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

dog, great shots! you keep out doing yourself!
anyone know the story behind stricklers corvette?, how long he ran it, what class...?

 

What I remember most about it, was it was such an ill handling car after 1 season he burned it behind Smith's dealership so no one else would try to drive it and get hurt.

 

From Hemmings Motor News


In 1966, Old Reliable V was a stretched-wheelbase Corvette coupe that Dave was driving in A/XS at the U.S. Nationals that year. The NHRA didn't have a true FX class for the Funny Cars that were running at that time, so they created a Super Experimental Stock class just for the Nationals. Guys like Ronnie Sox with his altered-wheelbase Plymouth, the Ramchargers and Dave all ran in this class. Dave built his own tube-chassis Corvette with a Hilborn-injected, iron-block 427. You can see the wheelbase extension by looking at the two sets of louvers on the front fender. How'd he do? Lousy. It was just a bad car, which never did do what he'd expected. In 1967, they painted the car red, and it didn't do any better, so they scrapped it. Dave pushed it into the alley alongside the dealership and set it on fire, right then and there. He said he wasn't going to sell a dangerous car for somebody else to get killed in. All those Funny Cars back then were incredibly dangerous. They were out of control even when they were standing still.

 

out of all the vette's of that era.....other than the "mongoose" , thats the 2nd ugliest vette drag car of that time....just never did it for me.....

 

me age 21 the single wheelie bar is made from a die spring

 

Here's Dave's Corvette in '69 and no, it don't look any better.

 

West Coast Taylor - Mcnicol 66 wgn

 

a couple more...... from edgewater & indy

 

indy and clay city....

 

never heard of him crashing that car....

 

connie at the winter nats with cammer power... gordon collett at indy

 

It was burned but not behind the dealership. It was burned across the street from Dave's race shop(his father's old tile shop) and burried. I've seen photos with 4 sale signs on the car so they did try to sell it for awhile. I've seen build photos of the car. To say it was crude would be an understatement!!!

 

With the gracious help from Yoyodyne, I am able to post you some pictures taken from my late father's scrapbook and which related to the dragstrip he built in 1958/1959 and ran until 1972 when we sold it. I apologize if some of this is not in motion and may be OT, but I figured that most of you guys might get a kick out of it. Thanks, Eric

 

Shot from the very first race...and two corvairs go heads up!!! Thank goodness we had some cool stuff show up!

 

First Top Eliminator..Davy Jones

 

later in the 60's...old man is fourth from the left with the hat and sunglasses

 

Cool autograph card from the large father to my late Mom, Ann!