NHRA - National Hot Rod Association

Just as he has been doing throughout his Hall of Fame drag racing career, Don Garlits is taking matters into his own hands to make sure the job is done right. The quarter-mile legend is in the midst of writing a screenplay for an autobiographical film about his life and racing adventures.

A Garlits biopic has been discussed since the mid-1980s, not long after a Don Garlits character was included in the Hollywood-created Heart Like a Wheel, the story of his longtime rival Shirley Muldowney. 

“There have been about 10 different scripts, and every one of them is [lousy],” said Garlits, from his Florida lake house, where he’s pounding out the details of his life. “Those people who wrote the scripts didn't know who I am, how I feel, how I talk. Barbara McMichael and Jeff Lang came to Florida in ‘85 and interviewed my mom and my brother and all my relatives that are dead and gone now. They wrote a pretty nice script, but [famed movie director John] Frankenheimer looked at it and said it was too episodic. They said I can have all the rights to that script, to do whatever I wanted with it, so I’m rewriting that. The people who want to do this movie have read all the other scripts and didn't like what they saw; I sent them seven pages of what I'm doing, and they went nuts. They said this is really good stuff.”

Garlits, who showed off his writing chops in 2009 with an encyclopedic, self-published book, Don Garlits and his Cars, that chronicled the building and the stories behind his three-dozen Swamp Rat race cars, is almost halfway through a proposed 125-page screenplay, tentatively titled Don Garlits, The Story of an American Legend.

The screenplay deftly transitions between Garlits’ early life and famed moments on the racetrack, beginning with the March 1932 fire at the Garlits family farm that nearly claimed baby Garlits and then transitions into another trial by fire, his scary engine explosion and the inferno that engulfed him in Chester, S.C., in 1959. 

DON GARLITS

THE STORY OF AN AMERICAN LEGEND

Adapted from a screenplay by Jeff Lang and Barbara Lloyd McMichael

By Big Daddy Don Garlits

Voice Over, VO
By
Don Garlits, “Himself”
May 8, 2023
Revised first draft
Registered WGAE
#1363529

EXT, GARLITS FAMILY FARM FIELD – DAY

Helen pauses for a moment to brush the hair from her face, but catches sight of the burning house and lets out a blood-curdling scream! Bill about the same time also looks up.

Helen,
Oh my God, the BABY!

Simultaneously, both parents are up and running, the house is engulfed in fire and the roaring of the flames and crackling of wood burning are the only sounds heard. Helen reaches the back door first; She was much younger and faster, but the tenant has bolted it from the inside, Bill a quick thinker, ran right past her to the front door that he hoped was left unlocked. It was and he rushed through the heavy flames to the baby crib, pulled back the burning mosquito netting, took off the army wool jacket, wrapped it around the baby and dashed back through the wall of fire, Tossing the smoldering bundle to Helen who was screaming at the top of her lungs.

Helen,
The baby, the baby!!!

Helen unwrapped the unharmed baby and put out the burning clothes with the old wool jacket.

(END TITLE SEQUENCE)

FADE TO BLACK

CUT TO REAL-TIME;

EXT, CHESTER SOUTH CAROLINA – DRAG STRIP – PITS

An old abandoned World War II, Army Air Corps training field, now being used by the International Timing Assn. of America, (ITAA) for its championship Drag Races

VO – GARLITS
The Chester drag strip was an old abandoned World War II airstrip that the International Timing Assn. of America, (ITAA) held several Championship races on every year. Bob Osiecki was the Owner and President of the Association. My crew, Art Malone and my Brother Ed came with me to do a special match race with Bob Sullivan, who was filling in for Gary Cagle, who had been injured a few weeks before in a drag racing accident. I’m mixing fuel in the pits.

Art,
How much Nitro are you going to run on this pass?
Don,
I’m going to up the percentage to 80%, it just ran 176 MPH on 75%, I need to go faster!
Art,
Do you think we need that much?
Don,
Yea, I want to go over 180, show that Sullivan guy he’s got his hands full with me!
Art,
You know what you’re doing; I never fooled around with Nitro in my Stock Cars, too dangerous!
Don,
It’ll be just fine, I know what I’m doing!
Ed,
It’s not necessary to strain the engine just to show Sullivan what we can do, why don’t we get one more easy run on the engine before we put such a heavy load in it!
Don,
I want the crowd to know I’ve got the world's fastest dragster and I want to make the run with nobody else on the strip!
Ed,
OK, it’s your car!

EXT, CHESTER DRAG STRIP PITS

Don puts on his helmet and a brand new leather jacket that he received from his wife Pat as he went out the door before the trip to Chester SC.

Art,
What’s with the new jacket?
Don,
Aw, it’s from Pat, she thinks these cars are getting dangerous and I should have something better than a tee shirt to drive!
Art,
Really!
Don,
You know how women are, afraid of their own shadow!

Don gets into the cockpit of the Double A Fuel Dragster, (AA/FD)

Don,
Art, help me with this belt.

Art,
OK

EXT, CHESTER DS STARTING LINE

ANNOUNCER OVER THE PA SYSTEM – VO

Folks, this is a special day, we have Don Garlits coming to the line to make his second pass this morning, he just ran 176 MPH earlier and Don told me this pass will exceed 180 MPH for a new strip record! You know, he just set the all-time Top Speed record at Houston Texas last week at the blistering speed of 182.54 MPH!
Please give him a big round of applause.

VO – GARLITS,
In those days we push-started the cars, so we pushed down the DS to the end, turned around an pushed back, firing up the engine on the way back to the starting line, it made for a very good show of the cars to the spectators.

VO, GARLITS
The engine came to life and it sounded real good, I felt good about the run and figured at least 180, maybe 182 MPH, which would send shock waves through the Sullivan camp.

PA, TRACK ANNOUNCER VO

Look at that car leave the line, got over 1000 Horsepower! Boy is it smoking the tires, folks this is going to be a good run! We could have another track record, maybe even a new World Record!

INT, DRAGSTER COCKPIT

Don,
Says to himself, “This is a good run, smoke dried up about halfway and the motor is pulling fine, it's gonna exceed 180 for sure! Got to hold it nice and straight, so as not to break traction, getting close to the finish, going very, very, fast now .. OOM!!! There is a very loud explosion and the dragster’s engine bursts into flames, completely engulfing Don and the cockpit,

PA, TRACK ANNOUNCER, VO

Oh my God! Folks, we have a major problem, I’ve never seen anything like this in all my days of announcing races, this is a major fire and Don does not have on any gloves or face shield! Everybody stay put; don’t go down to the end where the safety crew will be working, it would interfere with the men trying to do their work, We will keep you informed. I’m sure Don’s ok, he just turned 185 MPH!

INT, DRAGSTER COCKPIT    

Don, Thinking,
Oh my God! What happened? I can’t see anything but fire, I’m in terrible pain, it’s so hot, I can’t breathe, I’m going to die! Everything is going black, but the pain is less now, I see something, what is it? Oh my God, my life is flashing before me, I am dying!

FADE TO DREAM STATE
 

Pretty good, no?

“These people who are trying to make a major movie for the theatres would be eligible for an Academy Award,” Garlits explained. “That's what they want to make, but they also have it in the back of their head — because it's such a long story, and there's so much to be told, which cannot be told in a two-hour movie — that they can also make a multi-part documentary for Netflix. On a documentary like that, we can use lots of original footage.”

The motion picture version would only cover up through Garlits’ mind-bending 5.63 pass and NHRA world championship at the NHRA World Finals, then cover his post-1975 accomplishments in the credits. All of the sidekicks of Garlits’ early career, from brother Ed to Art Malone, Connie Swingle, Bob Taaffe, and, of course, T.C. Lemons, will be included in the movie.

“During the credits, we'll put the footage in about coming up to the [U.S.] Nationals in 1984 and winning the race and getting the [Super Shops] sponsorship and winning the championship and ‘85 and ’86, and the ’86 [Swamp Rat XXX] that was so far ahead that the Smithsonian [Institution] put it in there," he said. "And then the wife [Pat] asking me, ‘Please don't drive it anymore’ [in 2000]. She's shaking like a leaf, and I don't even know she was sick. And then I'll go through her dying, and then I'm going into depression, and I don't even know what I'm gonna do anymore, you know? And then I get the idea for this electric dragster, and we'll finish it up with that."

Garlits, always the inventor and tinkerer, is enjoying the creation process almost as much as he enjoyed dreaming up, engineering, and building his famed race cars.

“I'm having the time of my life doing it,” he said. “It's like living my whole childhood and all those good times all over again. It's been an unbelievable experience.”