A little translation from a frenchman here. At the beginning he talks about how Carrol Shelby says after winning the 24 hr of LeMans that the quintessential in auto racing speed is drag racing. Indianapolis and LeMans don't compare. After hearing this from Shelby, they headed out to Lakewood near Long Beach to check it out for themselves. The first guy interviewed states that drag racing is surp***ing horse racing in popularity and he also says that he has a record holding car. Another thing said is the dragsters run about 1400 hp and are good for about 10 runs. Every term is in litres and meters which is still weird to me. Love the video, thanks for sharing Ryan. Gil
Wow! Cool stuff and great memories of the world's greatest drag strip. Great to see some of my old friends from my misspent youth. Merci beaucoup!
This clip was so cool! Clear, nice pan work. Once in while something like this clip comes along and you want so badly to time travel. I wouldn't come back neither.
Doug (Mazooma1) ... As I understand it, the very first rollers were the electric motor powered units that Pappy Hart installed @ LIONS. As you (& AnimalAin) attested to, these electric motors caused a great deal of load on the track's electrical circuits ... and the rollers frequently broke. Consequently, all of the other Drag Strips installed roller units that were powered by automotive engines. But then again, you can't believe everything you read (in books, magazines, or the Internet) ... I'd much rather get my info from folks that were actually there ... your posts about LIONS (& other topics) are always appreciated!
Yup, they were "Sure-Start" electric motors at Lions. I just checked with Don Gillespie, the producer of the six hour Lions do***entary DVDs
What year, exactly, was this? The reason i ask is what blew me away about the film was the each and every car left the starting line spinning and smoking the tires like it was business as usual. You don't see the much these days unless they put too much clutch in. i've never really seen people race like that.
Thats the way it was done until the 1970's. They had smoker slicks and would let the tires burn instead of trying to slip the clutch. What you are seeing in this film is exactly what was going on for the first 30 years of drag racing. No multi-disk clutches or computers, just stab it and go. If they were to leave the line without smoking the tires, they might stall. Remember these cars might have been going 100MPH at the halfway mark, but the tires were going 150MPH.
When you watch the film just befor the guy with the goatee the guy talking to the driver of the altard is me, we are on the film three times that car is the Beaver hunter if that is the meet I think it was we set fast time but lost to Pure Hell it was a 8 car show it was the last time Tom drove the car. We are in the proess of building a repro of the car just a few more parts ??? Joe Thomas
The big changeover came in a couple of weeks in maybe late '68 or early '69. Somebody figured out that if they did a burnout and slipped the clutch a little the ET improved dramatically. None of the cars had reversers, so the crew had to get out there and push the car back after the burnout. It was wild. Story was that the local store had completely been sold out of bleach. Not sure if that was true, but it was what I heard sitting in the stands. I should think about this stuff more often.....
The rollers at Lions were electric-motor powered, that's why the lights dimmed when they ran them...at OCIR they were small-block powered, but they were in the pits for warm-ups, you still push-started for a run. They were hard to get used to, I really screwed up the first time I tried them, someone said "keep the brakes on," which I did until someone ran up and said "how do you expect the wheels to turn if you have the brakes on?!!" Oh, well, live and learn! This video is outstanding, some of the best shots of Lions I have ever seen!
I cant describe the feeling I get while watching footage like that. Man I love those cars. Thanks Ryan.
Excellent footage indeed. At one time Niagara Dragway had rollers starters powered by a 289 Ford. I was told they were nothing but trouble there. Between people stealing parts off the engine to the less than kind climate we deal with back here, they rarely saw much use
We had a roller starter at our track today known as Saskatchewan International Raceway located in Saskatchewan Canada !! The track is the oldest continuously run drag strip in western Canada !! It was built in 1966 and is going to celebrate it's 50th anniversary this August 17-20th 2016 !! Our roller unit was powered by a SBC but as most did not always work the best ! I guess a lot of tracks of the day experimented with them !! The track owners were just trying to speed up the shows !!!
The Jalopy Journal
