I found the part that actually DOES say, that he was NOT...the first to use a mid-mount (rear !) engine location. So it was good to see that mentioned. I didn't read the whole thing. Mike
I read up on this many years ago, he came upon slowing the steering down and from there the car worked. Too many drivers were killed or maimed by blower explosions themselves with the FED design.
You are correct , there was others before & where not known to be successful, Its been 35 40 years since hearing story from him, from what I recall ,he was still in hospital or right after wards thinking & discussing to get a RED to work with some one else & they though of & experimenting with slowing steering down
Can't take nothing away from ol Big, but a local guy to me (Lincoln Park, MI) ran "The Pawnbroker" and won in 70. Story below: https://www.draglist.com/stories/SOD Sep 2000/SOD-091200.htm
Before Garlits had his accident, and that was the "kickstart" for him to commit to building a RE car. Contrary to the Magazine--- Garlits did not have an epiphany- Magazine writers get paid by the word AND Garlits built his car with too fast of steering to start with, because he thought it was needed, Went back to conventional ratio like dragsters have been running for years, and that took care of it
Some were successful, but not a "NAME" driver to convince others to give up what they had and build new. Woody/Foster built one and crashed it, Foster told Don he thought the steering needed to be faster, to which Garlits did just that--- which was the wrong thing to do-- went back to normal ratio and it worked just fine
This is how Pat Foster tells the steering saga at wediditforlove pages: In his own words, here's how Patty answered the question: "How did the ill-fated Woody car come to be?" "There was no particular reason that Woody and I decided to build a back motored car. It began as lunch talk and grew from there. We decided to do the car with Woody supplying the materials and me donating the labor. We approached John Bateman to use his running gear and one of his 392's. He agreed, so the work began. We felt to be able to achieve the balance of the better running front motor cars of the era we needed to get the static load on the rear as high as possible so we inverted the rear end, used a small gear drive off the pinion to reverse the rotation, came back through the rear housing to the bell housing. Back of block to centerline of rear ended up about 18 ". Some how, John and Woody had a falling apart and Leland Kolb ended up the motor supplier. After two outings with the piece, both marred by poor handling, we slowed the steering from the regular 6-1 ratio to 10-1 and headed to the Beach for more testing. The car hooked hard and made a very nice, straight hard run until entering the lights, at which time it picked up the front end violently, got on the fifth wheel just behind the seat, tipped on to left rear and catapulted the car over the right lane guardrail where it struck a light pole. By the way, we started in the left lane. Garlits called me a week or so later in the hospital and asked my opinion was the accident, as he was thinking of building a similar car after his accident at Long Beach. I told him to put a wing on the front, no fifth wheel and to slow the steering, the rest is history." Pat Foster
Happened to be good friends with Hall of Fame ch***is builder Don Long--- who was right there during the change over--- Tells a different story and all his cars ran the conventual steering ratio. I think the biggest issue was that the driving style was so different between the two and that is where most of the problems were
Big said the same thing, it wasn't just the steering, the drivers were reacting like they always had, but they were way up front vs all the way back.
The Jalopy Journal
