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Top Fuel blowovers, Part 2
At first blush, the twin blowovers in June 1986 and August 1987 by Don Garlits’ similarly enclosed front-end Swamp Rat XXX and 31 dragsters may have seemed to be a plague upon his streamliner design, but within a few years, it became clear that…
Top Fuel blowovers, Part 1
The streamliner series was, predictably, well-received, as I think we all have a soft spot in our hearts for experimentation and oddball efforts. As you may recall, very few of the streamliners or other aero-influenced Top…
Flying high: Harry Schmidt and the Blue Max
Harry Schmidt, right, with Raymond Beadle
(RayMar photo; Marc Bruederle collection)
Surprise. Bet you didn’t expect to see me this week, let alone on Thursday. Then again, I didn’t expect us to…
Remembering "the Bird"
Last Thursday, a strong turnout of the NHRA family came together at the Wally Parks NHRA Motorsports Museum presented by Automobile Club of Southern California to honor our longtime friend Bernie Partridge, who died a week…
Top Fuel streamliners, the sequel
After Top Fuel’s streamlining experimentation phase in the mid-1960s burned out after just a few years, the conventional slingshot didn’t change much beyond the standard addition of a body to cover the frame of the “rail…
Streamliners of the '50s and '60s
With all of the talk about aero trickery that has been the natural byproduct of the wheel-pants thread, I’ve received quite a few requests for a more full accounting of Top Fuel streamlining efforts in the sport’s history.…
Your 'Grumpy' stories
Even a week later, it’s hard to believe that Bill “Grumpy” Jenkins is gone. His loss still resonates from garage to pit area, felt by anyone who called himself or herself a longtime race fan, and even among the racers…
Continuing the Breed-lovefest
(Above) Craig Breedlove, left, and engine builder Dave Carpenter with the new and still unpainted Spirit II outside of Quinn Epperly's shop
(Left) Breedlove held a model of Spirit of…
Farewell to the grumpy one
Everyone loved Bill Jenkins, but perhaps none more so than Linda Vaughn.
I had a whole other column ready to go – ahead of schedule even – when I got the news via text yesterday morning that we’d…
Smarty pants
Today’s history lesson on wheel pants comes out – literally -- of the clear blue sky from fellow drag racing history freak Bret Kepner, who pointed out that, “It was the airplane racers of the 1920s who, while competing in one of the top spectator…
Wheel pants: Aero aid, fashion statement, or dangerous duds?
In the early 1970s, I was a newly minted teenager in junior high, trying to impress the girls by styling in bell-bottom pants. Meanwhile, miles away geographically but never far from my brain, Top Fuel was going through its…
The first 300
Two weeks from today will mark the 20th anniversary of the breaking of one of drag racing’s great barriers, Kenny Bernstein’s shattering of the 300-mph plateau at the 1992 Gatornationals. While it took 15 years – 1960 to…
Readers Choice 2012
In the last two weeks, in addition to the normal writing that the National DRAGSTER editorial staff has been doing – Sportsman stories from Phoenix, previews for the Tire Kingdom NHRA Gatornationals presented by…
Welcome to No. 500
In May 2010, I reached the big 5-0, a milestone age for most males who begin to realize that maybe the ride they’ve been on has well passed its halfway mark. I’m more a glass-half-full guy and never thought much of it and…
The incredible Mr. Pickett
In 1974, I made my first trip to Irwindale Raceway for a Funny Car show. I don’t remember much of the specifics of the event, but I remember leaving with a crooked little grin on my 14-year-old face after seeing Pete Everett’s Pete’s Lil Demon Funny…
The flying doorstop
Dean Court photo
By basic appearance, today’s Top Fuelers haven’t changed much since “Big Daddy” Don Garlits debuted his successful rear-engine dragster at the 1971 Winternationals. The small…
Rocket roundup redux
The final buzzer had sounded on my weekly hockey game. It had been a hard-fought and heated battle with our longtime nemesis, each jockeying for the top spot in our division, that ended unsatisfyingly for both in a tie. Cross words (and crossed…
The Rat Roast: Who was roasting whom?
Photos by Jerry Foss
Celebrity roasts are always good fun, where friends and acquaintances take turns skewering the object of their affection, regaling the assembled multitudes with sordid stories, amusing…
Turns out, you're all rocketmen
Well, well, well … turns out the Insider Nation is full of closet rocket-car fans. I’ve never really written much about our hydrogen-peroxide-fueled friends before, but now that I have, the fond memories are flooding in.
The tale of “Capt. Jack”…
Pomona: SoCal drag racing's lifelong love
When you live in Southern California, you take for granted some sights not usually seen elsewhere. Movie stars in your local restaurants. Palm trees. Top-down convertibles in December. In-N-Out burgers. And, of course, NHRA Drag Racing in early…
'The Rocketman'
Even for a fan who grew up watching them in the 1970s and early 1980s, there was a lot that I didn’t know about rocket cars, but after spending time on the phone last year with "Capt. Jack" McClure and yesterday with “the…
Rocket roundup
In the interest of full disclosure – and many of my longtime column readers know this already – the two-part story on “Capt. Jack” McClure’s rocket go-kart was a long time coming. I did the interview about a year ago and –…
'Capt. Jack' and the amazing rocket go-kart, part 2
Jack McClure went from successful fishing-boat captain to the cover of Drag Racing USA thanks to his unique rocket-powered go-kart.
Of all the exhibition acts to grace the quarter-…
'Capt. Jack' and the amazing rocket go-kart
There have been a lot of weird and wild cars go down the dragstrip throughout the years. A wheelstanding tank. A jet-powered Kenworth truck. Chain-driven sidewinder dragsters and Funny Cars. But no bid for wildest drag…
Sparring partners
Being a columnist ain’t easy. It wouldn’t even be easy if this was my only gig and there wasn’t some weekly content monster called National DRAGSTER. Don’t get me wrong; this column is still one of the most fun things I get to do each week…
Remembering Tommy "T.C." Lemons
It didn’t take much arm-twisting after I broke the sad news of the death of Tommy “T.C.” Lemons, Don Garlits’ most storied crew chief, first on Twitter and then on NHRA.com, to get the stories and plaudits pouring in for an…
Feedback squared
Feedback2. I think that’s right. I was never very good at math that didn’t involve elapsed times. (I am pretty good at Photoshop, though. Except my drawing here would seem to indicate feedback to the fourth power or…
The gift-giving continues
Happy New Year everyone, and welcome to the first DRAGSTER Insider column of 2012. I hope you enjoyed time off with your family, that all of your Christmas wish-list dreams were fulfilled, and that you’re ready for another year of shedding…
It's baaack (motored, again)
If Michael J. Fox can do it, so can we, so we’re going back to the future … er, back to the rear in the future – whatever. I should have known better than to call it Case Closed on the rear-engine Funny Car thread, cuz as soon as I did, here comes…
The story of John Hoven, as told by his son
You don’t have to go to Disneyland to know that it’s a small world after all. Examples are everywhere around us, and the Internet surely has helped make it an even smaller world. Facebook is great, but me, I’m a bigger Twitter fan. It’s a fast way…