History Before Funny Cars, there was Match Bash

As with all racing it evolved and none perfected it like Prudomme & McEwen

 

Before The Snake and Mongoose there were the Gasser Wars with cars like Stone-Woods & Cook, Mazmanian, Ohio George, etc. who had multiple cars setup to run within the Gas Class rules, and Match cars that followed no rules, just built to win match races.

 

Growing up in SoCal the Stone-Woods & Cook Willys was our hero Gasser. We'd pedal our bikes the 3 1/2 miles to Irwindale whenever we heard they'd be running. IMHO Ohio George and his Malco Gasser ruined the class (Maybe that's why Mustangs are banned here......). I crewed on an A Fuel Altered so that was another class I liked Wild Wille Borch and his one handed driving style. He ran AA/FA so I could still root for him. He went to Funnies when the Alterd class died down but didn't have any great success.

 

Willy and Leon Fitzgerald both drove funny car a few times, neither liked to be enclosed in a body.

 

You were very fortunate to have lived all of that. Thanks for sharing.

 

Nice to see this post brought up again. I grew up in this era on the East Coast, and loved the short lived Altered Wheel Base era and the match bash racing I read about in the magazines, mostly Super Stock & Drag Illustrated, too young to drive I would cajole my Dad to make the long drive to the drag strip and see some of my favorite cars, thanks Dad. A couple of observations, the '64 A/FX Chrysler teams took advantage of the rules allowing a bit of wheel base alterations I think maybe 2% but I'm sure they exceeded that, Landy highly modified his '64 A/FX Dodge with a big altering of the wheelbase and a straight axle so he just match raced this high-bred car. The purpose built '64 Dodge Chargers team and Christman's blown '64 Comet opened up the doors and the AWB Factory Mopars of '65 began the term Funny Car. Great times.