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

There is a dual, " W " engined dragster in the Danbury Connecticut area. 1 engine runs a blower, the blower manifold was the same manifold that was run on The Blown Hearse. The other engine runs, I believe an Algon injector.

 

Just as I said. That is Paul, the owner in the driver's seat.

 

And his daughter or grand daughter (can't remember) drives it also.
I have met them at the track a few times. Lent Paul a hand at Dragway 42. great guy.

 

Was at least two more, looks like from the East coast.

 

Yes - the picture I posted......................!

 

Sonny Erickson, Seaside, Oregon circa 1961

 

Is that the Riccio / Simone dragster, owned by Fat Al Riccio, and driven by Joe Simone ?

 

When Sonny Erickson retired the W engined Dragster, it sat around until Jack Frost bought it and used many of the pieces to build his Willys, the front suspension for sure.

 

One hand Willy...early.

 

Kinda funny, we had 2 Jack Frosts in the Portland area, both were Drag Racers, the Jack with the Willys, started with a T-Bird in the 50's and raced of and on for around 50 years. And the other one raced for a short time in the 70's.

 

Marty, is that Lenny?
Am I right in remembering Jack with a cigar most times?
Dont know if I ever saw Jack drive, I sure liked watching those two at Woodburn in the later years when Lenny drove.

 

That's Lenny on his knee. As I remember, Jack quit driving in the late 60's. He came out and tuned some cars for the Sand Drags, in the 70's. In the 90's he of course built the blown alcohol Altered's with Lenny driving, mostly racing against Buzz Peck. Quite the showman, I don't remember the cigar, but I will ask my Nephew Lonny, Jack and him were very close.

 

Not sure of the exact timeframe or class but that Willis is perfection to me!

 

Ya mean you don't have to have the nose in the air to cut some good times?

 

Agreed

 

I believe Gangreen Willys ran as an altered.....setback?

 

Nope! I believe in the 24" rule....

 

Me winning A/F at Cordova Ill. In 2007.

 

Leffler-Loukas tour of the West coast 1959-60

Hello,
Here is an actual "drag cars in motion" at Lion's Dragstrip in January 1960 for the Mickey Brown Memorial Drag Racing event. It was the 1320 record setting trophy presentation. The entrants and attending folks raised $11,000 in 1960, for the young Mickey Brown family.

($11000 in 1960 equals approximately $96000, today. )

The other Leffler-Loukas drag race was several months later in March 1960 at the Bakersfield Smokers 2nd annual March Meet, versus Gerry Card.

Jnaki

It was the first time on the Westcoast for Neil Leffler-John Loukas Competition Coupe and it was definitely an impressive build and race car.

 

That's probably the longest front engine car I have ever seen.

 

Body makes it look long. 225 inch. SPE car . Originally 150 in. I wheelstood the car and bent the frame. So we extended it. It was a 408 cu in ford windsor injected on 28%. It was an injected alky motor. 15 to 1 comp. We showed up at Cordova to run nostalgia , but we saw the billboard at the gate and it said A/F first round loser paid more than Nostalgia elim paid to win. So my brother Leon dug through the toolbox and changed some stuff and we ran A/F. We had three qualifying runs. We destroyed three sets of plugs before we made it run a full clean pass on 8 cyls. I would pull the plugs and the ground straps were gone. Leon said...good thats what I was looking for. And he would compensate. Another set of plugs and it would go a little further down track before it would lose cyl's. It ended up going a 1,000 ft before it ate a couple plugs. Fuses I call them. I could watch the cyl's going out so I would lift. Leon said, 28% was all we could run without leaving the crank on the ground on the starting line. Percentage is not your enemy but volume is. We got lucky and won. I bought five gallons of nitro from a funnycar buddy. Sixty bucks.