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[email protected] On tour in the 1960s & '70s! "Funny Car Fever":
400 Photos by Steve Reyes
New old stock. Hurry! Kenny Youngblood's
"Memories Of El Mirage"
25 cars, just 20 bucks! Bob McClurg's 10th Poster:
"Fuel Altereds II"
"Is that my crank on the ground?"
'60s & '70s Custom Prints
From national stars to local losers,
1907-2006 A Century Of SoCal Action
Crash 'n' burn for your coffee table ...
Steve Reyes's Big Book Of "Drag Racing Mayhem"
Movies:
Rumpled Red Wagon
By Dave Wallace
With Bill Golden's blessing, longtime-fan George Geissinger is touring the truck that nearly took Maverick's life in Quebec City, Canada.
Unseen by the public since its 125-mph crash in June 1975, the mangled remains of the third Little Red Wagon have been partially reassembled and repainted for display at selected Mopar events.
Campaigned only briefly by Maverick, this ill-handling A-100 was cobbled together from the crashed remains of Little Red Wagons One and Two. Among those to pay his respects was Don Garlits, who taped a TV segment on the reincarnated wheelstander.
"Jet Car Bob", Then & Now
By Dave Wallace
Not long after the first jet car stirred up a major controversy — and massive publicity — at Bonneville in 1960, three veteran dragster racers completed quarter-mile models. Ironically, Art Arfons, Walt Arfons and Romeo Palamides all accepted the reality that no NHRA-affiliated promoter would dare let them run. In a weird, wild era that saw NHRA strictly enforce bans against both aircraft power and any fuel except pump gas, AHRA-sanctioned and unsanctioned tracks thrived on giving hungry spectators the “outlaw†attractions that Wally Parks would not.
PHOTOGRAPHER UNKNOWN
Alas, too many early jet cars lent credence to NHRA’s contention that military-surplus engines and hot rodders might be a deadly mix. By 1962, the first thrust-initiated fatality had been recorded: Glenn Leasher perished on the salt in Palamides’s land-speed car, Infinity*. Leasher’s regular job was driving Romeo’s original Untouchable, the highest-paid attraction in drag racing (as well as the heaviest, at 5000-plus pounds). A young slingshot shoe named Bob Smith was invited to fill the vacancy.
RUSS GRIFFITH PHOTO
“I thought about it for about five seconds,†recalls the only jet jockey enshrined in the International Drag Racing Hall Of Fame, who is more surprised than anyone to be alive at 68. “Here we’d been busting our butts to run 180 in fuelers, and Romeo’s car was going 230, without breaking parts. Fuel cars were in the eight-second range; jets were in the Sixes. What drag racer wouldn’t jump at the chance to pick up 50 miles an hour, overnight, and beat up on all the big guys?â€
Unfortunately for “Jet Car Bob,†he was mostly booked into places built in the mid-Fifties, when common knowledge held that dragsters would never exceed 150. “Going fast was never a challenge,†he explained. “Getting stopped could be. All three of my crashes followed parachute failures.â€
His final jet blast, at Milan (Mich.) Dragway in July 1964, earned Smith eight months of hospitalization, the first two in a coma. At the lowest point, a doctor actually pronounced him dead. Adding insult to injury, Palamides stopped sending checks. When a visiting reporter asked why he was considering driving Untouchable IV upon his release, Jet Car Bob replied, “To pay the hospital bills from Untouchables I, II and III.â€
PHOTO BY WEDDLE
DAVE WALLACE PHOTO ©2006
*Infinity Over Zero, Cole Coonce’s history of thrust-powered racing, was named for this ill-fated LSR car. The book is available from www.HotRodNostalgia.com.
