1001 Drag Racing Facts. Doug Boyce
& Pratt had one of the more envious support teams. Their sponsorship came courtesy of San Diego’s Lamplighter Topless Night Club. Sorry folks, being a family-friendly book, photos of the “crew” cannot be shared.
83 In 1968, Bennie “the Wizard” Osborn became the first drag racer to win back-to-back world championships. Driving his 392-powered Woody Gilmore dragster, Bennie defeated Prudhomme in 1967 with a 7.03, and in 1968, he took out John Mulligan with a 7.05. What a year 1968 proved to be for the Wizard; he also won a number of AHRA events and won a $14,000 match race against McEwen at OCIR, which at the time was the largest pot offered for such a race. In total, Bennie won six T/F eliminator titles in 1968. Could things or would things get any better for Bennie? I’m afraid not. This proved to be his peak season.
84 When you go to the Larry Dixon Racing Internet home page, Larry Dixon Sr. isn’t mentioned much. That’s odd. The empire started with Senior, and without his infectious passion, there would have been none of Larry Dixon Jr.’s three world championships. The roots of the empire go back to Senior’s first major win, which took place at the Hot Rod Magazine race at Riverside in 1969. Driving the Howards Cam Rattler, Larry put away a cocky low qualifier, Steve Carbone, who gave the victory sign before the race even started. Larry’s winning time was an easy 7.23 at 205.94 mph. And Carbone? He broke on the line.
85 Downey, California’s Steve Carbone became the first T/F driver to win both the AHRA and NHRA championships in the same season when he accomplished the feat in 1969. He took the NHRA crown driving Larry Huff’s Soapy Sales Fueler by defeating Dave Chenevert and repeated a week later driving the Creitz-Donovan rail to AHRA victory over Preston Davis.
86 Lasting memories are sometimes made of incidents you’d just as soon forget. Take this Joe Medina story for instance. Joe was a crewman for Jim Dunn in 1969 and was lending a hand, backing up Dunn’s rainbow rail during a matchup against Leland Kolb at Orange County. After the warmup burnouts, crewmen had to push or pull the cars back to the line. Well, poor ol’ Joe must have lost his footing because he fell under the right slick and was promptly run over by the boss. As told in an interview with Drag News, Dunn thought he had lost a wheel or run over the lights. Outside of a bruised ego, Joe was okay. Dunn was noted to say, “We gave him a beer to cure the pain.”
87 The multihued car of Dunn & Reath was Dunn’s final foray in Top Fuel and he closed out the 1969 season having won Bakersfield and the Division 7 points championship with the Woody Gilmore car. Funny Cars were next up for the pair.
88 Don Johnson and Roy Fjastad’s Beachcomber dragster took Top Fuel at 1969 NHRA Springnationals with a 6.80 at 214.79 mph. Driven by Hank Westmoreland, the Ed Pink 392-powered Beachcomber was one of the first rails into the 6s. Previous big wins by the team included the 1966 Las Vegas Invitational and Mickey Thompson’s 200-mph championship race at Lions. Today, the Beachcomber name lives on in the form of a Nostalgia nitro ’Cuda.
89 By 1969, the 10-year-old team of Dave Powers and John Riley had established themselves as an inventive pair. They had won the UDRA Championship (one of two for them) in 1968 and revolutionized the sport with a pair of home-grown inventions. They brought the reverser and the adjustable clutch to Top Fuel. The reverser allowed the long, across-the-start-line smoky burnouts without having to be pushed all the way back. The clutch allowed the car to be set up to specific track conditions.
90 Top Gas racer Domenic Anthony (D. A.) Santucci graduated from running Altereds to dragsters in 1965. His newfound success carried into 1969 where he opened with a win at the AHRA Springnationals. The momentum carried to Indy for the NHRA Nationals where D. A. must have been a favorite to win his category. Celebrating his low qualifying 7.58 the night before the class finals, D. A. joined fellow racers hopping from one sponsor’s hotel suite to another, taking in a nightcap or two.
Now D. A. wasn’t much of a drinker, and by the time he found his way back to his room, he was feeling no pain. Morning came too early for D. A. and he had to rush out the door to make class runoffs. Suffering from a little “cotton breath,” D. A. popped in a stick of Wrigley’s. But prior to his run, he forgot to spit out the gum, and when he nailed the throttle on the green light, the gum lodged in his throat. No panic for D. A. as he figured when he popped the chute after his 7.66 run, it would dislodge the gum.
Well, it didn’t quite work out that way, and when the chute came out, the gum stayed put. D. A. brought the car to a quick halt and with his consciousness seemingly fading, alerted track officials that he was in dire need of assistance. They quickly loaded the fading D. A. into an ambulance and rushed him off to hospital. By the time they arrived, D. A. had lost consciousness. Drag racing, is there ever a dull moment? Doctors removed the gum and held D. A. overnight for observation. The next day, D. A. returned to Indy and defeated Dick McFarland in the class final with a 7.65 at 193.94 mph to McFarland’s 7.77 at 192.71 mph. The choking episode was an ongoing gag for all those involved, and years later, he made light of the incident. As D. A. ran Funny Car into the 1990s, his wife, Barb, tossed bubble gum to the crowd.
Multitalented Jim Gonsalves, a tool and die maker by trade carved and mounted his own heads on a side-bolt Ford 427. Don and the rail won Best Engineered Car numerous times and Best Competition Car at the Oakland Roadster Show in 1969. (Photo Courtesy James Handy)
91 Jim Gonsalves, not content with just any overhead-cam engine, used his tool-and-die skills to build his own quad overhead-cam AA/GD in 1969. Using a 427 Ford as a base, Jim fabricated his heads piece by piece, investing more than 4,000 hours in his one-off design. The cams, which were also custom cut, were driven by a pair of 2-foot-long chains. By 1974, the Don Long rail was cranking out 8.0 times at close to 200 mph.
92 The lowly D/Dragster builders never received the acclaim they deserved. A case in point was the home-brewed rail of Oregon’s Don Ringer. Graduating in 1968 from flatheads and a straight-8 rails, Don found a loophole in the the existing rules and built a new rail that featured twin Pontiac fours. The dragster sported a homemade chassis, owner-modified Algon injectors, and Ford flatty magnetos. Says Don, “What really made the car wail was the ClutchFlite transmission.” Each engine measured 200 inches and was connected by a flywheel at the cranks, which helped dampen the four’s notorious vibrations. How good was the combo? Don set a class record at least eight times between 1968 and 1971. He won two division championships in that time and was runner-up at another. Eventually, the car ran as quick as 8.72 at better than 155 mph before Don retired.
Noel Black does some testing of his unorthodox Bonneville car at Freemont during 1969. Dubbed Motion 1, the car later crashed during the SCTA Speed Week at Bonneville, costing Noel his life. (Photo Courtesy James Handy)
93 Bert Peterson had a dream of sinking the Summers Brothers’ piston-engine land-speed record in 1969. So Bert and partner Noel Black of B&N Automotive built an unorthodox twin-Hemi streamliner. The four-wheel-drive vehicle was a bit of an oddity even by Bonneville standards, with one engine mounted amidships and the other mounted ahead of the front axle. To test and tune, Noel regularly piloted the car down the Fremont Dragstrip. The best time turned in the quarter was an 8.02 at 199.48 mph. Sadly, Noel lost his life in the car after hitting 382 mph during Bonneville Speedweeks.
94 John “the Zoo Keeper” Mulligan set low ET at Indy in 1969 with a 6.43, the quickest time turned by a Top Fueler up to that point. Coming off an NHRA Winternationals win, no doubt the Beeb & Mulligan Fighting Irish dragster was a favorite to win. In the first round of Indy eliminations, Zoo Keeper faced TV Tommy. Zoo Keeper won the race with a 6.62 at 187.67 mph, but just short of the finish line, the clutch let loose, damaging the engine,