History Early drag racing photos

The Greek.

 

Bud Barnett he worked for Speed Warehouse Hayward Ca. Brother was Cub Barnett .

 

Let's not let this site die. Come on, post some old racecar photos.

 

Marshall Robilio photo from Halls TN drag strip (old air base taxi-way, about 50mi north of Memphis), about 1953. This is Billy Ferguson (left) and Marshall (right)with their dragster, the Draggin' Wagon. They were members of the Memphis Rodders.

 

Bakersfield 1959 March Meet #1

Hello,


From March 1959 Smokers Event
Drag News Weekly
So, with such a disappointing showing at the initial Westcoast appearance for the Garlits team, they got some help from noted So Cal locals.

Note the advertisement photo taken prior to the early March 7th event...

This event at Kingdon Drag Strip was supposed to be the next stop after Bakersfield in March if 1959. The early photo was carburetor powered Hemi motor. But after the devastating performance or lack thereof at Bakersfield in early March, he returned to Kingdon with a 671 supercharger, plus a blower spec motor to continue his Westcoast tour.

The whole Don Garlits West Coast Tour in 1959 is best summed up in this excerpt from WDIFL article.
“After a humbling defeat at the first Smoker's Meet (in March of 1959) at Famoso, Don Garlits hastily equipped his "Swamp Rat" dragster with a supercharger and won the next big race at Kingdon two weeks later.” WDIFL

As West Coast drag racers were happy with the results at the March 1959 Smokers Race at Bakersfield, Garlits started to do some changes to be more competitive.

After the new 671 was added, he was off to Kingdon for some racing in Northern California.
Kingdon 1959

Now, the results were what everyone thought of was going to happen in 1959, but the Westcoast racers had one step ahead back then. Now, it was everyone’s race at any time…

“After incurring burns at a race at Chester, SC. in 1959 Don was unable to drive and his friend Art Malone, pictured here with Don, took over the driving. Don also changed over from the 8 carburetor set-up he had used previously, to a Hilborn two-port injector. With the ability to tune the car more accurately performance immediately improved. At one of the first outings with Malone in the seat at Sanford, ME. on August 23, 1959, the car set a new Standard 1320 speed record of 183.66 MPH.” WDIFL


Jnaki

Then, one year later:

March 1960:

 

Bob Sullivan