Event Coverage Drag Racing Corvettes In The 1950s

Hi guys, I'm currently writing a book about Corvette drag cars, focusing on the period 1955 - 1975.

I've gathered a lot of research material but am a little light on drag racing events from the 1950s.

I was wondering if anyone on here has NHRA etc entry lists for drag racing events, including the US Nationals, or any other event in which there are Corvettes competing? I'm after anything for the period 1953 - 1960.

I'm also looking for race results from any events for the period 1953 - 1960. I've been able to access Hot Rod magazine for this period, but its race coverage tends to focus mostly on Top Fuel etc and less importance given to the lesser classes.

I'm also looking for photos. Am after anything up to 1970.

If you're able to help in any way, I'd love to hear from you.

Thanks in advance
Steve

 

BTTT

 

Photo from Beeline Dragstrip, AZ, circa 1965

 

Hello,

That is a big project you are following. The associations may have listings of the events. But, remember, what used to be individual classes for sports cars that involved Corvettes from 55 onward were phased out around 1965-66 in favor of fuel dragsters and the factory experimental cars. The old gas coupes and sedans, as well as street roadsters and sports cars were now lumped into eliminator groups. That gave the organization “wonderkins” more time to keep those classes hanging on for dear life, yet the doom was fast approaching.

The magazines and newspapers were also changing as the dragsters and funny cars were now given the emphasis for coverage. Comparing the 1959-60 Drag News to the 1967 Drag News coverage is different. The individual classes are phasing out and in some cases, nonexistent. Then as various drag strips started closing, the emphasis was advertising and money came in play. so, the cars were now dependent on advertisement money and the little backyard guy was out of the picture.

So, now, it is a million dollar project for advertisements for the racers. Gone are the simple fire protection suits. Now, they look like walking advertisements. Also, any inclination of how a race went down the dragstrip turns into… “…without so and so company products, we would not have done what we did today…” to that extent of advertising in a post race interview.

Jnaki

So, listings of events for just Corvettes are few and far between. At one time, sports cars had divisions from the powerful Modified Sports classes in A and AA classes down to the little sporty cars with 4 cylinder motors , in class C, D and sometimes E/F… all chasing a dream of winning a race or two.

Here are some posts from previous threads about sports cars including the Corvette:
Betty Skeleton

https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/what-would-you-do-with-it.1224504/page-3#post-14715711

Betty Skeleton Drag Racing

https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum...-picture-thread.545759/page-349#post-14731005

Madeline Stephens

https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/hot-rod-ladies.1220461/page-6#post-14265956

Bones Balogh

https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum...-picture-thread.545759/page-350#post-14741590

Bill Bagshaw

https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/the-red-light-bandit-corvette.1273889/#post-14666586

at Lion’s Dragstrip
https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum...picture-thread.228509/page-2104#post-14624388

Bill Lindner

https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/survivor-sighting.1278403/#post-14689491

Dave Mc Donald

https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum...rnational-raceway-1957.1279348/#post-14678889


Lion’s Dragstrip action 1959



Dick Shea

https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum...-custom-corvette.1190521/page-2#post-14393446

1959… Corvettes at Lion’s Dragstrip

:09
Perhaps with a little more v8 power the following year model would have made the jump in class and have similar results. IOHO
:16

Briggs Cunningham

https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/the-bu-merc.1268824/#post-14547874

Moon Tank inside of a Corvette (prior to late 1960)

https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum...mp-picture-info-thread.1259891/#post-14446263

Hot Rod Sports Cars

https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/hot-rod-sports-cars.956823/page-49#post-14189334

Worlds Fastest Corvette From Worlds Largest Corvette Dealer

https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum...-picture-thread.545759/page-278#post-13934465

1959 Riverside Raceway

1959 Riverside Raceway Pits
Corvette #2

 

Awesome as always @jnaki !

 

Steve, Jnaki is a Great source for all things automotive (especially Hot Rods)! Above is just a sampler of the things that he has recorded, start a conversation with him.

 

Jnaki, amazing history and knowledge as always. I always appreciate your post and glad you share the history.

 

Apricot Brandy out of the Fairfield, Ohio area has some great history and held several records. He had a few Vettes, this 54 plus a nice mid-year. He lived around the block from me when I was growing up, good guy.

 

Jnaki…not only knows the history, but lived it. Thanks for sharing!

 

I love the SoCal area and enjoy going there. His history and knowledge of the Surf and hot rod scene is amazing and enjoyable. I love the stories and look forward to them. A book should be written, or at least memoirs of @jnaki recorded.

 

I agree. I enjoy reading his contributions as well.

 

Very successful California competitor. Street Eliminator 1965 Winternationals at Pomona and class winner. Held national records also.

 

Hello,

Well, thanks for the accolades. Corvette history is a part of HAMB history. At least there are the above 4 HAMB readers and 3 others that read my stuff, so that is a plus. My philosophy is that since we have been in So Cal for almost 77 years, something has to stick in the old brain. My notes and journals are still there and I can use them for help in the stories and posts.

As a teen, the idea of being able to drive was a huge eye opener, as it has been for almost everyone. But, I wanted to explore the area and hot rods/drag racing, surfing and photography vacations allowed me to do it to the most we could. My brother opened up the hot rod/drag racing world. Then I got interested in photography with films and editing. Then when 35mm cameras came along, it opened up more trails to follow.
From joy riding to drag racing... So Cal had it all.

My wife and I have done the college thing and then we were away from our families most of our lives. That allowed us to explore and get interested in a ton of cultural stuff that we liked and most did not. It was our way of living a simple life with little to no money, not like some of our friends who were living in huge homes and driving fancy cars.
Vnak photo

Jnaki

So, thank you for allowing me to post various facts from my own history that go along with the topics. Hot rods and drag racing were the main emphasis for a long time and that got me started. Because of the direction that my brother had to take after 1960, we started the “all over So Cal/Baja, Mexico touring” adventures. We were always looking for the best waves to ride and enjoy. So, it was all supposed to be that slice of history and allowed us to set some good memories along the way.

It is too bad that as we get older and certainly much wiser, that our young teens/20 something bodies did not stay with us along the way. The early high contact activities and the massive expenditure of energy during the 20s-30s led to the limited ranges in the long run. It has been a long run, too. The brain advanced, but mother nature has its telling way to show us “time waits for no one…” and that is just the way it is. YRMV

Speaking of Corvettes: (50's style prior to the massive change over to the odd looking bodies and builds...)

We all like a nice rear end !!!
with or without a parachute…

1962 high school parking lot... here we come...

 

Hi everyone, thank you so much for your replies. I really appreciate it. Lots of good stuff in here to look through! Thanks again

 

So, listings of events for just Corvettes are few and far between. At one time, sports cars had divisions from the powerful Modified Sports classes in A and AA classes down to the little sporty cars with 4 cylinder motors , in class C, D and sometimes E/F… all chasing a dream of winning a race or two.
View attachment 5679081

Wow, truly amazing Jnaki! Thank you so much, I really appreciate it.

You are a wealth of great information.

Out of interest, are all these results listed here from 1959? interesting to see the Petrie and Proffitt entry. Could this be Hayden Proffitt?

I have managed to make contact with Bones Balogh and he has provided some information on the Corvette he raced in 1961/62 before joining forces with John Mazmanian.

Thank you again, I really appreciate all your help

 

This is a cool photo. Did you take this?

 

In the early 60's Bruce Morgan ran a red '57 Vette, sponsored by Jardine Headers in stock class, looking for a photo.

 

Could this possibly be Clyde Morgan's Vicious Vette? I have managed to find a couple pics of that car. It was very cool!

 

This one ran all through the 60's starting out in So Cal, with my old friend Jack Frost. After he moved to Oregon, I saw it run many times with 3 different owners. It was painted white and had a blown small block, and then run by Bill Remsen. Then Nick Wehling ran it injected

 

Hello,

From further research in all aspects of Hayden Proffitt and this early Corvette, here is a blurb from a published article on the history of his racing to when he left us. Most of us know about the factory Super Stock cars he drove and about the dragsters he also drove in the 60-61 era.

“He began running a '57 Corvette out of Bill Thomas' shop and was doing well enough to earn a parts deal from Chevrolet.” This was in 1959. Bill Thomas's shop was in Anaheim, CA in inland, Central Orange County.

It is likely that this Green Corvette in my old film is his. It was always winning when I filmed the sports car classes.
speed shift at :05

Jnaki

Bones Balogh was running his 1949 chevy sedan in D/Gas at the time.

photo by Doyle Hatfield of Bones Balogh's 49 Chevy Fastback at the drags.

Note:
"In 1955, when Lion's drag strip opened, Bones took his '38 Chevy down there. He couldn't keep up with the guys until he got hold of a 283 Chevrolet V-8 and put in into a '49 Chevy. This was when he was hanging out with Ed Iskendarian and they became life-long friends. Bones went to work for Isky working on motors, grinding cams and dreaming up ways to make more power. "

"Bones was at Isky from 1960-66 and anything Bones wanted to do when it came to drag racing was fine with Ed. In fact, Ed would help him out. They had over 250 wins at Lion's drag strip with that '49 Chevy and after putting a big 671 blower on it - it ran 113 mph and was unbeatable!"

Continued good research on your project.

 

Wow, amazing info Jnaki! This is great. The color film on your YouTube page, did you film this?

 

Jnaki, do you know who Petre is that is co-listed with Proffitt in the Corvette?

 

Hello,

Thank you for the nice comments. It was a time when we just happened to be teenagers and we were living in house just about a mile away from the dragstrip. As little kids, we used to see the building and then completed dragstrip from the railroad tracks East of the location. It was our ringside seat. If we wanted to get up close and personal with the racers and race cars, we had to trudge across the farmer’s fields, plowed or not.

The closest homes to the farmer’s field and the dragstrip were the “Gold Star” home complex. Our junior high school was in the same area, but was farther down towards the finish line. The railroad berm was on dragstrip side of those Yellow two story apartment style homes.

To stay off of the Lion’s Dragstrip property, we stayed on the farmer’s field and the Lion’s security patrols warned us, but could not touch us. We were not on Lion’s Dragstrip property. Just a couple of kids with dirty Levis and a hunger to see the race cars plus the races. Not much was seen from our advantage point other than blurs making a ton of noise. But, on the way back on the return road, it was slow going and we got a weekly show of race cars.

When we finally were able to have money for official entry, we drove in the front gate.

Some teenage kid in a Red Pendleton, taking a needed break from the hectic all day events every weekend… including filming and racing… Tapia Brothers D/Dragster class FED.

Tapia Brothers SBC FED teenage kid in a ... film by James N.



My brother’s vision of what we used to do all day at Lion’s Dragstrip… race, watch, eat hot dogs/chili dogs and wander around taking 16mm color films of our favorite racers and their race cars.
I even looked the photographer/ filming guy, part carrying around a tripod for moving, panoramic action shots.

So yes, I took the majority of the films from 1957 to 1964. But the last film I took of our 1940 Willys 671 supercharged SBC build in 1960 was transferred to VHS, but over time… disappeared from our collection. Steel film reels and all, all missing in action for some reason.


This is an action film of our Willys at Lion's Dragstrip, taken by another racer. So, it is the only film of our build and racing, until I find my own films someplace stored away.


Jnaki

To answer your other question, in my research, I did find another listing for a drag racer KIA at Lion's in 1965. April 1965…


A first hand account of the tragic ending to a racer…Pete Petrie. Assumed that he was the partner of the early Corvette team with Hayden Proffitt.

NOTE: Drag News typists were known to misspell plenty of information in their list of winners and story bylines. (Let alone, getting correct information on advertisements for the classified sections.) Remember in those times, they were manual typewriters, not computer keyboards… and, the stories were dictated over the phone to the typists weekly from all over the USA. So, the Petre and Proffitt Corvette was a strong connection to Pete Petrie’s history. YRMV

 

Here are the entries for the 1958 Nats as printed in the program.

 

Hey thanks for this. I really appreciate it.

 

Hi Jnaki, sorry for the slow reply. Its been a crazy couple of weeks. Thanks so much for this additional info. Its brilliant! I'll send you a private message which I hope you receive?

 

I just stumbled on your request for help on your book project. If you are still actively working on your book, I think I may be able to help quite a bit as I'm a bit of a nerd about 50s drag racing history. I'll add a few things here just to give you an idea of how I can help. Here's a couple of gals who raced Corvettes in the 50s from my website Women Drag Racers: Pioneers from the First Three Decades:



Here is a scan of her entries from a spread sheet I am compiling on women drag racers in the 50s:





That may be a little too small to view, but if interested further, just let me know. Other ladies on my spread sheet who raced Corvettes in the 50s include: Janice Garner (D/SP Vette in '58 at Santa Ana) and Sherry MacDonald (B/SP Vette in '56 at San Gabriel Valley Drag Strip).




I also have Fran's times on her Corvette on my spread sheet.

There are numerous photos in Drag News of racing Corvettes in the 50s. Here's an example from a research file I have compiled on images in Drag News:



Other very early drag racing Corvettes included Floyd Wells at Colton in '54, John Pierson at the '54 ATAA World Series of Drag Racing at Lawrenceville, Mrs. Jack Coyle at Colton in '54, and Lewis Owen at Lions in '55. I have times and places for most of these.

I'm a novice on all the tech aspects of uploading images to the HAMB, so I apologize if they don't appear. I welcome any who can teach me what to do if they don't appear.

 

Not my photo but I was competing in the MP classes as well at that time. The Dutre brothers along with other racers from the northern California area were always hard to beat. I found the photo on the net and would name the owner if I had that info.

 

Wow, I didn't know that so many women were involved in drag racing in the fifties. That's interesting. How often did they win?

 

Generally I wasn't able to find them unless they won as newspaper results only listed them if they won their class. Some of them beat the pants off men with regularity. Some of them were a force to be reckoned with. Just off the top, Peggy Hart, Helen Root, and Doris Heim, come to mind without giving it much thought. That's probably because they were active racing ladies in Southern California, where my drag race beginnings are rooted.