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

Ran across several real Gassers LOL.

Anniston, Alabama’s Billy Holt ran this B/Gas Supercharged ’41 Willys throughout the south. An ECDT Hall of Fame member, Billy Holt later ran successful alcohol Funny Cars.



One of the original members of “The Ohio Gassers”, Ron Hassel teamed up with Mr. Gasket founders Joe and Tom Hrudka to run this mid-nine second, 140 mph, A/Gas ’48 Thames “Pie Wagon”. This 1965 shot was at Palm Beach Intl., Raceway. (Jim Hill photo)



Our own Gene, Anderson, SC’s Gene Cromer ran this ’41 Willys with 427 FE Ford power, then switched to an SOHC 427 Ford for A/Gas. Gene is an ECDT Hall of Fame member.




Ron Colson’s first fast ride was this Chevy powered ’41 Studebaker. Colson’s career spanned four decades and included driving Top Fuel dragsters and nitro Funny Cars such as Roland Leong’s “Hawaiian” and “The Chi Town Hustler”.



Charlie Hill’s legendary “Filthy Forty” Willys held a national reputation as a C/Gasser, and later with a 6-71 blown Chevy, in B/Gas Supercharged. The late Pork Zartman drove.



Engine meister Tony Feil ran this Chevy powered ’48 Anglia in A/Gas. Feil’s race cars were known for outstanding performance and appearance. Tony is an ECDT Hall of Fame member and regular at the annual HOF October gatherings in Henderson, NC.



Hubert Platt ran this ’38 Chevy with small-block Chevy power from his brother, Huston Platt. Hubert later became a hugely successful Ford factory backed racer and east coast Ford Drag Clinic Team leader with Randy Payne.



Gene Altizer’s Chevy powered A/Gas Anglia was early S&S Racing Team member. Gene and the S&S team are all ECDT Hall of Fame members and regulars at the annual Hall of Fame Weekend in Henderson, NC.



Jim Zakia began running this ’55 Chevy in C/Gas, later a ’48 Anglia and then an Opel GT for A/Gas. Many times national A/Gas class champion and record holder.



David Hales is another early S&S Parts Company team member. This D/Gas ’55 Chevy was feared in D and E/Gas class before Dave built his C/Gas ’40 Willys coupe.



Harry Luzader’s classic ’32 Ford (that’s him behind the car, left!) is shown here waiting for tech inspection at the ’64 NHRA Nationals. Luzader ran C/Gas, D/Gas and D/Altered with the trusty ’32.



Robert Nance’s A/Gas ’48 Anglia picks ’em up at the NHRA World Championship Series Points Meet at Warner Robins Dragway, Warner Robins, GA

 

The Croshier, Baltes, Lavato Top Fuel Dragster wheels up.

 

Great gasser photos. Nice to have the descriptions with the photos. Thanks for posting those.

 

Chevy II comin off the line at Minnesota Dragways, 1968. Owner? Quote Not with photo, I know. I may get the hang of computers before I pass away or not.

 

Think the Ron Colson car going to be restored to when he built/raced it - this is as it was last raced. Was Pontiac powered.

 

A short history of Don Ewald Dragsters.




Smith & Ewald" A/FD . This was Kenny Youngbloods ex-ride and had a 354 hemi on 98%. This shot was from the tower at Riverside in the lights. I think the best this car ran was 7.54 @198.87. Easiest car I ever drove.



"Olsen & Ewald" Jr. Fuel injected Dragster. This was my second dragster ride and the first dragster I was partners in. We ran the car every week and had a ball with it. Best times were 7.92 @ 192.36.




Mason, Kay & Ewald" AA/FD. This is the first time out for this new RCS car.

Since it was built for a guy 3 inches shorter and 30 lbs lighter than me, I was never real comfortable in this car but drove it for a full season (driving other cars in between). Think this ran something like 6.86 @ 224



BuzzBuzz Miller Construction AA/FD. This was my first AA/FD ride and I was hooked. This car was longer than most at the time (182") and had an Ed Pink .080 down 392 that made a ton of horse power.

Trouble was using it. Lots of clutch problems with this one. I bailed out when I had a chance to drive what I thought was a better car. Miller Construction AA/FD.





EDIT: Forgot a great story on how far they would go to win.

What they will do LOL

We used to carry a counter weight that bolted onto a crank journal that weighed about the same as a rod & piston assembly. The reason is obvious.

If you hurt a rod and/or a piston and it didn't come out the side, you could conceivably run on 7 cyls. Well one Saturday night at OCIR we'd won the semis but hurt the #6 piston which in turn hurt the #6 rod.

The piston was wedged into the cylinder but there was no other apparent damage. Sooooo our never used before "counterweight" replaced the dead rod, we pulled out the two push rods and pounded the plug closed. Resin filled block so water jackets weren't a problem. Run it.

Well, when we were sitting in line I tried the old "ya wanna split the money deal" with James (Warren) and he laughed and informed me his "spies" told them what we'd done. So much for that idea so when Fred asked me what I was going to do I shrugged my shoulders and said, "Count to five and duck."

This put everybody on the ground but I was serious. As fate would have it, James broke a rear end (which I didn't know) and I ran this vibrating piece of shit to the 1000' mark and clicked it. To our surprise it wasn't hurt any more than it was when we fired it. Got lucky on that one, me thinks. At least Waterman sure thought so when we took the block to him Monday morning.

 

Thanks for including the S&S guys

 

Why can't this be a video.

 

Dick Kalivoda & John Hamlin
In 1964 Dick & John had Jerry Harris build their new dragster which they ran on Gasoline that year.
From 1965 through 1967 they ran the car on Fuel with their 315" DeSoto in Standard 1320 C/FD class.

The body was fabricated in fiberglass by Roger Daugherty and it was painted by Fred Vosk at "The Paint Place" with "scallops" designed by Dick himself.

Dick drove the dragster to several National Records, plus a class win at the NHRA 1966 US Nationals.
In 1967 they won the Super Eliminator Division 6 Championship edging out Gary Beck in the Markley & Beck BB/GD.
Photos by Russ Griffith




In 1967 Dick & John teamed up with Norton and had this beautiful dragster built by Woody Gilmore.
The car was campaigned as "The Joker".

Tom Hanna crafted the all aluminum body that graced the Woody chassis. The blue and white paint was applied by George Cerney.
Dick retained his role of pushing the pedals, the car was raced from 1968 through 1970.During that time the dragster recorded its best times of 227.72mph with a 6.68 ET.

The 6.68 ET was set at Bremerton Washington on June 1st 1969 which was a new NHRA AA/F national record.
The engine was a blown 389" Chrylser based on a 354 block.
Photo by Don Green

 

I think this is Jack Ewell's Fuller car


Sent from my iPad using The H.A.M.B. mobile app

 

This car WAS NOT a wheelstander, but a full on race car.
The Econoline was built after longtime fuel racers Svela (sic) & Sons from Beaverton,Oregon ( thanks to Marty Strode), it ran the blown Chrysler from their wrecked AA.FD. Painted a bright orange, it ran low doses of nitro for low 10 second ET's. This was around 66 or so.
The car was a regular at Woodburn I remember it well.

 

"Digger Dan Horan" a short history.


HIS words and story LOL.

I've been racing ever since I bought my first car. In 1959 I went to the smokers meet with a friend and his brother who was in the T-Timers car club.

They had a 39 Ford coup with no fenders. They ran the car on the salt and the drag strip. I remember there was more racing in the parking lot, then the drag strip back then...ha..ha.

I used to run A/G in my 1930 Chevy. Seems like that put me racing Hayden Profit with his 409" Chevy at the pond and Doug Cook at Lions against his blown Studebaker coupe. I never did win one of those races.


I was a junior in high school when I bought the Chevy. It had spoke wheels and 19" tires. The first thing I did was buy 16" wheels off of a 49 chevy...it had a stock 6 in it .

My auto shop teacher had a 50 olds in the back lot, so we put the brakes, motor,trans,and rear end in my chevy.

My first race at Lions was the Bean Bandits, needless to say they beat me by half a dragstrip, but I was hooked...ha...ha...ha.

I have so many stories. Frank "Rootbeer" Hedges and I used to go to the A&W in Hawthorne CA. and race any body in the place, it was one bad little hot rod...the cops would bust me every time.

We use to have to sneak into the Standard Station (now Chevron) to get Custom Supreme, the white pump which was 102+octane.




I raced that '30 Chevy until 1962 when I went to Pomona and saw Gary Cagle had his chassis for sale. t was sitting under the grandstands with a for sale sign $500.00. It was a complete roller less motor and I had to have it.

I raced that car until I had Eddy Potter build me a full body 150" car in 1965, it had a 425" Olds motor and was going to be sponsored by Allen Paul Olds in Inglewood, but that sponsorship fell through so I installed a Chrysler Hemi in the chassis.

The Olds motor that was in the 30 chev went into the Dragster. I bought the dragster from Gary Cagle in 1963 at Pomona.




Injected 488" Olds engine, with Hilborn injectors, Crankshaft Co crank, Sid Hoover aluminum rods, Engle cam, Firestone slicks, Donovan welded direct drive and axles, Henry Olds rear end and brakes..

We raced dragster at Lions and San Fernando. I raced George Bolthoff and who ever else was at the Pond or Lions I raced the second 4 all the time, the car ran in high 8's around 180mph.

I remember beating Adams & Stuart and Gary Cagles roadster once. We had match races with Boyd and others
incuding Eddie Potter, Pete Millar, Fireside Inn and others, it's hard to remember.

Ralph Gudall use to take photos at the track, I wonder if he saved any of them.

This car ran pretty good. I used to run 10% nitro in it. Keith Black used to kid me all the time about the load I was running...ha...ha. He said his motors wouldn't start on 10% ha...ha.




The Potter built chassis never went straight so I sold it. I contacted Don Long and he built me a great car.

The Don Long car was like a Ferrari it went so straight. I bought a Ed Pink motor for it from Jesse Sturgeon and asked Don Madden to help me, he showed me how to run it.

The stuff I didn't know about dragsters then, would fill a large book...ha...ha...

1st Run in the New Don Long Dragster at the "Beach"

 

The Svela's, Cliff, Jim, and Jack, were from Beaverton,Oregon.