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

Dusty Rhodes, really nice fueler from SoCal...'65



Ed Pink tunes the SOHC Ford in Lou Baney's Brand Ford car, Tom McEwen in the seat


Gabby Bleeker, far side, 422" Olds on fuel, John Forstka's Chrysler powered Fiat, near lane. This may have been the first race for the Drag News Jr. Mr. Eliminator class. This was modeled on the similar class for the top fuel cars...fuel altered and fuel roadsters were eligible, and the first three spots were initially given to Forstka, Brocchini-Argee (from Sacramento, CA, and Gene Mooneyham. You could challenge any of the cars to a 2 out of 3 match race, and the first to challenge was Bleeker, who raced Forstka at Gary, IN, on Sept. 15, 1962. Forstka won, and Gabby would challenge him again in October, with the same result. In this picture, it looks like a puff of smoke coming out of Bleeker's headers, maybe the engine was expiring? Information from Don Montgomery's "Those Wild Fuel Altereds." If you don't have one, you need one if you are a fuel altered fan, best history of the class available!


Island Dragway, NJ, thanks to both thehazguy and cullyflower for the ID.


Gene Burkland's Chrysler powered dragster, Lewiston, Montana. Not sure when this was taken, but most land speed racing fans know the Burkland's incredible streamliners that set many a record at over 300 at Bonneville. There is a video of one of them running over 450 that is really worth watching...Google it...(it hits a sunken barrel at the end and is badly damaged, you can just barely see it)...


Ivo vs. Prudhomme...this place was magic...the sound echoed off the hills -- if you even spectated there you never forgot it...as with so many other drag strips, noise complaints finally closed it, just an airport now (and it didn't help that the shutdown area was pretty short)


Red Henslee's fuel modified roadster, Chrysler on fuel. This was originally Paul Sheiffer's roadster, once front engined, built in the late '40s, and constantly modified. This was one of the first direct drive cars, and the first modified roadster to hit 150mph, at Paradise Mesa. This picture is at Pomona, early '50s


Howard Cam Special with Jack Chrisman (I think, although Glenn Ward also drove it), at Half Moon Bay, early '60s.


Blown Ardun in the Safeway Sandblasting C/GS Willys. These guys made most of the blower stuff themselves...the engine later went into a chopped Fiat-bodied competition coupe that Norm Wilcox drove.

 

Love this car "Purple Passion" but don't know much about it, any info on it?

 

2946712 above is at Island Dragway in NJ

 

Know that picture well. I took it in 1966 at Island Dragway. Here's another taken the same day.

 

Check this out from my collection around 1966 as well

 

Thanks to both you and cullyflower...I have never been there, have seen photos from the other side of the track but didn't recognize this side....

 

I know some or all have been posted before but who doesn't like another look at an old FX-er

 

I was only 14 at the time and wasn't allowed on the pit side. NJ law back then you had to be 18 years old to get in the pit side. So these shots are from the spectator side. I only lived one town over and we rode our bikes to the track.

 

The old plywood timing tower @ Island Dragway back in the day.

 

Didn't Red Henslee partner with Emery Cook before Cook & Bedwell?

 

He did, here are a couple of pictures of it in the Henslee and Cook configuration:










And a couple of stories, one from the first AHRA meet, also held at Great Bend KS in 1956 like the NHRA nationals the year before:


As things developed, performances were down notably when you consider that drag racing's best speed was a 155.97-mph run by Red Henslee and Emery Cook's rear-engined roadster. Top speed at the AHRA event was a mere 125-mph by Jim Hopper in the Hopper-Hensley Spl., and that occurred while driving into an estimated 45-mph headwind. --- this from "High Performance"...and another from a source I can't confirm...

on the 150 mph run in high gear, apparently they broke second gear in their Ford trans, and Henslee suggested that they try high gear only as they calculated that they car they were racing might bog on the line...as it turned out, they turned top time of the meet. Cook was driving, but Red wanted to ride in the car on the way back to the pits, and apparently turned it wrong and wrecked it...Cook was so pissed that that was the end of the partnership. He would go on to partner with Bill Hopper in the famed "Isky 5-cycle Special."

 

Where did Ted Cyr come into play as I remember the ' Cyr & Hopper ' fueler ?

Also I think Ted worked at Isky's too

 

Here's a photo I snapped at Pomona in '59 of the Cyr & Hopper fueler. Ted won TE that day at 163.

 

That is the first time I have seen a top mounted 4-71 on a 392, a pretty rare thing as it is mainly a 6-71 setting up there

I remember seeing the car at the Riverside meet right before the first 59' Smokers meet

 

I was up too late last night....I meant to say that Cook partnered with Cliff Bedwell, not Bill Hopper...Don, you are right, Ted Cyr partnered with Bill Hopper....in the car that Dean posted above.

 

Pretty sure that 55 is the restored original, not a clone.

 

I asked about it a couple of years ago...here is my original question and the answer from Church Key:

Is this the original "Blown Hell," from Northern California? Ron Rinauro (sp?) originally owned it, remember that it ran Fremont, think it cost Ron a part of his foot when either the motor or the trans exploded...great to see it again
Click to expand...
No..This not the original. The guy who built and owns this version is from Massachusetts. He saw the original car run at Fremont in the sixties,and it left a big impression on him...

Church Key, Sep 15, 2013 !Report!

 

Chuck Flores, near lane, racing Jim Herbert, from Sacramento, at Half Moon Bay


OK, not in motion, but an early Atlanta dragster, not sure if it is actually Hoyt Grimes or another Georgia dragster...looks like a Packard...anyone else??


Ed Garlits with his carbureted Buick dragster.


No ID on these two gassers...looks like the track is really wet, but these guys are still racing...Elgringo71 has given a likely ID for the Willys: George Gilmore, running a Chrysler, on the Caddo Mills thread.


Early photo of the Hustler I, before paint. The really well engineered blower plenum would get blown off in a backfire and get replaced by a Weiand top mounted manifold, so new that Art Chrisman drilled the holes in it himself...and won the first Smoker's meet against Tony Waters. Eric Rickman photo. This is in front of the Chrisman and Sons Garage in Willowbrook, CA. My father was taking my brother and I through his old medical rounds area in Compton and we drove by this garage, and there was the Hustler sitting in front. Art Chrisman was very hospitable in showing us around the shop...


Double-blown Olds engine in Todd "Doc" Raleigh's dragster...notice the double pop-off valves. Well engineered system, but soon after Todd went to a more conventional blown Chrysler. These were the days when drag racers actually innovated-- it is almost too expensive to innovate today, given the cost of possible failure...


Charles "Scotty" Scott's famous roadster, from San Bernardino. Not sure what's going on here, but that's Wally Parks doing something to the girls hat....from the Eric Rickman collection.


and speaking of Hustler I, here is the final at the '59 Smokers meet ...I may have posted this before but it fits with the above shot...the body is in bare metal as it got repaired after the initial blower blast...

 

Some very cool and yet strange looking drag race cars.
Jimbo

 

A couple from the George Klass collection:


John Bateman's Atlas Oil Tool Special, Woody car with a Tom Hanna body...The tail was originally build for the Creitz Automotive car, but after that car crashed (fatally injuring Gene Goleman), the tail went on the Bateman car.



Here is Tom forming the tail on the above car, with his story on it, from Don Ewald's site:


This it the Creitz and Greer Woody getting a little gift wrap.It was runner up and best appearing car at the '67 Winternationals. Gene Goleman crashed this car at Union Grove [see pic below]. Went high in the air and hit one of those light poles. It was to be his last ride. He was talking to them as they loaded him in the ambulance, but cranial damage was too extensive and the brain swelling simply couldn't be managed. Gene was a gentleman. At the time of the accident the tail wasn't on the car and later I adapted it to another Woody owned by John Bateman and driven by both Foster and Carbone."
Tom HannaPhoto by Jere Alhadeff - (See Bateman Shot Above)

I was in the Navy then, so if anyone remembers better than me, chime in...did the Bateman car also crash at Lions after a clutch explosion, and Gerry Glenn, driving, got hurt, and lawsuits resulted???


Bob Gorman's Bantam competition coupe. Bob ran this car at the drags and the lakes, had a separate nose for both uses--this is the '40 Ford deluxe nose...This shot shows the flathead Bob ran before upgrading to a blown Studebaker...ran 124mph with it at Pomona in the early '50s.


Classic picture of Art Chrisman racing Ted Cyr, '58 NHRA Nationals. Ted and partner Bill Hopper brought their TE-440 with a blown Chrysler to run, and this, their earlier car, along to sell (note the "for sale" sign on it). But the TE-440 car either broke or got beat, so Cyr and Hopper pulled this car off the trailer, entered it, and won the meet...later Cyr put two blown Chryslers in it...


Very early version of the Howard Cam's Special...according to the caption, those are "aircraft wheels" but I'm not sure on this...in this version, it still had carbs -- the version that ran at the '58 NHRA Nationals with Glenn Ward driving....photo by Eric Rickman



Brown, Frank, and Harriman, maybe '58? This car set the gas dragster speed record at 157 at San Fernando, Dick Harriman's engine from his gasser, Mickey Brown driving. Mickey would later lose his life in another dragster at Lions.

 

The FM-2 Wildcat had wheels similar to those:

 

It sure did, good find...I wonder what size they were? Leave it to Howard Johansen to come up with something unique like this..