction, with tunnel ram big-block Chevy power. The car was sold again in the late 1980s, and a newer Funny Car chassis was inserted by Art Morrison and the run with a supercharged-on-alcohol BBC. The car was sold again, this time to Coloradoan Jim Nordhaugen, who stuck an Alan Johnson Racing blown Olds into it and ran 6.40s at more than 220 mph.
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Today's fans might know Johnny Davis as the longtime crew chief for Funny Car racer Jim Head, but the wrench slinger also was a driver in the 1980s when he had his own Top Fueler. This photo is kind of cool to me because I took it at the 1983 Springnationals at National Trail Raceway. I had joined the
DRAGSTER staff a year earlier, but this was my first official national event road trip (I had covered the Winternationals and World Finals for
ND because they were local). Davis' dragster was interesting in that it was Rodeck-powered and one of the last Chevy-style-powered Top Fuelers out there … and one of the quickest. He qualified at that Springnationals with a 6.03 and lost to Shirley Muldowney in round one, but he later ran a 5.82 in Milan, Mich., in July 1983 that stood as the quickest pass for this type of car and bettered the 5.86 standard previously set by Stan Shiroma's Chevy.
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Guess what? It's another Davis, and this one is double D: Don Davis. I dig this photo because of my well-reported love of supercharged Opels. I tried hard to track down more information on this car, a BB/G Kadett (as opposed to my former ride in the Mazi family blown Opel GT), but other than a hometown (Hendenson, Ky.), not much else was available. I thought I’d hit a home run when my research turned up a Don Davis Aviation in Hendenson, Ky., but the receptionist there told me that their Don Davis never drag raced and had died three years ago (gotta hate it when you call somewhere and ask for someone only to be told they're long gone ... ouch). Anyway, I still love this photo, snapped at Beech Bend Raceway Park in 1972 by the prolific Jerry Ream, complete with Davis' full-on firesuit and breather mask. Too cool!
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Dean Dillingham also has a double-D name, which is appropriate based on the Oklahoma City racer's apparent infatuation with twin-engined cars like this dragster and a subsequent dual-engined Don Hardy-built Nova Funny Car (see the September 1971 issue of
Car Craft if you have it). I like the way that the injector scoop on the second engine is high above the first to get more air and the shorty header pipes. This car, like Shirley Muldowney's twin featured earlier this week, was named Double Trouble. According to Dennis Friend, who runs the twin-engine specialty site
Two To Go, this dragster was formerly owned by Benny "the Wizard" Osborn.
And finally, Spokane, Wash.-based chassis builder Ron Dixon built cars for a lot of people, including for Terry Capp/Bernie Fedderly, as well as for himself. This 392-powered car with its, well, unusual paint scheme was a hard runner in 1968, when this photo was snapped by Robert Roy Green at Arlington on May 19. According to the caption on the back, Dixon was attempting to back up a record run of 232.55 but lost the left rear tire. He saved the car but did not get his backup.
Okay, drag denizens, that's your daily dose of dusted-off
DRAGSTER delights. See you next week.
Jack Muldowney bent the tubes and gas-welded together Shirley's first car, this gas dragster in which she earned her license.
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Shirley Muldowney has had a lot of memorable firsts in her Hall of Fame career – first licensed female Top Fuel driver, first female Pro winner, first female world champion ... the list is too long to include here – but more than 40 years later, Muldowney remembered fondly for me another first in her career that meant the world to her: her first professionally built race car.
I got a nice little package in the mail last week from Shirley, filled with a time-capsule treasure trove of details about her first dragsters. She had actually received the car package from chassis builder Don Long, who had built her early iron, and it included not only original invoices but notes back and forth between the two parties asking for and confirming details and features on the cars.
Muldowney, of course, cut her racing teeth with street cars, and her Corvette was a regular winner at local tracks near the Schenectady, N.Y., home base for her and late husband Jack and son John. Shirley transitioned into a Chevy-powered B/Gas dragster that Jack built for her in 1964. The gas-welded mild steel digger, complete with a one-piece metal-flake fiberglass body that Jack had ordered, served her well, and it was in that car that she obtained her first dragster license, at Connecticut Dragway in 1965.
As their skill and desire increased, they outgrew the original homebuilt dragster and decided in late 1967 it was time to go all in and order a professionally built chassis. They scrimped and saved, and Jack, with John riding shotgun, picked up extra cash that winter plowing "an unbelievable number of driveways," recalled Shirley. "Because of Don Long's reputation for building the best cars that money could buy, we saved as much as we could, and we then put the call into Don's shop in Gardena, Calif."
The Muldowneys officially ordered their first car Jan. 31, 1968, in a letter written by Shirley to Long that included a $200 deposit check.
Muldowney's first "store-bought" car was this beautiful Don Long dragster.
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The price of the chassis was $1,100, which included all of the basic mounting hardware, firewall, clutch pedal, brake handle, butterfly steering wheel, pushbar, and more. The car was built from 4130 tubing and had a wheelbase of just 165 inches. The Muldowneys opted to add a narrowed 24-inch Chevy rear end ($80); lightweight 17-inch front wheels with polished aluminum billet hubs, aluminum rims, and chromed spokes ($175); PS lightweight steering and spindles ($190); custom fuel tank ($75); Donovan direct drive ($135) and "Greek" coupler ($115); five-way Deist 2-inch safety belts ($40); and other go-fast goodies.
The Muldowneys went first class in the looks department, too, spending $160 to chrome the front axle, radius rods, tie rod, spindles and spindle arms, torsion-bar arms, shock plates, drag links, steering idler, and pitman arm as well as the rear-end housing, steering wheel, and brake handle. The front wheels were gold anodized.
By the time that Long tallied up the final invoice April 5, the out-the-door price was $2,803.50, paid in two final checks of $1,500 and $1,103.50, the latter on June 1. Long crated up their new dragster for shipment ($75) for Newark, N.J., and insured it for $3,500.
"Jack, John, and I drove to Newark, and we were so excited that we just couldn't wait until the freight workers released the crate to us," Shirley remembered. "We were trying our best to view it through a small opening while using a flashlight. My first glimpse gave me goose bumps. We were on top of the world. We had a real Don Long race car, which was considered by every racer in our little part of the world as truly a masterpiece. We were now the best-equipped racers in the Northeast ... at least we thought we were. Even Ron Ronnie Abbott, who had a fuel car named Hellzapoppin' and was considered to be the top dog in the Tri-Cities (Albany/Schenectady/Troy, N.Y.), was so impressed that he vowed he would have one, too! Jack painted the car himself, red with gold-leaf lettering, and the finished car was, in fact, the nicest detailed car that Lebanon Valley had ever seen. Jack was also a master painter. I remember helping to do the masking job, along with whatever else he would let me do.
"Just about every racer at Lebanon Valley now hated me even more. They couldn't even imagine just how hard Jack had worked to buy me the car and the time and expense that had gone into fielding the car. It was no doubt a testament as to how early in my career I was able to enjoy driving the best that money could buy as far as race cars went. I can only thank Jack for that. For quite some time, it's been important for me to make sure as many fans know that I did in fact have some great race cars before I ever moved to Michigan. That's only fair to Jack. It's now time. And John was constantly at his dad's side when he worked to get the car ready to run, a good deal more than I was. I was working two jobs while Jack ran his Sinclair Service Station in the day and worked on the race car the minute he closed the overhead bay doors at 5 p.m."
John, who was just 10 years old, actually built the engine for that first car, which he says was a scaled-down version of the famed King & Marshall car. Already at a young age, John was showing signs of the skills that ultimately would make him a well-respected fabricator … not that there weren't setbacks.
"It was a 327 with a 350 crank, and I actually even ground the block to clear the rod bolts but ended up grinding through one of the water jackets," he admitted. "My dad made me braze it up to fix it. We got the blower and injector, a two-port Hilborn, from Ed Iskenderian, and, on its second pass, it equaled the national record."
The second car, which was Muldowney's twin-engined gas dragster, Double Trouble, was ordered by the Muldowneys Sept. 16, 1969. The price of the 4130 chassis, described as "1 complete dragster chassis, dual 327 Chev, 210 WB, pull brake, narrow cage," was $1,300. The Muldowneys opted this time for a narrowed late Olds rear-end housing ($60) and upgraded to a DeLong braking assembly with Airheart dual calipers ($200).
On her behalf, on March 20, Long also commissioned tin impresario Ton Hanna to build the body for the car, specifying "one all-aluminum wrap-around body with nosepiece. Cowl to be 2" shorter than Adams, Ras [Rasmussen] & Scoggins car so brake handle clears and to facilitate driver entry & departure. Windshield to be squared like Ruth's. Cut hole in bellypan for vent." The whole package, out the door, was $3,861.33, according to the Dec. 10, 1969, invoice filled out by Long.
The Muldowneys again went first class, chroming a lot of the running gear and even splurging on wood grips for the steering wheel for $25. A $200 deposit got the work started, and they followed with a $2,000 payment in December and a final payment of $1,671.83 April 24.
Shirley and John hitched a new trailer to the back of her Buick Riviera street car and drove cross-country to California to pick up the car.
"It took me several days to pull up to Don's shop, but the trip was definitely a time to remember," she said. "Just the anticipation of seeing my dual-engine car for the first time was pretty exciting. Don and Jack had spent considerable time exchanging letters and on the phone, making sure all the measurements would be to my liking. The car was absolutely perfect the first time I sat in the seat. It was amazing how that all came together as nicely as it did. Don never wavered, questioned, or failed to give us exactly what we wanted. The very next day, together we took the car to Tony Nancy's upholstery shop for a rolled and pleated seat."
"With both of these dragsters, we only had one pulley change we could make; it was either 1:1 or 10 percent overdrive," recalled John. "We always ran the first car at 1:1, but I convinced my dad to go with 10 over for the dual-engine car, and it ran 198 mph at Indy, which was pretty good because we still weren't real savvy on clutches. Ed Pink was helping us out, and we got a lot of good advice, too, from John Peters, of Freight Train fame. He made the coupler for us and told us how to run the engines, advancing the front engine 90 degrees from the back to get rid of the harmonics that you'd get with two engines running the same. We did exactly what he said, and it worked good."
The dual-engined car eventually was sold to help buy their first Funny Car, and all of the Muldowneys wished they could have it back. John recalls seeing it 10 years later in the pages of National DRAGSTER and remembers that his dad, who died about two years ago, even briefly contemplated buying it back. "It still had the same paint and lettering, and he was so tempted to get it back but didn't, and he was so sorry later that he didn't. We haven't seen it since; it just vanished from the face of the earth," he said.
"If there was any car I wish I had today, it would be either one of those two cars," said Shirley. "If I had the chance to choose, I'd take the dual-engine car. It was without a doubt the slickest, nicest car I ever owned. I would give anything I own to have it today."
By popular demand, it's time to take another dip into the Misc. Files of the vast National DRAGSTER photo archives. During ND's 50 years of publication, and even in the years leading up to its launch in 1960, the staff has collected and filed hundreds of thousands of racer-specific photos in dozens of file-cabinet drawers. All of the big names have their own file folder or folders (which is why you won’t see them here; plus that would be no fun – we know what they look like), but some lesser-known drivers or drivers with only a short career are sometimes lumped in alphabetic miscellaneous folders for later sorting and/or safekeeping.
I won't say that there aren't drivers in the Misc. Files who don't deserve to have their own folder or who didn’t deserve one when they were first filed there, so I'm just calling them as I draw them from the folders.
And so, after an earlier detour from B to I and then back to A, we arrive at C. Three 2-inch-thick files were devoted to the letter C and contained lots of interesting choices, making it difficult to narrow it down to a manageable number and forcing me to leave out Funny Cars such as Eric Caskey's Raging Bull, Joe Comella's Horsepower, Larry Camenzind's Bionic Bitch, and Len Capone Jr.'s the Bear.
Enjoy your stay on the C side (and don't forget the sunscreen).
I was kind of surprised to find Ron Correnti in the Misc . Files because the versatile pilot, who died just over a year ago, had been around since the 1970s in Top Fuel and Funny Car (more recent fans might remember him as the driver of Larry Coogle's Sting Camaro and Bill Dunlap's Thunderbird, which was rear-ended at speed by Dave Uyehara at the 1986 Winternationals). Correnti partnered on this Dodge Charger (later known as the Chicago Charger) with longtime pal Dave Emerson, for whom he first drove in Top Gas in 1970. What's kind of cool about this car, which was an alky burner, is the lack of blower protruding through the hood, giving it more of a showroom appearance.
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Larry Christopherson, owner of the Arizona Wildcat Funny Car, didn’t win many races, but he did have a hand in creating a winning team. Christopherson had driven a number of Funny Cars – including one for Chevy legend Dickie Harrell -- and even a fuel altered before he put together the first Arizona Wildcat Vega Funny Car in 1973 with sponsorship from Cobre Tire. The car ran well with partner Mike Hamby tuning it, but Christopherson chose to hang up his fire gloves at the end of 1974 (when this photo was taken). The team built a new Vega for 1975, and Christopherson hired go-getter Dale Pulde to drive it. According to Pulde, he and Hamby did not initially get along, and Pulde almost quit the ride, which would have been a shame because he and Hamby later formed the potent War Eagle team that was a serious player and national event winner in the 1980s. Pulde and Hamby patched up their differences, and when Christopherson got out of racing at the end of 1975, Pulde and Hamby cobbled together parts to form their own team.
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This photo of the late Les Cassidy has a connection to the aforementioned Pulde if for no other reason than the body choice. I've said many times that the Mickey Thompson Grand Am was one of my favorite cars, and the East Coast Cassidy brothers – Les and John – also chose the radical Grand Am body, which Pulde and former MT wrench Steve Montrelli helped build. The brothers originally campaigned a fuel altered before moving into the Funny Car ranks; their cars initially were alky burners, but they switched to nitro (and from Donovan power to a late-model Hemi) in 1977 with a Monza-bodied machine. They ran a variety of cars throughout the years with a variety of names – Sundance Kid (a natural with their last name) and Shore Connection chief among them – and won some good-sized races, including the NHRA Gold Cup Championships, and even the 1979 Division 2 NHRA Funny Car title. They also had several high-profile runner-ups, at NHRA WCS events, an IHRA Pro Am race, and the ill-fated 1974 National Challenge at York National Speedway, and were match race winners up and down the right coast. Les died Oct. 15, 2004, of congestive heart failure. He was 50.
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From the Great Northwest comes this one-shot wonder, the Colello & Cromwell Taco Time Vega, driven by Seattle's Gary Cromwell. This Chevy-powered flopper ran in 1973 and was the follow-up entry to the team's Top Fueler, which competed in 1971. Because the Taco Time chain originated in Eugene, Ore., with a single store in 1959, I'm going to go out on a limb and assume that this car was sponsored by the fast-food chain, which today has more than 350 locations from Canada to Kuwait, including more than 30 in Washington (12 alone in Seattle!), and is known for its world-famous crisp burritos.
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Staying with the Northwest, here's Gary Coe's Gunfighter Mustang from 1970. Longtime Ford proponent Coe originally competed in Comp and Alcohol Funny Car under the Gunrunner name in the early 1970s and in Pro Stock in the mid- to late 1970s (his Ford Pinto beat Warren Johnson in the first round of the first Fallnationals in Seattle in 1975). DragList says that this car was powered by an alky-burning SOHC and that it was a Maverick, but this Emil Neely shot sure looks like a Mustang. In my research, I discovered that Coe, whose family has been in the towing business for 40 years, went on to great things after leaving racing. He helped found the Towing and Recovery Association (TRAA) in 1979 and served as its president from 1989 to 1991 and now owns multiple towing companies in the Northwest. He's also an avid car collector whose cars have been featured in national magazines; learn about him
here.
Okay, I'm sensing a trend here. Another memorable racer from the Northwest was Joe Clement, who fielded a series of nitro floppers from 1973, when he purchased the ex-Mike Thermos and Jim Terry Sopwith Camel Barracuda, until the early 2000s, at which time he was in the Top Alcohol Funny Car ranks. A Monza body replaced the original 'Cuda in 1975, but that car was lost to a fire. Clement rebuilt with this swoopy Corvette, the chassis for which he built in his own shop by admittedly copying the work of great Northwest chassis builder Al Swindahl. I never really cared for these Steve McCracken-built Corvette bodies, but Clement's was one of the better-looking ones. Clement later drove Nelson Lengle's Sno-Town Shaker fuel coupe, jet dragsters, and fuel altereds. We lost Clement March 1, 2004, as the result of injuries sustained in an automobile accident.
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We've all seen dragsters with Volkswagen engines, Nissan engines, and even Subaru engines, but what about a Porsche? Long Beach, Calif.'s Doug Church fielded this cool-looking rail in the 1960s and, along with Don Garlits, Tommy Ivo, Tony Nancy, "Ohio George" Montgomery, K.S. Pittman, Ronnie Sox, Dave Strickler, and others, was part of the U.S. Drag Racing team's six-race tour to England in 1964, which was organized by British Drag Racing Association Chairman Sidney Allard and NHRA President Wally Parks. The 11-second digger is shown running at the Blackbushe Drag Fest in Hampshire Sept. 19. All of the events were run on RAF airfields.
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I'm not sure what the story is here or where it happened, but this was clearly an unhappy ending to a pass by Gene Canham's Chicago-based Turbine Dart exhibition entry. I couldn’t dig up a lot of info on the car other than that it ran in 1967 and was part of a Turbonique exhibition match race fleet of cars that also included Jim Costilow's Turbo Stang Mustang, Jack McClure's Sizzler Z16 Chevelle, Roy Drew's Black Widow VW Bug, and the Rauth & Venetti Pegasus Mustang. According to an article in
Hot Rod magazine, the Pegasus "burned a pressurized mixture of Thermolene, nitrogen, and oxygen, the insane speed of the turbine output shaft was tamed to 7,250 rpm by an 8.3:1 reduction gearbox then fed to the quick-change rear axle and slicks."
I also found an article in
Garage magazine that clarifies that these cars used "Turbonique Drag Axles, which appeared to be a center section for a quick change differential, but with a mutant spaceship tumor growing from its hinder. That tumor was, in fact, a rocket engine providing direct drive to the rear axle. When not in use the car would drive under conventional power through the front driveshaft. When the driver hit the 'panic button,' the rear-mounted rocket immediately engaged and began channeling One Freaking Thousand Thermolene-addled rocket horsepower to the rear skins. Total weight: a scant 100 pounds. It was advised that the driver keep his thumb on the switch during operation since, having no clutch or fuel metering, the only way to control acceleration was by shutting off the fuel supply." Turbonique, of course, also went on to help blow the minds of race fans by teaming with "Captain Jack" McClure on a wild rocket-powered go-kart in the 1970s.
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This one doesn't really belong in the C's, but it's a neat story, so I'm going with it (my column, my rules). The photo undoubtedly was filed that way because the info on the back – "Aug. '65 Springnationals, Bristol, Tenn." -- is a little thin on the details, and I couldn’t find a matching photo in any of the three
National DRAGSTER issues that covered the event (held in June, by the way), but it turns out that this is probably NASCAR hero David Pearson behind the wheel of the Cotton Owens-owned mid-engined Dart, an early "Funny Car." In 1964, Bill France had outlawed the use of the Hemi engines in NASCAR competition, so the dynamic duo of Owens and Pearson – not to mention the legendary Richard Petty – went drag racing for a year and a half (Petty actually won two rounds in Comp at the 1965 Springnationals). This car was constructed by the legendary Jay Howell, a great car builder who had a hand in such legendary machines as the Little Red Wagon and L.A. Dart wheelstanders, the Ramchargers' '67 Dodge Funny Car, and the Prock & Howell F Troop AA/GS Willys.
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I featured Norm Cowdrey's wild blown Austin back in December, and here's where he went in 1967 after terrorizing San Fernando Raceway with that short-wheelbased monster. The 392-powered Blue Fox Camaro was his first Funny Car and was followed by a Beach City Corvette-like flopper the following year. The scene here is SoCal's famed Carlsbad Raceway.
Here's another example of "You never know what you're going to find until you start digging." This photo intrigued me for a couple of reasons. First, I've always liked these '73-'74 Mustangs, but the caption attached to the Peters photo read, "Rik Crews, 18-year-old Funny Car pilot takes runner-up honors at Corpus Christi Dragway's 5th annual Coca-Cola Funny Car Meet." That story (and the car) reminded me of another Texas teenager's 1970s rise to fame in a Mustang Funny Car -- that, of course, being Billy Meyer. Crews' car was an alcohol burner and ran in 1977-78.
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The story appeared to end there before I started digging around and discovered that Rik Crews is still in the go-fast business, but now he's shepherding the burgeoning race career of his son, CR III, who went from karting to the Champ Car Atlantic Championship to Indy Lights. I found an e-mail address for Rik on one of the Champ Car Web sites and, on a whim, dropped him a line. He replied almost immediately. His Mustang was owned by Ronny Ussery, and, with Ben Griffin's mentoring, he raced for two years before he ran out of funding and decided to pursue a career in aviation.
In the It's a Small World category, Holly Beadle, who was married to Blue Max hero Raymond Beadle, is the stepmother of CR's girlfriend, Jami Crotts, whose dad is former Texas dragster racer Devin Crotts. Rik is now a 50-year-old pilot for American Airlines (which means I well could have been one of his passengers on my many AA trips connecting through Dallas!). He reports that CR is now a driver in the Indy Racing League and is hoping to soon run in the Indy 500. They'll be at the Brickyard this year -- not racing but spotting, the senior Crews for Townsend Bell and CR for Paul Tracy.
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If Orange County Int'l Raceway was your home track, you saw this guy a lot. Leon Cain, "the Ebony Prince," was a regular at OCIR from the mid-1970s until the track closed in 1983 and raced for a few years beyond that. Cain was one of a number of black Funny Car racers – including Rodney Flournoy, Clarence "Boogaloo" Bailey, and Barry "Machine Gun" Kelly – who followed in the footsteps of trailblazer Malcolm Durham and fielded competitive and entertaining cars that could always be counted on to round out the fields at match races. Cain initially fielded a Mustang, tuned by Eddie Flournoy, but this Dodge Omni, pictured here in 1981 at OCIR, was one pretty machine.
Okay, that completes our trip through the Misc. C Files. I'll C ya later … I mean, D ya later!
In the last couple of years, Don Prudhomme has amassed a pretty good collection of the cars that made him famous throughout the years, including the yellow and white Hot Wheels Barracuda Funny Cars, U.S. Army Arrow, Pepsi Challenger Trans Am, and two Skoal Bandit Trans Ams, and as cool as it is for "the Snake" to have these genuine restorations (as opposed to "repopped" replicas), he has gotten more enjoyment from the recent restoration of a vehicle that he probably spent more time driving than any of his floppers: the '67 Dodge D700 truck that hauled his original Hot Wheels Funny Cars when he and Wildlife Racing partner Tom "the Mongoose" McEwen were barnstorming the country.
Although Funny Car-toting ramp trucks were plentiful in those days, the D700 was a step beyond most, from its crew-cab layout to overhead tire storage and lockers. Prudhomme's truck was used for two years by NASCAR legend Richard Petty before Prudhomme, who was seeking a quality ride to complement his new sponsorship, obtained it.
"There were a lot of ramp trucks around, but we wanted something special," he recalled. "The truck was part of the introduction of the Mattel Hot Wheels team, and we wanted some really nice trucks. I always liked to have nice equipment, and, at the time, it was the nicest there was. I really liked it back then because it was a good-looking truck, and I drove it a lot; Bob Brandt and I spent a lot of time going up and down the highway in it.
"I don't want anyone to think I'm getting soft here because I still love my U.S. Smokeless Top Fueler and I've never really been into being nostalgic, even though I've kept quite a few of my cars, but for guys like me who have been around for a while, it's neat to be able to keep or find some of your cars from over the years, especially from your beginnings."
Although Prudhomme certainly has a fine fleet of his former floppers – and just got back the '73 Vega that kicked off his U.S. Army sponsorship (and proved too heavy and was quickly sold to Tom Hoover) – he got the hankering to add this special piece to his collection.
"I dig my racing today and try to stay on top of everything, but I do enjoy going to the reunions, but what tops it off for me is to see a restored car and the truck they used to run it with," he said. "That’s what turns me on about it. The equipment has a lot of personality of its own, and the trucks were part of the show. When McEwen and I used to pull into the tracks, the fans would see those trucks and just surround us."
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Extreme attention to detail is evident everywhere, as seen in these before-and-after shots.
While going through some old paperwork – Prudhomme's wife, Lynn, is extremely organized – the Prudhommes came across the old bill of sale for the truck. The invoice had the truck's VIN on it, and Prudhomme and crewmember/ace restoration guy Willie Wolter found the truck, surprisingly still local to Prudhomme's former San Fernando Valley haunts.
"It never left California; we found it in Pacoima," said Prudhomme, who admitted he almost didn't wind up with the truck. "It had been through a couple of hands, but the guy knew that it used to be my truck, and he wanted a whole lot of money for it. Willie and I drove out there to look at it, and, my god, I didn't even recognize it. The guy told me it was cherry and that it ran and everything, but that wasn’t really the case. I first just walked away from it because I didn’t want it, but I was talking to Dale Armstrong about it later, and he told me, 'You've gotta get it; it's the only one like it left.' So I hired a wrecker and got it towed down here [to the team's shop in Vista, Calif.]. We had it dropped off at Rolling Wrenches to do the mechanical work for us, and then we did a total frame-off restoration."
As he did with all of the restorations of his race cars, Prudhomme put Wolter on point, and they hired a small staff to help with the enormous project. The truck originally had been painted yellow with stars to match the first Hot Wheels 'Cuda, then painted white with flames to match the Snake II 'Cuda, but Prudhomme chose to restore it to its original color. Using historical photos for reference, the now out-of-stock decals were painstakingly painted on.
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Beautifully restored to its original livery, Prudhomme's truck is a true time machine.
"It had a lot of rust, but not to the point of being ridiculous and not being able to be restored," he said. "Willie is responsible for getting it into the great shape it's in.
"It took a year, but it seemed like five years because it was being worked on pretty much every day," he said. "It's been a fun project. I've enjoyed it more than all of the other car projects we've done, but I won’t do it again; trust me. It was a big project."
The restoration complete, I had to ask: What does he intend to do with all of these time machines? Does he envision a museum or a John Force-like display at his shop?
"That' a good question; I don’t know," he answered. "A friend of mine was going to build a museum, and I was going to have them displayed there, but he's not going to build it after all, so I don't really know what I'm going to do with them.
"I don’t plan on being a Garlits and having a museum, but I think it's cool to have this one back. I can’t wait to show this truck. It's gorgeous and pretty sporty looking with the car sitting on the back."