History Drag cars in motion.......picture thread.

Merek Cherthow is still building cars and drag racing and living in Utah these day's. Real nice guy!! Jimbo

 

anybody remember this set up in 1990 woody 158" on a Rain for Rent trailer.Looking for more photos.

 

Still looking for this car, the picture from E-town is the first paint job. The 2nd is as it was sold I think.It came from Maspeth NY and ran out of Jack Merkels shop. Before he died Frank Cali mentioned the car was in the north east.

Pat

 

Merek was at the Meltdown drags last year and I got a chance to chat with him--super guy!
Here he is with his son who came along to help out. They brought both of Merek's cars out in one trailer and loading them took a little work, including partial dismantling of one car, to make everything fit.

This is the car that he raced at the event. It was the give away car at the previous year's race and he brought it back so that everyone could see that it ended up the way that it should.

And this is his street car. Yep!, plated and insured


Roo

 

Looks like Ken Poffenberger's blown fuel Chevelle.

 

To be honest, I can't tell if this modified 5-window is at the drags or the lakes, though it looks like Paradise Mesa. I'm guessing that this was a custom 5-window with the rear windows filled, driven on the street, then relegated to competition...Screwdriver's file


Vagabond at Half Moon Bay...Gary Ormsby was one of the drivers...can't tell whose Fiat that is in the background


Cad-powered A/MSP...I'm blanking on the car, Kurtiss?? damn! (it's an Allard, thanks, nitrobrother)


Berry Brothers and Hughes, from central California. They would go on to field a top fuel dragster. Note that this is a "fuel roadster." Now even in nostalgia racing, there are very few fuel classes, but in these days there were fuel coupe (A, B, C, etc.), fuel roadsters, fuel modified roadsters, fuel competition coupes...with all engine classes. At one point there was even a fuel sports car class. The growing cost of nitro made this proliferation of fuel classes impossible because all you usually got for winning was a trophy. The most I ever got running a C/fuel dragster was a $25 payday at San Gabriel for winning "Jr. Eliminator. There was money (but not much of it) for winning top fuel, but it was not until the early 1960s that SoCal tracks began paying round money for top fuel cars.


Dos Palmos Machine Shop car at Bakersfield...from the NoCal area...I think that this is one of the cars that went to Great Britain during the 1964 U.S. drag racing tour. Candy blue in color


Another Willie picture...at Lions...probably been posted before, but raise your hand if you have had enough Willie pictures...


Bob Brisette in the Quincy Automotive car at Lions. I don't believe in premonitions, but I got this really weird feeling when I watched Bob in this car (then with a gas Olds) race Leonard Harris in the Albertson Olds car at Lions. A couple of weeks later Leonard would die in another car at Lions. Maybe a year later I watched this car (Olds replaced with a fuel Chrysler) make a run at Fontana, only to see it make a violent left turn in the lights and barrel roll. Bob came out with a broken ankle, but the car was history....weird.


Dennis Martin with the "Dennis the Menace" car, not sure where this is. Dennis was from NoCal, and only raced the car a few times, then it disappeared. Anyone know more?

 

The Cad-powered A/MSP is an Allard.

 

Click here is see the U-Tube video of Merek driving his car on the way to a local gas station.

Jimbo

 

Yes, this was the first of two dragsters that the late Bob Keith took overseas. The small block car went to England in 1964 and its successor (with a big block) also raced there before going to Australia. The car in the photo stayed in England for some time after the tour and eventually found its way back to the US where it was recently restored by Ray Evernham.

Roo

 

Thanks! I should have know that, some were fitted with Arduns!

 

View attachment 3109003
Another Willie picture...at Lions...probably been posted before, but raise your hand if you have had enough Willie pictures...
Oh hell no.
Nope, you can't make me.
Never get enough Willie!

This is one of my favorites.


From:
http://www.dragracecentral.com/DRCStory.asp?ID=295797&Filter=Year2015

Willie Borsch and the Winged Express AA/FA made a career of chasing
photographers wherever it raced. Here at Fremont, California,
Willie went for the local photogs. The one photographer holding his ground
is my buddy Mike Bagnod. I taught Mike never to move, race car drivers will
drive around you. And yes, Willie drove around Mike. Willie and Mike had
a good laugh about the whole incident later that day.

 

I think that Allard was Sam Parriot's car

 

Did Sam have an Allard before the two Kurtis "City of Industry" cars that I remember him for?

Roo

 

[

Don, I am pretty sure that Sam's car was a Kurtis:



Here is another Kurtis:

 

I know it's not a "drag car in motion" shot but stumbled on this and thought I'd share.
Anybody there that night? Hint, this is later than 1965.

 

Another not in motion, but what the hell, I'm on a roll and I can't help myself.
Too cool to pass up.

 

Getting a new front clip then back in motion.