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

"Big Al" the Allison powered racer had the body propped up rather than rear hinged like the later funny cars did...

 

Professional drag photographer Steve Reyes captured this image of "Wild Willie" at Riverside Raceway. Steve was shooting from the bridge over the finish line as Willie still had the front wheels up at approaching 200 MPH.

 

a couple streamliners from way back

 

A few shots of my childhood hero

 

Skip. I found this in the program from the 1993 CHRR.
The opponent is Jerry Hays in "The Street Cleaner".

 

Thanks Mazooma.

 

The blue streamliner belonged to Mooneyham, Fergeson, Jackson and Faust. Car ran ok with all the body work, but excess weight and its propensity to capture tire smoke and feed it back ito the driver compartment made it a less then succesful endeavor. Tony Nancy's RED wedge served as the 1st model, that crashed in 65. He later built another one which was run as a late as 1970 in local So-Cal comp eliminator races by a guy named Gary LeDuc

 

Exactly right. Frank's coupe never looked that clean on the first day it was finished. Frank was lobuck, running on his own nickel. It was all about fast,no show car. Story going around when he was running it was bone yard 392's, roller cam, max over drive on the blower, and 90%. If it finished the night, fine, if it blew, back to the bone yard for another on monday.

And why the hell is the recreation candy red?? Original was always silver. Frank did the body, yes
it was always rough. What a cool car to watch blaze into the fog at Lions!

 

200. Even the front tires are nearly growing off the rims, and they're not even touchin' the ground. Just unbelievable...

 

Did a lot of Saturday nights at Fontana. One night it was colder than hell. I watched Jim Fox heat cans of 60wt. Valvoline with a torch before dumping them in the Weekly-Rivero car at about 11Pm just before the push off for the TE final. Stormin' Norman beat the Porter & Reise Olds fueler for the win. Track was always slick from the sand blowing across from the vinyards. Almost zero light in the shut off area. Took balls to run 190 after dark at Fontana!

 

Funny car roof hatch.

 

wow i'm surprised at myself for never having checked this thread out before. that being said, this is easily one of my favorite threads on here!

 

I had read where Pedregon and his lo buck pal, Joe Winter, would take the used up pistons from other teams and use them.. It wasnt uncommon to have 2 or 3 different brands of pistons in the motor; a Jahns here, a Fordgetrue there. And yes, the means for quick escape does seem questionable as there isnt much room between the roll cage and the body

 

Anybody else, out there, do Saturday nights at Fontana?

Never ventured there at night, but my dad and I did attend one day event just about before Irwindale opened. I cant recall the cars in attendance with the exception of Dusty Rhodes good looking full bodied car. The track was long featuring a lengthy shut off area

 

They say that even today the W/E can pick the front end up and carry it at will anywhere on the track.
Theoretically that's what led to the left front breaking and the crash a while back.
Willie was definitely the King!!!!!!!!

That blue streamliner is pretty damn cool.

 

Greenmayer. This turd was responsible for the destruction of the worlds best preserved B-29 (Fifi is restored, this one was 100% original).The 'Kee Bird' as it was named force landed in Greenland in 1947 after runing out of fuel on navigation excercise and sat untouched until the 90s. A group purchased a DHC4 Caribou and flew all they needed out onto the tundra to get the B-29 (A B-50 really, but it saw WWII service as a B-29) airborne. They got so close too, that is until greenmayer screwed the pooch on a taxi trial.
There is an APU in the tail that is required for start up. As this was only to taxi the aircraft and the original fuel cell was unusable a makeshift one was wired up to gravity feed the APU.
Darryl was told to take it easy as it was only a test to see if it would move and not much else in the aircraft was ready for a high speed test. The dickhead didn't listen and made a full power run. Shook loose the APU fuel tank and burnt the aircraft to the ground.
Some people claim it was Greenmayer that led te expidition but thats not true, he was asked to come along as he was the only type qulified pilot they could get.
It still sits where it burnt, thanks to Greenmayer.
Doc.

 

OK, I managed to screw the pooch myself there, wrong pice linked to Greenmayer, these are the right ones.

 

Nope, still fucked it. Think of Mazoomas at 11yo photo set.

 

Hayden Proffitt gets the jump on Gas Ronda at LIONS, 1966

 

Les Richey just a few months before he died in a crash at Fontana...

 

Yep, that's Cagle's B modified roadster. 300" hemi, 180 mph. The primered Willys with the front end in the air is Jr. Thompson's brother, Eddie. That was the normal attitude leaving the line. When it really hooked up, he stood it on the rear bumper.

 

I know the old roll bars looked a lot cooler, but, damn, look how far his head is out of the hoop!!

 

Looks like a late 50's-early 60's Fiat 500, maybe a 600.

 

I saw a documentary about that B-29. They worked on it for 2 or 3 years in the summer, one older guy (who else knows how to work on radial engines and propellers) had a heart attack and died working on the plane. Every winter it sat, waiting for next Spring. They even flew in a little bulldozer to smooth out a runway on the frozen lake. The pilot taxied it out on the lake, burned it to the ground, and then when Spring came, it's remains went into the lake. Don't mean to hijack.

 

Mr. Lowe can you tell me what the AA H/R 1 stands for on Pure Hell. I am trying to learn. Skip

 

Guasco got a lot of miles from this car. Debuting late 64, he raced until returning back from 69 Indy wherein it was severely damaged as a result of a traffic collision. Jim Peirce bought the car, lowered the engine mounts and a few other upgrades and raced well into 1971 as both an injected and blown fuel altered.

 

A little O/T, but let the groaning begin...

 

a couple more..