Art & Inspiration Traditional images that need no explanation.

Can anyone identify this dragster? Is it Earl Canavan's Lincoln powered car?

 

Paging @296ardun Please pick up the nearest courtesy phone.

 

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That's a great question...It is not the President Lincoln that I saw run at Lions, but Earle ran it in New York and Florida before moving to California. So it could be, an earlier version with a TE-440 chassis. the track background looks like New York. The only photo I can find of Earle's car is of a later version.

 

I've been waiting for Earl Canavan "President Lincoln" car to come up. I don't know if that was the car. He ran weekly at Fontana and I don't remember him coming up on top. But I do remember he gave it his best every week. I'd like to know about his quest if anyone would like to chime in.

 

You have to understand that I was just a kid on a bicycle at that time so the memories are distant. But Earl used to occasionally have his red dragster out in the driveway of his house that backed up to 83rd St in Westchester where I lived. 83rd St was residential on the north side and commercial on the south side and it ended at what is now the 405 Frwy at Florence Ave. Back then, it was empty fields, train tracks and commercial lots. Earl's garage faced 83rd St. The perfect place for a racer to work on his car. He would sometimes work on the dragster out on the apron by the garage and sometimes even start it up. I would ride up to his end of 83rd St to see if he was out with the hopes of hearing it run. He usually worked alone. Although he wasn't very welcoming, he didn't shoo us away either.
My friend Mark lived a few doors west of him and said that he had actually driven the dragster on 83rd St. and turned around at the Hindry Ave. intersection nearby. I never got to see that. I saw the car in the pits at Lions many times over the years but I don't remember seeing it run. I was a huge fan of the McEwen & Adams blue Shark Car.
Long time rodder and racer Ted Frye also lived on that block, with his belly tank and his hemi powered F-100. His place backed up to the big vacant lot that would become the 405 Freeway as well.

 

OOPS!

 

Don Prudhomme standing.

 

Richard Petty's Barracuda.

 

That is why I wish I was born back then. That is cool as it gets raisin hell and hauling ass!