NHRA - National Hot Rod Association

A couple more quick notes on the process so far: Dave Cornelius and Chuck Carman were quick to point out that the picture I had posted for Dick Landy’s ’66 Dart was in fact his ‘65 Coronet, so I made the quick swap, finding the right photo in our files thanks to Chuck’s cool drawing of the car.

Curtis Bosarge also dropped me a note to correct the description of Terry Hoard’s awesome rotary-powered Samurai Warrior Modified-class Mazda. Bosarge, who has been around drag racing since 1965, haunting Louisiana tracks such as Southland Dragway, LaPlace Dragway, State Capitol Dragway, and No Problem Raceway Park, says that the car actually ran a two-rotor powerplant (a dual distributor 12A) and not a four-rotor.

Mike Collins, who runs the American Autoparts News Web site in England, passed along this picture of one of our poll candidates, the famed Glass Slipper, which was part of last weekend’s three-day Goodwood Festival of Speed in West Sussex, England.

The Wally Parks NHRA Motorsports Museum presented by Automobile Club of Southern California was responsible for getting the Slipper and some other pretty famous iron (some of it visible in this shot) to England for the cricket pitch display, including two more of our poll candidates, the Beebe & Mulligan car and Tommy Ivo’s Showboat, plus Art Chrisman’s 25, Chrisman’s Hustler I, Ivo’s Barnstormer, the Howard Cams Rattler, The Addict, and the Over The Hill Gang car.

“It was a blast sitting in front of the Glass Slipper as it fired whilst sitting on the oldest cricket pitch in the world,” said Collins, “and then strolling slowly between the cars with the nitro blasts getting bigger and better. My stroll ended between the Howard Cams Rattler and Over the Hill Gang cars where the horsepower was hot and heavy. Wow!”

One of the questions I’ve received so far is “Why didn’t you include [pick a car]?” and the answer is simple. I only placed into the poll cars that were nominated by the readers of this column and also only those that received more than one nomination. I could see obvious omissions as I charted them, and I guess I could have manufactured nominations for them, but I decided to keep it as pure as I could. Among the most noted omissions were Bob Motz’s groundbreaking Kenworth jet truck and the Hemi Under Glass wheelstander (seen here racing the Little Red Wagon in Pete Gemar's great shot); both were such egregious oversights that I even felt compelled to mention them in the original column.

The historic Chrisman & Cannon Hustler dragster also was overlooked, as was Roland Leong’s mid-‘60s Hawaiian Top Fueler. Roland himself even wrote to me to ask about the omission. “The car made my career and jump-started Don Prudhomme's career,” he pointed out, “and was the first dragster to win Top Fuel at the Winternats and Nationals the same year and repeated the feat with a different driver the following year.” Excellent points for sure and would definitely make the car a must-include for famous cars (as opposed to favored cars), but Roland was happy to hear that the ’69 Hawaiian Funny Car did make the ballot for the Early Funny Cars poll (coming soon!). He’s also agreed to share with me the tale of those two amazing seasons for a future column here. Mahalo, Roland!

Also, for you Keeling & Clayton fans (including Jerry Clayton himself) who wanted to know why the California Charger was not included in the Early Dragsters poll, it’s because I have them both (front- and rear-engined) in the upcoming ‘70s Top Fuelers poll. Man, the fun is just beginning.

His candy-striped Dodge wheelstander may not make it to the next round, but Shrewsberry apparently still is well-remembered by fans other than me. I think that the L.A. Dart may have been the first or second model I ever built, and I remember using Scotch tape to mask off the lines on the body to create the memorable paint scheme. I love this photo of the wild one at OCIR … such memories.

Michigander Cecil Kain recalls being at Martin Dragway, Mich., in the mid-1960s and seeing the L.A. Dart and Golden’s Little Red Wagon going head to head. “The L.A. Dart drifted off center, and ‘Wild Bill’ kept it going too long. He smashed into the wall, spun around, hit the wall again. Destroyed the car. He got out and walked to the microphone and said, ‘How did you like that $10,000 trick?' We were all so glad he wasn't injured. Of course, Golden went straight down the track the whole quarter-mile, on his tail and sparks flying! It was just great.”

Steve Ojard from Washington remembers an event in Seattle where Shrewsberry was racing Richard Schroeder’s Bad Bossa Nova. “The pre-race mayhem was incredible,” he wrote. “Schroeder put two guys on each side of the green Nova’s trunk for stability and BURIED the whole east end of the track, the tower, the pits in smoke from about a three-minute burnout, so ‘Wild Bill’ answers, leaving the starting line wheels up, goes all the way downtrack that way, then a few hundred feet past the top end. He sets it down, spins out, then without stopping, the angry Dart does a 180 pirouette right up into another wheelie, coming back to the starting line, bouncing almost to a stop behind the Tree and whips back around again to stage. OMG … brought the house down!”

Mick Michelsen said he had a tough time in the first poll picking between “Slammin’ Sammy” Miller’s Vanishing Point rocket car and the Green Mamba jet car, both of which were visitors to his local Florida dragstrip in the late 1970s. “The run I’ll never forget was Miller giving Shirl Greer in his Chain Lightning Mustang a one-and-a-half-second head start. He then laid down a 4.11 at 308 mph. Shirl said he still had the lead [at the mile-per-hour light] when Miller came by and had the chutes out before Shirl got to the finish line. One word: Unbelievable.”

Ken Flitsch, who calls Great Lakes Dragaway his home away from home, says his greatest memories are of the jet cars such as the Green Mamba in the pits. “The Grove had this steel post sunk in the ground at the very end of the pits, and the jet guys, believe it or not, would take a chain and attach it to the car and the other end to this post,” he wrote. “They would fire up the car and hit the afterburner several times. They had this dial gauge in the chain link, and this as I was told was how they tuned the car. We would stand behind the car (off to the side) and watch this totally awesome display. As far as Capt. Jack McClure goes, this guy had gonads of steel. We would stand behind him at the start line. He would launch that kart and shut it off early and still snap off sixes at 200 plus; man, what a ride laying on his back six inches off the ground.”

Bill Carrell has his own unique memories of one of our favorite dragsters, Swamp Rat 6.

“Back in 1969, I was working at Thompson Drag Raceway and heard on the PA that a local was in the hospital after flipping his rail in the lights at Dragway 42. His name was Al Goodman, and he was in the county hospital. I decided that I would pay him a visit and wish him well. I actually baked a small sheet cake with a dragster on it and hitchhiked all the way out there with that thing. I went to his room, and ... oh … broken back, black and blue, and not looking real good. After I caught my composure, we had a nice talk, and he gave me his contact information and took mine. He said after he got well he wanted me to come out and see the car. I was thrilled. A few months went by, and I got a phone call and directions and again thumbed it out to his place. The car still had clods of dirt stuck in it, but overall not too bad. The roll bar was sawn through where it had scraped on the pavement, and the four-hole Hilborn injector had the corner scraped off, too. He told me that he bought this digger from Don Garlits and it was the first over 200 mph. I was in shock and had no way to dispute what he told me, but I remembered what he said. A few years ago I wrote to Don and asked him about that car. He wrote back and told me that yes he did sell that car to Al and then proceeded to tell me how he got it back. He said he called Al, and Al said that he still had the car ... he buried it as it stood in his backyard. Don said ‘Dig it up; I'd like it for the museum’; when I read that, I cracked up.”

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And here’s one really early dragster that didn’t make this round of Favorite Early Dragsters but could well be on the ballot next time. Jeff DeGrandis, a member of the ultracool Standard 1320 mailing-list group (to which I recently was accepted; thank you, guys) and a supervising producer at Nickelodeon Animation Studios, drew up this little gem – the Fred Flintstone-driven Rockmaster Dart -- a few years ago to supplement a conversation the group was having.

Among his many charges are the ultra-popular Go, Diego, Go! and Dora the Explorer shows, big favorites of my grandson Jaden.

I e-mailed DeGrandis for permission to share this drawing with you all and mentioned Jaden’s obsession with Diego, and the next thing I know, we’re talking on the telephone, he’s offering to make a special drawing for the little guy, and I’m blown away.

Turns out that in addition to his Nick work and editorial cartoons for DRO, DeGrandis is among those charged with keeping alive the artwork of Ed “Big Daddy” Roth and recently was named the 2008 Ed “Big Daddy” Roth Artist of the Year. His gearhead inclinations go beyond the drawing board; he’s also just about wrapped up the reconstruction of a Dragmaster Dart dragster (the drawing above is an obvious salute to his predilection for the car), similar to the famed car on display at the Wally Parks NHRA Motorsports Museum. He spied the car on eBay “for a song” and, despite a non-original roll cage, recognized its value and snatched it up. Original Dragmaster Dode Martin rolled new bars for DeGrandis, and he restored it from the dash back and has a ’67 327 Chevy with three deuces ready to plop in. He hopes to have the new piece ready for this year’s California Hot Rod Reunion.

You can see more of DeGrandis’ work on his blog, including a nice tribute to Scott Kalitta and some of his Rat Fink work.

Here’s a picture of J-De (ha! I just met the guy and already I’ve given him a nickname) on the right with another of our poll honorees (and fellow Standard 1320 member), Norm Weekly, of Frantic Four fame, at the 2007 Winternationals.

Okay, that's all for this week. Look for the Early Funny Cars poll Monday. Thanks for playing!