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

I will always remember on a Friday in 60' working at the Tom Carroll Chevy dealer in San Fernando , watching the cars going throu town to Bakersfield

I was looking out the window and this neat pair a 57' Red & Cream Nomad flat towing the 55' Bel Air blown gasser, and it was the ' Mad Russian Mike Marinoff ' from New York city and that sure made my day

His cars were always very nice looking , but also it was in the middle of winter towing 6000 miles out here and back

As a side note being a 19 yr old kid starting to build my 37' gasser I tried to copy what Mike did, as his cars always hauled the mail and looked sharp too

Those guys back then were real racers, no 18 wheelers just hook up the tow bar and haul your racer

 

296ardun the Harley Estes Willys coupe is still in Joplin it's now red has a blown sbc and is called "Suicide Ride" it's owned by chuck comer he has most of the history on the car not sure what dragstrip that is at but if someone knows please post up cause I would like to know I can say I don't think that is Mokan dragway though I wasn't around back then but the track hasn't changed much in all these years

 

This looks like the track at Ozark, MO.

 

Here's a shot of Terry Ivey for comparison

 

Thanks nitrobrother I think you are correct and thanks for posting the terry ivy pic he was a good guy and is greatly missed around here

 

I really like this shot with Z's name on the grill. Any info?

 

Close enough for me, I will add it to the post above...and thanks!

I seem to remember that when K.S. Pittman switched from Olds to Chrysler power, he had Zeuschel build the engine...but I'm not the best gasser historian...anyone else??

 

Satan's Car Club, left, from Philadelphia, Chrysler, 125mph...this may be at the ATAA Nationals? No ID in the A on the right...



No ID, anyone?


No ID on either...the "Start" banner suggests a Nationals meet, don't know where...(do now, Dragway 42, West Salem, OH, thanks to tmwracing)






Could this be Atlanta's Hoyt Grimes?


One of the early Afron's Green Monsters, not sure where. These guys elevated aircraft-engined dragsters to a science, though they were too heavy to be competitive. I saw this one at the museum at Talladega years ago in unrestored condition.... not sure where it is now but it deserves to be recognized...


K.S. Pittman, before the lettering. Back then gassers had to be street legal, notice that K.S. is even running windshield wipers...and the deuce in the other lane seems very street legal. This is early Pomona, maybe '60 or '61? The '32 Fordor is the Larry Banker's, see Dean Lowe's note on it below.


Glenn Stokley, running gas at this time, maybe Lion's pits? Glenn would go on to race fuelers into the '70s.


The Greek still running his stretched TE-440, before the Stuckey car he debuted at San Gabriel in '64.


Nobles Car Club, at Sioux City, Iowa, late '50s. Homemade car, injected Olds, built with pride.


Wish I could make this picture bigger, but can't without distorting it. This is Pomona in its earliest days, the parking lot of the Los Angeles County Fair. Note the pump house at the end of the track, reminder that back then Pomona was citrus country, and the fairgrounds were surrounded by orange groves, with water to irrigate them drawn from wells like this one. Fortunately it was removed before anyone ran into it. If you watch Pomona on the NHRA shows, it is hardly recognizable any more, so those of us who started there in the late '50s (me in '57), all we have is pictures like this.


...and speaking of distant memories, before slingshot dragsters, safety barriers, or much of anything else except old fashioned drag racing. On the left is the old hearse that C.J Hart, the manager, used to step up to the fragile timing tower at the end. The hearse contained the mechanisms for the clocks, just in case you were wondering...(and no, I don't remember seeing an ambulance the first time I went there in '57...though it may be that organized drag racing's first fatality happened here in 1950)


This photo was captioned "Summers Brothers," but it is actually the competition coupe of Sumner, Bert, and Mews, Slim Sumner driving. Here is it at Half Moon Bay racing Jim McLennan in the Champion Speed Shop TE-440. This could be '61 or '62...

 

J & J MUFFLER. DATE UNKNOWN. HALF MOON BAY................................... TOM


PACERS OF PETALUMA. JAN. 13, 1963. HALF MOON BAY...................................TOM

UNKNOWN RED B/A ROADSTER. MAR. 10, 1963. FREMONT.........................................TOM
MAYBE SOMEONE CAN I.D. THIS CAR.
LACOSTA & TABUCCHI A/SR. MAR. 10, 1963. FREMONT...........................................TOM

 

When I saw Arfons' Green Monster at the Talladega museum in the summer of '95, it was sitting outside the front door of the rear building. I thot it odd that the Green Monster was sitting outside with all those great race cars, including one of Garlits' Swamp Rats, inside that building.

 

The '32 Fordor is the Larry Banker built sedan, powered with an 1/8th over 283. Before Dad bought it from Larry, it had run 108 in the quarter with a 3 speed Chevy trans. What an ill handling car it was, with the Chevy rear end hung on a bunch of Chevy truck trailing arm iron and Air Lift bags for suspension. Dad had Kurtis cut it all out and mount the rear end on parallel leaf springs and proper Monroe shocks.

 

That is KS Pittman on the driver's side.

 

Dragway 42

 

As others have said...KS Pittman S&S Racing Team 1933 Willys

 

Here are the pix I took of Arfons' Green Monster at the Talladega Museum in the summer of '95.

 

I saw it there in the same place and in the same condition two years later...hope it has been at least moved inside

 

full bodied dragster at the ATAA Nationals (I think)...any ID? (and no, I have no idea why it is parked in a trash pile)


No ID #2, injected Olds, no other information...



OK. this really embarrasses me, but I can't identify any of these drag cars...I'm guessing Texas because some Texas racers went for these really long headers in the '50s...(is that Buggs Threadgill's Plymouth-bodied altered in the back right?)


This is either Dave Marquez, from Ventura, in his Ardun-powered roadster, or it's new owner. Dave ran this HRM cover car in '55. Dave and his father owned a trucking company, and when one of his drivers picked up a hitchhiker who died in the subsequent truck crash, Dave sold the roadster. It has never resurfaced, though rumors had it going to either Tennessee or Alabama (yes, I have looked for it). What a find that would be if the car was found...


Warren and Coburn...these guys tried almost every dragster combination.


No ID on time, cars or place...anyone??


Caption says "Bob Cantin"


Someone might know who owned this roadster from Hays, Kansas?


...or this close-to-street B/G? (Zaiser Brothers Willys in the background? From Maryland? Cad powered?) stretching my brain cells here!


Speed Sport, guess they replaced the traditional Hilborns with a Scott -- so no Speed Sport scoop...is that Norb Lockes blown twin flathead in the other lane?


and speaking of which....not sure where.

 

The first one I can't recall the name, but it's from a photo collection from Six Flags Dragway in Victoria, TX in '63.

The group of wild headers isn't Texas, but from the next largest state, Rhode Island.

 

The 404 roadster after the redo in San Rafael Cal at HALS body shop. Hal Hutchins same man that built the first version of the Dave Cunningham 40 sedan .

 

Thanks!! (I served with guys from Rhode Island in the Navy, that's what they told me too!!...but never in a bar with Texas sailors!)

 

I don't read the NHRA site so didn't realize that fuel driver Hank Westmoreland passed away in April...Hank and I went to Pasadena High School together, he drove a white '57 Chevy...got into fuel dragsters with Jim Busby, who was a year ahead of me at Pasadena High (until he dropped out to go drag racing)...here are a couple of pictures of Hank over his drag racing career:


Driving Don Johnson's "Beachcomber" at Lions


Hank (with the surfer hair) packing the chute on Jim Busby's "Beach Boys" fueler...


and driving Busby's twin Indy Ford powered car...these pictures are from Don Ewald's WDIFL site...it is worth the membership, by the way....

here is a caption by Phil Burgess:

On the subject of passings, I also learned this week that former Top Fuel driver Hank Westmoreland passed away in late April. He was 72.

“Surfer Hank,” whose real first name was Wade and who drove a number of top-quality cars in his years behind the wheel, was really a surfer, and he, car owner Jim Busby, Bob Ekelberger, and Bill Karges were known as the Beach Boys Racing team in the late 1960s.

“We would actually go surfing and then tow the race car to the track with our surfboards still in the van,” said Busby in Tom Madigan’s book, Fuel & Guts. “We were sometimes confused with the Surfers racing team of Tom Jobe, Bob Skinner, and Mike Sorokin. There was also Don ‘the Beachcomber’ Johnson, who ran a Top Fuel car around the same time. It was all part of the California image, and it helped promote drag racing around the country.”
Hank also drove for Jim and Allison Lee, of the Plains, Virginia...RIP

 

From George Klass...John Forstka, far lane in the Fiat (with the Speed Sport scoop), vs Gabby Bleeker, racing for the Drag News Jr. Eliminator position. Forstka with a blown Chrysler, Bleeker with a blown Olds. fuel coupes and roadsters were eligible....Drag News had both a top and middle eliminator top 10, and you got there by challenging one of the contenders...then if you won (2 out of 3) you could challenge the top car...Mooneyham & Sharp spent a lot of time at the top of the list.....This might be Cordova, IL, anyone else?


Leffler & Loukas, from Parma, OH, at Bakersfield, probably '61...Neil Leffler would return to California and race top fuel cars and ultimately the "Secret Weapon" funny jeep


Raker's Car Club, sponsored by Reath Automotive...later they would run a fuel dragster, engine by Ronnie Rapp...Bruce Woodcock, probably driving this coupe, was killed in in at San Gabriel in '62.


Before the Frantic Four of Weekly, Rivero, Fox, and Holding, Jim Fox ran this really nice purple roadster, first unblown, then the carbs went on the blower, and even later the engine went into the Fox, Holding, and Adair fuel dragster, also painted purple. But even then fuel drag racing was expensive, and Fox and Holding joined Norm Weekly and Ron Rivero in the series of "Frantic Four" fuelers....(this photo also from George Klass)



and here they are at Pomona taking the No. 1 spot from Karamesines...I saw this race, never forgot it...Norm beat Chris on the first try, then, when it looked like Chris was way ahead on the second race, because Norm got sideways, Chris, on a strong pass, suddenly crossed the center line, handing the race to Norm.....and why did he cross the center line? According to Chris, he knew he had the race won, and reached out to flip Norm off, hit the steering wheel, and crossed the line....


Frank "Ike" Iacano at Santa Ana, this was one of the strongest fuel coupes of the time, early '50s.


I posted this picture before, but found it again with the caption...and no, I don't know which "Brighton" this is. (But GearheadsQCE checked it, it is MA, thanks)


Ivo testing the 4-Buick car at San Fernando...normally you pushed down the push road next to the drag strip but not if you were Ivo...notice how close the houses were to the track...one of the reasons for its demise in '71...the hay bales were there to keep wayward cars out of the drainage ditch on the other side (still there today)....I hit the hay bales in my B/FD...kept the car sort of together but my left hip still hurts when the weather is right...


the lineup to run at Pomona, early '50s


Pete Robinson, far lane, from Atlanta, racing Mooneyes, Santa Fe Springs, CA...Pete was fanatical about lightness, even drilled out the bolts on his car to loose even a fraction of a pound....C.J Hart had to threaten to kick him out of Lions unless he put a chute on his car....


Arlington TX's Vance Hunt, near lane, racing Art Malone, Lutz, FL....Not sure who is driving for Vance, maybe J.L Payne, either got a great start or a red flag...


Lining up at San Fernando...sort of looks like Jeep Hampshire on the left, Ernie Alvarado's Pontiac car on the right...

 

I thought Roger Wolford ran the Secret Weapon Jeep?

Gene Mooneyham made good money with the coupe defending his #1 spot. He booked in at $500 per defense race. The break out for Jr. Eliminator was 8.99. gene had the coupe dialed in to run 9.0's at every track they raced at. When gene sold the coupe to Emmit White, Emmit wanted to go balls out, and had Gene set the tune up on kill the first time he ran it at LIONS. The car came off the trailer at 8.92, and the Jr. eliminator title was gone. The next pass, the motor blew all to hell. Gene told Emmit, "it's your baby", got in his Ranchero and went home. At least Emmit had the pleasure of owning the first fuel altered to run in the 8's.