Teen Terrors of the '70s: Bobby Hilton
A lot of kids are born into racing families and follow their fathers into the sport, but few can claim the quick start that launched Bobby Hilton into his career as a teenage Top Fuel driver in the early 1970s.
His dad,…
Teen Terrors of the '70s: Jeb Allen
This is the first in a series of articles on teenage nitro drivers of the early 1970s, beginning with Jeb Allen, the only teen driver to win in a nitro class at an NHRA national event. He was the sport's youngest…
Drag racing's teen terrors
Nitro teen terrors of the 1970s (clockwise from above left): Billy Meyer, Jeb Allen, John Stewart, Randy Allison, and Bobby Hilton
When you think of today…
'The Likeable Logger'
I don’t remember which of our zany cast of characters here at National Dragster in the 1980s first labeled Top Fuel racer Earl Whiting “the likeable logger,” but whoever it was nailed it spot-on. The Washington…
Pro Stock wheelies
Last week’s announcement by the NHRA concerning Pro Stock rules changes targeted the concerns of many about the class, covering everything from technological relevance – i.e., no “factory hot rod” today has a carburetor – to fan appeal, and to me,…
Remembering Doug Nash
It’s one thing to create a legacy doing something and quite another to create two legacies while doing two completely different things, but that’s how Doug Nash will be remembered. Fans of this column certainly will remember…
From the Quotebook
Last week, I shared some of the interesting tidbits that I’ve gathered throughout the years, little random bits of flotsam and jetsam that otherwise would have just floated around on my hard drive. Those were from my notebook; today, we delve into…
Note-worthy
If my computer’s hard drive were a house, I would have already starred in several of those reality TV shows about hoarders. They’d hire a crew of 10 to sort through all of the digital detritus on the computer, picking up…
Remembering Roger Garten
Roger Garten (photo: Gary Himes)
When I started going to the drags in the early 1970s, the Mustang was the clear body of choice in the Funny Car ranks. Jerry Ruth. The Blue Max. The L.A.…
Catching Up
It’s been a crazy couple of weeks here at Insider Central as I actually snuck in a mini vacation — I went all the way to Spokane, Wash., to see an Eagles concert — between the Topeka and Englishtown events, and by the time…
Remembering Bud Coons and 'Surfer Hank'
It’s no great secret that we’ve lost a lot of our drag racing heroes in the last decade, and if you’ve been following this column for any length of time, you know that I agonize over the losses and sometimes struggle to put…
Bristol Dragway: 50 years of memories
We’ve spent some time already this year talking about the NHRA Springnationals and about its stops at Dallas Int’l Motor Speedway and National Trail Raceway, but it all began 50 years ago at fabulous new Bristol Int'l Dragway in Tennessee, a track…
Gary Burgin, drag racing's 'Orange Baron'
We lost Funny Car great Gary Burgin last Sunday, another passing of a fine racer who forever etched his name and his cars into our memory banks.
Burgin liked to brag that he had never driven anything down the dragstrip…
Remembering Jim Kelly, 'drag racing's Ansel Adams'
Steve Reyes photos
I don’t know who illustrated the reading you did as a kid, whether it was Dr. Seuss or Charles Schulz or Sergio Aragones, but for me, my favorite reading was usually accompanied by…
The 1975 Springnationals
Even though NHRA’s Springnationals was born in Bristol and moved to Englishtown and then, as noted last week, to Dallas before ultimately ending up at its current home in Houston, in my brain, and I’m sure in the brains of…
The all-too-short life of Dallas Int'l Motor Speedway
The NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series’ most recent stop was in Texas for the (deep breath) O’Reilly Auto Parts NHRA SpringNationals presented by Super Start Batteries, and anyone who knows anything about drag racing knows…
When drag racers turn corners
Don Prudhomme, left, with Antron Brown, center, and actor Mekhi Phifer (ER, 8 Mile) at this year's Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach Pro/Celebrity race.
Former NHRA Top …
Drag racing's female pioneers paved the road to 200
Shirley Shahan was NHRA's first female winner, at the 1966 Winternationals, and ABC's Wide World of Sports coverage made her an instant celebrity.
Judi Boertman…
Saluting two Southern California icons
Souvenir replica pit passes were handed out to everyone in attendance.
"TV Tommy" Ivo, left, reconnected with Jeb Allen…
More cool old rear-engine cars
My columns a few weeks ago about the transition from front-engine to rear-engine Top Fuelers brought a lot of email and a slew of interesting photos about more of the earliest rear-engine attempts as well as some who took the rear-engine design to…
Fan Fotos: Beeline Dragway, 1970
I’m off this week to Charlotte for the NHRA Four-Wide Nationals, and the column that I had planned didn’t pan out. I’ve been holding on to the photos below for just such an occasion, so I made a beeline for them to share with you this weekend.…
'Nitro Nellie' Goins
Nellie Goins wasn’t the first female to ever strap herself into a supercharged, nitro-burning Funny Car – pioneers like Paula Murphy, Della Woods, and Shirley Muldowney all preceded her – nor the first African-American racer…
Early rear-engine iron
(Above) "Ollie" Morris' back-motor Smokin' White Owl debuted in 1954 and tore up Southern California strips. (Below) Morris, right, and sponsor Harvey Malcomson, of Harvey’s Auto Glass, worked on the car's flathead…
Fan Fotos: 1965 March Meet
Last weekend, racers descended on Bakersfield for the 58th running of the March Meet, which now is part of NHRA’s Hot Rod Heritage Racing Series but for decades was known as one of the great fuel-racing events on the calendar.
In 1959, the…
Front to back: The rear-engine transition, Part 2
Don Garlits showed that the rear-engine design was here to stay with a powerful victory at the 1971 NHRA Winternationals.
Although rear-engine Top Fuelers had found some limited…
Front to back: The rear-engine transition
Last week’s column about John Wiebe, one of the last and best holdouts of the traditional slingshot Top Fuel design, and our other discussions of the 1971 and 1972 seasons got me to…
'Kansas John' Wiebe
Steve Reyes
Ask someone on the street about Kansas, and you’ll probably hear something about wheat fields, The Wizard of Oz, or, for the rockers out there, wayward sons carrying on. Ask any longtime drag…
'Snake,' Leong celebrate 50 years of success, friendship
Fifty years ago this weekend, Don Prudhomme drove Roland Leong's Hawaiian Top Fueler to victory at the 1965 Winternationals, his first of 49 career wins.
I had planned to publish today…
Forget “Deflate-gate” — We’ve Got “Lions-gate“
You do not want to piss off this guy.
“You’re going to make me pull out what little hair I have left!”
That was the way my Monday began. On the other end of the phone was Larry Sutton, and he…
Unforgettable: Lions' 1972 Grand Premiere
Two weeks ago, when I started the 1975 thread with a report on Irwindale Raceway’s wild and wacky Grand Premiere, I mentioned the event’s Lions Drag Strip roots, a race that kicked off the fabled SoCal racing facility’s final season in 1972, and…