When I got home tonight a package was waiting for me at my door. It was three issues of Drag Racer magazine I bought from Fleabay. I 'm wondering How rare these are? According to 99wspeedshop.com The magazine was edited by Dan Roulston after he left Drag News when Chet Herbert's sister became editor.
I did a search here on the H.A.M.B. and only found this one other thread. https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/1959-drag-racer-magazine-pdf.829098/ You may want to copy some of the articles in the PDF because I probably won't be scanning mine which are in much nicer shape, except for the few that were pictured in the add.
What a cool score! I've not heard of this magazine from that time frame, I'll bet it's full of more history.
@AHotRod This magazine only had 8 issues and ran from June 27th to October 17th of '59. so, it probably didn't have much in terms of circulation so I'm guessing it pretty rare. There's another set on Ebay right now if somebody wants to spend the $295 buck to buy it. And yes, it's full of stats. from back in the day.
I did another search and came up with this https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/1959-drag-racing-magazine.1008692/#post-11385402 but it doesn't help much either.
@Roothawg Like I said you can buy the whole set on Ebay for just $295 https://www.ebay.com/itm/165444001728
Just bringing these things out in the daylight, and mentioning them on a forum like this one, bumps the price a buck or two.
It's more like a quest for me to find them at swap meets. Plus, I just inherited a ton of mags from an old buddy of my dad's. Those may be in there. He was a magazine junkie.
Hello, When Dan Roulston was the editor of the Drag News weekly paper, it was excellent and did well for all racers across the country. But, when he came out with the “Magazine Edition” of Drag Racer, now, we all thought the photos were clearer and sharp. The stories were similar as his writing skills were great and reporting from the “local” races emphasized the “fast/record setting interest” style with facts about the “little” guys that made up the majority of the drag racers all over the country. This introduction of a different style of coverage and better photos/organization of the whole drag racing scene was a welcomed relief. We still got our weekly Drag News as it was hard to beat the Local/National coverage, but the Drag Racer Magazine was a ray of light that should have continued, but for some reason, probably cost and distribution, it closed. Perhaps @denis4x4 with his ties to old publications could enlighten us with more information. The Drag News coverage vs. Drag Racer Magazine coverage was a topic of conversation that our friends noticed, too. As the issues came out, the Drag Racer Magazine was challenging and pushing the original Drag News weekly to do better. Drag News expanded the coverage to include everything in the USA. But, as the years rolled on, the “little guys” bit the dust. The drag racing cl***es changed from the big organizations and slowly, various cl***es started closing. So did the great coverage of Drag Racer Magazine. Jnaki It was too bad the Drag Racer Magazine did not continue. Two periodicals covering the same events locally and nationally were one of the reasons for compe***ion and possibly led to the demise. The top fuel dragsters were the topic of the day and the writing in the 1965 and later years had full coverage of every race to the letter of top fuel race car. There was very little, to no mention of any other drag racers that were competing in whatever cl*** they were lumped into at the time. Here is a 2016 HAMB info of Drag Racer Magazine as posted by @partsdawg 1959 was a time of adventure and new ideas showing up the “local” So Cal dragstrips. Ratican, Jackson, Stearns in the early stage: This event was prior to shortening the wheel base and in 1960 won the U.S. Nationals cl***. https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum...picture-thread.228509/page-2045#post-14369157 But, look at the other red outline: the Itow’s Automotive Modified Roadster scoring another weekly win. The same one now being resurrected by @wheeltramp brian history pops up in the strangest places. https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum...-altered-with-an-injected-olds-motor.1248739/
Got these from an auction from a god friend who was born in California and moved to the midwest 25 years ago. These are the only issues I have. You can see the Drag Races in magazine format while the Drag news was in newspaper form.
Hello, Nice find on the comparison between both great publications. Drag News was the mainstay and the Drag Racer Mag was the upstart with good intentions. It was a challenger and created a good magazine, done well at the time. So, scan each page of each publication at 300 to 600 dpi on your printer/scanner. Make sure the lid makes the magazine lay perfectly flat for best scanned images. Save them to a computer file and the digital copies will last quite some time. Back them up with 2nd copies on another external hard drive just for safety in the modern electronic age mishaps. The original Drag News had some great photos, but these days, the digital copies are a little blurry and not the best photo. The publication is of historic value to those racers from a long time ago. So, if you can pull out quality photos from either source, YEA on you. Jnaki On scanning, 300 dpi is normal for most scanners by themselves or a scanner/printer combo. If the scanner will allow scanning on 600 dpi, try it and see if it improves the quality. 1200 dpi supposedly give the best results, but it takes a lot more time on the machine imaging process and does not always create a crystal clear image. YRMV
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