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

From the pages of a Hot Rod how to book.

Pat

 

Pre-micro chip days. When the driver HAD the clutch and throttle. About the only chips around in those days were metal chips, potato chips & poker chips. Never see it again.

 

Gene Cromer - early years.

Gene was dragged out of retirement by Quain Stott a few years back and is running a Willys gasser with the South East Gassers group

I see cool old cars like this and can't help but wonder - where are they now ?

 

Did the Psycho 2 Mustang have any connection to the AA/FA Psycho Mustang run by Snodgrass/Mahnken??

 

Mickey Thompson's slingshot, by some accounts, the first slingshot. Mickey first ran his Ardun in it, then got sponsorship and covered it with a streamlined body (picture in an earlier post on this thread). He also added a fuel Chrysler. This is before Pontiac sponsorship, and Mickey was working as a print setter at the Los Angeles Times. I wonder if Fritz Voight put some wrenches on the motor, as Fritz would later be heavily involved in the Challenger I effort.


Romeo Palamedes from the Oakland area, always built nice machinery. The Desoto would later give way to a front-blown Chrysler...Pete Ogden drove


I have not seen this photo of the Bean Bandits twin flathead before...they ran a roadster body, and later covered the car with a Model A sedan body, fenders and all...(see article from Hot Rod Magazine posted by TTwomotor below)


Here are the Bean Bandits with a later dragster...Paradise Mesa, south of San Diego and east of National City, was an old Navy airfield, no trace of it remains, as it couldn't compete with Santa Ana (and no trace of it remains either)


at Paradise Mesa, no ID


Paradise Mesa


Paradise Mesa...back then the bikes were often the quickest, won top eliminator at many an early meet.


Odd Couple at Riverside, did Walt Rhodes drive??


too blurry to get an ID


I have posted pictures of this car before when it was orange and GMC powered. Ike Iacono built it after retiring his '34 drag coupe, and it made the cover of HRM (see above). Later it got a sbc on gas, and Tom Taros drove. It has now been restored to the way Ike originally built it. (added information from Marty Strode: Tom Taros ran Ike's old car in the 80's @ Fremont, with some home brewed throttle body injectors, and a load of fuel, went over 190 in that car !)...thanks to Marty and all others who add information!


Another shot of the Daddy's Autobody car (see HRM cover above). Here it is yellow, it would later get blue paint...Kent Fuller's first dragster chassis.


No ID, except for date on photo...anyone?


Carlsbad...outlasted many other tracks but in the end, didn't survive.


No ID...somehow the background looks familiar, in Canada?


Beeline, in Arizona


PVTA car, Chuck Griffith...also made the cover of HRM (wish I had the issue!). This is Pomona, maybe '54 or '55, notice the water well (tower) in the background to irrigate the orange groves. Pomona is one of the oldest drag strips still operating. This car was really well finished, before the slingshot era, some dragsters modeled their bodies after sprint cars.


The caption is "Don Burch," but I am wondering if is it not Don Morgan, who ran the original 555 with a '29 roadster body (he bought the triple nickel in California and towed it to Texas)...read somewhere that he replaced the 555 '29 with a T-bodied roadster...Texas guys??

 

Mike, Tom Taros ran Ike's old car in the 80's @ Fremont, with some home brewed throttle body injectors, and a load of fuel, went over 190 in that car !

 

Saw this ad on the back of Sept. 1967 Super Stock and Drag Illustrated.

 

yes, that shot above is canada...mission raceway

 

Peter Robinson SBFORD JR FUELER




"Flaming Frank" Pendergon AAMC again








"Flaming Frank" Pendergon AA/MC





Pete Miller "Chicken Coupe" AA/MC