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

Sanford Maine 1964, Jack Doyle driving, I am standing along the fence

 

No no bare frames, a car a least had to have a body on it to run. Shamless as it was, there had to be at least 1 loose guideline somewhere.
While I have your attn Larry, why did they run cars 4 at a time in Texas? Were there too many cars in each field to get them all run in 1 day or something? The pic I saw was from Green Valley I think. Tom S.

 

I'll bet you remember four abreast at Lions in the stocker classes.
But, do you remember the "Lemans" starts that they would have during the late afternoon dinner break???
Fun stuff...might have been just after Pappy took over from M/T...

 

Pomona ran 4 abreast races for the stock classes in the 60's. My first run down the 1/4 mile was in Dad's El Camino in a 4 car race. I came in 3rd. Had a lot to learn about getting off the line. The 4 stockers were scary close together. If one guy screwed up, he would take out all 4 cars. That was 1960 with a flagman starter. It was scary, but fun!

 

Ok, I suppose I'll have to show how much sheltered life I lived here, but the few pics I've seen 4 abreast were all like some pre race warm up stunt kind of thing usually with pro's like Muttley's pic back a few pages. But recently, on the Texas race track thread, there was a photo of what appeared pure stockers tearing off 4 at a time.
LeMans starts?!
There has to be some kind of culture gap around the Mississippi or the Rocky Mountains somewhere. I've never even heard of such!
Tom S.

 

Wasn't it neat when all the super trick parts came from surplused aircraft salvage ?
Gotta dig that huge cargo chute. Bet it took 3 large men,and a boy to pack that one.
And it'd probably pull that heavy Chevy off the track in a good cross gust! Tom S. in Tn.

 

That is pretty cool. I wonder if it was a handfull to drive.

 

^^^for some reason, I find this car really beautiful......Looks like it would be a ball to drive.

 

If you are referring to Arnie's car as being "totally aftermarket" with a "tubing space frame", you are mistaken. Underneath that fiberglass body (made with a mold pulled off of a pre-production '66 GTO loaned by Pontiac) is the factory built '64 GTO frame from Beswick's Mystery Tornado GTO. It was modified from the firewall forward, with that part of the frame replaced by a tubular replacement and an Econoline front axle and spindles. Beswick couldn't afford a full tube frame, so he had the Logghe Brothers modify the stock '64 GTO frame. Since the Barracuda was a unit bodied car, I'd suspect the structure supporting the motor and drive train is easily as far from factory stock as that under Beswick's GTO, since a blown Hemi would have probably turned the lengthened and lightened Barracuda body into a pretzel.

There's an interesting article about this car (which has been restored) in the July 2012 issue of High Performance Pontiac. Arnie provides much information about the car and how it was set up.

 

this is a great thread, and this car is the shit..

 

Paul Sutherland's coupe, remember it at Bakersfield, maybe '61-62? was one of the most evil-looking cars there, he ditched the skirts over the wheels later, think it went pretty straight...

 

Don Yates in the Mikkleson (sp?) Brothers Ardun car, supposedly ran 8.44 -- but lots of people doubted the e.t...

 

found these in the forgotten files...no doubt they have all been posted before.
Feel free to go back and find them...



Lions





Irwindale

 

Great shots....I think I can hear the Shores and Hess car! Bet the Blairs car had a nice heavy, slow to wind down flywheel too.

 

Paul Sutherland's coupe in 1960 with a Simca body. I think the picture with the skirts on the Fiat body is earlier.

 

OK, Dean...I give up....how do you tell the difference between a chopped Simca and a chopped Fiat.....?
Fiat-Simca-Simca-Fiat.......what are the differences?
For 50 years I thought they were synonymous

 

Don't all the plugs for fiberglass replica bodies come from an actual car somewhere?
I'll give you this, I always thought the frame under this car of Beswick's was home made. I didn't know Logghe had anything to do with it, that's why I called it Logghe type.

Some can prove me incorrect here, because it's rapidly closing in on 50 years since I last saw this car, let alone talk about it, but I believe Mr. Taylors Barracuda started life with a serial # off a Plymouth lot somewhere. (Morton Mtrs(?) I could be confused, but I do not think it was a body in white. It did have a full frame (Albright(?) with roll bars that placed the driver conventionally on the left side. The actual body of the Kingfish could have been 2 or 3 years old when the photo above was taken. Here is one from the Lakeland website from around the same time frame.
Tom S. in Tn.

 

The next gen Kingfish, in they say 67'. (I bet early 68')
Bet Bill and Larry wish they had it racing Beswick pictured earlier.
Tom S. in Tn.

 

Doug, compare the back of the bodies. The Fiat is smaller and slopes down with the recess for the spare tire. The Simca has the rounded "bustle back". I think the pre war Fiat and Simca bodies were identical. After the war the back of the Simca was changed.

 

OK, Muttley and Doug got me to fire up the scanner for another round. Some of these dragster views are static, so if they offend anyone I'll pull them. I just don't know where else to post them. Any suggestions appreciated.

This first view is of the Matney Brothers during time trials at Indy in 1966. Additions or corrections always welcome.

 

I don't know if this is the final for Comp Eliminator but I seem to recollect Snow running a dragster for the title. Indy 1966.

 

The Blair Speed Shop 55 is the shit!

 

More unknown dragsters at Tulsa. Anyone recognize the full-bodied car?

 

Dragsters have been called to staging at the 67 Nationals. A real traffic jam as seen from the door of Charles Smiths carryall.

 

That makes me want a mini bike with an awning. All the dragsters are cool too.

 

Very cool. The push car looks like a 57 Pontiac, and being a Bonneville would make it a convert with factory fuel injection and some very elaborate 1/4 panel stainless

 

I went to the Nationals in Indy in 1967 with the team of Griffin Usery and Smith and their A/FD. It was an eventful trip for a number of reasons. We were making the long tow up from Dallas when in the middle of the night, about half way across Missouri the frame on the trailer broke. We limped into St Louis at reduced speed and after a very early breakfast, found a welding shop near downtown that was able to repair the trailer. We arrived for tech inspection in the afternoon, after which we collapsed at the Travelodge on W Washington st near downtown, as described in an earlier post.

The car was the fastest A/FD in the class, by about .3 of a second, but in the class final, Ben Griffin was beaten by a desperation hole shot by the Chevy-powered competition. Such is drag racing. Still, it was a wonderful, treasured experience, though being part of a team, there was much less time for photos than usual and I only managed a handful, mostly from the pits and staging lanes.