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

After all, it was/IS the Westside of Long Beach.

There was another Naval Housing Project farther south near our house and elementary school. Those were single story homes for the Naval officers and families. Again, no garages or places to work, so there were cars jacked up on boxes that were being fixed.
The whole area seemed like Naval Housing as it was a quick trip down to the huge Naval Base in Terminal Island via the freeway or side streets.
Jnaki

 

This photo just showed up on George Klass's site, showing two altered racing to the finish line (painted on the road) at the First Drag Race at Goleta, CA, just north of Santa Barbara. It happened in 1948, when the Santa Barbara Timing Association invited Tom Cobb and Fran Hernandez to match-race there. A lot of other cars showed up, including Don Montgomery, who has pictures of the First Drag Race in one of his many books. I have no idea who is racing in these two coupes, but there is a rumor that the photographer in the leather jacket is none other than Eric Rickman, of Hot Rod Magazine, but like so many drag racing stories, it is hard to confirm. (another story from the race is that there was a slight bump at the "finish line" so the judges at the starting line knew who won each race because the winning car bounced first). Thanks, George, again, for this incredible collection!

 

"Jim nixed Jack"...................... cute.

 

In the near lane on the last race, that car is pulling a huge wheel stand! Cool video!!


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Hello,

For all of you MEL fans, here is a great video of the dragster sponsored by H&H Garage. It was driven by Tets Ishimaru. The car had a big Lincoln motor and it was very competitive against the big supercharged Hemi motor racers. The roll bar always was so close to his helmet, that we all commented that it would not be much fun on a roll over. But, it was always driven fast and efficiently. He not only drove this cool looking dragster weekly at Lions, but he was also a drag boat racer with drives in many different boats. In the copied photo, it shows him driving a twin 671 blown Chrysler drag boat.

He was versatile to say the least.

Jnaki

 

Hello, (posted in lions, also)
As successful at Lions Dragstrip as they were, H&H had problems at Riverside Raceway in 1959. We all have those uh oh days...
Jnaki

 

i seem to remember Tets Ishimaru being fatally injured in that car at Fremont. I think around '63 or so.

 

Another great video, Tets is racing the Valley Home Service blown Chevy dragster that later blew it's flywheel at SanFernando cutting the car in half. It used one of Kent Fullers earliest chassis


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Rich, I think it was Yeiji Toyota who died at Fremont in '59, driving the "Black Marauder" B/FD


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Hey Dave,
Here is the rest of the Valley Home Service clip at Riverside in 59. It was a beautiful FED with a unique front suspension.
Jnaki

 

Junji, Yes, that's it, beautiful blue color, one of Fuller's first chasses. When he started building torsion bar front suspensions, he used two VW torsion bars, one above the other, with four arms attaching the front axle. He also used this design on the "Magwinder," before going to just one torsion bar. Here are a couple of photos of the Valley car, one at the meet where you might have shot the above video at Riverside, in this picture racing Ivo. The second picture shows the end of the car after the flywheel blew in the lights at San Fernando. A chunk of the flywheel landed on the church nearby during services, causing the minister to confront the San Fernando management about how dangerous drag racing was. I don't know what happened to the driver.....Dave

 

Dave,
Sad ending to the cool looking and running Valley Home Service FED. I thought I had recorded the race between Ivo and Valley Home Service at Riverside, but where we were sitting on the slope 1/2 way down the strip, the camera angle and fading sunlight made it difficult to correctly identify the race, later. But, now that I look at it frame by frame, it is the same race, Valley HS vs Ivo Twin.
(The sunlight reflection in the lens/film made it a little artistic now.) But, back then in 59, it was considered a mistake in photography. Hollywood puts these sun reflections in a ton of movies currently and they are considered artsy... ha.
Junji

 

Dave,
The new version of the Valley Home Service FED video including the actual race vs the Ivo Twin at Riverside Raceway in 1959.
Junji