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

CLASSIC Irwindale...
Crowds of young guys trying to get a nose full of nitro fumes and get their bodies hammered by the concussion of the engines, seeing "The Snake" up close and in the snack bar, they're cooking up "Double-Doubles" from "In-n-Out"....."that's what a hamburger's all about......"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_UUmpogN-RM&feature=related

When I'd get home about 11 at night, my Mom would say...."I can tell when you've had a fun evening from all the noise I've been hearing all night from the strip five miles east of here and from the nitro and rubber smell on your clothes when you walk in the door".

 

We still go to Brainerd now and then but mostly Paradise in Calhoun, Ga. Both are now 1/8 mile after being full quarters back in the sixties and seventies. Seems like you had to look up from the pits to the track at Ringgold and and looking from the pits the track ran from left to right.

Tom S. you mentioned coming through Ga and N. FL, you might have seen this car in action. It was from Bainbridge, GA and ran from middle GA to N Fla and SE AL. A friend of mine helped with the car and drove it some.

 

Found this video on youtube. Probably been posted half a dozen times but just in case here you go. Its about half an hour long. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=iGMFA3pYzLg

 

Great video. Haven't seen that before.

 

Here's a photo of NHRA starter Buster Couch at the Atlanta Speed Shop Dragway in 1967. Buster was a native of Georgia and was instrumental in the creation of this dragstrip when it was first known as the Newton County Dragstrip. This was a happening place at one time. Now the old strip is the main drive through a subdivision.

 

The is the Jungle Jim funny car driven by Clare Sanders, who was a driver for Jungle Jim, when Lieberman had more than one car touring. This photo was shot at the infamous Yellow River Dragway in 1969. Later that same day, the worst accident in drag racing history occurred when a funny driven by Huston Platt went out of control and into the crowd killing 12 people and injuring about 50.

 

This dragster is not in motion, but it sure is cool!!! The babe ain't bad either ....

 

O.K. what are those front wheels? tractor?

 

Those are from Scotty Fenn "Chassis Research" 19" magnesium. Been looking for a pair for years. Probably will still be looking years from now. Anybody that has a pair they want to unload.....PM me. Todd

 

Heres another video fellas, enjoy it!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FiENM4_eYQ&feature=related

 

I'm sorry, I just can't recognize this Chevy. I've enlarged it and studied. Was it out of Bainbridge? Who was the owner, that might jump start my memory.
Just too much time has past. Tom S.

 

Toby, could you try to post that pic one more time please.
Atlanta Speed Shop used to have some $Big$ payout shows if memory serves me correctly, and it was another super nice strip. Tom S.

 

I'll have to ask my buddy about who owned the car as I can't remember.

Speed Shop around '65 or so:

 

The GeorgiaDragRacing.com site is down causing the photos not to show. Here's a copy I have from my hard drive that shows the same view with Buster along with a shot I took a few years ago from the same vantage point.

 

Scenes like these are becoming ever more prominate. Cant help "progress" and the increasing need for housing I guess. Some of the old trees appear to still be intact. What a great photo op to have a cackle car parked out front of the houses at midnight, headers bellowing flames. Ghost from drag strip long ago.

 

#29441;
" The Georgia Drag Racing .com site is down causing the photos not to show. Here's a copy I have from my hard drive that shows the same view with Buster along with a shot I took a few years ago from the same vantage point. "

Thank you kindly Toby. This is the reason I have such difficulty recalling because of such drastic changes to landscape. It's also astonishing that a track that could promote the big $$ events of the day is the same place in the second photo....... golly, Mr. Couch was an icon too. I'm trying like dickens to make out whose fuelers those are also.
Any chance you have any Warner Robbins shots ?

Places like this is where funny cars were conceived, back when real steel cars were the only thing available to put one of those fueler motors in and cut it up and change it all around. West coast or Michagan engineered tubing cars came later. It split the sport between those with sponsorship who went on to race magazine and media covered championship events, and the rest of the world who worked day jobs. I was always in the latter group, but that doesn't mean I never got to experience some monumental drag racing that would make the hair on the back of your neck stand up.
A lot of the Ga. and Div II folk never toured a whole lot, and touring pros despised going there to race them just as well, and would pass through quietly in the middle of the night on the way to Lakeland. I know we did.
Bagwell, Whisnant, Bonner, Dutton were examples just like Platt, Robinson and Nicholson. Cotton Perry and Jim Headrick terrorized modified elim and created chaos everywhere they showed up, and didn't Linda Vaughn originally come from Ga, or am I confused?
Whew !
Thanx; Tom S. in Tn.

 

I don't know when they closed there, but I raced there as late as the late 80's or maybe the early 90's. I've got some crude VHS tapes here somewhere of an event where we raced.

 

Two Toe, I know they ran there around 90+ - they lost their land lease & had to close it (the property was actually owned by a railroad which wouldn't renew the lease).

Just sad looking at those houses.

 

Yep ... Linda was from Dalton, Georgia, not too far from you in Chattanooga.

 

That's a big 10-4 Dean. You going to Bakersfield tomorrow? If so I my run into you, I will be looking for the 15OZ coupe. Hope it's there.

 

Here's some great footage of the legendary Atlanta $10,000, filmed at the old Atlanta Speed Shop Dragway in 1968! This was the golden age of georgia drag racing.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjDXIFze7wo