I found this picture on Facebook this morning and have posted it in another thread. I seem to recall reading an article about a T drag car with a screw on top, and the car caught fire and the driver perished.
Here's what I found on MOTOR TRENDS website. @olscrounger was right. A combination of mechanical failure and human error ended a 22-year-old life at the Madera (California) Municipal Airport. Doris Herbert's July 23 Drag News editorial reported that Dean Baxter's engine backfired and quit just before something ignited. He was evidently overcome by fumes before officials extinguished the flames and unlatched a driver's door that "only worked part of the time." The p***enger side was welded shut. Dean typically entered and exited through the top. A removable roof panel was screwed down for runs. (Dzus ****ons had yet to trickle down to little-guy racers.) Brave officials emptied seven fire extinguishers while trying to rescue the unconscious driver, unsuccessfully. Drag News printed the only photo we'd ever seen prior to finding these negatives on two archived rolls of 120 film shot by a HOT ROD staffer who happened to attend that sad day. Tex Smith's full sequence has not previously appeared anywhere, to our knowledge.
Madera Drags 1960 I was there running C/SA--very sad, young man named Dean Baxter from Merced. I'm sure there are some Madera Clutchers on this site that were there at the time as they ran the drags.
I wonder how long after that fairly well sealed firewalls .024: thick minimum steel appeared in the rule books.
The Jalopy Journal
