Keeping NHRA Fans Up to Date
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If the Shoe fits ...
Even as our Favorite Race Car Ever poll heads toward the final rounds, I’m still getting e-mails asking how I could possibly have forgotten to include this particular car or that car in the polls. The perceived slights run…
Favorite Race Car Ever voting: 1980s and Beyond
Joe Pisano/Mike Dunn Olds Funny Car Don Garlits Swamp Rat XXX Top Fueler Gary Ormsby Castrol GTX streamliner Top Fueler Joe Amato TRW Top Fueler…
'I was there:' Garlits debuts Swamp Rat 14
While watching the numbers on our '70s Top Fueler poll inch slowly toward the cutoff point (as opposed to the ‘70s Funny Car poll, which is skyrocketing toward that number; there's still time to vote in both if you scroll…
Favorite Race Car Ever voting: 1970s Funny Cars
“Jungle Jim” Liberman Vega
Don Prudhomme Hot Wheels ‘Cuda
Don Prudhomme Army Monza
Tom McEwen Hot Wheels Duster
Raymond Beadle Blue Max Mustang II
Ed McCulloch Revellution Dodge
Barry Setzer/Pat Foster Vega…
In the Mood
Veteran fans recognize this masked man. "I never used the full-faced helmet," said Moody. "With both rear-engined cars, I used the old Tony Nancy leather face mask. I guess it was less confining, and I…
Favorite Race Car Ever voting: 1970s Top Fuelers
Don Garlits Swamp Rat 14 Don Garlits Swamp Rat 22 Beck & Peets Export A Warren-Coburn-Miller Rain for Rent Don…
Get 'er Dunn (and happy anniversary to us!)
I’m putting the finishing touches on all the research-doing, photo-grabbing, and poll-making for the next step in our Favorite Race Car Ever poll, which will cover 1970s Top Fuelers -- look for it Monday, and, in the…
Favorite Race Car Ever voting: Early Funny Cars
Sachs & Sons/Chrisman Mercury Comet Jim Liberman’s Chevy II Gas Ronda’s Ford Mustangs Arnie Beswick's Tameless Tiger GTO…
Voting recap, making it up as I go, and your stories
Final results for all-time favorite exhibition car! "Winged Express" fuel altered 1394 (36.53%) "Little Red Wagon" wheelstander 1109 (29.06%) " L.A. Dart"…
Favorite Race Car Ever voting: Early Dragsters
The Glass Slipper The Speed Sport Roadster Arfons Bros. Green Monster Don Garlits' Swamp Rat I Don Garlits' Swamp Rat…
Favorite Race Car Ever voting: Early Door Cars/Roadsters
Sox & Martin Barracuda Bill Jenkins '68 Camaro Don Carlton Motown Missile Stone, Woods and Cook Willys “Ohio George…
Let the voting begin!
Bill Shrewsberry's L.A. Dart wheelstander Sammy Miller's Oxygen rocket dragster Jack McClure's rocket-powered go-kart Doug Rose's Green Mamba jet…
Dry hops in heaven
Buster Couch looks over as the Funny Car approaches the staging beams and winks at the new arrival, a tousle-haired kid with a lead foot whom he has known since the lad was in diapers. Scott Kalitta moves forward as longtime…
Look, up in the sky, it's the Kite Cycle!
That daring young man on his flying machine.
Here’s a little something different on this star-spangled weekend, prompted by a letter from regular reader/e-mailer Mark Watkins, who first wanted to…
A little bit of this, a little bit of that ...
Former U.S. President Calvin Coolidge once said, "Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education…
Mondays with Murray: Don Prudhomme
If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it 100 times, and I bet that I’m not alone, but growing up in the 1970s, Don Prudhomme was my drag racing hero. There was no one cooler on the face of the planet, and it wasn’t just because he…
Norwalk, and The Big Dig
What happens when you have a lot of rain and a high water table; how Frank Manzo helped save the day
NHRA's Graham Light and Frank Manzo work on the situation. Tuners Johnny West and Chuck Worsham assess The Big Dig.…
Return to Norwalk
A return to the place I first drove a racecar, some 24 years earlier; travel misadventures
Well, we’re here at beautiful Summit Racing Equipment Motorsports Park for the Summit Racing Equipment NHRA Nationals, and I’ve opened the Summit Racing Equipment notebook left in my assigned place…
So long, Scott ...
Remembering Funny Car driver Scott Kalitta
It’s Monday after the SomberNationals in New Jersey, and I woke up this morning, and Scott Kalitta is still gone. And we all face the hurt all over again.
The kid who everyone in the pits used to jokingly refer to as “…
They left their hearts in San Fernando
Memories of San Fernando Raceway
(Above) Classic tire-melting 1960s Top Fuel action at San Fernando Raceway. (Below) Overall of the track and its famous tree-lined left lane. (Above) Longtime San Fernando…
More cursed Corvettes
Corvettes that bit the dust; origination of some racing superstitions
Feedback was, as expected, swift and sure on Friday’s superstitions column and the Corvette Curse.
Our own roving lensman, Richard Brady, has been shooting NHRA race cars for five decades, so it’s no surprise that he’s…
Friday the 13th special: the Corvette Curse and other superstitions
From crash-prone Corvettes to wearing green and eating peanuts in the pits, drag racers are a superstitious bunch
Well, race fans, here it is, the day that’s more taxing to some people than April 15. That’s right, look at the calendar or at the date above. It’s Friday the 13th. Ooooh.
Believe it or not – and have I…
2,470 days later ...
Don Garlits' historic 5.63 pass stood as the quickest of all time for nearly seven years
On Oct. 11, Don Garlits ran 5.63 at the 1975 World Finals in Ontario, Calif., and backed it up the next day for a new NHRA national record, a record that stood until July 1982.
Seeing…
One of Funny Car's original mean, green machines
Saluting the career of Jim and Betty Green and their Green Elephant Funny Cars
(Above) Before he moved out of the cockpit to own and tune, Jim Green was a good driver. He's pictured at the wheel of the B-Boys Auto Supply entry at Pacific Raceways receiving the B/Dragster trophy…
Monday at the movies
So I stumbled across More American Graffiti on HBO the other night and got to watch “Big John” Milner in some faux 1964 footage as he raced at Fremont and kept hoping for that big “factory” ride. Although the film was shot in 1979, they did…
Jeff Courtie: A pair of pretty sound careers
From Funny Car racer to movie sound engineer, Jeff Courtie has led an amazing life
As a kid gawking at the pit ropes at Southern California dragstrips, all we ever wanted was to be acknowledged by our quarter-mile heroes. A “Hey kid, how ya doing?” or even a “Stop staring at me, will ya?” would have been…
Train stories keeps rollin' all week long
Readers share their memories of the famous Freight Train
One great thing about great stories is that they beget others. The story of the fabled Freight Train, as told here last Friday, inspired, as I suspected it might with a topic that memorable, a flood of love for the Train and…
Don't mess with Connie
I hadn’t really planned on writing a column today since the NHRA offices are closed, but somehow I just couldn’t resist.
The drag racing message boards are all a twitter – and my e-mail box overflowing – with word that one of Connie Kalitta’s…
Engineering the Train
The birth and life of the fabulous Freight Train Top Gas dragster
In American, history, few images are more evocative, romantic, or nostalgic than that of a train rumbling down steel tracks, smoke billowing from its stack. The legendary Iron Horse, as much as the six-shooter, helped tame…
The Bristol rainy-day blog
A long Sunday of sitting in the rain, captured in extreme detail. Probably too extreme
Looks like we're going to be in for a long day here, and I'm getting bored. So, here's the play-by-play on the day.
9:30 a.m.: Rain fell until about 9:30 this morning, but finally relented, and the Safety Safari and Bristol crews get to work…