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

Mickey Brown was the driver of the Brown-Weddle-Frank blown Olds digger at the time. Mort Smith (who was my neighbor) was having some handling issues with the Scrima-Adams car (we were at Lions) and Lean Gene asked Mickey if he would give it a try just to see if he had a clue as to what was causing the problem. Mickey was somewhat taller than Mort, and he either didn't or couldn't adjust the shoulder harness, or maybe he just didn't put them on at all. He left the line and the car went to the right off the track and rolled several times and Mickey partially came out of the cage and that was it. I was on the starting line, standing next to Mickey's wife, and it was an ugly evening. I still run into Mort from time to time, he's in the L.A. Roadster Club.


This was the car that Mickey drove on a regular basis, the Brown-Frank-Weddle blown gas dragster (Mickey Brown-Nye Frank- Ed Weddle).

 

Thanks, George, for the story, we never forget the fatal ones...there was an erroneous report that Mickey died in the car you pictured, at least that has gotten straightened out...I remember both the Brown, Weddle, and Frank car (guessing Nye Frank built the chassis?), which was a really well engineered car, saw it at San Gabriel, and the Scrima-Adams car, watched it run San Fernando...I think it went over at Lions the week after I took a picture of it at SF (picture long since lost)....the other story I heard was that the Scrima-Adams car had a spooled rear end which was making it hard to drive, but don't know if that was the case or not...

 

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I'm guessing Pacific Northwest, no ID on cars or track...anyone?
That would be Woodburn (Oregon) dragstrip.

 

One nite and Lyons there was to be a match race with Albertson Olds and the Twin bear, the olds had a cracked block and there was no match

But a new car was there and they asked Leonard Harris to test drive it, well after leaving the line in the left lane something broke it the steering as I could see the sparks from the broken link dragging the track

Well it turned hard left and into the fence and the same thing happened to him, loosing his life too as the roll bar came apart when getting up-aside on the fence

Very sad loosing so many guys from car's that were not built too good back in the day

 

I was there for that one, too. It was unbelievable. I always considered Leonard the best dragster shoe I'd ever seen, with Garlits a close second. Very, very sad...

 

Several years ago I sold my late model dually to the guy that bought this Pel State panel in original condition. IIRC he said he bought it from the original track photographer or something like that. It was Pel State's mobile timing tower, so the timing operators sat up top, and inside stored all of the timing equipment including the tree, and all lights and wiring that ran the length of the track. He has displayed it at several of the shows here in Texas, with all of the original timing equipment intact. He is on the HAMB, goes by HemiDave I think. Pretty cool piece of history.

 

Its neat that all that old equipment is saved for history, when I first started running at the drags in the late 50's it was a flag start

My buddy says don't watch the flag look at the starter's elbow, as that is what moves first and he was right

Then they brought in the tree and it was boring, compared to the starter's tricks etc ' Priceless '

 

Then they brought in the tree and it was boring, compared to the starter's tricks etc ' Priceless '[/QUOTE]
I remember a sequence somewhere that showed a starter who would do a back flip and stick the flag out half way through the flip.

 

Oh yaa those guys were showmen, every time they try to make something better it always loose's something

 

Goose and ? at LIONS

 

Northwind vs ? at Arlington.