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

Also cool is that he's re-creating the Mongoose hauler as well. My gal was down at Prudhomme's shop last year and got the full tour as well as a three hour sit down with The Snake hissself. I should get her to post some of the pics.

 

Historic photo. Out with the old and in with the new. S-W-C would soon have their own Mustang.

 

If this doesn't give you heart palpitations then you are on the wrong forum.

 

That would be Bill Roell of Covington, KY. He will be inducted in the Kentucky Motorsports Hall Of Fame this year.
Bill painted and Jim "Dauber" Farr applied the lettering on many cars starting in the 60's thru 90's.
Bill painted some very famous cars from stock show cars to TF & Funny cars.
Some samples of work by "Short Round" & "Dauber"

 

This is Dick Gazan. I worked for him in the 80's and early 90's. He drove the "Tucker" roadster from time to time and even got to wheel Stone Woods & Cook B car once or twice. He had a bunch of pics of the roadster. He worked at B & M transmission in the 60's and said the Spar Bros. (they owned B & M)put some money into it and Dick claims to have done a fair bit of work putting the car back together in this (olds engine) config. after the roadster had languished behind B & M's shop for some time. Funny how there is never any mention of Dick Gazab by Hugh Tucker. Tucker also has said that the Chrysler that later ended up in the roadster was borrowed from his buddy Tom Dawes "Freedom Machine" top fuel dragster out of New England. This was true, guess who was the crew chief on that dragster.., Dick Gazan.

 

I emailed this pic to Dick (who has worn glassed for ever), I said "I recognize that "squint" anywhere. He said this is the return road at Indy and they were in a hurry to push back to the pits to get ready for the next round.., he left his glasses in the push car and couldn't wear them for the run as they didn't fit behind the goggles. He said you know Ric, this car was killer back then, low to mid tens with the blown olds. Who would have known that 35 years later you and I would build and all steel 66 chevelle at Spectra Racing that would do that and better on street tires throught the mufflers @ 3500 lbs.

 

This is at Temple TX. known as Little River at one time, AKA Academy Raceway and now I think it is called Temple Raceway owned by Hutch.

 

Does antone have any pictures of any Jim Davis Top Fuel cars. He was a chassis builder from Walnut Creek CA. He was most noted for the front ends on his dragsters he used a single quarter eliptic spring. I have one of his old Top Fuel cars.

 

I believe there are some posted earlier on in this thread. Never missed the memorial drags held in his honor.

 

Mr. Galore, thank you for that wonderfuel AA/FA fix.

 

What a killer picture of Art .

 

I like the the heavy duty truck axle in the back and the headers coming out of the fenders.

Jon

 

The 57 Chevy and 40 Willys were the Parker Brothers of Odessa Texas. 40 Willys Coupe was named Gran Ma and appears in the movie by Hot Rod Magazine and NHRA "Ingenuity in Action" (1959) Hot Rod Race the 40 Willys dropped off the racing scene when Phil Parker put it in a barn and started racing a top dragster named "Old Bear" until about 1964 when he quite drag racing. The car had a second life from about 1977 to the early 80's in Super and Pro Gas. The Willys was built by Drag Masters in California in the 1950s. Website with the cars' history and how it lloks today is here. The 57 Chevy Post Sedan running C/G, in the photo, belong to Phil Parker's brother. Neat seeing this photo here.

 

Great shot Don, One of Pauls?

 

ah yes, another one of Pauls shots. Will have to say Don you sure had a great number of New England rides

 

Hello HAMBers. New to this great place. I started at post no. 1 and went thru 250, blurry eyed mostly from the beer. I must comment from my twisted mind on a few pictures along the way.
HELLO LINDA!!! I love the peaks and valleys! Look at the guy behind her, a true drinker holding his beer close to the heart.
Articulating rails?
Whats with the roof rack on a race car?

 

Already taken care of by Spoggie. I'll have to try that program (just what I need, another time waster). Heres the pic in question incase you missed it:

 

Does anyone know for sure what year this car first appeared and when the team started using the name "Ramchargers" on their car's?

 

Last night I sat down and scanned the pix that my brother recently brought back from Australia. These were all unmounted film strips and in a couple of places they did not align correctly in the scanner so please excuse the occasional black line near the edge of the image.

Roo

First up are a couple for Tony (aka WhitePunk) who seems to like the During slant six powered car. The Holden powered car in the other lane was built by K & M Chassis out of Sydney and driven by Kevin Birch. It was one of the most "American" looking car in Oz at the time and was evidently patterned on a Woody style. Note that During's car has a locally made clone of the old Keystone wheel on the rear.





Then for the boys in Adelaide we have some more shots of "Hutchy" in the Fiat with small block Ford power. These were before the days of Outlaw Speed Shop when Brian still worked at the bank. Judging by the fact that Hutchy is rolling around the oval at AIR it is probably back in the push start days.




A typical altered eliminator match up with Phil Reilly in the "Pig"

 

More early 70's AIR stuff.

Roger Keough's blue flame Chevy six powered D/D. The whole car was built in Roger's mum's garage, chassis, body and engine, including the fuel injection.



Phil Reilly is out on Bob Dunn here but that obviously is not going to last. This was in the days of heads up Altered Eliminator and the big guns dominated the results.


Ross Mellish's Proud Australian T/F. Australian built and the first back motor car down under. I think that it last ran as a dry lakes car.


The Hussey Brothers Ampol GT top fuel car that had it origins in the Graham Withers car a few pages back. With the Husseys and Mellish on hand top fuel was obviously the featured match race at this event.


All this stuff is too far back in time for me to be able to remember the name of the driver in the car in the near lane but in the background is the late Roly Leahy's first dragster, the original Aubert and Gerlach junior fueller. This is early in Roly's ownership of the car as it still has the single four barrel Cleveland Ford for power.


Mellish again. Adelaide was a combined road course, oval, drag strip so the was not water box for burnouts. We just dumped some water in the appropriate place and went for it.


Ian Splatt suited up in the Bounty Hunter A/FA ready to make a lap. That is my brother alongside the tow car, ready to dump some gas in the injectors and pull the starter cables. Car owner Vic Muirhead sold cars for a living so this weekend we had a BMW (high zoot at the time) as a tow car.


See what I mean about the burnouts at AIR. Mellish has already done his and Alan Hussey lights them up diagonally across the "staging" area as he attempts to get to the line on time.


Note the push bar on the Hussey's Falcon GT tow car.


Hutchesson again, this time against Splatt.


In the far lane is "Andy Capp" Kukeste in his customized 65 Mustang up against "Fast" Eddie Vodopivec's XW Falcon GT. Eddie and his brother Ivan eventually graduated to a pro stocker and Capp's Mustang last raced as a C/MP.


Wrecking yard owner Bruce Mutton's Nova faces off against Glenn Virgin in his dad's legendary VW


Roger Keough on the return road. Roger never drove or raced anything other than a Chevy. This shot also shows a bit more of his self built injector set up.


Not quite a car in motion but Joe Cook's top bike does have a VW engine


Roly Leahy's dragster on the hook after a drive line failure with Roly himself on the left of the picture.


This is back when even rear engine dragsters looked good

 

Great photos........that Dragbike shot is awesome.

 

Can someone please find photos of the English, Frakes & Funk "Kentucky Moonshiner" Top Fuel dragster Canopy car that they campained?

 

Last batch for now.

Hussey out on Mellish. You can get a pretty good idea of the era by looking at what the fans are wearing, plenty of bell bottom jeans there.


This time Ross is out first. This track was a bit like Lions in the the fans were right on top of the action. From the top of the wall to the spectator fence was about 6 feet so it was easy to get a nitro "fix".


Hot Rod eliminator action. The car in the near lane is Dave Gale's Baron 11 which fit the letter of the rules if not the spirit. It was actually the chassis form the old "Shaker" Monaro funny car with a "T" body and the motor from Gale's Model A sport coupe. In the far lane is Graham Watson's car which started life as a street rod


Gale again. Note the skinny little aluminum front fenders and the drum brakes that were needed to comply with the rules


Glen Virgin again. The "Turtle" H/MP Holden in the left lane may have been Max Worden--too long ago to be sure but some of the Aussies on the HAMB are welcome to chime in.


Gas eliminator action with the Melbourne based Hair Cortina.


Bob Dunn again. Like most of the altered runners he ended up in a funny car and his last race car was an ex Gene Snow Snowman Charger.


Cook again on the VW bike. Direct drive and "flywheel shield, we don't need no stinkin' flywheel shield"


Splatt again and car sales must have been slow if we were using a HR Holden as a tow car.


Graham (shades) and Alan working on their car. All the right stuff--Frankenstein mag, three rib hat with rubber fuel lines and no port nozzles and a throttle linkage bellcrank on the back of the blower.


Splatt on the return road

 

Roo, you have no idea what kind of closet Slant freak I am! Do you recall what kind of numbers this car ran?

 

I'm pretty sure the very first was the 1959 NHRA Nationals at Detorit Mich. and it set a record for it's class and run almost right on what the engineer guru of the bunch had predicted. Read it somewhere in the history and a clone site. But I don't know the url.

I do know for a "fact" it was at the 59 Nationals. So I suspect the info is correct.

High and Mighty is in the Hot Rod NHRA movie "Ingenuity in Action" Shown leaving the line once at the 59 NHRA Nationals.


...

 

https://www.allpar.com/racing/high-mighty.html

 

Roof rack ? That's the top of the stand that the starter (guy that makes the lights turn green) sits under to keep out of the sun.

 

Hey man where did you get that pic for your profile, looks awesome.

 

Here is a pic of the roadster with probably one of Dicks 392 powerplants in it, Hugh Tucker, Roy Demmick and Tom Dawes pictured.

Tom leaning against that tow vehicle from the original pic


I know, not in motion, but just a little added info for the original post.

 

Hey Roo, the Pig in the background has me puzzled. Do you think this is the car that later became Doug Elsworthy's Plum Crazy?