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

its a unicycle

 

CLASS GUY AND I AM NOT EVEN A FORD GUY

 

Took this off of my latest Jeg's catalog so most of you have probably seen it but I don't think it has shown up here.

 

Yep, that is it! I've never seen photos of that car, other than with the red, white & blue paint job

 

I don't have captions for all of these:


Hollish Brothers, before the Bantam panel truck, rear engined Olds powered


Santa Ana, 1957...Some drag roadsters started out as track roadsters, as sprint cars began to replace track roadsters, some of them found a new life as drag roadsters, i.e. the one on the left, racing a modified sports car. Given the amount of tire smoke, the sports car probably has something more than a 4-cylinder...maybe early Sam Parriot?


OK, we all know that Garlits was hardly the first to build a back-motored dragster, this is a reminder of how far back they go...


Heir and Bender, Ronnie Heir drove, sponsored by Lee's Speed Shop in Santa Monica (Santa Monica had to have lots of speed shops!)...these guys made the cover of HRM, ran really well on gas (I remember it at San Fernando), but when Leonard Harris died at Lions, Heir and Bender left drag racing...


same car as above


HRM feature on Keeter & Stewart. This car first ran on gas with a Desoto, then upgraded to a blown Chrysler on fuel. Here it is at Santa Ana. It met its demise at Fontana with the blown Chrysler, got sideways around half way down the track, slid off the track onto the grass next to the track (yes, instead of a guardrail, Fontana had a grass patch!), and the slippery grass only hastened the slide, so the car got into the parking lot, hit a couple of cars, breaking one guy's leg, and injured driver Dick Stewart, who never drove again. The aftermath was ugly, spectators got chased away from the crash site, and when one spectator hazed the cop who was clearing the area, the cop ran him down and bashed him with his billy club. When the remains of the car got loaded on the trailer, some spectator tried to take a picture of it, and someone on the crew decked the photographer and broke his camera. Yes, drag racing used to be fun, but not on that day.....we left quietly before anything more could go wrong....


The Dead End Kids, Lang, Anahory, and Razon...they were from Brooklyn but raced a lot on the West Coast with this Ivo car....Rapid Red Lang drove....Spider Razon would go on to crew for Jimmy Nix, later took over Milodon Engineering, last I heard was making racing jackets...(made me a really neat Lion's jacket to make up for the one Lion's promised if you broke a record, but never got it!)...This crew was memorable, down to the ancient black Chrysler push car)


Cyr and Hopper, '58 Nationals....note the "for sale" on the car...they took this one back to sell, planning on winning the meet with their new TE-440 blown car. But when that car lost, they wiped off the "for sale" sign and won the meet with this car!

 

In those days you didn't usually see bottom maintenance unless something broke...and you had to be pretty sharp to detect that something broke before it came out the pan on the next run ... this is the Baney car that McEwen drove


No ID


Texas's Don Breithaupt. B/A...this car was always a strong runner


Don't know where, when, or who...this is really old time drag racing, though


Same as above, really wide drag strip, no idea where, or who, or when...the A looks like BB Ford or Lincoln-powered.


Gary Cagle, looks like Bobby Langley behind him...not sure where, but Gary traveled a lot, so it could have been about anywhere...Gary put a lot of miles on that Ford push car.


Dick Guyette's Isky Clown, before the lettering, Potvin blown Olds on gas.


Big...don't know where, but look how close the spectators are to the track, and only a chain link fence between them and Garlits...



Yes, this picture has been posted before....a real street roadster vs a street roadster...as most of you know, Dean Lowe drove his street roadster on the street....and drove it a long way -- I remember it showing up at the Powerine Station next to Bob's Big Boy on Colorado in Pasadena, talk about drawing a crowd....


Kelly Brown at Lion's...Kelly was a stunt driver for the movies when he wasn't driving fuelers


Scoville & Koper A/R at the NHRA Nationals...guess this is trophy presentation time because the really big trophy that went to top eliminator is right behind the roadster...which also won its class...from Sherman Oaks, CA


Two pictures of Dick Belfatti, from Willow Grove, PA. Dick was a long-time fuel dragster builder and driver, traveled widely...the car above is his K-88 Chassis Research car, following an earlier TE-440. The bottom picture is Dick in his Fuller car racing Garlits. Dick hung out with the Speed Sport guys and Karamesines and thus the Speed Sport scoop on the car...

 

This is a staged shot. The kart was not moving. Ivo booked a 2 out of 3 match race with the kart at San Gabriel. The kart broke before their first race. Ever the PR hound, Tommy staged this shot for a Drag News photo.

 

I know that old chain link fence. I spent a lot of time leaning on it. That's San Gabe.

 

Different times for sure. NOBODY not even the crew guys will stand to the side of a fuel car today. Guess we know better now.