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

Guys, you're starting to stray too much from the HAMB cut-off. Hope Ryan is flexible, don't want to see this thread disappear!

 

Austin Coil........now there's a familiar name!

 

And before that he and his brother ran a '55 post' that beat most everybody. C or B/Gas. Nine grand with an unblown SBC was unheard of at that time ('59-'60 maybe even part of '61).

 

Hey Gabe

Some of the rpm numbers get stretched a bit over the years, as in the early 60's the valve train parts just would turn those kinds of numbers

 

Yes, it would be near impossible with the cam grinds and valve train technology of 1960 to hit 9 grand. One Sunday afternoon at Pomona in 1960 I saw Junior Thompson poke a pushrod through the stock SBC rocker arm, and right out the valve cover. He was running his 41 Stude sedan against Doug Cook running his Stude. During the discussion in the pits Junior was talking about the RPM. He said he was trying for 7 grand on that run. Said he hit 7 grand in low, but the pushrod launched just before he was going for 3rd (high gear).

 

Yep Dean it was about 4 - 5 yrs later that we had any alum roller rockers and screw in studs

 

You guys are right. I think that was a number that stuck in my head. I remember hearing it at Lions one night and a 16 yr. old mind wanted to believe it. But I do remember they were really 'pushing' it.

 

Rockford DragWay 1966 - sorry for the Kodak Instamatic quality.

 

That's right. It was '64 when we got the latest Isky 550 roller, screw in studs, and Isky's roller rockers. Went from gearing for about 6800 in the lights, to gears that let it run over 7500 in the lights. Went from a best of 119 to 123 in about 30 days!

 

Well remember the old saying, "The older I get, the faster I went" !!!!
Racing is like fishing in that respect, some tall tales and wild claims, always has been that way! Part of it's charm!

 

I remember Paisano Bros running black 57 Chevy at Bakersfield several times in late 50's. It was a standout and usually got comments from Bernie as to the revs. I remember the car looking really
rough (for such a new car) with Paisano Bros lettered in shoe polish.

 

Anybody have the back story about Stan Bowmans' AA/FA's steering layout.
Appears to be a right steer car.

 

Yep, I've heard all kinds of stories about 9500-11,500 rpm's back in the day, especially from the small block chevy guys. I had a late 60's early 70's Sun Super Tach, a while back, and it read 1000 rpm higher than a modern tach up high. The other one that gets me is all the 13.0-14.5:1 265-300" small blocks. I've been in the piston game for 22 years, and I've seen all the old Forged True's, Ansen's, Jahn's, Jahns Engineering (JE) etc. pistons. Those compression ratio's from those little engines, with those old pistons, is a bit of a stretch. Not taking anything away from anyones performance back then, I think you all did spectacular with what you had at the time. Just say, some of the rpm's and compression ratio's are a bit lofty.