Monday's "The 1957 NHRA NATIONALS" (with the Norm Jones video) and Wednesday's "The 1957 NHRA NATIONALS - Part 2" (with the Milton Arnold photographs) The Jalopy Journal Blogs (& resultant H.A.M.B. threads) really inspired me to put my flatbed scanner to work tonight. Although my father (Bruce Olson) didn't attend the 1957 Nats, the magazine coverage did motivate him to prep his (now my) chopped & channeled, Hemi-powered '32 5-window for the 1958 event: Back then, the car ran a 1953 331ci Chrysler Hemi with 4 Stromberg 97's: In late August 1958, he & his buddy (Mike Thompson) towed the car from his home in Beach, North Dakota (border town near Glendive, Montana) to Oklahoma City to participate in the "4th Annual National Championship Drag Races":
At the 'Nats, the car ran in the "B ALTERED COUPE" class ... It wasn't the coupe's best performance ... they could only muster a 13.40 ET with a top speed of 107 MPH: The car no longer runs the 331ci Hemi [in 1975, it was replaced with a .060 overbore 1958 Chrysler Imperial 392ci Hemi A-1 block (~ 405ci)] ... HOWEVER, a couple "artifacts" from its 1958 visit to OKC still remain affixed to the car today:
I'll try to locate some more of my father's photos from the 1958 Nationals ... but in the meantime, I'm really hoping someone out there can fill in some of the details of the '58 event ... with stories, images and/or video.
Found this one other pic: I believe this Kustom was owned by @Bullet Nose's friend ... they drove it from Redondo Beach, CA to Oklahoma City, OK ... and back! I'll keep looking for pics...
Those pictures are great. That's a great looking ride. And to have the program too, priceless. Thanks for posting this stuff. Mike
THis is a great thread, thanks for taking the time to scan this stuff....you are one lucky guy! Now, lets see if anybody has the same for 1959 and so on....... Don
Yes we did and we tagged along with the Drifters Car Club from Redondo Beach, CA who took 2 cars to the drags. I also have the same program as you scanned. Here's a picture that was taken on Route 66 in Texas on our way back to Redondo. That's my friend Norman Woodruff, who owned the car, standing by the door and a member of the Drifters Car Club pointing to the flat we had somewhere in the Texas panhandle on Route 66. That's a really cool photo of the Merc we called "The Moose" and there's a story about how that name came about. I also have some other memories of our trip to OKC. Woody was my best friend in high school. After he quit school, he went to work for Ed Donovan and he built a blown DeSoto powered dragster in my garage. He also experimented with a manifold he designed and built for the DeSoto engine that had two blowers mounted side by side but it just had too much boost. He later became my brother-in-law (now ex brother-in-law) and is now married to Kathy Donovan, Ed Donovan's widow and owner of Donovan Engineering in Torrance, CA.
Wow, thanks for sharing. Just our luck ( currently living in North Dakota ) all the cool guys move away!!
I love that program and I love color photos. If anyone else has programs like that, let's start a thread just for event programs. It's one hell of a historical document.
Hemi - Killer post! Thanks much for taking the time to scan the program. I'll be printing that one out for sure. Tons of great "old days" stuff. P.S. Notice there are NO national records for E.T.s? It was all about speed in those days.
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