History Drag cars in motion.......picture thread.

Worst. Tire shake. EVER!

Anybody know exactly what's going on in this shot? Was that the "Nanook" car?

 

It was, at Irwindale, car launched, went into a wheelstand, short wheelbase helped it to bounce down so hard that it bounced up again and all four wheels left the ground...needless to say, Dave Hough backed off and coasted through to the lights. Good thing as a piece of the front suspension broke, notice it laying on the track by the right front wheel

 

This from the George Klass collection...I think that this is Walt Markel's "Berkshire Beetle" Desoto powered C/D, from Massachusetts. I'm really reaching back into old memory cells, but I think that he won class at the NHRA Nationals, maybe '57?


Pretty sure that this is Santa Ana, Jack Hart's Hart Automotive altered...If so this car has either been restored or cloned. Notice the Safeway Sandblasting push truck, chopped, in the background, Safeway sponsored cars for years.


This was a really nice Don Long car (I think), had all the high-dollar parts and ran strong. Nick Marshall drove.



I believe that this is Steinegger and Eisenbauch ( name misspelled!) during a brief experiment with a wedge Chrysler...there is another picture of this car barfing the guts of the engine out the bottom...they went back to a Chrysler hemi. Both Al Eisenbauch (sp!) and Larry Steinegger drove)

Walt Knox's AA/A, maybe at the NHRA Nationals...this car was a consistent class winner.


Walt Knox again, in motion, racing California's Ratican, Jackson, and Stearns, Ron "Sleepy" Stearns driving, blown Chrysler vs. blown Olds...I don't remember who won. Both these cars had steel original Fiat bodies.


Early Eddie Hill, gas burning Pontiac...Note that the engine is a part of the frame...Eddie was an innovator!

Yes, there are a lot of pictures of this car (disappeared long ago after being sold to a guy in Illinois)...Charles Scott, outstanding craftsmanship -- metal T body, PBY frame rails, chrome everywhere...maybe Bud or Cub Barnett driving? The late Mike Snively would later drive Scotty's fueler...


Ted Gotelli's Fuller car, probably Fremont

 

Bob Baugh, out of Chicago, bought Scotty's roadster. The ARDUN wound up in a dragster. The roadster and the engine are still around, but sadly, not together. The guy with the engine wants the roadster, and the guy with the roadster wants the engine. They don't seem to be able to agree, so we all lose. Pretty sure that's Cub Barnett in the picture.

 

Tommy,
you are stuttering there a bit--a few multiple posts of the same thing in that latest batch.

Roo

 

That front end looks different.

 

This car went through multiple iterations, ran this twin motor setup, then a blown Olds on gas, and later the Brisette brother's fuel Chrysler. I saw it meet its end when Bob Brisette rolled it in the lights at Fontana, car was pretty beat up but Bob came out of it with nothing more than a broken ankle. According to the story I heard, he didn't realize it was broken until he was driving the Brisette roadster the next week, and the ankle folded over when he tried to clutch it...(I don't know if the story is true, but it would be a typical Brisette story ("Hippo" Brammer of the Brammer, Burkhart and Burns roadster fame called Brisette "Bob Berserk".....

 

It was Woody Gilmore's attempt to improve handling with an independent front end (this is Jim Dunn's green car). It didn't work, and those few cars built this was got tube axles instead. According to Don Ewald, this front end in in the rafters of the late Tom Wilford's garage..Woody was an innovator, though his innovations didn't always work...

 

Kool thanks I thought there was a lot of stuff going on.

 

Here's Woody demonstrating the suspension.
Didn't Ron Goodsell also have one of these?
There is a restored one also.

 

Here's Goodsell's car, guess it wasn't a Woody suspension

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You're right, there was another, driven by Tommy Allen and now restored...here is the first Jim Dunn car with a caption from Don Ewald:



Jim Dunn in his "Green Mountain Boys" (Woody Trick Car II) at Lions in 1967. This was one of just two 1967 Woody (RCE) "trick cars" so named for the unconventional front suspension. The first car built as a RCS factory car. The first driver is Steve Carbone.
Then Gene Adams put his motor in the car and John Mulligan drove it for a bit. Then the car went back to Woody. In the meantime Tommy Allen had allot of miles on his RCS car and it is suggested by Mulligan that he go buy a Woody car.
Tommy goes up to RCS and comes back with the Trick Car and runs it for a bit then he bought it from Woody. Then Tommy gets drafted in '67 and Larry Huff and Marlene, Tommy's wife sell the car to Tom McEwen. Tom runs it for a while then it gets sold to the Anderson Brothers in Texas and a young up and comer, somebody by the name of Kenny Bernstein drives it. Then the Anderson Brothers sell the car to a local guy and the local guy crashes and is killed at a local track.
The second car is the one that Jim Dunn drove (pictured above). It was green and had a nose. Jim wasn't happy with the front end and took it off and put on a conventional front end. From there that car went up north and was eventually crashed as well. The front end of the second car rests on the ceiling of Tom Wilford's garage.

and here are a couple of shots of the Tommy Allen car, with the same kind of suspension...this is the car that has been restored (or maybe recreated, if it was involved in a fatal crash):




Larry Huff, later of "Soapy Sales" funny car fame, was also involved in this deal. Picture is from Riverside.

 

Another 2 out of 3 title defense for Gene and Larry against Gary Slusser's Fiat. Of course Larry won.