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

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

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

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

Al Hanna helped Shirl Greer into his borrowed equipment.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Check it out!

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

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

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

Check it out!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(Gregory Safchuk photo)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thanks for reading. See ya next week.
 

Tom Nagy is today's gallery guest, and he made it real tough on me by submitting 30 photos to choose from, almost all of them great memory stokers. I tried to whittle it down to the usual 10 but fell short by one, so I hope you'll accept my apology for presenting 11 <g>.

"All these photos were taken by me in the 1970s; all of the on-track shots were taken from the grandstands," he wrote. "I know I sent more than 10, but I thought you could decide which ones to use. I had a 35mm Canon that was purchased new in 1973 and was used for all my photos. I used a Vivitar 85-210mm zoom for the action shots and sometimes attached a 2x teleconverter when there was enough light. I shot 400 ASA print film almost exclusively, and the resulting negatives were stored in plastic sleeves. I bought a good Nikon negative/slide scanner a couple of years ago and have been scanning my 1970s images on and off since then; one of these days I'll finish.

"I'm from South Bend, Ind., and went to many Midwestern dragstrips throughout the '70s. Many times, I went to U.S. 131 Dragway on Saturday and U.S. 30 Drag Strip Sunday. It was sometimes possible to see nitro Funny Cars four times a week: Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday at U.S. 30 and Saturday night at U.S. 131. Boy, those were the days. I attended my first NHRA national event in 1970 when I talked my dad into taking me to Indy. I've been going to the Nationals (I have a hard time saying U.S. Nationals) ever since. I started going to the Popular Hot Rodding Championships at U.S. 131 in 1971 and attended my first NHRA Gatornationals and Springnationals in 1973, so, basically, I saw four national events a year throughout the decade. I'm so grateful to have seen so much drag racing history firsthand." Because the Gatornationals kicks off in a few days, let's start with this shot of Nagy's showing Shirley Muldowney running against defending event champ Dave Settles and the vaunted Candies & Hughes dragster during qualifying at the 1975 event. This was Shirley's second year in the class, and a season in which she would reach her first final rounds, in Columbus (where she lost to Marvin Graham) and Indy (where she lost to Don Garlits). Shirley didn't qualify at this event, and Settles, surprisingly, only qualified on the bump (obviously not on this run!) and lost in round two to Graham.

Nagy sent me a lot of pit-area stuff, which I always think is really good. I was especially struck by this photo of then-world champ Dale Armstrong working on his world-championship AA/DA (that's a Top Alcohol Dragster for today's fans) in the pits at the 1976 Pop Hot Rod race. What I really like about it is seeing the transmission out on the ground, with "Double A Dale" hard at work and his longtime (and very young!) sidekick and protégé, Mike "Shadow" Guger assisting. Guger was with Armstrong pretty much everywhere he went, including the Bud King team. After a stint with the David Powers team, Guger is back with the Bernstein camp after following Rob Flynn there. Also note those Funny Car-style zoomies on the car. Interesting!

From that same event comes this interesting shot of Bill Jenkins' famed Grumpy's Toy Monza being unloaded from the trailer. What immediately grabbed my eye was "the Grump" chatting with "the Snake," Don Prudhomme (inset). Wonder what they were talking about?

Here's soon-to-be world champ Gary Beck and his scary-tough Export A Top Fueler at the 1974 Springnationals in Columbus, Ohio. I always get a kick out of seeing that big ol' Canadian flag on the cowl because many people still think he was from north of the border when he actually was born in Seattle. In fact, I'm looking at a copy of a 1974 Drag Racing USA on my desk with Beck on the cover and the blurb: "Canadian superhero Gary Beck: Invincible?" Invincible? Yes. Canadian? No. Export A was a Canadian cigarette and partner Ray Peets was Canadian, but Beck was not. Beck moved to Canada in 1969 when he married his first wife, Penny, who was Canadian.

Speaking of Columbus, here's a great old shot of one of Columbus' most famous drag racers, Jeg Coughlin Sr., at the wheel of his JEGS AA/DA at National Trail Raceway in 1975. "The Captain" not only sponsored cars for years – including Top Fuelers and Funny Cars before his son began racing Pro Stock – but also drove them. I don't think he ever drove a nitro flopper, but he did compete in Top Fuel as well as in Top Alcohol Funny Car. He's one of the sport's truly good guys and obviously did a great job raising his successful sons.

There was a time when green cars – like peanuts in the pits – were considered bad mojo, but someone forgot to tell Gordie Bonin that. I always loved this car – and it made me drink an awful lot of Bubble Up soda during my high school days – and "240," with whom I worked at NHRA for many years, remains a good friend. The scene is Indy 1976; note the lack of guardwall in front of the photographers in the famous triangle. Man, that unobstructed view made for some nice shots in the day.

Here's another shot from Indy, this time in the pits in 1973, showing a couple of the lesser-known lights of the day, Ronnie Martin, foreground, and Chuck Kurzawa. Martin drove Robert Anderson's Metarie, La.-based dragster for three seasons but also had driven great cars for guys like Leonard Abbott, Sid Waterman, Gene Mooneyham, Prentiss Cunningham, and Chuck Tanko. The win the world championship in 1970 by winning the World Finals. Detroit-based Kurzawa's career spanned three decades of on-again, off-again competition in Top Fuel, including a stint with the famed Ramchargers team in the late 1960s. According to Bill Holland, that's car owner Bob Farmer (of Bob's Drag Chutes fame) tending to the Kurzawa car in the background.

I never got a chance to meet him, but John Austin is one of the true legendary characters of the 1970s. Nicknamed "Tarzan" for reasons that would be obvious to anyone who spent an evening with him, the former Tommy Ivo crewmember also made good behind the wheel, especially in this car, the Greg Scheigert-owned Hot Tuna dragster, shown in the pits at U.S. 131 during the 1973 Pop Hot Rod meet. It was Austin, in this car, who was in other lane when "T.V. Tommy" went upside down in Pomona in 1974. Love not just those wheel pants but the psychedelic 1970s paint scheme.

Before he became a Top Fuel hero and even before he became a national-event-winning Top Alcohol Dragster racer, Joe Amato wheeled this car, the Gabriel Hijacker Monza. Gabriel Hijackers were popular shock absorbers back in the day that could be aired up to raise a car's rake for either performance or looks. This is Indy 1976. I'm sure glad that Amato got out of Top Alcohol Funny Car because, for a while, there was another Joe Amato in the same class, "Wiskey Joe" Amato out of Chicago, and it got to be kinda confusing during our race reporting. "Wiskey Joe" (not sure why he spelled it that way) died in the early 1980s, in a traffic accident as I recall.

We just lost Lou Sattelmaier earlier this year. A lot of modern-day fans knew him from his line of Sonic Thunder jet Funny Cars, but before that, folks knew him for this great car, a 1932 3-window Model B that he ran in the gas classes throughout the 1970s. The scene is the 1974 U.S. Nationals.

After he gave up driving in Top Fuel, White Bear Lake, Minn.'s Bill Schifsky gave a lot of drivers a chance to drive his Funny Cars throughout the years, including this entry, the Beartown Shaker, which was wheeled by future luminaries such as Mike Dunn and Rick Johnson, pictured, in 1979, as well as Topper Kramer and Glenn Mikres. Doc Halladay once also was Schifksy's partner (on the Cox Pinto, which was made into a great nitro-powered scale dragster toy); Schifksy's son, Chuck, also went on to great things. He was part of a power trio of young wrenches — along with future tuning star Mike Green – working under Lee Beard on Gary Orsmby's championship-winning Castrol GTX Top Fueler and later went into the journalism field (in which he rose to the lofty position of executive editor at highly regarded Motor Trend) and today is a regional director of public relations for American Honda.

OK, that's it for this edition of Fan Fotos. I'll be back later this week after we finish the current issue and its very special subject matter. I hinted at it last week but couldn’t reveal it until all of the pieces were in place, but it's another special themed issue, like our recent Top 10 Lists installment, called Most Intriguing People. The staff looked around the NHRA landscape, and we picked eight subjects whose interests both in and out of drag racing make them very intriguing candidates. I'll reveal them later this week and a little insight into each. How many can you guess?
 

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

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

1959: Art Chrisman won the inaugural March Meet.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

... They even kinda dance alike.

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

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

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

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

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

... Does anyone really eat chopped liver?

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

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

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

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

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

... Does anyone still use monkey wrenches?

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

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

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

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

... Not necessarily in that order.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

...  Yeah, OK -- me, too.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thanks for the insight, Jim!
 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Farewell, my fuelish friends.
 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Look familiar?

Uncle Everett and Aunt Elly

Uncle Everett working the grill.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

See ya next week.
 

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

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

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

Check them out here, and tell them thank you!
 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

See ya then.
 

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

And away we go ...

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

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

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

Uh … OK. This is a dragster?

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

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

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

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

I bet Bill Doner would book 'em.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Have fun!

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

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

Funny guy!

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

See ya next week.

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

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

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

But back to the feedback.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I'm on it, Rich.

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

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

Rick, left, then and now ...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Long was interviewed by the Los Angeles CBS news crew.

Their friends were happy to have them home!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

SATURDAY

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sure is pretty up here ...

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

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

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

SUNDAY

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

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

Opening ceremonies. God bless America, indeed.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Home, James ...

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

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

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

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

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

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

Here's how it went down.

THURSDAY

Yeah, sure is cold and snowy out there.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Those NASCAR slowpokes ...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Next: Days 2 and 3
 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A couple of other notes from my previous columns.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hit me up here: pburgess@nhra.com.

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

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

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

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

Well, maybe "the Greek" will be.

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Worried yet? Don't be.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And, yes, I'll have my laptop.
 

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

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

Dear Santa,

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

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

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

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

A double for Dan?

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

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

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

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

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

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

Where there's a Will ...

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

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

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

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

Next champ?

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

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

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

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

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

Looking for a home

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Til then …

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Feeling all Christmasy yet?
 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It's hilarious. Check it out here.
 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Let's get right to the mailbag …

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Here we go …

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Some things never change.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Enjoy!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Who says you need four wheels?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sure, Ben and Abe had a 200-plus-year head start on me, though I doubt I could have come up with anything as sage as their words. Although I've been at this drag writing business for three decades, I can’t really say that I've created any new words or phrases to add to drag racing's already significant lexicon or single-handedly did something as cool as give a racer his or her famous nickname, but this column has definitely expanded my audience as I find some of the columns reprinted, verbatim, on other Web sites and message boards (that's a real no-no, for the record) or links to this site (much better).

Most recently, a mass e-mailing of one of my columns from last year, a column originally called Fun with Photos, has been making the rounds of nostalgia-themed message boards and mailing lists, many of which I am on. I find it rather amusing when I receive these e-mails with new introductions added to the column or replacing my original, and also a bit flattering. The photos aren't even from our files-- I harvested them from The H.A.M.B. bulletin board -- and added what I thought were interesting captions to them and of interest to the readers of this column and even those not as intimately familiar with our history.

It was interesting to see heroes like Jim Nicoll among those passing it on to his e-mail friends (me included), but the real kick came Sunday night when I received it again from a well-meaning reader who said, "Thought I would forward this e-mail to you. A friend sent it to me, and there is some pretty cool stuff. You may have a lot of this, but in case you don't, here goes."

That's pretty funny when you think about it.

You can find my original posting here, though the formatting there is a little goofy because it was done on the old NHRA.com template that allowed for wider photos, and the photos stick out into the ads now. Clearly, there is a great interest in these photos and the sentiments I attached to them, so I find it worth reprinting. Those who didn't see it the first time through should enjoy it, and those who have or are looking at the e-mails will now have the stories and details that accompany the pics.

In the interest of a better presentation and reclaiming the work, I redid the layout a little bit and added to it because, in the true nature of this column, I received a lot of follow-up information about many of the pics that I ran in subsequent columns. My original caption will be in bold and the additional info (if any) in italic.

There's a lot to take in, so I'll split this into two halves; look for the second part Friday.

Enjoy!

Back in the day, anything was possible. How about an Offy with a side-mounted blower on Ed Donovan's dragster?

Paul Schwan of Cincinnati dropped me a line about Ed Donovan's side-mounted blower, noting, "The 6-71 blower that was originally used was indeed mounted on the side of a 6-71 Detroit Diesel, or before it was Detroit, it was a GM diesel, or affectionately known as a 'Jimmy Diesel.'

"In either a right- or left-hand 6-71, the side of the engine on which the blower was mounted determined either rotation or direction of the engine; therefore, that mount on the Offy was closer to 'stock' than most people realized."

One thing you can safely say about Ed Donovan is that the man was never boring or without a million thoughts racing through his mind.

Nothing says drag racing like way too big of an engine stuffed into too little car; reminds me of the models I used to imagineer as a kid.

Fred Fischbach had no problem ID-ing the owner of the blown Austin Healey as his old friend Norm Cowdrey. "This is from the mid- to late '60s," he wrote. "Norm had the chassis built in San Fernando by a sprint car chassis builder by the name of Rip Erickson. It was powered by a blown small-block, but I don't remember the cubes. The car was an instant NHRA record setter, and as you can see by the picture, a real crowd-pleaser. It was painted at a body shop in the southwest corner of Tony Nancy's complex where Tony lived and had his upholstery shop. The car was a beautiful lime green with large gold metal flake that had been shot up in the air and allowed to settle on it, then clear-coated. The whole package was totally awesome.

"Sometimes when there was no race for Norm to go to, he would unbolt the blower and put it on his Corvette – underdriven, of course -- and we'd go tooling around the Valley; no big deal today, but then -- big deal.Too much fun."

Bill Holland added, "Cowdrey normally did well in one of the eliminator categories at San Fernando Dragway, where the photo was taken. Norm went on to campaign the Blue Fox Camaro Funny Car. He later was involved in a few TAFC deals, one of which was driven to a Wally win at Las Vegas by Rod Alexander ("Wild Bill's" son). Today, Norm plays with vintage road race cars. I chatted with him a few months ago at the races on Coronado Island, where he ran well with an ex-Paul Newman McKee Can-Am car."

Rear slicks churning, front tires grabbing air, and an acrobatic flagman.

Uhhh, dude? I don't think you asked for a big enough head start.

 
"I was all for it," recalled Ivo, "as I running much better than him and also because I used to do all kinds of things like that all the time. I would give stockers big head starts and run them down on the big end – or even bicycles, anything to take the ho-hum out of single runs -- but I would always make sure we put a good enough spread on the handicap to make sure I didn't get beat by mistake! How bad would that be, getting beat by a bicycle? Although this incident ended up to be even worse than that. 

"The rocket engine had a heart attack before we could have the race, so the guy with the kart still really wanted to get a picture with me racing him. Soooooooo, he suggested to just set him on the starting line next to me and get the picture when I took off. It wasn't a movie, so who would know if he were running or not? 'OK, that will work,' I said! But then once again, old Cecil B. De Ivo had to not leave well enough alone. Attempting to make a good idea better (as I always do), I suggested that they put the kart out about 25 feet or so; therefore, I could get up a good plume of smoke behind me to make the picture more dramatic. Wrong!! Here's the shot they were 'supposed' to get!

"I was a victim of my own stupidity, it would seem (again), BUT -- and here comes that 'but' again -- I was right; it did make a great shot, didn't it?"

A wheelstander with everything but the kitchen sink.

Being able to ID a car is one thing, but being able to figure out at which track a photo was taken always requires some skill. Bill Carrell was "99.9 percent sure" that the Shower Power photo was taken at Thompson Drag Raceway in Thompson, Ohio, because of "the trees and their proximity to the track; the signage with roads identified in that area, specifically Ridge Road and Mayfield; I worked there and can tell a shot of that track from almost any angle; and where else but Ohio?"

Dawn Mazi-Hovsepian, Ohio's secondmost famous female Ohioan (behind The Pretenders' Chrissie Hynde and probably just ahead of Rona Veney) not only confirmed for me that it was taken at Thompson but also provided the year (1970) and the photographer (Charles Gilchrist). Said Dawn, "Gilchrist notes: 'The engine, a stout fuel-injected small-block Chevy, was turned around in the chassis and ran through a transfer case to the differential. The driver (Randy Davis) sat in the fiberglass tub (no water). This bathtub was quick, made full passes on the rear wheels at ease, and people loved it.' "

Who said snakes can't fly? Prudhomme gets air in the lights in Seattle.

Al Kean, who shared his Seattle memories here not long ago, gets credit for this memorable shot of Don Prudhomme's Hot Wheels 'Cuda on fire and flying through the lights in Seattle at the second annual Hot Wheels Northwest National Open in Seattle in 1971. Prudhomme was racing Dave Condit in the L.A. Hooker Maverick in the final race of the day.

"I was watching everything through my camera’s viewfinder," wrote Kean. "The cars staged and launched. I was following the cars, and I thought I saw flames coming out of 'the Snake’s' windows as he neared the finish line. I remember thinking that it must just be glare off something – he couldn’t really be on fire, could he? I kept following the cars and clicked the shutter when they crossed the finish line. I then took the camera away from my face and looked downtrack to see Prudhomme’s car, with NO body on it, still in a wheelstand. It was at least 300 feet after the finish line before the car’s front wheels returned to earth.

"I had no idea what I had gotten in the photo. I had to wait several days for the color slides to get developed after we got home. It was pretty exciting to finally see the photo that I had taken. It was also exciting getting all the attention afterwards. The photo was published in Hot Rod magazine, Funny Car Pictorial, SIR programs, etc. Then track manager Bill Donor gave me a photo pass the next year, etc. The photo has also been mentioned in TV shows, over SIR’s PA, etc."

Hard to believe that today's Top Fuelers evolved from this; from its whitewall tires to its Rat Fink-like shifter placement, I really dig this car.

Bob Post, author of High Performance, the unofficial bible of drag racing historians everywhere, said he believes this is Bill Martin of Palatka, Fla., shown running on the beach in Jacksonville, Fla., in 1953. "One of three slingshots I know of that pre-dated [Mickey Thompson's]," he noted. "Martin later became quite a well-known boat designer."

In looking at this picture, reader Cliff Morgan added that the body was probably one of the many that came from a fuel tank from an airplane. "Lots of guys used those tanks to create cars for the dry lakes after World War II, both front- and rear-engined versions, and some found their way to the drags. This car used the front section, and I can see the bottom of the car under the engine. Interesting design, and the car looked 'high tech' for its time, probably 1953-54."

I love this shot, taken in the pits at Lions. No, not the neat old flip-top panel wagon -- the lady, dressed in skirt and heels. Priceless.

Steve Gibbs had the ID on this great old photo. "This is the gasser of Dale (he) and Al (her) Kersh, of Modjeska Canyon, Calif. Both are now gone. They were fixtures at SoCal tracks for many years, competing in various brackets, and were truly great people. The interesting thing is that Al was never -- EVER -- dressed any differently. She always looked like she just came from an upscale social event -- classy and in heels."

Byron Stack of Gasser Madness confirmed that this is the Kersh Family A/Gasser. "Memory tells me it was powered by a Mopar wedge motor with homebuilt injection," he wrote. "It was a very cool piece and fun to watch."

Again, it's the people who make this shot. The clown, second from left, doing his "Take the picture already" pose and the other guy still slipping on (or off?) his coat, who's clearly not ready for the shot. And that dragster? Not much traction in those rear meats.

Steve Justice says that the great in-car camera shot was done at Riverside Raceway.

(Above) This is a great shot, too, taken from the cockpit of one of Scotty Fenn's legendary Chassis Research chassis that revolutionized the sport. I took some Photoshop liberties with the original to blur the background as the El Camino tow vehicle was a distraction. Love that steering wheel and big ol' brake handle. (Below) This is Fenn's workshop. That's Fenn at far left overseeing work on some of his K-88 and TE-448 chassis.

Another vintage chassis on this cool twin. Always amazing to me to see how primitive the early driver-protection devices were.

Neal Larson of Walla Walla, Wash., worked with early drag racing hero Jack Moss from Amarillo, Texas, so he knew all about this car, the famed Two Much entry.

"The picture was taken around 1961 or 1962," he wrote. "The car's last race was in Hobbs, N.M. We lost one of the engines, so we pulled one out and made a run with it, but the throttle stuck and rolled over; all was well with Jack, but the dragster was a total mess. The roll cage did its job.

"Jack was a member of the Barons Racing team from Amarillo. Find a Hot Rod magazine from September 1957 and look and see the first Two Much and the rest of the team."

So, today, I'm alone in the Publications building, not to be a martyr or anything but to take advantage of the peace and quiet of a dark and empty office to catch up on some stuff. Project No. 1 is to complete a bunch of writing for the special Web site we'll be launching in the next few weeks in anticipation of the 50th anniversary of the Winternationals. As I may have mentioned here, we're also producing a wonderful book to memorialize the special event, chock-full of great old photos, features, and a year-by-year recap of every Winternationals. It should be available before Christmas (stocking stuffer!).

To avoid duplicating the contents of the book on the Web, most notably the recaps and the scores of great photos, the Web site will have a different feel and original content. One of the key elements will be to take advantage of the multimedia potential of the Internet by showcasing a large number of historic Winternationals video clips. It's going to be pretty cool but a lot of work, so I'd better get cracking.

Although I have a full plate, I didn’t want to leave y'all with nothing today (another reason I came in), and I wanted to share what has become a pretty typical thing with this column, and one of the things of which I am most proud. In Tuesday's Fan Fotos edition from Mark Collins, we had a shot of Bennie "the Wizard" Osborn, and Mark wondered what had become of Osborn. Naturally, the Insider Nation was all over it.

One of the first e-mails I got was from Bennie's son, Tony, who assured me that his dad was still very much around and kicking and even enclosed these photos.

"I'm very proud to inform you that my father is doing just fine," he wrote. "He still lives in Sand Springs, Okla., and continues to do mechanic work at his own pace. We have been reliving the past a lot here lately. The championship car that you mentioned for sale was purchased by a gentleman from Tulsa and had it delivered to Dad's shop for a complete AUTHENTIC restoration. Plans are to have the car ready for Bakersfield March 2010 Cacklefest. The WIZARD was at the Hot Rod Reunion in Bakersfield a couple of weeks ago and actually cackled Raymond Godman's Tennessee Bo-Weevil car."

The top photo shows "the Wizard," in the blue and gray striped shirt, with the championship car at a car show on Halloween put on by The Hot Rod Shop in honor of The Tulsa Timing Association. I hope to have a more in-depth look at "the Wizard's" career in a future column.

Our good friend Glenn Menard, president of Texas Motorplex who also maintains the www.division4halloffame.com Web site – Osborn, naturally, is a member of that Hall of Fame -- sent me a link to some great Osborn photos that the man himself had submitted for that site. You can find them here.

Gary Osborn (no relation to Bennie), whose dad ran blown gas dragsters in the 1960s before he partnered with the Sewells and won the 1980 Cajun Nationals with A.J. Seruntine driving, dropped me a note and this photo, which shows Osborn at the Holley NHRA National Hot Rod Reunion in Bowling Green, Ky. Gary was there with Dick Venables, whose front-engine dragster had been restored and is now owned by Rip Wiley. In the photo, from left, are Wiley, Venables, Osborn, and Dick's son, current Al-Anabi Funny Car tuner Dickie.

Tulsan Brian Vermillion, who has an interesting history with Osborn, shared his "Wizard" tale in an e-mail: "Bennie Osborn is alive and well, still living in Sand Springs, in the same house he lived in 40 years ago. He gave up racing in the mid- '70s after his second rear-engine dragster crash and opened up a successful transmission-repair business in his old dragster shop in his backyard.

"I got to interview Bennie at his house over 40 years ago for an eighth-grade speech-class project. Since he was my hero back then, I chose him. He was finishing up his brand-new car for the 1969 season -- I believe it was a Woody Gilmore car -- and I got to sit in it and check things out. For a 14-year-old kid who was ate up with drag racing, it was definitely the thrill of a lifetime. A friend of mine, who is close friends with Bennie, told him this story of me interviewing him, and he remembered me. He even autographed the PR handout that he gave me over 40 years ago, and it still thrilled me today to get it.

National DRAGSTER has a great photo file on the two-time champ, but I especially like this 1970 photo of "the Wizard" enjoying some fine reading material.

"You spoke of the 1967 World Finals. I remember being there with my dad that weekend. I had just turned 12, and the drags were my birthday present. The final AA/FD round almost didn't get run. The skies were as black as I had ever seen them, and it just started to sprinkle as they were beginning to stage. Tree goes green, Bennie gets a slight holeshot and carried it through to the lights. But what I remember was that as soon as the chutes were out (they hadn't even got to the turnoff yet), the skies opened up, and the most godforsaken downpour hit, flooding the track, parking lot (which was a dirt field before the rain), and everything else. But hell, when you are 12, who cares!"

Added Barry Lester, "I live about 20 miles away and pass there almost every weekend and always look over and think I should go see him but never have. I picked up the phone and called him and told him that people were wanting to know where he was. We had a great visit, told him in 1967 he came to Amarillo to race 'Big Daddy.' My buddy and I were staying in the Cowboy motel on Saturday night and going to the races on Sunday. When they pulled that AA/FD in the motel on a flatbed trailer, I almost died! I was over there in a second and was lucky enough to be able to help the mechanic pull the panels off and drop the pan and change oil, which was milky; bored a little to close to the jacket water, he said.
 
"I asked Bennie if it was OK for me to e-mail you; he said, 'Tell them not to send flowers, I am still alive and in the same place.' "

One other quick note on the Texas Fan Fotos: I got a phone call from Gary Clark and an e-mail from Vince Long, who ID'd the car being push-started at Green Valley as belonging to the famed Oklahoma City-based Smith Bros., Frank and Charlie. Charlie drove the famed Plain Vanilla roadster that swept all national event honors in 1964 by winning both the Winternationals and U.S. Nationals, so this probably was Frank in the car, which had a T roadster rather than a Bantam.

Enjoy your weekend; I'll see you next week.
 

Welcome back to Fan Fotos, shots from the private collections of fans everywhere. We're not talking pretty photos taken from the guardrail, but rather those gritty, lightpole-in-the-way, some-guy's-head-in-the-shot images that somehow better reflect our regular treks to the digs.

Today, we reach deep into the heart o' Texas for 10 great shots from Mark Collins of Dallas. Mark started going to the drags in 1964 while in high school. His older brother, Eddie, had been going to the drags at Green Valley Raceway, north of Fort Worth, with his buddies.

"I had been reading all the hot rod magazines and wanted to go check out drag racing, but being the little brother, it was a while before I was allowed to tag along with big brother and his buddies," he said. "That first Saturday night at Green Valley, I was hooked. Thereafter, I must have been at Green Valley Raceway every time they opened the gates. I could not get enough drag racing. The smells, the sounds, the competition, all of it, captured my imagination. I began taking pictures at the races with a six-dollar camera I had had since elementary school. As soon as I could get the film developed, I shared the pictures with my amazed friends at school.

"When I witnessed my first Top Fuel dragster, I thought that nitromethane was the most insane thing I had ever witnessed. The visual and visceral experience was astounding. The fact that the fans could walk right up to the cars and drivers in the pits had great appeal to me. It was easy to rub shoulders with the heroes I watched on the track. It didn't matter if it was a guy from the local gas station or 'Big' himself. Of course, I never really did talk to Garlits because he was too famous. I felt certain he would not be enlightened by a geeky high school kid. Even so, I had a strong desire to get into the driver's seat someday."

In the 1970s, Mark began driving a '23-T Ford roadster with a flathead V-8 built by his friend Ralph Lewis. "Those 12-second e.t.s weren't Top Fueler-type runs, but I was finally burnin' up the strip. We subsequently built a C/D for Competition eliminator and a AA/DA competing in Pro Comp with moderate success. I will always remember the first time we drove into the participant's entrance under the 1974 Winternationals banner. It was hallowed drag racing ground. I felt like I was participating in something special. There we were, just some unknown guys from Texas with a desire to compete on the national level. I'm sure that was the case with many of the other racers, too. Win or lose, I always loved going to the races. I'm still hooked even though I'm only spectating these days."

Here are Mark's 10 favorite Fan Fotos.
 
According to Mark, this cool image of Shirley Muldowney's Funny Car on a ramp truck was taken at Dallas Int'l Motor Speedway (DIMS) during the Springnationals, which would make it late 1971.

Although Muldowney ran almost exclusively in Mustang-bodied floppers (due, no doubt, to crew chief Connie Kalitta's long-running association with Ford), she ran this Plymouth Barracuda at the end of the season after burning up her Bounty Huntress Mustang in a fire at Dr