Featured History Putting a Face with a Name: Cars and Drivers in the 1950s

Gene Mooneyham & Al Sharp: Forever Linked to the Number 554

When you ask any died-in-the-wool hot rodder to tell you the first image that comes to mind when you say the number "554," the mental picture of Mooneyham & Sharp's '34 fuel altered coupe leaps to their mind. It doesn't even have to be an old-timer. I asked my 47-year-old son what picture of a car came to mind when I said, "554." He likes old hot rod history. He said, "blue '34 coupe, gold-leaf number on the door." Good answer. When I asked him if he knew the names of the builders, he was at a loss. We know the car, but the names or faces of the owners, builders, or drivers don't always readily spring to mind as quickly as the image of the car does. In the spirit of this thread, I will write less about the famous fuel altered coupe associated with its builders than about them as people. Although both of them were in the drag racing business for many decades, I will focus primarily on them (and their cars) in the 1950s. I will attempt to put a face with a name, which is the central purpose of this thread.


This is the car that comes to mind for every average Joe with an undying love of drag racing--one of the most seminal cars in the history of drag racing: Mooneyham and Sharp's steel-bodied '34 Ford fuel coupe #554. I'll just write a few things about the car before moving on to focus on the guys who made it go. The car gained an almost cult-like following, persisting to this day. Why is that? Jimmy White used to work for Gene Mooneyham in his blower shop. He was curious about what Gene thought about the acclaim his fuel coupe had garnered. "I asked Gene one day if he realized how bad-ass of a car the 554 was," said Jimmy. "He shrugged and said, 'Not really.'" That about sizes it up. It's hard to put into words, but there was just something about the car--its stance, its sound, its looks. It just emanated everything that defined drag racing. In fact, Webster's Dictionary could replace the words in their definition of "drag racing" with this picture of "554" and that would suffice. Before I turn my focus on the two men behind "554," I'll let Jimmy White tell us about the car number. "The 554 came from the lakes," Jimmy said of its early days racing at the dry lakes. "That was the number it was assigned. When Gene went to repaint it--the metallic blue--the numbers were still visible. So they decided to just re-paint the 554 back on."


This is as good a picture as any to lead into putting a face on the two men behind this fabulous car: Al Sharp (left) and Gene Mooneyham (right).

Gene Mooneyham


Gene was born in Oklahoma, but moved to California with his family in the early 1940s. His father worked in construction in support of the war effort. Gene's only brother, Charles, joined the Navy in 1944. Sadly, he died in 1945 aboard a destroyer in the South Pacific. Gene graduated from Banning High School in Wilmington, California, in 1949. He began working as a gas station attendant.


Gene started out street racing in his '40 Ford coupe, running with the standard flathead V8 engine.


Gene bought his first race car, a '34 Ford sedan, for $20. He took the engine out of his '40 Ford coupe, installed it in the '34 sedan, and raced it at the dry lakes. He and his partner, Bill Smith, took 9th place in the B Sedan class on May 20, 1951, with a speed of 103.17 mph. Exactly a week later, he married Dorothy. She had to know what she was getting into.


Gene continued running his '34 sedan at the dry lakes with his new partner, Carl Johnson. This photo shows Gene's neat '40 Ford pickup behind his sedan. The Mooneyham and Johnson duo also began running at the drag races at the Orange County airport in Santa Ana. They got their first victory at Santa Ana in the light coupe class on November 25, 1951. They picked up another win on February 3, 1952, at Santa Ana.


This photo shows us the back of his '34 sedan, on which Gene lettered his affiliation with the Rod Riders of San Pedro. In 1953, he still continued to race on the dry lakes, but he also began drag racing more frequently, too. He also picked up a couple of new partners that year. At Pomona on January 18, he and Balck (or Black?) took the '34 sedan to a C Fuel Coupe victory with 102 mph. On March 22, he partnered with Baker for a win in the light coupe and sedan class at Santa Ana with a speed of 106.38 mph.


Here we go. Now we enter the era of the 5-window "554" '34 Ford fuel coupe. The '34 sedan was no longer in Gene's racing picture. From here on, Gene would be running the fuel coupe, with help from his old partner, Carl Johnson. He initially wanted to just paint the number on the side of the door with poster paint (so he could change it easily), but mistakenly used marine paint. When he tried to get it off, even using sandpaper, it wouldn't come off. He was stuck with the number "554." Oh, well. Note that the car was fenderless and had a rudimentary flame paint job. Nice. In this photo, the car was set up for running at dry lakes and at Bonneville.


The Mooneyham-Johnson duo began hitting drag strips in Southern California in 1955. On April 17 at Santa Ana, running a Merc flathead, they won the light coupe class in 112.95 mph. This photo shows Don "Rockerhead" Montgomery (right) in his '32 Ford coupe racing Gene at the NHRA regional at Colton on May 15. "Gene had a flathead in the coupe," Montgomery said, "while my coupe had a GMC engine. My win at 120.32 mph was the fast A/F Coupe that year." You can see in this photo that the top had been chopped from how it appeared in the previous photo. Carl Johnson had topped it 3-1/2 inches to give it that oh-so-cool appearance. Gene had a Ford flathead in the Mooneyham-Johnson fuel coupe when they took a win on July 17 at Santa Ana with 119.09 mph, good enough for a new strip record in the light coupe class. At the grand opening of Lions on October 9, Mooneyham-Johnson won the A fuel coupe class with 115.53 mph. This was light years ahead of the national record (106.89 mph) that Robert Chapman set at the U.S. Nationals at Great Bend. On October 23 at Lions, Mooneyham won the A fuel coupe class with his Merc flathead with 116.12 mph. After that outing, then followed months of rebuilding the coupe to more resemble what we think of as closer to the "554."


In this photo, Carl Johnson (wearing jacket) admires the immaculate fendered version of their "554" coupe, with his partner, Gene (right). They had spent the latter part of 1955 and the first half of 1956 rebuilding the car to look like this. They chose wisteria as the color for their car and had Jim Hoff do the lettering and pin striping. It had one of its first outings with this new look at Saugus on August 11, 1956. What's interesting about this, is that Al Sharp came into the picture here. That might be Sharp standing behind the car with a white shirt, but that's a big maybe. He installed his '55 259ci Dodge engine for that mid-year debut outing. Gene drove the car to a class win, clocking a very impressive 122.45 mph. This was about 7 mph faster than the NHRA national record! Mooneyham & Johnson's next winning outing took place at Santa Ana on September 30. They had installed a 353ci '52 Chrysler engine and won the fuel coupe class with 116.27 mph. On October 14, Santa Ana held a Fuel Coupe Invitational, attracting some of the hottest fuel coupes in the Southland, if not the country. Although Mooneyham was beaten by Don Montgomery in light coupe eliminations, he turned a blistering new class strip record of 132.11 mph! This was really kind of a break-out moment that really got the attention of others. At the 2-day event celebrating the first anniversary of Lions Drag Strip on October 27-28, Mooneyham set a new strip A Fuel Coupe record with 133.50 mph. However he lost in eliminations again to Don Montgomery's blown Chrysler fuel coupe. Gene's car lacked a blower, fuel being guzzled by six Stromberg carbs. Their standard load of fuel was mixed at a ratio of 90% nitro and 10% alcohol. At Lions on December 9, Mooneyham & Johnson beat the Walker Bros. to take the A Fuel Coupe trophy with 10.95 at 130.24 mph. They also had a hefty single run of 10.78 at 130.34 mph. That's where the year ended. They were putting up good numbers, but Don Montgomery seemed to have their number when it came to winning big races.


It seemed like the trajectory would only continue upward for "554" when the 1957 season started. Drag News (1/26/57) published a 2-page feature article about the car entitled "A Coupe to Go." One interesting fact briefly mentioned in the article is that Al Sharp was one of several men helping with "the necessary preparations at the track and elsewhere." He would become involved in a major way in 1959. In that same issue of Drag News, an advertisement testimonial written by Gene credited the eight-inch slicks from Bruce's Tire Shop for much of the car's elapsed time improvement. "After purchasing our slicks from Bruce's Tire Shop, top speed handling of our coupe was corrected," Gene attested. "I can now feel 'bite' all the way to the finish line. They got me off the starting line much quicker, and since installing, have lowered my E.T. to 10.78 seconds from my former consistent 11.71. Nearly 1 full second! I sincerely believe that your slicks are by far the best thing we have done to help put our car at the top of its class." Well, that may be a bit of an overstatement, but such glowing product tributes certainly didn't hurt when it came to attracting sponsors or getting free or reduced-cost parts.

Everything was going without so much as a hitch for Mooneyham, Johnson, "554," and company until February, when the fuel racer's world imploded. Don Montgomery, the top dog in the fuel coupe world and Gene's nemesis, sold his car solely because places to race it evaporated. "I raced the 554 coupe several times in the next 2 years," Montgomery wrote of racing Gene in 1956-57. "By then we both had Chrysler engines. Then they banned fuel and I sold my car." There have been several versions about who and why the nitro ban was started, most of them pointing a finger at Wally Parks. I wasn't there at the start of the ban, but I was sitting in the stands on the opening day time trials of the 1963 Winternationals when Don Garlits threw a tizzy-fit at the starting line. He was incensed that he and so many other fuel car drivers weren't allowed to race. He fumed, kicked around, and refused to budge from the line until Wally Parks would give him an ear. Wally came down from the tower. They talked (lots of yelling on Don's part) and almost an hour after the race was to start, Wally gave his blessing to the fuel drivers. And just like that, the fuel ban was over. For years, I have been in the blame-Wally-for-the-fuel-ban camp, but now I'm almost persuaded otherwise. In 2020, Brian Lohnes wrote an article that was published online entitled "Everything You Know About the Nitro Ban Is Wrong: The Real History of the Infamous NHRA Nitro Ban." His arguments are very convincing. He contends that the ban can be traced to fuel drivers' concerns about the "skyrocketing costs of drag racing." He argued that when Cook & Bedwell's A/FD broke the then-existing world record at Lions on February 3, 1957, by more than 7 miles per hour, "the drag racing world was stunned and repercussions were immediate," Lohnes wrote. "Three days after Cook’s runs, C.J. Hart announced gasoline would be the only fuel permitted at his Santa Ana (CA) Drag Strip beginning on February 10, 1957. While Hart cited the lack of stopping room at many tracks as a problem, his decision was based on an entirely different concern. Hart insisted he was responding almost solely on the clamor from participants to curb the skyrocketing costs of drag racing." In order to compete with Cook and Bedwell, the drivers would have to dig deep into their wallets to buy more and better parts. "On February 15, a meeting was held in Los Angeles involving a total of seven other California drag strips all of which agreed to follow Hart’s ban on nitromethane," Lohnes wrote. "The tracks were San Fernando, Pomona, San Gabriel, Lions, Saugus and the northern California track at Kingdon." And just like that, strips in Southern California that formerly put fuel cars on top billing, suddenly closed their gates to them. They had no convenient place to race and had to spend even more money to travel to strips that let them run--and those were fast dwindling. So, that was where Mooneyham and Johnson found themselves in fast order--a fast fuel car, with no close-by place to go. "When fuel was banned we both parked our coupes," Don Montgomery recalled. Partially true. Mooneyham ran a couple of times, but after parking it for a bit, Montgomery sold his. But, Mooneyham kept his, hoping to get in an occasional run or lifting of the fuel ban. After a few months of idleness, Carl Johnson opted out of his partial ownership.

Colton let them run occasionally, but Morrow Field mostly ran gas-only like so many other strips. However, on June 9, 1957, Colton ran their periodic fuel and gas meet and Gene dusted off "554" and won the fendered fuel coupe class with 131.57 mph.

1958. Mostly the same story--a couple of outings, couple of wins. Colton on February 9, 1958--A Fuel Coupe win with 11.22 ET (no speed, wiring problems).

1959. Sometimes when you set out to write a history, you can't find out all the facts. This is one of those parts of the story of "554" where things are a little murky. I'm pretty sure that Gene was driving the car at Paradise Mesa. His obituary said that he retired from driving after he crashed the car. It was probably 1959. Old timers like Don Montgomery, remembered a little of this and a little of that, but some of what some of these old timers thought they remembered, didn't line up. One old timer thought he was driving a flathead when he crashed. Huh? Memory is sometimes fuzzy. Brian Lohnes wrote a feature about "554" that is online. In the absence of any better research on my part, I'll turn to Lohnes for this part of the story that he uncovered: "Mooneyham wrecked the car at the now defunct Paradise Mesa strip outside of San Diego. With a taco’d frame and body that had seen better days the fate of the coupe was hanging in the balance. Cooler heads prevailed with the idea to repair the car, but take it to the next plateau of performance. The frame was straightened using jacks, chains, and trees. The top was chopped a shade more than 3 inches and all the rest of the sheetmetal was straightened and smoothed. Car sponsor, Al Sharp, was impressed with the repaired piece and had it painted silver. In typical temperamental drag racer fashion, Mooneyham didn’t like the silver, so he had the car painted blue, the color it would remain through most of its career and the one color that everyone who knows the car thinks about when it is mentioned. During the repair process, the lead body man was Larry Faust."


In this photo, Larry Faust and Dorothy Mooneyham stand beside the car. We are looking at Al Sharp's '51 390ci Chrysler Hemi engine. Al was a magician with motors. Inside the Hemi was a Clay Smith 284-model cam and ForgedTrue pistons. On top is a GMC 6-71 blower fed by Enderle injection, nitro mix of 60-70 percent. Power to the wheels came via a Sharp Engineering flywheel and Schiefer clutch.

Brian Lohnes continued: "Larry Faust was a drag racer himself and went by the nickname 'Jungle.' The guy was reputed to be able to drive anything and he said he could back that claim up. Mooneyham liked what he saw in Faust and asked him to drive the car, although with the new blower atop the Hemi, Mooneyham was worried that Faust would be unable to tame the beast. As a test, Mooneyham brought Faust to San Gabriel Drag Strip on a day that the place was closed up and let him make a few hits, first with 25 percent nitro in the tank, to which Faust is reported to have said, 'It don’t feel like much.' Upping the percentage to 50 percent resulted in Faust shutting down the car at half track and matter of factly telling Mooneyham that he needed to put a full load of pop in it so they could see what it was really capable of. Unfortunately the motor was broke so another run was out of the question. Faust told Mooneyham that he could handle the car. The next time he would drive it would be in competition. Of driving the car, Faust was quoted as saying, 'It would go left one time and right the next. It would hook up differently because it would smoke the tires so hard.' You just have to love these guys."

We next pick up the story after the coupe was repaired and "Jungle" Larry Faust was in the driver's seat. It was 1960. "The Bakersfield Smokers, with fuel insurance in hand, scheduled their soon to be famous Fuel Championships meet," Don Montgomery said. "Gene took the fenders off of his coupe, added a blower, and proceded to thrill the crowds with great, tire smoking, runs down the strip." The coupe, now Mooneyham & Sharp, took the win in at the second March Meet in A Fuel Coupe with 10.44 and 148.27 mph, good enough for a new Drag News 1320 record. Al Sharp's blown Chrysler engine really upped the car's speed big time and they were quicker by about half a second, too.


Let's jump to 1963. Mooneyham and Sharp sold the car for $3,500. They had enjoyed a good run with it, made a chunk of change, had good times. They left going out on top, holders of the national record at 9.05 and 178.21 mph. The above photo shows Gene and Ruth, Al Sharp's wife. Jungle Larry stayed on as driver with the new owner, Emmit White. Old timers recall that White took ownership of the car and had Jungle Larry put it to the test for the first time under his ownership at Lions. Jungle Larry was absolutely fearless. "Faust was not afraid of anything and he would take the car as far to the limit as Gene would let him," said one old timer. "Faust said the car was extremely loud inside, as the individual exhausts ran directly under the aluminum floor pan. The last time I saw it run, it was the last run of the day for the car, and Emmit White wanted to have Larry go for broke!" They upped the nitro load to about 90%. Not good. The car exploded into flames. Faust got the car stopped and got out with minor burns. That was it for "554." “It was pretty simple. Gene (Mooneyham) got paid Saturday morning," Faust quipped later, "and I blew it up on Saturday night.” End of story for Mooneyham and Sharp's history with their famous fuel coupe.


Gene continued his involvement in racing, owning/sponsoring a flock of different top fuel cars. His most successful car was a top fueler that won the 1970 Gatornationals, with Dave Chenevert driving. In this photo, Gene is seen kneeling down on the right, lending his practiced hand to resolve an issue with a dragster's engine.


He started up the Mooneyham Blowers business in Downey, California, in 1974. "His real contribution to the sport came in the area of superchargers," Don Garlits said. "Some of my best runs were with his Mooneyham Blowers. He was very innovative." He received a Lifetime Achievement Award from NHRA in 1996 and was inducted into the International Drag Racing Hall of Fame in 2001. He died at age 75 in 2006.

Al Sharp


In this photo, Al looks at a later rebuild of his old car. In 1953, he co-founded Venolia Piston Company with Bob Toros. After 1963, he left racing and devoted full time to his racing equipment business ventures. Al was something else--World War II vet, innovator, businessman, machinist, pattern maker. He built Ford flathead equipment. He and Gene built and sold some of the first aluminum heads for the Chrysler Hemi. He helped Craig Breedlove with his Spirit of America record-setting runs. His manifolds and valve covers graced the twin mills of the Hurst Hairy Olds. And on and on. He was a guy who loved to make things that made you go faster. He died in 2004.

 

Sam Brollier: Speed Merchant on Dry Lakes and Drag Strip

Being caught up in the '50s with drag racing history, I keep running across Sam Brollier's name in old newspapers. So, I'm intrigued enough to find out more about him. I'm not the only one who is curious. About ten years ago, Dave Sanderson wondered what had become of Sammy. Sanderson, who worked eons ago at Blair's Speed Shop, used to see Sam periodically in the shop as he was a regular customer. " He was an Ardun guy who later went drag racing. He ran one of the earliest drag racing Fiat coupes. His cars were well built. I wonder what happened to him?" Well, I'm going to try to find out.

That's how historical research starts. Born out of curiosity, I begin looking here and there, poking into newspapers, census records, and such, hoping to find something. Here goes.

I like to start out with genealogical resources. You know, find out when/where they were born, where they lived, when they died. That kind of stuff. The basics.


Hot on his trail, I found out that he was born in Nebraska in 1926. Like everyone else when the war started, he had to register for the draft. He was nineteen years old. No job.


Rather than wait to get drafted, he signed up with the Navy. He served on an aircraft carrier.


"Hot rodding grew tremendously after WWII," Dave Sanderson said. "Single guys built hot rods and raced them at the lakes, but when they got married and had kids, hot rods were pretty impractical. That's why we saw lots of street roadsters converted into drag roadsters, still with filled grill shells and holes where the '39 Ford taillights were." In this photo (dated March 23, 1947), Sam Brollier sits in his hot rod roadster with his girlfriend, Dorothy Shaffer.


Seven of the guys in the Pasadena Roadster Club show off their cars on a quiet Pasadena neighborhood street. Just wait until they all start up and pull out, then look out Pasadena. You can just barely see Sammy, peeking over the hood of Harold Simpson's roadster. Seated next to Sammy is Dorothy, looking straight ahead, waiting for all the boys to finish with all their boy stuff. Sammy and Dorothy got married in late 1947.


Sam was a member of the Pasadena Roadster Club. He ran his roadster at Harper's and El Mirage dry lakes. His Model T roadster, shown in this photo, was powered by a big Merc flathead. At one dry lakes event, he turned 111.66 mph.


In this photo, Sam (in light colored shirt, left hand raised up to side of his face; Harold Yoder is leaning on car, looking at camera) and his buddies in the Pasadena Roadster Club, visit while Dorothy's face says it all at being ignored. Sometimes, girlfriends or wives of hot rodders got to feeling that they came in a distant second place in their partner's affection. Don Montgomery worked with Sam for a bit. "I worked as the late operator to close up a Mobil station on east Colorado Blvd. around 1949," Montgomery recalled. "One of the mechanics who worked there for a while was Sam Brollier."


This photo shows the back side of Brollier's T roadster, at a dry lakes event. Note the Pasadena Roadster Club plaque hanging between the taillights, below the hand-lettered "21 Studs." "He was in the Pasadena Roadster Club then," Montgomery continued. "In 1947 he had a '27 T roadster. I think when he had the Ardun powered roadster a few years later he was from the Azusa area."


Mornings could get cold out on the dusty dry lakes. Dorothy was a good sport about it, so she could be with her man.

In 1950, he began working as a supply clerk in a heater manufacturing concern, trying to make ends meet. He and Dorothy had a little boy then, living in a house in Monrovia. His mother and a cousin lived with them. In 1952, he worked as a truck driver for a concrete block manufacturing company.


In this colorized black and white photo, Sam is seen finishing up his T roadster. By at least 1953, Sam started drag racing. At that time he was living in Azusa, so it was a hop, a skip, and a jump to get to Pomona. On February 15, he won a trophy in the B/MR class in his '27 T roadster with a speed of 102.98 mph. From then on, he became a regular at Pomona, winning almost weekly. His best speed in the '53 season was 114.85 mph, clocking it in taking an A/MR class win on June 7. He started out the 1954 season with an A/MR class win with a speed of 123.00 mph.


By summer of 1954, he drove a blue '48 Fiat Topolino A/MC, owned by another Azusa guy, Bobby Alvarez. Both were members of the Azusa Cruisers car club.


In this grainy newspaper photo, Sam Brollier (left) and Bobby Alvarez (right) are all smiles as they accept trophies for winning at Colton's grand opening race on August 22. They got top eliminator honors and the meet's fastest speed with 125 mph. On October 3, they took another top eliminator win at Colton. On November 14 at Colton, Broillier was making his final run in the top eliminator race when his clutch exploded. He was taken to the hospital by ambulance with slight injuries to his face and hands. He and the coupe were back on the Colton track on December 26, taking a class win.

1955: The year began in good order for Brollier, taking top eliminator and best time of the day at Colton on January 9 with 116.56 mph in the Fiat coupe. He was absent from Colton for the next three months, ostensibly looking for a new ride. He was a driver for hire. He picked up a driving gig from Mel Zatinsky, racing at Pomona on February 20 in Mel's Merc flathead-motored A/Fuel Competition Coupe. Zatinsky was from Arcadia. The Brollier-Zatinsky duo won the class with 113.58 mph. They won at Pomona again on March 6 (108.96 mph) and March 13 (115 mph). Al Rocha lined him up to drive his Merc flathead fuel dragster at Colton on March 27. He took a trophy in the A/FD class with 117.88 mph.


It appears that he bought the Merc-powered '48 Fiat from Bobby Alvarez that he had raced at Colton back in 1954. The above photo was published in Drag News (6/9/55), reporting on the race at Pomona on May 29. He won the A Fuel Competition Coupe class and got the meet's top time trophy with 117.00 mph. In October, he was back at Colton with his Fiat competition coupe. He won an A Competition Coupe class trophy on October 1 with 93.72 mph.


The above grainy newspaper photo appeared in Drag News (11/11/55), reporting on the race at Colton on October 30. He won the B Fuel Competition Coupe, but broke his axle while going through the traps doing 110 mph during eliminations.

1956: Colton was Brollier's track of choice. He was back there again in the beginning of the '56 season on January 8 with his Ardun-Merc engined '48 Fiat B Competition Coupe. He took the class win with 121.52 mph. He took runner-up to B & B Construction's belly tank A/D in the top eliminator finals.


This photo was published in Drag News (3/2/56) reporting the race at Colton on February 26. Here we learn that the owner was Vincent Solgat and Brollier was the driver. We can only speculate, but Sam was the sole breadwinner at home. He may have needed to spend less on race cars and more on the family. You know. Happy wife, happy life. Anyway, he sold the car to Solgat, but continued as driver. But there was another reason Sam sold his Fiat--he had bought another race car. And this one came with a pedigree.


Sam had bought Mickey Thompson's sling-shot dragster, called the Panorama City Special. Mickey's duties as strip manager at Lions and his attention drawn to building a new dual-engine dragster were reason enough for him to sell his old dragster to Brollier. Mickey posted the dragster for sale in Drag News (1/20/56): "FOR SALE: Fully enclosed bodied dragster with canopy. 151.26 speed and E.T. of 9.9. Complete less engine. Steel quick change center section, axle setup for single or dual Mag. wheels, slicks, extra-heavy duty axles, teardrop tube frame, special built Cad box adaptable to any engine and many other features and extras. Write Mickey Thompson, 508 Winston Drive, El Monte. Ph. FOrrest 0-2772." The Colton Courier (2/24/56) reported: "The 144.47 m.p.h. [Colton] track record holder, known as the Mickey Thompson sling shot dragster, has been acquired by Sam Brollier, Azusa speed merchant. Brollier will attempt to break the present record on Sunday with the car that ran 151.40 m.p.h. on another Southern California strip. This Ardun-Mercury powered job is weird in appearance attracting a great deal of spectator interest." Sam started making the rounds of drag strips in the SoCal Southland with two cars--the Fiat and the old MT dragster. Of the two, he was more successful with the Fiat. He installed an engine in the dragster and had it ready to run sometime in March. He had it running at Colton for several weeks, but he kept bumping up against John Bradley in the Gene's Brake Shop dragster. Bradley had a lock on top eliminator for weeks on end. It was discouraging. The last time that I found Sam taking home a trophy for a class win, he was running an Ardun-Merc in B/A class at Pomona on March 17, 1957. He turned 108.63 mph.

He died in 1984 when he was 58 years old.

 

John Bradley: Mr. Flathead


Bradley joined the Navy in 1943 when he was seventeen years old. He had been working as a welder for his father, who operated Bradley Wrecking Yard. After he enlisted, he was assigned to the Navy's diesel motor school in San Diego. During the war, he served in five different combat campaigns in the North Pacific aboard the USS Golden City and the USS Hercules.


After he was discharged, he filled out a draft registration card in 1946. The back of the card noted some of his physical features such an appendix scar, height 5-8, weight 143, brown hair, brown eyes, ruddy complexion, and a tattoo on his left arm. Of course there was a tattoo. He had been in the Navy. That's what sailors did.

It didn't take John too long after his discharge before he was racing a '31 Ford roadster. Of course, it was street racing. No drag strips in 1946. "I've been in this business since 1948 running the Ford flathead old dragsters," John said in a 2008 TV interview. I think John meant that he began tinkering with old flathead engines in 1948. He probably put them in street rods. It wasn't until 1952 that he built his first dragster out of Model T frame rails with a Ford flathead V8. By 1953, Bradley was running nitromethane in his dragster and learning how to make it go fast.


1955: "My 4 banger from 1952-55," Bradley said of this photo. "Note the fine helmet, punctured Model T rails, and the master cylinder hanging on the outside. Managed to turn 115 mph, without any major complications. Put the brake shop V-8 in the same chassis. Ran in the 140 bracket. Must have had a death wish!!!" Bradley lived in Highland, a small city just east of San Bernardino. Colton was the closest drag strip to where he lived. The first report of him winning at Colton was for the race on February 6, 1955. He took a trophy for a win in the 4-Banger X Class with 70.31 mph. At his next outing, he won with 98.57 mph--a huge improvement. He was on an upward trajectory on every outing. For variety, he towed his black dragster to Pomona on May 8, taking a trophy in the 4-Barrel class with 87.89 mph. At the NHRA regional at Colton on May 15, he set a new track record with 104.89 mph. On May 29, he set a new (guess what) track record with 105.63 mph. He didn't just break a track record, he obliterated them. At Colton on June 9, he set another strip record in his fuel-burning 4-barrel dragster with 109.00 mph. On June 26, he set a new strip record for his fourth straight time at Colton with 111.94 mph. Of the ninety entries, he was the only record breaker. It was almost expected that each week at Colton, he would set another track record. At Pomona on July 4, he took a class victory with 110.97 mph. The above photo shows his dragster later in the year, after he painted it from black to a lighter color. In October, he installed a new, more powerful four-cylinder motor. He ran 109.85 mph on October 1 at Colton for a class win, but blew a head gasket which kept him from competing for top eliminator.


1956: This was the year that Bradley acquired a sponsor: Gene's Brake Shop in San Bernardino. It was located at 958 W. Base Line Road. This photo is a frame taken from an 8mm home movie that John took between 1955-59. The photos are somewhat blurred, but they document some important early drag racing history.


On occasion, John would work on his dragster at the brake shop. This photo shows John, possibly in the center standing upright, while two mechanics huddle over the engine. Eugene Long, the shop owner, stands to the right, an interested observer.


During the '56 season, he raced at Pomona, Santa Ana, Lions, and mainly at Colton, his home track. During the season, he racked up 28 Top Eliminator wins. While he ran a four-cylinder engine in 1955, he opted to run an eight-cylinder 296ci Merc flathead engine on fuel in 1956. I suppose he wanted to compete against the faster fuel racers and didn't think he could do it with a four-banger. The above photo was published in the San Bernardino Sun (4/1/56). The accompanying caption said that Bradley had raced his Merc flathead Gene's Brake Shop fuel dragster at Colton on March 25 to a top eliminator victory with 10.52 at 128.933 mph, both times good for new strip marks. On February 5 at Colton, he beat Dudley Stauffacher, driving the belly tank B & B Construction dragster in a match race. Bradley clocked a best of 122.75 mph. In losing, Dud Stauffacher had to ride a kid's bike the length of the strip as part of the match race requirements. Each week, Bradley made little improvements to better his times. On July 7 at Colton he notched his sixteenth top eliminator victory and set a new Colton track record with 136.88 mph. He was also consistently under 11 seconds. Drag News (7/13/56) reported that his "hard working flathead has proven the undoing of many bigger and more powerful OHV's." The wins just kept coming. "I beat up on every overhead’s you could name back in the days," Bradley asserted in his 2008 interview. It sounds like boasting, but he was mostly just stating the facts.


On October 27-28, Lions held a 2-day drag race to celebrate its first anniversary. John was going up against some heavy-hitters and their Chrysler Hemis. To compete with the big boys, he ran the eight-cylinder fuel Merc motor instead of the old four-banger that he ran in '55. In fact, there was only a single four-barrel dragster in the field. It was Art Chrisman, driving the Merrymen car club dragster and he didn't last past the first round of eliminations. The above photo has been cropped to focus on John's dragster. The original photo shows about eleven race cars lined up in a row. John, in the driver's seat of the Gene's Brake Shop Special (#127-D), is smiling up at the camera. Behind the dragster is his crew, a person in white coveralls, in front of four other dark-jacketed assistant helpers. Flanking John's dragster is the Merrymen car club 4-banger dragster, nearest to camera, and below John. Above John's dragster, furthest from the camera, is the powerful Armstrong & Richer injected fuel "Nesbitt's Orange Special" dragster, driven by Maurice Richer. Bradley lost to Art Chrisman when he blew his transmission on the line. On December 6 at Santa Ana, he garnered his 28th top eliminator win of the season and set a world record for flathead dragsters with 145.46 mph to finish out the season.


1957: After winning top eliminator at San Fernando on February 10, Bradley retired his old antiquated dragster. He had a new dragster waiting in the wings--one with big, backward-swooping Texas-style exhaust pipes. This photo is a frame taken from the 8mm home movie that shows the new dragster prior to it being lettered with Gene's Brake Shop on the front cowl.


He drove primarily in fuel classes, but occasionally ran on gas in his new dragster in '57. In this photo, taken from a frame in his 8mm home movie, he waits for the starter to wave the flag at Colton. He had all sorts of tricks up his sleeve when he was at the starting line. For him, anything to win. "I could outfox them on the line," he said in his TV interview. "It used to be you could jump start and shut off and cool it and all that." Stan Back, a member of the San Berdoo Roadsters car club, used to race at Colton. He asserted that Bradley even resorted to a bit of underhanded, dirty shenanigans to get a jump on his opponent. "Colton used a flagman in those days," Back said. "In fact, I think that led to the 38 top eliminators that John Bradley had in one year in the late 50s. We later found out that one of the starters, for a six-pack, would raise the flag when you left." In other words, Bradley would leave the line, and in that split second of his car's movement, the starter would lift the flag high in the air. It made it look like Bradley was super quick off the line. But in reality, Bradley essentially changed places with the flagman, as it was his start from the line that dictated when the flagman would raise the flag. In my book, that's called cheating.

I never did go to Colton when I started going to drag races in the late '50s. I was just a kid with only a bike for wheels. It was just seven miles from my house to Pomona, fourteen miles to Fontana, and twenty-five to Colton. Colton was just too far away. Plus, Pomona and Fontana attracted the bigger-name racers. I wish now that I'd gone to Colton to see Bradley run there. He owned that place. I undoubtedly saw him run at Fontana and Pomona. He ran at both those places back in the day when I was peddling to see the races at those strips. Don Montgomery said that Colton was a place where he liked to race his fuel coupe. "Colton was a fun, low key place to race," he said. "Most of the top cars made passes there. Probably the most talked about guy was John Bradley. His flathead dragster won over faster and bigger overhead V-8 powered dragsters so many times. He was a 'giant killer.' He was also a flathead engine killer."

Colton also ran a lot on Saturday night. That just wouldn't have worked for me on a bike. Bradley said that running at night could get real interesting if the races went past 10 o'clock. "The old man who ran the searchlights at Colton was of the opinion that if he was paid until 10 p.m. that's when he shut off the lights!," Bradley recalled. "I can remember at least three times, running on 100% at half-track, when that old devil would kill all the lights! Great sport -- all you could do was steer to the outside of the lane until you hit the dirt, and hang on the brake for dear life (no chute in those days). It would take at least a six pack to calm me down. Anyway, not too many drivers had such problems. Aahh for the good old days!"


In '57, he also raced at more distant strips than he had done in 1956, e.g., Bakersfield, Half Moon Bay, and Tucson. On the back panel of his tow station wagon vehicle, he had lettered "World's Fastest Flathead, San Bernardino, Cal." He towed his dragster back to Illinois with this wagon in August.


This newspaper photo shows the dragster just prior to leaving for Illinois to race at Cordova's World Series of Drag Racing event. Bradley (right) poses with his hand on the rollbar. His pit crew are Roy Kloutwyk (left) and Al Bellavance (right), garbed in white coveralls.


The above photo shows him at Cordova. At that distant event, he set a new record for flathead dragsters on the opening day of 147.30 mph. On the second day, he broke that record with 147.54 mph.


Following his record-setting performance at Cordova, an Iowa newspaper ran a feature article about Bradley with the above photo. With his arm resting on the rollbar, John appears pleased with the work of his two crewmen. Rocky Stone (left) gives some attention to something in the cockpit under the approving watchfulness of fellow crewman, Al Bellavance (right). This photo offers a nice close view of his '50 Merc 312ci flathead motor. Bradley shared the best engineered car trophy with Speed Sport at the ATAA meet.


In the latter part of the year, he set a world record for flathead dragsters at Bakersfield of 9.51 at 147.54 mph. Earlier in the year he had run a world record 9.52 at Bakersfield, also. He raced at Bakersfield many times. "I raced on this track [Bakersfield] when they had to go and kick the beer cans off the starting line," Bradley recalled in his TV interview, "so I’ve been to Bakersfield more than once." The above photo shows beer cans in the staging lanes at Colton, taken from a frame of John's home movies. The words on the asphalt read "Bikes Over." Bradley threw his share of empty beer cans on the asphalt. Stan Back attested that Bradley always drank a can of beer before making a run. "At Colton, when firing on the strip," Back said, "John Bradley always chucked his beer can out before he got to the line. That's class!" Different times. Bradley confessed to beer drinking on race days at Colton. "During the races at Colton, I used to hang out at a bar called the 106 Club," he said. "I would qualify the flatty, and take off for the back door of the club. Tony (the track operator) would send a peon over for us when it was time to run against whoever was left! Considering our condition, and that of the roll cage, etc., I have used up eight of my nine lives!" He ended up racking up 26 top eliminator wins in 1957.


1958: Bradley towed to Nevada to start the year. The event was the Las Vegas Championship, held January 12. The event attracted some big-name racers from four states including Speed Sport, Tony Waters, and Tex Cameron's "Dubble Trubble" twin Triumph fuel bike. John thought the field of heavy hitters called for something different for him. He'd been toying with the idea of running a blower on his flathead--and that's what he did. He put a S.Co.T. blower on top, nestled below four Stromberg carburetors. The starting procedure was somewhat involved, his pit crew having to handfill the carburetor float chambers with straight alcohol. When the smoke had cleared at Vegas, John came out on the losing end against Red Greth's Speed Sport. Given that it was his first time running with a blower on the flathead, his 142.83 mph time wasn't too shabby. At most strips, when he ran with a blower, it upped him into an OHV category. He tied his world mark of 147.54 mph at Colton on February 23 while snagging top eliminator honors. He also set a new track record at that race with 9.87.


On March 2 at Bakersfield, John took the measure of Red Greth and won top fuel eliminator for a little payback from his loss earlier at Vegas. It was a big race, the Howard Stamp Memorial, so John's win was noteworthy. The above photo shows John, at Bakersfield, waving for his tow car to give him a push start. It was always a cheap thrill for me to stand just outside the fence and have the fuelers light up their engines right in front of me at Pomona. They gave them the outside lane of the staging lanes at Pomona, right next to the north fence, to push start their dragsters. They usually got going fast enough to light up right in front of me when I was peeking over the fence in the "cheap" (read free) seats (well, there weren't seats; we had to stand on the railroad tracks to watch). The brown canvas hanging on the fence would flap away as they sped by and dirt and trash would get blown around for a bit. A lovely memory.


On various occasions and for different reasons in '58, Bradley ran in several different classes, including B/D, B/FD, and D/FD, but mainly in A/FD. As in his previous three seasons, he was a frequent top eliminator and class winner. As he did in the previous season, he towed his dragster to even more different and far away strips. He ran at Bakersfield, Holtville, Half Moon Bay, and the World Series of Drag Racing event at Cordova, Illinois, for a second year. At Cordova, he set a new world record for flathead dragsters of 151.26 mph with a 9.86 time. But mostly, he raced at Colton, his home track. At the race on December 14, he installed a 4:71 GMC blower onto his Merc flathead, a move that bumped him up to the B/FD class. The next week on December 21 at Colton, he set a new B/FD world record with a 9.90 clocking.

Colton staged several match races between Speed Sport and Bradley, starting with the first one on Memorial Day. They were very popular. "There was a time when they would drive up from Tucson to race me at the old Colton track and the next week, I would drive to Tucson to race them down there," Bradley recalled in his 2008 TV interview. "Big wars going on. There was a time when they’d run out of gas money and it rained. I had to loan them $25 so they could go back to Tucson. That’s back when gas was like 49 cents or 39 cents, or something. 25 bucks would get you 400 miles."

Bradley had discussions about selling his dragster to a Kansas man. The sale was to have been made in early December, but the Kansas man was snowed in and the sale didn't materialize.

1959: Bradley started out the '59 season in winning fashion, taking top eliminator laurels at Colton on January 4. He installed a new engine for the race at Colton on January 25. Unfortunately, the engine blew up while it was being fired. On February 15 at Colton, he set a West Coast and strip record for flatheads with 148.02 mph. On the run, he broke his crankshaft.


Bradley was in elite company on the Isky Cam advertisement in Drag News (2/21/59) for the following week's first-ever March Meet at Bakersfield. He made a valiant effort during eliminations, but Art Chrisman walloped him in the second round with a blistering 174 mph blast. The next week at Colton, the promoter had Bradley multi-tasking with match races against two top-notch blown Chrysler fuel dragsters. He lost both, but we're talking Cyr & Hopper in the first match and Serop Postoian in the second match. Tough cookies both.


Bradley went through a lot of engines in 1959. It almost seemed like he was putting in a new engine monthly. Jim Ward lent him an Ardun-Merc motor (above) in early summer, which placed him in C/FD.


He won top fuel eliminator at the Southern California Championship Drag Races at Pomona on July 5 with 9.66 and 142.18 mph. The above photo shows the setup he had when he won at Pomona. He was classed in D/FD.

1959 was a year when strips throughout the country tried different distances. Pomona tried 1/8th-mile. Riverside had been running half-mile drags, with some success. Colton got into the act with 3/16th-mile drags. Bradley set a new world record on September 7 at the 3/16th-mile distance with 8.05 seconds. After a few weeks, Colton returned to quarter-mile racing. In November, Bradley put a Chrysler motor in his dragster. He ran the Chrysler through the rest of the year, breaking parts right and left.

During his long career, Bradley built and drove a myriad of race cars--even twin-engine dragsters. "I’ve run mouse Chevies on fuel," he said in his 2008 TV interview. "I’ve run a carbureted Chrysler, I’ve run the blown Chryslers, all kinds of different things, but my true love is that old flat motor because I can make them talk." That he could.

Racing for John only stopped after his wife, Jeanne, died in 1998. He lost enthusiasm for it. But during his racing days, his mind was fixed on building and racing cars. "I don’t spend a dime on anything that I don’t have to," he asserted in his 2008 TV interview. "I made all the parts and pieces. Did all the work myself. I have a little machine shop. I go in there and close the door and lock it, turn the phone off, turn on the good music, and go to work. I build anything I can think of. I lay in bed and think of these things. And by god, that will work, I go and build it. If it don’t work, toss it, and think of something else. It’s been a long and wonderful career."


Bradley had a simple formula for his winning ways, "I found out something that I could do good," he said in the 2008 interview, "so I stuck with it." That was the formula that he used for about fifty-five years. That's why he got tagged with the nickname "Mr. Flathead." He was inducted into the International Drag Racing Hall of Fame in 1994. He died in 2012 at age 87.

 

It was 1960. "The Bakersfield Smokers, with fuel insurance in hand, scheduled their soon to be famous Fuel Championships meet," Don Montgomery said. "Gene took the fenders off of his coupe, added a blower, and proceeded to thrill the crowds with great, tire smoking, runs down the strip." The coupe, now Mooneyham & Sharp, took the win in at the second March Meet in A Fuel Coupe with 10.44 and 148.27 mph, good enough for a new Drag News 1320 record. Al Sharp's blown Chrysler engine really upped the car's speed big time and they were quicker by about half a second, too.


Hello,

I have liked 1934 Ford Coupes since I saw one sitting in my driveway, back in 1957. My brother’s friend had a big ,modified Oldsmobile motor and a LaSalle transmission as well as a nice muffler system that made a rumbling sound. It was a full fender version and as I got to go for rides in it. In my mind, the coupe became my possible future hot rod. In three years, he was ready to sell and sold so fast that when he told me, I was gathering some money, an offer came in fast, and sold quickly.

Ever since I saw this coupe in Lakewood, CA during the 58-59 season, it was also one of my favorited coupes. I was able to ride in a street/strip 34 coupe with a big Oldsmobile motor that ran in A/Gas class and was a daily driver to high school. it rumbled and had the style of 34 Ford style.

But, the minute we rolled around a corner and saw this coupe in a driveway, it was a great moment. Then a year later in March of 1960, I probably lost some hearing as I was at the fence watching the silver 34 Mooneyham-Sharp Coupe blast by in the Altered Coupe/Sedan Class eliminations. Talk about loud sounds, at full blast and seconds seemed like forever with the pipes rumbling loudly as it whipped by my location. Remember, I did not have a telephoto lens and the camera was a 16mm point and shoot movie camera.


Jnaki

My ears took a beating standing there in my crowded location as I continued filming a lot of elimination races. Compared to the Top Gas FED racers of the day, the Mooneyham-Sharpe Altered Coupe just had the set up to create some ear pounding sounds coming from the powerful motor. YRMV

Mooneyham & Sharp 1960

 

Lonnie Butts: He Was There in the Beginning


Don "Rockerhead" Montgomery, an old fuel coupe driver with a good memory of the old days, raced at Goleta, the place where the Santa Barbara Acceleration Association arranged to have drag racing's first drag races. This old historic photo brought back memories for him. He said that the fellow on the left, taking a picture, was Tom Medley, from Oregon. "Note the narrow side road on the airport and the narrow bridge at the finish line," Montgomery pointed out. "There were no clocks at these early drag races that were the first organized drag races here. The chopped Model A coupe losing the race was Lonnie Butts from Los Angeles. I do not remember the identify of the winning coupe. I was racing there also. It is a great photo to show how legal drag racing looked in the beginning."


This photo shows a scene that would have been very familiar to Lonnie Butts--the starting line at Goleta. Since Lonnie raced at the site where drag racing was born, it might be of interest to delve into drag racing's historical roots at this place before we turn our attention to Lonnie.


In this photo, Bob Joehnck is the helmeted driver standing next to his roadster (#45B) on the starting line at Goleta. His story of the beginnings of drag racing is a documentary gem for drag racing history. “After the war, there was a lot of street racing going on in Southern California,” Joehnck said. “It came naturally for thousands of young men coming home, because they had several years to think about getting this Model A or that V-8 or whatever, and the first thing they’d want to know was, how fast will it go? We were tearing around, and a lot of us gravitated to running our cars at El Mirage Dry Lake in San Bernardino Country, California. I was 21 years old the first time I ran my roadster there in late 1946. I had a cloth helmet, some goggles and an old Army surplus seatbelt—that was it. The interest was so high, there were 51 cars just in my class. It was huge. They had a couple of sealed beams and pylons, and you’d go down there and just try to keep between them. Everyone wanted to say that they had gone 100 mph. At the same time, a local group of us also used to go out to the municipal airport in Goleta. The west end of the airport used to be a Marine Corps Air Station, and there were a bunch of little revetments where they stored munitions. We used to go out there on Sunday and roar around the buildings one at a time. There was one little straightaway there, just a narrow little 2-lane road on some lost land, and we decided we could race side by side there. No one had adopted any standard length for acceleration runs—the distance was typically whatever the available road permitted. At the time there was a gentleman who was the airport manager. So we went to him and asked, ‘Can we go over there and run our cars?’ And he said, ‘Yeah, I don’t see why not.’ Then he said to me, ‘Do you think you could get some kind of insurance?’ I said, ‘Yeah, I think so. Let me try.’ So I went to a nice gentleman who was in the insurance business and told him what we wanted to do and asked if we could get some insurance. As I remember it was quite cheap, somewhere around $50 for the whole year, and it was with Lloyd’s of London. So in 1947, we formed this little thing called the Santa Barbara Acceleration Association. And that’s how it got started. We didn’t advertise it, we just went and did it."


"We didn’t have many classes, and there wasn’t much to it," Joehnck continued. "We passed the hat so we could buy the trophies. There was no rent, and the insurance was next to nothing. The reason why the drag-racing distance became a quarter mile is that a fellow came up from Disney Studios to write a little article. He liked cars and wanted to take some pictures. He interviewed me because I was kind of the ‘chief cook and bottle washer’ for the club. He said, ‘What do you do?’ And I said, ‘Well, we kind of come down here’—there was a start line with a flagman—‘and we take a rolling start and race down to that bridge.’ There was a bump at the bridge, and we could tell who won by seeing which car hit it first. And he asked, ‘Well, how far is that?’ I had to give him some dimension, so I said, ‘It’s a quarter mile.’ That was it. From then on we raced for a quarter mile." And there you have it, from the horse's mouth, so to speak--the story of drag racing's first drag strip.

Lonnie Butts

Lonnie was born in North Carolina in 1928. He was a cute feller, so much so that his parents entered him in a baby pageant sponsored by the American Legion in Charlotte in 1930. The judges were a group of local physicians, looking for perfection of physique, not cuteness. So Lonnie didn't get a silver loving cup. While he missed out on a trophy then, he collected quite a few when he took up drag racing. Did maybe missing out on a loving cup when he was an infant, made him yearn later, to go after drag racing trophies? We can only speculate.


All silliness aside, Lonnie ended up in Atlanta, Georgia, registering for the draft when he was 18 years old. The back side of his draft registration listed his physical features: height 5-8, weight 168 pounds, brown eyes and hair, and light brown complexion. Shortly after registering, he enlisted in the Navy.

1951: Like most other hot rodders in the Southland, Lonnie probably did his share of street racing. He got a taste of something like organized racing on the drag strip at Goleta. The first time his name showed up in a newspaper report for winning at a drag strip was at Santa Ana on July 15. He won the Stripped Coupe class. On August 18 at Santa Ana, Lonnie won a trophy in the All-Out Coupe class. C. J. Hart, who headed up the Santa Ana racing program, was innovative when it came to car classifications. Of course, this was before there were standardized classifications uniformly run at each strip. It was a regular potpourri of classes for Lonnie at Santa Ana as he won the Modified Coupe class on September 9. The next week at Santa Ana on September 16, he won the Modified Strip Coupe class. That's four wins in four entirely different-named classes in the space of three months. My bet is that Lonnie raced the same car each time, but it was C. J. Hart who created a new class on the fly each week to clump together similar cars for each week's racing program. Lonnie won five times in 1951 at Santa Ana.

1952: In '52, Lonnie went with a roadster instead of a coupe. On August 10 at Santa Ana, he took home the trophy for Class C Roadster. Two weeks later, he won the C Roadster class with a speed of 106.80 mph.

1953: This year was a dry spell for Lonnie. No wins at Santa Ana, Pomona, or Paradise Mesa. Nada.

1954: Lonnie started out the New Year right with a victory at Santa Ana on January 3 in C/R class with 112.35 mph. He took a few more trophies at Santa Ana in the Class C Roadster with wins on January 17 (120.98 mph) and February 28 (121 mph). His chief competitors had been Martin Weinstein, Red Henslee, Tony Waters, and Tom Morgan. Couple of names in there stand out.

1955: While not really Lonnie's breakout year, one win late in the season at Lions gave him some promise. He ran in a tough, competitive class--A Fuel Modified Roadster. The class rules stated that roadsters in this class had two or more modifications. Gutting and radiator were not considered modifications. Any roadster of 1927 vintage or earlier was considered a modified roadster. The winning moment came for him at Lions on November 20. He won A/FMR with 112.78 mph with his '51 Chrysler-engined roadster. The win came with a price. He dropped a valve. The strip gave him the Hard Luck Award of a case of oil. Nice gesture. Earlier in the year, he got married to Marlene, which might explain his absence from racing until later in the year.

1956: Lonnie and his wife, Marlene, were living in Torrance. Marlene undoubtedly learned early that Lonnie and she would not be spending a quiet day at home on Sundays. They (or he) would be spending their Sundays at a drag strip. Lonnie was at Santa Ana on Sunday, February 26, taking home a trophy in C/R with a time of 110.50. But for the rest of the year, he was (1) hibernating, (2) doing honey-do's for Marlene, or (3) racing, but not winning.

1957: At the 2-day Multiple Acceleration Clocking Tests held at Lions on February 16-17, Lonnie wheeled the Hughes Auto A/FMR to a class win with 136.15 mph. His fuel roadster was powered by a '53 Chrysler engine. Six months later, Lonnie showed up at Lions with a new Chrysler-engined B dragster on August 17. It was a great first outing as he snagged top eliminator honors with 121.75 mph. Drag News (8/24/57) stated it was a "new entry," a dragster, not his old fuel roadster. The next week, he lost in the opening round of eliminations to Reese Adams' Chrysler-engined B/D. On September 28 at Lions, Lonnie beat Willie Butler's bike in the first round of eliminations with 11.27 at 123.96 mph. But he lost to Cyr & Hopper in the second round by two car lengths. At the 2-day race at Lions on October 5-6, Lonnie beat the Waterworth & Miller A/Competition Coupe with 11.74 at 124.00 mph in the first round. But there were too many tough competitors for him to go any further. On November 10 at Lions, he was beaten by Lefty Mudersbach in round two.

1958: Lonnie took a new partner, Dick Hanning, in his "completely new" injected 400ci Chrysler gas-fueled B/D at the mid-point in the season. Hanning & Butts took top eliminator at Santa Ana on June 15, clocking 10.30 and 126.01 mph. The Santa Ana Register (6/16/58) stated that "it was the first time that Butts had raced his new car." Two weeks later on June 29, they snagged top eliminator again at Santa Ana. The best time for the car at the meet was 10.40 at 132.78 mph. They repeated with another top eliminator win at Santa Ana on July 13. Best times were 10.18 and 129.80 mph. After a very successful two months, the Hanning-Butts dragster seems to have vanished from the drag racing scene. There were no more reports about it in Drag News. It was a three-win wonder--then pffft. Gone.

1959-60: Has anybody seen Lonnie? There are rumors that he was building a new car.


1961: It had been a long time since Lonnie had raced, but he had been a busy boy. He fielded a brand new A Competition Coupe--and she was a beauty. It was an absolutely gorgeous '48 Fiat Topolino coupe powered by a blown 392ci Chrysler Hemi. Lonnie called her "Twitch-a-Wee." Not sure why. Was she fidgety, high-strung, a bit wiggly down the track? Don't know. I think that is Lonnie in the yellow shirt packing the chute. The place is the pits at Pomona. Note the drive gears mounted on the front axle to keep 'er down. Lonnie raced his coupe almost exclusively at Lions in '61. He won the A/C class on August 19 (10.59, 123.96 mph), September 23 (10.39, 143.76 mph), September 30 (10.39, 144.92 mph), October 7 (10.22, 145.16 mph), October 14 (10.44, 142.85 mph), October 21 (10.95, 141.73 mph), November 4 (10.55, 136.56 mph), and November 11 (10.33, 144.64 mph).


1962: Lonnie started the season in fine form with a class win at the Winternationals. In this photo, he weighs in at Pomona. The only visible difference between the '61 car and the '62 car is that the headers were shortened and poke out straight rather than swept back in the '62 car. His winning time in the class win at the Winternationals was 10.70 at 141.73 mph. I think Lonnie is wearing the red coat (right) with a rag draped over his left shoulder, anxious to see what the scales read.


1963: I was wandering through the pits at the '63 Winternationals, when Lonnie's competition coupe, then called Twitch-a-Wee Too, caught my eye. I undoubtedly watched him run at the '62 and '63 Winternationals, as I attended both. Generally his track of choice to race at was Lions, so the only track I would have seen him run at was Pomona. He has returned to backswept headers, like he ran in '61. It looks like Lonnie (on right) in white shirt.


Lonnie is sporting the plexiglass wing plate at Lions in '63. Got to keep that front end on the ground. Don't want to get twitchy at high speeds.


It was only seven miles from Lonnie's house in Torrance to Lions. In other words, it was just a couple of minutes drive for him to get to the strip. Reason enough for him to race almost exclusively at Lions. This is another '63 photo.


The Day-Glo orange paint was an eye-catcher.


1964: This photo shows Lonnie at Riverside in '64, sporting a transparent plexiglass wing on his front axle.


The starter seems to be saying, "Come on Lonnie, twitch that thing up here just a few more inches."


In this photo taken in '64 at Pomona, Lonnie may have been experimenting with heavier wheels to keep the front end on the ground.


1966: Lonnie won the AA/C class at the Bakersfield March Meet with 9.52 at 165.44 mph. He definitely got a lot of mileage out of his Fiat hot rod coupe, racing it for six years. In this photo, Lonnie is on the top end of the push road at Lions. Although the photo was purportedly taken in '64, with the different number, class in AA/C, and shorter headers, I peg it as '66.

At age 72, he died in 2000.

 

Hank Vincent: The Contradictory Tale of Two Top Bananas

Hank Vincent built two iconic dragsters in the 1950s. Both of them were named "Top Banana." The story of the first one is a tale of triumph, while the story of the second one is a tale of tragedy. Thus, they are contradictory tales.

Hank was born in Hawaii into a family where both parents, also Hawaiians, spoke English and Portuguese. That is because both of Hank's grandparents had been born in Portugal. But Hank's grandparents had both passed away prior to his birth, so Hank spoke only English. Hank grew up on a sugar plantation on the big island of Hawaii, where his father was a truck driver for the sugar farm. Hank's surname at birth was Medeiros, but sometime before 1940, his father decided that their last name would be Vincent. Hank's first given name at birth was Henry. He went by that name when he first started drag racing in 1952, but shortly thereafter, everyone called him Hank. Hank's family moved to Hayward, California, after the war. His father got a job working as a sheet metal worker.

Back in 2017, Don Jensen, a former president of the Hayward Head Hunters car club, got in touch with me to share some history about his racing and their car club to include on my Drag Strip List website. Don had built and raced one of the very earliest twin-engined dragsters. "The Head Hunters were started about 1949 by a group of kids that wanted to drag-race," Jensen said. Hank Vincent had been a member of the Head Hunters club. Jensen said that between 1949 and 1960, Hank had "built more hot rods than anyone [in the club], about 15 or so, including the Top Banana fuel dragster." Jensen supplied me with a list of the cars that he could remember that Hank had built and raced. I wasn't able to find anything about Hank's cars until newspapers began reporting him winning races in 1952.


1952: The first report of Vincent winning drag races was at Tidelands Circuit in San Carlos. He was racing in the hot stock pre-1940 class and had been undefeated in all racing prior to late August. His best time had been 96.77 mph. This grainy newspaper photo shows the '48 Mercury flathead engine in his '34 Ford. This is the motor that confounded all his opposition at San Carlos. Hank estimated that he had spent $600 building his beat-all-comers engine. Note all the notes and names lettered all over the body of his hot rod in a childish manner. It reminds me of the way sometimes unthinking little children do when they write or draw with crayons on their bedroom walls. Was this reflective of Hank's personality? Was it the "little boy" in him that made him write all over the fenders and doors of his hot rod? James "Bud" Fraser was one of the pit crew for Hank on Top Banana II. Fraser remembered one of Hank's quirks. "He never wanted to be seen without a hat," Fraser recalled. Hank would have been 23 years old when he was racing in 1952. He was an electrician by trade. At Kingdon on October 12, he won Class F, for pre-1934 hot stock cars, at a speed of 90 mph. He repeated for a win in Class F on October 26, with a speed of 88.24 mph.

1953: The Head Hunters club members often raced at Kingdon. On March 22, Vincent won the Class D for pre-1934 hot stock cars with 88.24 mph. Gene Winfield (the car customizer), from Modesto, honed his racing skills each week at Kingdon with a modified roadster. On May 3 at Kingdon, Hank won Class B (Light Stock) for flatheads under 300 cubic inches with 69.23 mph. At that race, George Santos, another Head Hunter club member, won the Modified Roadster class. Santos and Vincent would later join forces in a Top Banana dragster endeavor. At the Northern California Drag Race Championships at Kingdon on September 26-27, he won the A Fuel Coupe-Sedan class.

1954: On March 28 at the Winters-Davis Air Strip, he won B/G class with 104 mph. On April 4 at Kingdon, he won a trophy in Class CX Hot Stock with 91.84 mph, repeating again on May 23 with 90.64 mph. At the NHRA half-mile championships at Winters on July 11, he won the A/A gas class with 106 mph.

1955: By my count he raced in over ten different classes before he built his first "Top Banana" dragster. That probably doesn't mean that he built a different car for each different class, but Don Jensen said that he built about 15 different hot rods. So, the jury is out on that.

1956: At Kingdon on July 15, he won the AA/A class, in a Ford Model A coupe, using a flathead Merc engine, with 104.65 mph. He wanted to test his mettle against SoCal drag racers and drove to Santa Ana for a race on September 2. He won the Heavy Gas Overhead class with a speed of 109.69 mph. He was runner-up for top eliminator honors.


1957: This is the year that he debuted his first "Top Banana" dragster. In conjunction with many of the SoCal strips, Kingdon instituted a fuel ban effective on April 1. The Stockton Record (4/20/57) stated: "The recent change to a 'gas only' policy gave a boost to old timer, Hank Vincent of the Hayward Head Hunters." The newspaper was referencing his top eliminator win at Kingdon on April 7. Vincent snagged top eliminator, beating Elmer Snyder with his Merc flathead-engined dragster at a time of 11.06 at 118.42 mph. The above photo shows Hank seated in the cockpit of that original "Top Banana" dragster, behind the flathead Merc motor. It was not as streamlined as the second "Top Banana" dragster. There are many photos of "Top Banana Two," but I have only found three photos of the original "Top Banana" dragster. This is the best photo of the three, the others being grainy newspaper photos. On April 14 he ran at Little Bonneville Drag Strip at the San Jose Airport, copping top eliminator honors with 110.92 mph. At Kingdon, running in A Open Gas class, on April 21, Vincent copped a top eliminator win with 120 mph. On May 5 at Kingdon, he beat Jay Cheatham to take top gas eliminator with a speed of 120 mph. Hank teamed up with master engine-builder, Al Hubbard, for the May 19 race at Kingdon. The top eliminator final pitted Hank against Ed Cortopassi's beautiful "Glass Slipper" B/D. The Vincent-Hubbard A/D took the win with a speedy 134.38 mph. During that race event, Hank blew second gear earlier in the meet and had to run eliminations using only high gear. With the success they had, they opted to run future races with only high gear. During June, they experimented running the dragster with Al Hubbard's Chevy motor. At Half Moon Bay on June 30, he got the days top time with 133.17 mph. At the July 7 meet at Kingdon, Hank decided to return to his ever-faithful flathead Merc motor. He tipped the can, as they say, and ran in the A/FD class, winning it and also taking top fuel eliminator with 133.33 mph. In July, Hubbard and Hank parted ways. Hank enlisted his brother-in-law, George Santos, to join him in partnership in the dragster. Santos was married to Hank's sister, Cecelia. Santos had a 306 cubic inch Chevy V8 that they squeezed into the dragster. Santos and Hank ran the Chevy motor in the dragster at Half Moon Bay on July 28, clocking 10.38 at 135.53 mph. Due to darkness, they shared top eliminator honors with Jazzy Nelson's twin-engined fuel dragster. Back at Kingdon on August 4, the Vincent-Santos Chevy B/FD took top fuel eliminator with 144 mph. It was the first time Santos ran fuel in his engine.


On August 11 at Half Moon Bay, the Chevy gas dragster took top eliminator with 10.71 at 132.15 mph. Hillary Govia joined Santos and Vincent as a co-owner. With his co-ownership, the car was given the sponsorship name, "City Garage Special." Govia's contribution, in addition to his garage sponsorship, was to lend his talents to tuning the engines. The photo of Govia (above) appeared in a 1933 Oakland newspaper. Although still in high school, Govia was racing in 100-milers at the Oakland Speedway. In a Drag News (7/26/58) column, Govia divulged some of his speed secrets and his racing background. "I've been building on some form of Chevorlet engine since 1931," said Hillary. "Makes me sound like an old man. In the passing of all these years we've done a lot of experimenting and spent a lot of hard U.S. money. Our first sprint car was on the Oakland Speedway with Bob Sweikert of Indy fame as pilot. That car had a war surplus 270 GMC in it. We called that high boy 'The Old Goat.'"

The capstone of their '57 season was undoubtedly the 2nd annual Smokers, Inc.-Drag Racers, Inc. World Championships at Bakersfield on September 1-2. He won the A/FD class with 147.29 mph and took top eliminator with 137.82 mph. It was a balancing act throughout the meet, switching between the flathead and Chevy engine. When the flattie developed problems, they installed the Chevy. During eliminations, Hank beat some stout competition, taking the final against Del Nero & Thorkelson's twin-engine dragster. He won with his best run of 147.29 mph. In the Drag News (9/21/57) column "Northern Briefs," written by Al Caldwell, he stated that Hank was disappointed that the top eliminator race ended so late. "Hank Vincent is all shook up," Caldwell wrote. "The trophy girl had to go home before the top eliminator race was held. So, when all the dust had settled, night had fallen, and all poor ol' Hank had left was trophies and money. Too bad Hank, she was a real doll." At Vacaville on September 8, they got the meet's second fastest time with 145.10 mph. On September 15 at Kingdon, all three co-owners took a turn at the wheel of the dragster. Hillary Govia was the fastest of the three with 144 mph. They ran with the flathead motor at Vacaville on September 22, clocking 132 mph in C/D. On October 6 at Kingdon, Hank picked up the top eliminator trophy with a time of 10.38 and 141.43 mph with the Chevy engine in the dragster. They installed Algon injectors on the Chevy motor for the 2-day Northern California Championships at Vacaville. That addition helped boost their dragster over 150 mph for the first time. They ran 153 mph, but had to quit from further competition because of mechanical problems. "We are running Algon fuel injection," Hillary Govia later said when Drag News (7/26/58) interviewed him about his engine specs. "Previously we ran three 97's. We find this Algon set-up a great improvement." Even though there were many meets still left on the calendar, Hank Vincent and crew were nowhere to be found. That also continued all the way into the early months of 1958. Something was afoot.


1958: That something that occupied the time of the fellows for several months in the City Garage was "Top Banana Two." This fully-streamlined fuel dragster rivaled the "Glass Slipper" in gorgeousness. Jack Hagemann did the stylish body work. George Santos's old 306 cubic inch injected Chevy that performed so well in the original "Top Banana" was installed in "Banana" number two. Hardly a whiff of information leaked out about their car from the City Garage before its first outing on May 4 at Kingdon. The potential of the car was apparent right out of the gate when it turned 158.24 mph and a new strip ET record of 9.33 seconds.


This photo shows the "Banana Two" dragster outside the door of the City Garage just after the car was finished, but before the engine was installed. "This shot shows the Top Banana as a brand new car in front of our shop in Hayward, Calif.," Skip Govia said. "The picture includes from left to right, Hillary Govia (my dad), Hank Vincent and Tom Welch." Notice how tall Hank is compared to the other two men.


This photo shows the brand new dragster after the engine was installed. "This is when the car was brand new," Skip Govia said. "The entire car was built in our old shop (in Hayward) except for the Jack Hagemann body. The frame was made of angle aluminum boxed and welded together." Bud Fraser clarified some of the information about the engine, which has always been reported as being solely the work of George Santos. "Santos and [Henry] Stapleton owned S & S Automotive in Hayward," Fraser said. "Somehow Stapleton gets left out of the discussions. Santos always gets linked to the Banana and he should, but so should Stapleton. He was a key person in the engine building process. Santos was a master machinist."


On May 11 at Vacaville, Hank turned 157 mph. The triumvirate (or brain trust or whatever you want to call them) have eyes turned toward the cameraman. What a beautiful and hot-performing dragster they built. Hank is bending over (wearing dark jacket) behind Hillary Govia (left) and George Santos (right). At Kingdon on May 18, Hank won top fuel eliminator honors with 9.98 at 150 mph. This was the event where the "Glass Slipper" was totally destroyed. Thus, the two similar streamlined cars never got to face each other in '58. Half Moon Bay turned out to be one of their favorite strips in '58. They garnered top eliminator there on May 25 with 147.05 mph.


At a 2-day race at Kingdon on May 31-June 1, Hank topped 160 mph for the first time, running 161.87 mph. That was a new world's record for Chevy-engined dragsters. He was running Hubbard cams, but later in the year, switched to Herbert cams.


The dragster always drew a crowd of admirers. This is an interesting photo showing the towing trailer, a couple of young men peering into the cockpit, and another group at the front of the car. On June 8, they returned to Half Moon Bay, taking another top eliminator win with 153.32 mph. They ventured back and forth between Half Moon and Kingdon, taking a B/FD win and top eliminator at the latter strip on June 15 with a best run of 9.57 at 150.00 mph.


In this photo, you can barely see the top of the head and hand of the driver on the steering wheel as number 53 is wheeled through the pit area. Hank is probably not driving as you rarely see photos of him without a hat or helmet on his head. Venturing down to Bakersfield for a race on July 6, they were sidelined after they blew a rod on a new strip B/D record run of 149.25 mph. Blowing a rod in a Chevy motor did not have the same horrible consequences that it did in other engines. Hillary Govia talked about this in a Drag News (7/26/58) column. "In '55 Chev came out with the first of the V-8's and we went for it in a big way," Hillary said. "This engine will breathe, which is more than can be said for most. One of the best characteristics of this engine is that when you throw a rod you don't usually wind up with a ruined block. We've tossed several rods without block damage."


From every angle, in black & white or color, "Banana Two" is stunning. It's one of those cars that you can't stop staring at. From top to bottom, front to back, it's a looker.


In this photo, Hank is checking out something in the cockpit. The closest two to the camera are George Santos (left) and Hillary Govia (right).

In one of the rounds at Half Moon Bay on August 10, Hank beat Jay Cheatham, class national record holder, with 9.55 at 154.37 mph during eliminations. Back at Half Moon Bay on September 14, Hank set a new strip ET record with 9.40, breaking Emery Cook's old mark of 9.45. He took top eliminator with a speed of 156.27 mph.


1959: While racing almost every week in '58, Hank made limited appearances in '59, mostly running at Kingdon every month or so in the first half of the year. They installed Hilborn injectors in '59, prior to August. In this photo, Hillary (left) and Hank (right) are in deep discussion over something important.


Hank was at Fremont when that strip had its grand opening on June 28. He was nosed out in the top eliminator finals to Chuck Gireth in the Gireth-Oliphant B/FD. This photo shows that clash between the two Hayward-based dragsters. Technically, Hank lived in nearby Castro Valley. The dragster also changed sponsorship from City Garage to the S & S Automotive, co-owned by George Santos.


On October 18 at Fremont, Hank set a new world's record for a C/FD with 156.45 mph. Their Chevy motor was 292 cubic inches. In this photo taken at Fremont, Hillary Govia (left) has his glasses on to get a really good look at something needing his attention in the engine. From the looks of Hank's not-so-white pants, he's been doing a smidge more than driving. And, of course, he's wearing a hat. On November 1 at Fremont, he set a new world ET record with a time of 9.42, giving him a hold on both marks for C/FD. On November 15 at Fremont, he ran a 9.29, upping his old mark and good for another new world ET record. On December 13 at Fremont, he beat his world speed national record with 159.57, but the old record stood on some technicality.


1960: The addition of a supercharger bumped the Banana up to a B/FD. They had enjoyed having a lock on both ends of the C/FD world record in 1959. Could they make some waves world record-wise in the B/FD ranks? They weren't long in finding out. Yeiji Toyota had set both ends of the B/FD record back in October 1959 in his "Black Marauder."


On February 21 at Fremont, Hank set a new world record with 171.42 mph. They finally got the right combination to set the new mark: blown 292 cubic inch Chevy on straight alcohol. Toyota's previous world mark had been 170.13 mph.


At the Bakersfield Smokers March Meet, Hank won the B/FD class with 9.09 and 169.00 mph. This photo was taken at the Smokers Meet. Information accompanying the photo states that Hank is sitting in the cockpit. I'm not convinced; he looks a little young to be Hank. Could it be Bud Fraser? He was a part-time crew member with the guys. "I became good friends with all of them and often crewed with them," Fraser said. "I was a flunky. I traveled with them to events all over California. We were at the the Smokers in Bakersfield when Garlits appeared. When you were with a dragster like the Top Banana, his [Garlits] car did not impress you. One of my flunky tasks was to get into the Top Banana after Hank made a run and drive it back to the pits. When you are a twenty year old kid, all of this was big deal stuff."


On March 20 at Fremont, Hank set a new national ET record, giving him both ends of the record. He turned 8.89. This is phenomenal. At this point, he still held both ends of the C/FD national record--and now he held both ends of the B/FD national record. The Fremont race produced five national records. Don Garlits, with Art Malone driving, broke the A/FD national record with a speed of 187.10 mph. Attendance at the 2-day race was estimated to be 10,000 people. The above Drag News cover shows faces of the "top dogs" who were at the race. From the top (row 1): Art Malone, Don Garlits, Ted Cyr, Bill Hopper; (row 2): Jim McLennan, Jack Chrisman, Frank Cannon, Art Chrisman; (row 3): Bob Haines, Hank Vincent, Ed Cortopassi, Chris Karamesines; (row 4): Tommy Ivo, Ron Lawrence (Fremont Drag Strip manager), Bob Cress (Kingdon Drag Strip manager), Frank Jimenez.


This photo was taken in the pits at the Bay View Drag Strip, near Mount Vernon, Washington. They towed the car there to run in the Spring Championships on May 15. On one hand, the trip was successful in that they set a new national record on both ends in B/FD: 8.84 at 170.77. But they also blew a hole in the block during eliminations. They were having trouble keeping the car going straight. Drag News (5/29/60) reported that on one of their record run attempts, "Hank really got on it hard. About 300 feet out it started sideways. Hank corrected it, but in doing so it spun itself completely around." A spectator in attendance at the race recalled something different. "He ran the car off the track . . . . He was lucky that day. I always wondered if there was something wrong with his [Hank's] vision." In the above photo, Hillary (right) is where we almost always see him, on his knees, working intently on some intricate engine-tuning detail. The pith helmet he's wearing is what we used to call a Ramar of the Jungle helmet. He's also wearing a Fremont Drag Strip winner's jacket. Although we can't see his head, I'm betting that is Hank (left, in smudged white pants) leaning on the tire, peering into the cockpit.


"We were pitted not too far from these guys," said Fred Vosk, when the "Top Banana" towed to Washington to race at Bayview in May. "We looked at the car a bunch, and my buddy Mike thought the roll bar looked kinda weird. He got a magnet and checked and kind rubbed it up against their roll bar. No pull at all. Aluminum. The chassis was, too."

Two weeks later, Fremont held a 2-day race on May 28-29, to celebrate its first year anniversary. Hank Vincent and "Top Banana Two" were there. On the second day of the race, Hank broke his old national speed record, turning 171.75 mph for the new record. Going into eliminations, everything was positive for a successful afternoon for Hank. He was paired against Bob Haines, driving the California Equipment AA/FD from Seattle. Hank was in the right lane.


During the run, he lost control and veered off into the dirt on the right. Hank brought it back onto the track, but at those speeds, the slightest correction was usually an over-correction. The dragster started rolling, then flipping end over end in the air. "Jet Car" Bob Smith was near the scene of the accident after the car came to rest. "I was a unlucky spectator and one of the first to the Top Banana when it crashed," Smith said. "I do not believe it went over the finish line flags. But it did go over the car it was running, which if I remember correctly was Bob Haines. It was not a good sight to arrive at a scene and there was nothing you could to to help. The car started to go off the track and when Hank brought it back it flipped in the air." Hank was transported to the hospital, but died en route. He was only thirty years old. He was survived by a wife and two stepsons. The above article reporting Hank's fatal run was printed in the Fremont News Register (6/2/60).

 

Setto Postoian: One of Don Garlits Most Formidable Competitors

Some of the earliest barnstorming drag racers in the sport were Tommy Ivo, Speed Sport, and Don Garlits. Serop "Setto" Postoian was another one in the 1950s who drag strips paid to appear at their tracks, draw crowds, and see him race. He was a Big Name. He had drawing power. He probably isn't as well known today, except among die-hard drag race history buffs, because his flame flickered brightly, but too briefly, before he stopped racing.

He was a Detroit boy, and after high school, was working in the engine rebuilding division at Ford Motor Company. He was 20 years old when the war came and he registered for the draft. He was 5'6" and weighed 140 pounds, sopping wet. He enlisted in the Army in 1943, serving in an ordnance depot overseas for three and a half years. After his discharge, he opened a service station in Farmington, Michigan. Before long, he expanded the business into the chassis and body repair sphere. He learned frame and fronting repairs from a former instructor of the Bear Manufacturing Company.

His association with the Bear people led to him being invited to be on a pit crew for a car that the Bear company fielded at the Indy 500 in the early 1950s. While spending time in Gasoline Alley at the Speedway, he met Jack McGrath, a scrawny, little racer from California. During his racing years at Indy from 1948-55, McGrath started on the front row six times. He had one pole start (1954) and twice finished third (1951, 1954). He used a lot of nitro when he qualified. He was one of the fastest, if not the greatest, drivers who never won the Indy 500. Setto went to California with McGrath after the race and spent six weeks in California. Immersed in the SoCal hot rodding scene, he went street racing with McGrath. He got his first ride in a hot rod--McGrath's '32 Ford roadster. He met people like Ed Iskendarian and Joe Pisano. Setto absorbed everything he saw. When he returned home to Michigan, he opened Farmington Speed Shop. He had a very strong desire to go drag racing and built a flathead roadster to do just that.


Setto would race flathead-powered hot rods and rails for the entirety of his short racing career up to 1956. The above photo shows him having the time of his life at the wheel of one of his flathead-engined rail jobs.

1956: His next race car was a dragster built out of an airplane belly tank at a cost of $2,500. It was powered by an unblown '54 276 cubic inch DeSoto Hemi, his first overhead-engined car. Postoian made a name for himself for the first time nationally at the World Series of Drag Racing 5-day event at Lawrenceville, Illinois, held from August 22-26. The race, the third time it was held, was sponsored by the Automobile Timing Association of America. He received the ATAA Engineering Trophy for the best engineered car. He also won the B/FD class with his dragster with a speed of 133.929 mph.


He posted the second fastest speed of the meet with 142.631 mph. Art Arfons had the meet's fastest speed with his "Green Monster VI" Allison-powered behemoth. He took runner-up to Don Schleicher, a 24-year-old Kansas City mechanic, in the top eliminator finals. Setto was 34 years old, being one of the older racers at the meet and four years older than Arfons. All in all, it was an impressive showing for his first time competing at a national drag racing event.


1957: Mark Postoian, aged two, poses on the front cowl of the Setto & Angelo's "Mark 1" fuel dragster. His father, Setto, looks on proudly. Setto, his wife, Christine, and little Mark had just arrived at Cordova for the 4th annual World Series of Drag Racing event. Prior to their arrival, Setto had won more than a dozen trophies at races throughout the country. His young family accompanied him on his racing travels. "It's a hard grind sometimes for my wife and son," said Setto, "but I'm sure they don't mind." This was the first in a series of three dragsters that he named after his son, Mark. This was his second marriage. His first marriage to Shirlee, ended in divorce in the mid-1940s. He also had a son, Danny, from that first marriage. But Mark was the apple of his daddy's eye.


This photo shows the three fastest cars at the '57 World Series event at the Quad-City Drag Strip near Cordova. From left to right: Setto Postoian, Cook & Bedwell, and Don Garlits. Setto had switched from the old DeSoto Hemi to a 392-inch Chrysler Hemi in his Postoian Brothers Special. Setto's brother, Harry, was a member of his pit crew. Other crew members who helped out during Setto's years included Jerry Bazin, George Barbat, and a young "gofer"--Conrad "Connie" Kalitta. Setto came to Cordova only four days after building his new car. It was completely new and untested when he drove through the gate. To say that he was a dark horse is a gross understatement. Even though his new dragster was untested, other racers didn't take him lightly. Garlits knew he would be a formidable opponent. Garlits said that "he [Postoian] had gained a tremendous reputation during a great barnstorming season around the eastern and midwestern United States."


This Drag News headline says it all. He took top eliminator and low ET of the meet with 9.365. His speed was 158.172 mph. And the first paragraph doesn't minimize the importance of his win at Cordova. His World Series win did, in fact, skyrocket him into prominence on the national drag racing scene.


This grainy newspaper photo shows Postoian and six happy crewmen at Cordova. One of his accomplishments during eliminations was a win over Don Garlits. This would be the first of several wins that he would rack up in subsequent seasons over the acclaimed racer from Florida.


The next big race for Setto was at Chester, South Carolina. He got top time honors at the 3-day International Timing Association (ITA) race on November 28-30. He set a new strip record of 161.00 mph. He pocketed $1000 for the win. This Bruce's Tires ad appeared in Drag News (12/14/57).


1958: Setto built a brand new dragster, hoping to repeat as top eliminator at the 2nd annual International Drag Races at the Chester airport strip in South Carolina on July 3-5. His Chrysler engine sported eight carburetors. George Barbat of Detroit, designed the dragster. George Jerry assisted Barbat and Postoian on the mechanical side of things. In this photo, Setto (holding helmet) engages in friendly banter with Don Garlits (in hat). Bob Osiecki (bald headed man next to Setto) enjoys their conversation. Setto wrote to Osiecki about his new Chrysler dragster prior to going to Chester. "Sero Postoian of Detroit has built a brand new Chrysler powered dragster," Osiecki said. "He tells me it is completely revolutionary and he's aiming for 180 miles per hour." Setto's attempt to crack 180 mph or better his old record was halted when he blew a rod on a 163 mph run.


The next big race for Setto was the World Series of Drag Racing event at Quad-City Drag Strip near Cordova on August 20-24. He showed up with a new Chrysler motor in the dragster on opening day. It was completely new, never been run. In the afternoon, he pulled it out onto the strip to run it for the first time. "We'll run it today," Setto said, "if we can get it started." He was pushed down the strip and the engine thundered to life. He pulled it over to the edge of the strip, revved it up for awhile, then shut it off. "He was smiling as his car was pushed back to the pit area," wrote Moline Dispatch columnist Paul Carlson. The above photo shows Setto making a minor adjustment on the engine after returning to the pits. An hour later, he pulled to the line to make his promised first full run. And this run put everyone on notice that Setto was going to make his presence felt when the racing started. He ran 8.99 at 167.43 mph. First pass on the new motor. Setto had to be smiling. When his time was announced, members of his crew shouted, "Bring on that Garlits." They got their wish; Garlits pulled into the gate two days later. He made three runs, two of which bettered Setto's Wednesday speed, including a 170.132 mph run. However his 9.44 ET was nowhere near as quick as Setto's 8.99. However, Setto's first day run marks were erased after it was discovered that there had been an error in the placing of the timing lights.


As the race unfolded, a match between Garlits and Setto was greatly anticipated. On the final day, a tremendous duel developed between Setto and Garlits for top time honors. Garlits was first one out to make a run. It was a good one--167.26 mph in 9.21 seconds. Postoian responded in kind--9.29 at 163.93 mph. The above photo shows Setto leaving the line on one of his smoky singles. On his second run, Garlits ran some fat numbers--9.07 at a blistering 172.084 mph.


When Garlits and Setto finally faced each other in a late-in-the-day round of top fuel eliminator, it was near dark. Three-fourths of the way down the track, Garlits's clutch exploded and Setto took the win. Now near dark, Setto faced John Bradley, the top gas eliminator, in a run for top eliminator honors. Setto beat Bradley to become the overall top eliminator. For the second straight year, Setto came away with top honors. He won the A/FD class, top fuel eliminator, top eliminator, and low ET of the meet--and the frosting on the cake was beating Garlits again. Garlits stopped at the tower before packing up and leaving. "That's the first time on any track, anywhere," said Garlits, "that I've ever been beaten in either top speed or elapsed time." Garlits did claim a $500 bond for turning in the fastest speed with a speed of 172.08 mph. In the minds of the public and the press, this was shaping up to be a rivalry.


Drag race promoters loved it, whether it was a bonafide rivalry or one trumped up to entice the paying public to come to the races. And Setto's win made him attractive to promoters who advertised his national successes.


The next big meet on the calendar that Setto entered was the 2nd annual 3-day International Drag Race at Chester Airport drag strip on November 27-29. There was a bevy of major players in attendance: Garlits, Langley, Arfons, etc. Setto took top eliminator honors with a best speed of 161 mph. Garlits destroyed three engines in a quest to come away victorious--not to happen.


1959: It is not widely known, and later developments would lead a person to believe otherwise, but Don Garlits beat Setto Postoian at Brooksville on January 25. It was billed as a World's Championship Challenge race. There is no report of it in Drag News. It was only reported in Florida newspapers.


Go west, young man. Setto set out to do just that in March. He towed his A/FD dragster to Bakersfield to compete at the first U.S. Fuel and Gas Championships race. He was considered one of the contenders, but fate didn't come his way.


His west coast trip was pretty much a bust. This photo shows him (back to camera) in the pits at Bakersfield in '59. However, he did get an offer from Colton's drag strip to stick around for another week to face John Bradley in a match race at Morrow Field. He agreed to and beat Bradley by just over a car length to win the match at a time of 9.70 at 166.05 mph.


There may have been a silver lining in his poor Bakersfield showing. He decided that he probably needed to get a supercharger to compete at a high level. All the faster cars seem to be turning to blown motors. He didn't want to be left behind. He put a blower on top of his '57 Chrysler engine and raced with it on August 23 at the airport strip at Sanford, Maine. Don Garlits was there, his first with his car after getting terribly burned at Chester. Art Malone was driving for him, for the first time, at a race event. "Setto really put the pressure on us when he made a practice run at 182.92 mph to break the Drag News '1320 record' that I had established at Houston," Garlits recalled in his autobiography. "To make matters worse, Setto pulled a sensational hole shot on Art and beat him badly in the match race." Setto only held that national record for about a nano-second as Malone set a new national record on Garlits's behalf with a speed of 183.66 mph later in the day. Setto took home a $300 bond for a top eliminator victory.


The next time the Garlits/Malone dragster was at the same event as Setto, was at Dunkirk, New York, on September 27. It was billed as the World Drag Championships. At the time of the Dunkirk race, Garlits was in Florida, undergoing more plastic surgery to repair his burned skin. Don Garlits wrote about the Dunkirk race in his autobiography: "While I was in the hospital, Art ran a race on an airstrip at Dunkirk, N.Y., that create several sensations," Garlits wrote. "First of all, Malone smashed all previous top speed records by running a supposed 195.653 mph, although in retrospect it appears highly unlikely that it was an accurate time." The timing was done at Dunkirk using air pressure hoses, which were far from accurate in giving uniform results throughout the meet.


"Correct or not," Garlits wrote, "we were credited with another record and the furor began again, but this time the major grumbling came from the east, not the west! We had been pretty successful running against Setto, while at the same time getting a fair share of the headlines for new records. The Dunkirk incident, which also involved an argument over starting procedure between himself [Setto] and Art, was just too much for Setto. In those days, Drag News was sort of the trade journal of the sport, and people often bought advertising space to voice their opinions or gripes on a variety of subjects. In this case Setto went after us. In essence, he said: 'No wonder they call you Swamp Rat . . . . You're in the sport for what you can get . . . . you don't care who you hurt as long as you make a buck on it . . . . you shoot off your mouth about safety, and then you take a green kid and put him into the biggest blown fueler you can possibly make . . . . you're supposed to have run 195 mph, and you e.t. stunk, then you're supposed to have run 8.23 and your speed was 178. Explain it, pal!" What had begun as a competitive rivalry, now presented all the trappings of an all-out feud. The little Armenian really got his dander up and he came at Garlits in a personal attack with both barrels blazing. The actual ad taken out by Setto in Drag News (11/14/59) appears above.

Competition at the highest levels in drag racing could get heated. Garlits was not immune from getting angry when he thought he had been wronged. I'm phrasing this diplomatically, but twice in person, I saw him get unglued over some matter. When he got angry, he could blow his top--and he didn't mince words. I never saw or met Postoian, but the little Armenian seems to have had moments in his life where he lost his temper. His first wife, Shirlee, divorced him for "extreme and repeated cruelty." That occurred just after the war and, over time, I think he matured and was able to hold his temper in check. But things came to a head for Setto after Dunkirk. In Setto's view, Garlits was making buck for his accomplishments and Setto wasn't getting squat.


In a strange way, Garlits reaped even more benefits from Setto's public published outburst. "Of course Setto really started something," wrote Garlits in his autobiography. "The California guys were delighted and immediately began calling me 'the Swamp Rat' (which I had never heard used before) instead of their old favorites, 'Tampa Dan' and 'Don Garbage.' This name came to mean a great deal in terms of publicity and promotion, but I didn't start using it right away, though a week hadn't passed before Art had 'The Green Kid' painted on his helmet." The above ad appeared in Drag News (12/5/59) advertising that Setto would race "Swamp Rat" Garlits at Riverside on December 20, 1959.


This ad appeared in Drag News (12/19/59) advertising a match race between Garlits and Setto. This Freeway Drag Strip ad and the Riverside Raceway ad (above) document how quick race promoters were to exploit the broiling feud between Setto and Garlits. Not so fast. The ads would lead one to believe that Garlits and Setto had been contracted to race each other at Riverside (on December 20, 1959) and Freeway Drag Strip (on January 9-10, 1960).


This letter written by Setto was printed in the January 9, 1960 issue of Drag News. In his letter, Setto wrote that the first time he knew about these booking dates at Riverside and at Houston's Freeway strip, was when he read about it in the pages of Drag News. "Both of these ads were put in Drag News without ever confirming my presence at these meets," Setto wrote. Wow! Amazing. The drag race promoters were playing fast and loose with their advertising. Although bills have been introduced in Congress to enact truth in advertising on a national basis, they have never passed. So, promoters could get away with such deceptive shenanigans. Drag News readers expressed their opinions about the controversy in letters to the editor for several months. Jerry Hamam, a fuel dragster driver who raced at Dunkirk at the same event with Setto and Malone, wrote a lengthy letter (1/30/60) defending Garlits and Malone. He also expressed his distaste with the Dunkirk setup and such matters as inaccurate ads. "When the phony ads and strip claims are done away with," Hamam wrote, "things will be fine."


Setto wrote in his Drag News controversial ad statement, that he was racing to get his car ready for the Bakersfield March Meet. He didn't finish it in time to go. In fact it wasn't ready until May. He made his first appearance at Minnesota Dragways on May 8. The car was a new one. He called it "Mark 3." The above photo shows him making his only run with the new dragster. After just arriving, he made a warm-up run with a light percentage of nitro. He turned 9.57 at 145 mph. Unfortunately he poked a rod through the pan, sidelining him for the rest of the day. You can see the death smoke coming out of the breathers in the photo, indicative that the motor was going south. Not a good beginning.


On May 29-30 at Minneapolis, Setto set the meet's top speed with 180.35 mph. The above photo shows his dragster on the trailer at Minnesota Dragways. The race was jam-packed with big names: Ivo, Karamesines, Bobby Langley, Big Wheel, and Rod Stuckey. Setto had the misfortune of blowing his clutch on a warm-up run on the second day, effectively putting him on the sidelines.


The long awaited race between Setto and Garlits happened on June 19 at Detroit Dragway. This was to be just a single run, with a 2-out-of-3 match race scheduled for the following weekend. As it turned out, it didn't settle anything. Setto ran 182.54 mph on a warm-up single. In the first round of the race, Setto blew his clutch. Both cars returned to the pits. "Setto came over to the Garlits-Malone car," Drag News (7/9/60) reported, "not to shake hands and accept the breaks of the game, but rather to slander the Garlits-Malone car and its owner and driver. Where's all the good sportsmanship going?" With Setto's bad-mouthing rankling him, Garlits was highly motivated to stick around and try to beat Setto's strip mark of 182.54 mph. On Malone's first run, he broke the drive shaft. Someone in the pits offered to run home and get them the part they needed to repair it. The repair was made and Malone pulled up to the line at 6:30 P.M. They had tipped the can with almost 100% load of nitro. Drag News reported that the car "went screaming through the lights" to set a new strip record speed of 190.26 mph in 9.12 seconds. That broke Setto's old strip mark by a country mile. Garlits was making a statement, something on the order of actions speak louder than words. "The record made Setto madder than ever," Garlits said.


On June 26, Setto was to face Garlits at the MHRA Drag Strip in New Baltimore, Michigan. They were to compete in a highly-advertised 1/8th-mile 2-out-of-3 match race. "Setto Postoian failed to appear," reported Drag News (7/9/60) in a crisply phrased explanation. Don Garlits made five single runs and on his final pass, he broke the strip eighth-mile record with 6.47 at 138 mph. There was no further explanation for Setto's non-appearance, but it may have had something to do with the bad feelings kindled on the previous weekend at Detroit Dragway.


Detroit Dragway put on a 2-day Independence Day race on July 3-4, featuring an exhibition match between Setto and Art Arfons. The Green Monster was soundly trounced by Setto on July 3. Setto turned 9.04 at 183.28 mph. The Green Monster's best run was 9.95 at 162.74 mph.


On the second day of the Independence Day event at Detroit Dragway, Setto came to the track with his family. In this photo, his wife, Christine, and son, Mark, are all smiles as Setto sits comfortably in the cockpit.


In good spirits, Setto decided to make a crowd-pleasing run againstArchie Liederbrand driving Al Williams's blown Chevy "Hypersonic" fuel dragster. This photo shows him checking things out in the cockpit before the run against the "Hypo." Otie Smith (in dark glasses) is giving the Setto's dragster the once-over. When the two dragsters staged, Setto came out of the chute in the lead. As misfortune would have it, he got crossed up approaching the traps.


He ended up plowing into a mud-filled ditch at the end of the strip at an estimated speed of over 140 mph. He was taken to the hospital with a broken left arm, injured right leg, and head cuts. Although his condition was described as fair. A young boy, who lived across the street from him, idolized him. He remembered that his "recovery was a very long one." Setto never drove again.

According to Garlits, Settos' change in front tires may have contributed to the crash. "Setto had discarded his magnesium front wheels in favor of a set of wire, motorcycle types and these contributed to the ensuing crash," wrote Garlits. "A nasty cross-wind was whipping over the strip when Setto took off against Liederbrand. Nearing the timing lights, a gust drove Setto onto the shoulder of the track, where one of the front wire wheels collapsed. The dragster flipped end-over-end numerous times, finally coming to rest with Setto the driver gravely hurt." Garlits remembered that he also suffered a broken back, something that newspapers did not report.

Garlits and Setto later patched up their relationship. It was Christine Postoian's much-later view, that Setto and Garlits's feud was a "fake rivalry." Christine said that both of them were good friends and shared a mission to beat the big name drivers from California. While that is true, it seems that Christine was looking at things with rose-tinted glasses. Both men did indeed want to beat the pants off the West Coast guys, but they also really wanted to whip one another--really bad. It was more than a competitive rivalry. It was an out-and-out feud. I think that on Setto's part, he was jealous of Garlits's success. It was not a plot between the two of them to get better bookings with each other or on the West Coast. Indeed, they later did grow to become friends. Garlits held Setto in high esteem. "With his retirement," wrote Garlits, "came the loss of one of the most formidable competitors I ever faced."

Setto retired in 1992 after working in the General Motors Technical Center for fifteen years. He was also inducted into the Drag Racing Hall of Fame in 1992. He died in 1995 at age 73.

 

Hello,

We were influenced by Junior Thompson’s 41 Studebaker Sedan built several blocks away at the local Speed Engineering shop. The shop was owned by Tom McEwen and Ronnie LeGrand, two local Bixby Knolls 20 somethings.
One day they opened up a custom speed shop a few blocks from our last Westside of Long Beach house. It was in the industrial area near the Los Angeles River and PCH. The shop was called "Speed Engineering." Besides winning a lot of trophies at Lion’s Dragstrip for themselves (well known Chevy sedans), they helped build the fast 1941 Studebaker Sedan driven by Junior Thompson during this time.

Little Eliminator class champion

Jnaki



Note:

The sound of our own Impala with the open exhaust was pretty nice. But, the sound of the SBC motor in the Studebaker 4 door sedan was outstanding. Every time I showed our friends the most recent films I had taken at the previous weeks Lion’s Dragstrip competition, when the black 4 door came up, everyone knew the sound. It was a fun time when teens were making accelerating car sounds, including shift points during the film showing. The original films were silent 16mm color.

Although my films were silent, the sound was getting famous and it was funny listening older teenagers making their own sounds that matched the film action, while shifting through the gears for the quarter mile action. BBBRRRRR, SHIFT, BBBRRRR, SHIFT, and so on to the end of the race.

power shifting at its finest…

Junior Thompson Studebaker… original sound from 1959


A normal level stance with a powerful motor at the start, then goes sky high at the power resurgence at shifts. The nose up is the look that became famous in the late 60s into the 70s for fake street versions of the original Gas Coupes/Sedans from the late 50s and early 60s. YRMV

Note 2:

Then came the real build… We decided to forego the Paxton Supercharger and go to the latest version of a 671 supercharger for the SBC. Yes, there were manifolds and blower drives for a 471 on an SBC motor, but no kits or designs for a 671 supercharger. With our Los Angeles connections to Edlebrock, we were able to get the latest 671 kit for the SBC motor. Since the Isky-Gilmer Belt Drive was developed for the SBC motor, the Edlebrock Manifold was a part of the package.
One of the first 671 GMC superchargers on a new Isky-Gilmer Belt Drive + Edlebrock manifold for an SBC motor. Blower spec parts, aluminum Jahns Pistons, port/polished heads, Howard Cams 5 Cycle + kit, Reath Automotive balanced crank, aluminum rods, Joe Hunt Vertex Magneto, and the 6 Strombergs on top.
But, our 1940 Willys Coupe 671 SBC 292 c.i. motor sounded like the Junior Thompson motor sound on full acceleration and winning races.

 

Jack Moss: Y'all Know "Too Much"


Yes, we know the car--Jack Moss's "Too Much" dual-engine A/D from 1959. To me, this car said everything I felt about drag racing.


Raw. Brute force power. Smoking-off-the-line burnouts. For me, this image epitomized drag racing in all its brazen, unabashed, wonderfulness. When I was putting together a scrapbook of my old drag racing photos and newspaper clippings, I wanted this image on the cover. I got some thin wood boards to serve as the front and back covers. I used my old woodburning pen (I got it as a Christmas present in the early 1950s) to "burn" this very image onto the thin wood scrapbook cover. The old scrapbook is kind of clunky and a bit unwieldy, just like a lot of the old dragsters from the 1950s. So, in the spirit of this thread, I want to put a face on the man--Jack Moss.

He was inducted posthumously into the International Drag Racing Hall of Fame in 2022. When reviewing the inductees for that year, Don Garlits reached out to Jack's daughter for information about her father. Garlits only remembered meeting Moss just one time. "I didn’t see him very much because he was older," Garlits said. "He didn’t race very long after I got started, but I did get to see him race down in Texas at the Wichita Falls Southwestern Championship. He had a gas dragster. It was a twin-engine Dodge dragster. That thing ran pretty good. I just got to meet him that one time. He was really a nice guy." In talking with his daughter, Don said, "His daughter said that he was a man’s man. He was really tough."


His obituary gave a capsule summary of how tough Jack was: "Jack joined the Texas National Guard on October 25, 1940 before Pearl Harbor was bombed, bringing the United States into WW II on December 7, 1941. Jack was a member to the Texas Lost Battalion who were taken prisoners of war in 1942. Jack was a Japanese prisoner of war for 3½ years in Burma and forced to work on the Death Railroad. Less than half of the Texas Lost Battalion survived this ordeal. Jack returned to the United Stated in 1945, after the end of the war." Along with other POWs, Jack endured almost unbelievable conditions. He, indeed, was one tough cookie.

After the war, he got married, began a family, and started an auto repair business, Moss Automotive, in 1948. He also started doing some racing in '48. He began racing for trophies at the Amarillo Speedway oval track. He went to the Bonneville Salt Flats. He also raced midgets, sprint cars, and super modified stock cars. At least by 1953, he was drag racing. He was a member of the Barons car club in Amarillo. He was the odds-on favorite to win races conducted by the Pampa Strip Stretchers car club on a runway of the old Pampa Army Airfield.


1954: Moss and Don Morgan teamed up to field a flathead dragster in 1954. Both men were members of the Barons car club.


1955: By at least 1955, he had built his first dragster. He called it "Ramblin' Ram," as it was powered by a '55 258 cubic inch Dodge engine. He towed up to Great Bend, Kansas, where he competed in races conducted by the Sunflower Rod and Custom Association. He set the track record with 129.45 mph, which held up at least through mid-summer.

In addition to racing in Texas, he towed to races in Kansas, Oklahoma, and Colorado.


He got top eliminator honors at the 2-day NHRA Rocky Mountain Regional meet at Lowry Air Base in Colorado on July 3-4. He turned a top speed of 120 mph. In this photo at the Colorado race, he is seen at the Lowry Air Base race, where he beat Bill Kenz and Roy Leslie's flathead dragster to win top eliminator.


On September 11, he set the meet's fastest speed at Chickasha Municipal Airport in Oklahoma. His speed was 138.5 mph. He competed at the first NHRA Nationals at Great Bend, Kansas. The Dodge Division of the Chrysler Corporation awarded him a brand new Dodge V8 engine. Seven new engines were awarded to the fastest racers. He was one of the quicker cars with a speed of 138.88 mph. Rain forced an early closing of the races before the dragsters could finish running.


The conclusion of that portion of the race was rescheduled for November 19-20 and relocated to the Perryville airstrip west of Phoenix, Arizona. Moss was still in contention, so he towed his dragster to Arizona. He lasted through all the rounds until beaten in the finals by Cal Rice. Quite an accomplishment--runner-up in the dragster class at the first U. S. National race.


1956: Moss had a bit of bad luck at the 3rd annual Southwestern Regional Championship at Tradewind Airport on August 18-19. His engine blew up in the morning, putting him on the sidelines. However, Carl Grimes had his new Fiat A/A coupe at the race. He was having a hard time driving it, so he asked Moss to drive it for him. Moss took it for a new class record. Hot Rod Magazine (August 1956) ran a feature article on Moss's dragster, entitled "Jack the Giant Killer."


In this photo, Moss is racing his revamped "Ramblin Ram" fuel dragster at a Rocky Mountain Regional race in Colorado. He is racing a wild-looking T-dragster driven by Bob Stewart from Honolulu. Moss took top eliminator with 11.43 at 137.19 mph.

Moss entered his "Ramblin' Ram" fuel dragster in the 2nd National Championships at Great Bend. He had turned a speed of 140.62 mph earlier in the season, making him one of the leading favorites. He entered (and likely attended), but research could find nothing about him in reported results.


1957: Jack Moss made a brief, but uneventful appearance at the U. S. Nationals at Oklahoma City. The Daily Oklahoman (8/29/57) reported: "Wednesday afternoon, three Amarillo, Texas, dragsters arrived, headed by Jack Moss' speedster which sports twin 1957 Chevrolet engines totaling 600 cubic inches of cylinder displacement."


On December 15, he raced at the Fairgrounds drag strip in Oklahoma City again at one of their regularly scheduled races. He turned 138.24 mph, good for the meet's top speed, but lost top eliminator to Jimmy Davis's A/D. On December 29, he towed to Arizona, racing at the Perryville Drag Strip west of Phoenix. He snagged the top time for gas dragsters with 144.00 mph. One of the day's best matches featured Moss racing Lefty Mudersbach in the A Open Gas finals. Moss left the line in a tremendous cloud of smoke, but Lefty took the win.


1958: In the forepart of the season, Moss towed his newly-built blue and white streamlined dragster to Oklahoma to run at races in Tulsa or Oklahoma City. The Tulsa Tribune (3/24/58) reported that Moss would race at Tulsa North Airport's drag strip on March 30. He reportedly was bringing two cars--his streamlined twin-engine dragster and a roadster. Both of them sported fiberglass bodies crafted by Del's Custom Body Shop, the "Tulsa customizing emporium." His streamlined dragster sported two side-by-side Chevy engines, each topped with eight carburetors. The engines had been donated to him by Plains Chevrolet, a car dealership in Amarillo. In the above photo, Moss's face is barely visible under his helmet visor and over the cowl. Lettered on the front of the car is its name "2 Much."


On May 11, he won his class and snagged top eliminator honors with a time of 11.17 seconds, the meet's low ET, at Tulsa North Airport. He towed his dragster to New Mexico to race at Walker Air Force Base in Roswell on June 1. He took the A/D class win and top eliminator with a new Texas-New Mexico area gas record of 148.27 mph. His time was 10.72 seconds. In the above photo, you can see that he has recognized Del's Custom Shop in Tulsa for building the fiberglass body. The car's name "2 Much" is also lettered on the streamlined body fitted over the back of the cockpit. At the Southern Invitational Championships at Wichita Falls on June 7-8, Moss won top gas eliminator with 11.03 at 140.62 mph. Interestingly, he was only running on one of the engines all afternoon as the other was not operating. In an interesting pairing in the second round of top gas eliminator, Moss faced and beat Joe Williams, the owner of his old "Ramblin' Ram" dragster. As darkness approached, Moss elected not to race Don Garlits, the top fuel eliminator because he didn't have time to let his engine cool. So, Garlits took overall top eliminator by default.


He raced at Grand Island, Nebraska, on June 14-15, at the Midwest Regional drag races. During time trials, he set (no obliterated) the old strip record with a speed of 149.50 mph. In this photo, he is receiving the top eliminator trophy from the trophy queen, Jean Johannsen.


On August 2-3 at the Oklahoma City Fairgrounds, Moss turned 10.74 at 141.06 mph on the first day during time trials. The Daily Oklahoman (8/3/58) stated that Moss also owned a B/D, called "The Slingshot," driven by Lyndall White of Amarillo (above). It recorded a time of 122.60 mph during time trials. On the second day, Moss won the A/D class with 10.74 at 141.40 mph. Unfortunately, he popped a valve and couldn't compete in the eliminations.


In a strange outcome, his car that Lyndall White was driving, took top eliminator honors. This "Slingshot" dragster may have been bought by White by the time the Nationals got underway. The above photo shows a pair of ex-Moss cars in the pits at the Nationals. The top car (#76) was the old "Ramblin' Ram" dragster that Joe Williams bought. It still had the '55 Dodge engine and was running in the C/D class. The bottom car (#51) was driven/owned by Lyndall White. He named it "How Much?" and raced it in the B/D class. It had a tendency to pull its front wheels up in the air upon launching, much to the delight of the spectators.


Moss decided that he didn't want to run with the streamlined fiberglass-bodied dragster any more. It had run its course, so he took off the body and went with this rail dragster at the U. S. Nationals at Oklahoma City. Buddy Sampson was supposed to be the first car to start Friday's time trials. But when Sampson encountered momentary engine troubles, Moss took his place. Jack turned 11.61 at 140 mph on the trial run. In the A/D eliminations, Moss couldn't make it past the first round. He was beaten by Jay Cheatham, driving a lighter and quicker single-engine gas dragster. This was the problem with dual-engine dragsters--they were heavy. They could put up the big speed numbers and came on strong on the top end, but unless they could catch the lighter single-motor cars, it was often a losing proposition.


1959: For 1959, Jack added Paxton superchargers to his Chevy engines on his "Too Much" dragster. Moss raced his new blown dragster at the 2nd annual Southern Invitational Drag Races at Red River Drag Strip in Wichita Falls on May 30-31. He was beset by misfortune when he blew one of his engines in the top eliminator finals. He did clock the meet's fastest speed on Sunday morning of 153 mph.

Although he was pre-entered to race in the 2-day Southwest Regional at Freeway Drag Strip, he passed it up to race at Roswell, New Mexico, on June 14. His Hilborn fuel injectors were giving him problems during the morning time trials at Roswell. That could have been the reason that he opted to not run at the big Houston race. Possibly he wanted to sort out his injector problems at a less competitive, less stressful place. He only ran 136.98 mph in his single time trial run, but that was still good for the meet's fastest time. He didn't compete in the eliminations. He returned to Roswell for a race on July 12. The injector problem that he had in June had been fixed and he set a new strip E.T. record with 9.45 seconds. Lee Christian was his only competition in the A/D class. In the run-off to determine the A/D class winner, Christian blew his engine. Moss turned 9.83 at 159.01 mph to win the class and was top eliminator by default as Christian was sidelined. These times and speeds were impressive, given that Roswell's elevation was 3640 feet. It boded well for the upcoming Nationals which would be held at Detroit.


The U. S. Nationals was held in Detroit on September 3-7. It was a long tow for Jack. But with his recent successful outing at Roswell and at another at Oklahoma City, he had hope for a good outcome. But he was of two minds when he showed up at Detroit.


In this photo, you can see that he had painted "For Sale" on the cowl of his dragster. He hoped to do well, but he was already thinking ahead about building another dragster. He had some ideas floating around in his head. But first, he had a race to run. He had to keep his head on the race--and he was hardly being looked at as a potential winner. Mickey Brown, Jack Chrisman in the Sidewinder, or Dragmaster were all being viewed as ones who might win the 4½ foot trophy, '59 Chevy El Camino, and title of Mr. Eliminator. As the race unfolded, it looked like Art Arfons and his "Green Monster" were going in as the odds-on favorite. On Saturday, Arfons had turned a blistering 171.10 mph. That was about ten miles per hour faster than any speed Moss had ever turned.


As fate would have it, Moss faced Arfons during Sunday's eliminations. In the biggest upset of the meet, Arfons skidded sideways off the line and Moss beat him by a car length. With impending darkness, the remainder of the eliminations and finals were postponed to Monday. On Monday, Rod Singer came out of nowhere, disposing first Jack Chrisman, then Jiggs Shamblin. The top eliminator finals on Monday ended up to be Moss facing Rod Singer in the Singer-Karol Miller single-engined blown Lincoln-powered AA/D. This was totally unlikely as neither race car had been expected to be running in the finals. Singer was a dark horse and not many expected him to win after Moss had beaten Arfons. Moss was coming in as the favorite to win the thing. It didn't happen. Once again, Moss left the Nationals as the bridesmaid, not the bride. It was another in a string of disappointing runner-ups. It was the fourth time in five years that Jack had finished second in the Nationals. This one really hurt as newspapers reported that Moss only lost by eight inches! He had swerved out of line at the start and was unable to catch Rod Singer. "I lost some important ground when I went off track to the right at the start," Moss said. "I was pulling up near the end and knew it was close." Jack left Detroit thinking that maybe he didn't even want to continue drag racing any more. Maybe just sell his dragster and get out altogether. He was at a crossroads. He did say that if Amarillo were to build a drag strip, he would probably build another car and continue racing.

1960: Well, Amarillo did build a drag strip. Forrest and Ernie Walker built Amarillo Dragway. It opened for racing in May 1960. It is still in operation today. So, Jack Moss stayed in the racing game. He hadn't been able to sell his car, so he raced the same twin engine dragster, with little change, that he had raced at the Detroit Nationals. Moss was at Amarillo Dragway on May 30, but mechanical difficulties prevented him from doing much.


On July 2-4, he raced at Oklahoma City. On the opening day, he broke the strip record with 9.38 at 154.37 mph. He was just a shade behind his national record time of 9.26 seconds. The above photo shows the AA/D class finals which Moss won. He beat Charlie Hall from Tucson, driving a former "Green Monster" Allison-engined dragster. It was Hall's first outing on a drag strip and he was a tad bit green behind the wheel. In this run, he fishtailed off the line and almost hurtled off the end of the strip before bringing the behemoth to a safe stop. Hall had repainted the old "Green Monster" a color of red and renamed it "Big Mamu." Moss took the win with 9.81 at 157.61 mph. On July 10, he returned to Oklahoma City and beat Jimmy Nix to win top eliminator and a divisional title, with a time of 9.55 at 157.61 mph.

On July 24, Moss raced at the NHRA regional event at Eagle Mountain National Guard Base strip near Fort Worth. He left the race, having snagged his fourth Southwest regional win of the season. He turned 9.78 at 154.10 mph on his top eliminator win. Just before leaving the track, he confided to the Drag News reporter that he planned to two top-mounted GMC blowers on his engines in the near future. He had his eyes on the Nationals. He didn't want to tow his dragster all the way to Detroit and have to come away with a bad taste in his mouth, like he did in 1959.


At the 2-day regional race at Caddo Mills on July 30-31, Moss took top eliminator honors. It was no slouch win as he beat such luminaries as Vance Hunt and Raymond Godman. David Ray, who had just turned sixteen years old, borrowed his sister's Brownie camera and took this photo of a laid-back Jack Moss at Caddo Mills in August. In September, he sold one of the engines from his dual-engine dragster to Tommy Pace, who used it to build a single-engine dragster.


As he had planned, Moss mounted two GMC blowers atop his engines in time for the U. S. Nationals, once again held at Detroit. In this photo, he can be seen (right) racing against Bill Tibboles dual-engine dragster at the '60 Nationals. Tibboles (far lane) ran a combination Olds and Chevy-engined in-line dragster. This was the semi-finals for the AA/D class. Tibboles took the win after one of Moss's engines tossed its blower belt. It was a long drive back to Amarillo for Jack.


1961: California dreaming. La La Land beckoned. Moss towed out to run at the first Winternationals. I was there, but there were so many cars, and it was so long ago, that all I can say is that I probably saw him run. The above photo shows him in the pit area. I wandered around the pits, just like those two guys in the photo. Gazing and salivating. It's a great memory of good old times. I was at Pomona a lot. The Ganesha Hills golf course in the distance, the prone wood telephone poles (three guys are sitting on them like I probably did when my feet got tired) that kept the spectator parked cars who paid to park in the pits away from the race car pits--all are wonderful memories. There were a couple of dual engine cars that I have a vague memory of seeing--the Dragmaster Two-Thing and Bayer-Freitas. Drag News (2/25/61) reported that "Moss began to get the feel of the strip as he brought in times of 9.46 sec. and 165.44 mph in later single runs." That was about all. He got the feel for it, but that was about it. Jack Chrisman took top eliminator in his twin-Chevy "Howard Cam Special" AA/D.


It was back to Texas where Moss generally stuck close to home for the rest of the season. He set a new strip record at Amarillo Dragway on April 2 with 167.98 mph. At Hobbs, New Mexico, Moss was racing his "Too Much" dragster on May 7 at a Southwest regional event. It was very windy. Earlier in the day, he had turned 160.66 mph. But an hour later, he was only running on a single engine at about 120 mph when the front axle broke, causing the car to veer to the right. Trying to regain control, he plowed through the strip between the strip and the spectator parked cars. He struck several parked cars at about fifty miles per hour, hit a barrel, overturned and the car caught fire. Fortunately Jack escaped injury and no one was injured. The "Too Much" dragster was so badly damaged that Jack took a cutting torch and cut the car into two pieces and loaded them on a trailer to take back to Amarillo.


That was the end of Jack's twin-engined racing, but he built a single-engined dragster that he had ready for racing in September. He salvaged a motor from his destroyed "Too Much" dragster and installed it in this car. On September 24, he was scheduled to appear at Amarillo Dragway in a match race against Lee Christian.

1962: He competed at the Winternationals in February in his '61 Chev-motored dragster. He was a pre-race favorite to win his class, but his trip to Pomona didn't produce a win. After that, he stayed close to home, racing principally at Amarillo Dragway. On May 27 at Amarillo, he notched a top eliminator victory. He won rounds from Prentiss Cunningham, Jack Chrisman, and Jim Nelson's Dragmaster Dart. He was timed at 8.90 at 166 mph in his AA/D class win. On June 24, Moss lost to Eddie Hill in a 2-out-of-3 match race at Amarillo Dragway. At a divisional race at Oklahoma City on July 29, he got runner-up to Jimmy Nix in the top eliminator finals. He went to the U. S. Nationals at Indianapolis as one of the favorites to win the AA/D class, but returned home without a win. On September 23, he clocked 177 mph in winning top eliminator at Amarillo Dragway. This was the last year that Moss raced dragsters. He sold his dragster to the Gopher State Timing Association in 1963.


1963-64: In 1963, he turned to super modified oval speedway track racing. He built/owned a super modified car that H. V. Funderburk drove. He also built a '63 Ford that he raced at Amarillo Dragway. In 1964, he raced a '64 Ford Thunderbolt. After that, his only contact with drag racing was either building or setting up drag race cars for other people or working as a crewman.

I'm sure many of us who grew up near drag strips, can relate to and chuckle at this story recounted by Richard E. Burk. He and his younger brother, Dick, grew up in Amarillo and loved watching Moss race his dragster at Amarillo Dragway. "We were rabid Jack Moss fans," said Richard. Just before he enlisted in the Air Force in 1963, Richard went to Moss Automotive with his brother. "My brother and I always cruised by Moss Automotive whenever we could just to see the race cars often parked there," Richard said. "For Dick and me, Moss Automotive was heaven and Jack Moss was God! One day we drove by and I could see a Ford Super Stocker just inside the door. . . . we had to stop. By then I was fully immersed in A/FX-SS/A racing and seeing one of those cars in dragster legend Jack Moss's shop, I just had to stop and see the deal. As I remember it, we were as nervous as a couple of hero-worshipping kids could be walking through the open garage door. Once inside I saw it, a white on white '62 fastback Galaxie 500 A/FX-SS/A. It was freshly lettered with a Ford dealer sponsor. I walked up to the car drooling like an idiot. My hero was going to race a Ford A/FX-SS/A. I walked over to Mr. Moss, introduced myself and told him I was a big fan. He said thanks and that he was busy, but we could look at the car all we wanted. I walked over to the slab-sided Galaxie and rubbed my finger over still-wet paint and smeared the paint. I panicked, grabbed my brother and hauled ass out of there. I had screwed up God's new paint. I never went back."

Jack Moss received the Lifetime Achievement Award by NHRA in 2012. He died in 2016 at age 93.

 

Romeo Palamides: "He Was One of a Kind, an Amazing Character!"

In 2016 I began compiling my Drag Strip List website. A blurb on the front page of the site describes what it contains: "This is the most comprehensive listing of U.S. and Canadian drag strips ever compiled. More than 1,450 drag strips, many long-closed, are numbered in this compilation. There are two main features in this encyclopedia for both U.S. and Canadian drag strips: drag strip histories and memories submitted by readers." Although I have spent a lot of time researching and writing the histories of all those drag strips, one of the more rewarding features for me has been the "Memories" section. To this date, over 850 people have contacted me to share their memories of racing at or watching races at the old drag strips. They run the gamut from well-known racers (like Roland Leong, Joe Schubeck, Don Ewald, or Boogie Scott) to just your Average Joes.

In 2017, Don Jensen reached out to me to share his memories. Don built and drove one of the very first twin-engine dragsters in drag racing. He had been a president of the Hayward Head Hunters, a drag racing car club in Northern California. He began drag racing in 1950 at strips like Kingdon and Little Bonneville in San Jose. "I was there at the start," Don said. He lived in California. I lived in Utah/Oregon. We developed a long distance friendship, communicating by telephone and emails. I cherish our friendship and the nuggets of drag racing history that he shared with me. And it was a lot. He could see that I was passionate about documenting the history of drag racing's past, so he spent much time writing to me, sharing his wealth of personal knowledge about the early days and the racers. He said, "Mel, I'm doing this because of your great site!!!" All his memories about those early days are on the Memories (California) page of my site.

Don Jensen lived in Hayward, just eighteen miles south of Oakland. Romeo Palamides lived in Oakland.


Don knew Romeo as "Dago," as did others. They weren't close, like pals, or anything, but Don knew him well enough to call him "Dago." The 1949 classified ad above shows that Romeo recognized, accepted, and nurtured his nickname, Dago. Don shared his memories about Romeo, and what others had shared with him about Palamides, with me. "He was one of a kind," said Don, "an amazing character."

I will intersperse what Don told me about Palamides with other things that I found out about this "amazing character." I will primarily focus on his formative years, and just hit the highlights of his later years building jet cars. He was born in Oakland to Italian-born parents, but his given name was Alfred. He went by the name Al, but started being called Romeo, probably during high school. Romeo had a certain zing to it. He attended McClymonds High School in Oakland, where he was active in sports. He played baseball in 1937 in a summer league. It was a baseball league for boys under 16 years old. The Oakland Post Enquirer (3/16/37) said he "was a great little ball player." He had signed to play for the Clawson Acorns ball team. They said he was a "fine fielder, and a hard hitter." He continued playing summer ball for three more years.


When he was eighteen years old, he registered for the draft in 1944, but was not called up. He was working as a mechanic for a Chevrolet dealership in Oakland. In 1946, he raced midget cars and moved up to the bigger track roadsters in 1947. He raced them at Oakland Stadium, Sacramento, and Modesto. "Romeo was a member of Elmwood Auto Club in Oakland, California," Don Jensen told me. Jensen interviewed Lee Scott, who had raced against members of the Elmwood club during that time. Scott told Jensen, "But for Jack Hagemann's car, Dago's were the nicest built and nearly unbeatable on pavement." In 1949, he built a Class D streamliner that raced at El Mirage Dry Lake. He had the itch to race any time, anywhere. Once in '49, he was arrested for street racing on a motorcycle.


Romeo is seen at the wheel of his street roadster in early 1947 in this photo. He managed his own auto garage on San Pablo Street, specializing in building race and custom cars.


By 1949-50, he had radically modified his basic old street roadster, taking it to a whole other level. He learned the tricks of the trade in rod building on his old hot rod.


His old hot rod was a rolling advertisement for his rod-building talents. It helped bring him business. Ken Fuhrman, who used to race his old '29 Model A at the drag races at Sky Park Airport in 1950, later ended up owning Romeo's old street rod. Fuhrman talked about the car with another fellow who was interested in Romeo's old car. "The strangest thing about that roadster," Ken said, "is that Dago made the exhaust, the motor mounts, and ran them right into and back in the tube frame." The fellow asked Furhman if that was standard practice to do that with the exhaust. "No," Furhman said, as far as he knew, "Dago was the only one to ever do it." This speaks volumes to the kind of craftsmanship, innovation, and attention to detail that characterized Romeo's workmanship.


One of his first outings at a legal, organized drag race took place at Sky Park Airport in Scott's Valley, between San Jose and Santa Cruz on November 26, 1950. He got seventh place in Class C, turning 16.57 in the quarter mile. The race results were printed in Rod Dust (11/1/50), a Northern California racing newsletter printed in Berkeley. Notice that Ken Fuhrman, who later owned Romeo's classy hot rod, won the Class B competition.

"In about ’51 he entered the US Army and had a report of AWOL and trouble," Jensen told me. After joining the Army, he attended a mechanics' specialist school at Aberdeen Proving Grounds in Maryland, before shipping out for Korea in September 1952. "He was shipped to Korea with a tank outfit," Jensen said, "where he told me of having dead tanks brought in, the body parts and uniforms had to be cleaned out, then he would arc weld the holes in the hulls and then they were rebuilt and saw combat again."

Jensen mentioned that Romeo went AWOL and got in trouble. Newspapers reported that he won the B modified roadster class with a speed of 105 mph at Kingdon on May 4, 1952. He may have skipped out of the mechanics school for a little unauthorized trip back home. While there, he did a little drag racing--and got in trouble for his little adventure.


Prior to leaving for Korea, he made a brief stop at home. He picked up the Crosley sedan that he and and Dick Hubbard had jointly built, and towed it to the Bonneville Salt Flats. It turned some heads and got a lot of attention. This photo shows the hot-looking Crosley sedan, with Romeo on the right (in striped shirt). Young Dick Hubbard (in sun glasses at rear of car) has the attention of two men wanting to hear all about the car. They took four class wins with a pair of engines that they had built to chase multiple records. One was a 217-cubic inch Ford flathead. They set a record of 131.96 mph in B Competition Sedan class with it. The other engine was a 235-cubic inch Mercury flathead. They ran 149.93 mph with it, good for second place in its class. They also had a blown Mercury flathead engine, but blower drive belt problems kept them from running with it. With the tiny car only having a 100-inch wheelbase and weighing 1650 pounds wet, this little screamer really hauled the mail.


Jack Hagemann chopped the top and hand-formed the nose, hood, and full belly pan. "Tommy the Greek" Hrones painted, flamed, and lettered the car. A photo of it graced the cover of the January 1953 issue of Hot Rod Magazine. Inside the magazine, a two-page feature article detailed it construction and performance. This color photo shows the car at a drag strip.


Upon his return home following a thirteen month tour of duty in Korea, the Oakland Tribune (10/29/53) printed this photo of him being awarded the Bronze Star Medal. "He returned in late ’53, after the war to find roadster racing was dying," said Don Jensen. "He had a louver press and started on hot rods."

Don Jensen told me some interesting things about how Romeo lived--it was pretty much a hand-to-mouth life. "Now a bit about how he lived in his mother’s house on McArthur Blvd. in Oakland, with a 30’ x 40’ shop in the back," Jensen said. "He had a large hole in his pocket [due to putting all his money into his race car]. He never had two dimes to rub together. The family lived on the wife’s earnings. John Walsh remembered going to lunch. Dago had just did a louver job, so cash in hand they went into the house and made hot dogs for his little kids, then lunch for himself at a nice restaurant."


Palamides built and raced this dragster with a DeSoto Hemi engine from 1954-56. This photo shows it racing at Kingdon. Dick Hubbard initially was the driver.


"The dragster was a little squirrelly and Dick Hubbard (Hubbard Cams) quit driving it," Don Jensen said. Hubbard, in fact, opted out of his partnership with Romeo and built his own dragster. Hubbard favored the flathead motors, while Romeo used an overhead, accenting the rivalry that developed between the two racers.


Don Jensen took this photo (and the one just previous). He called it the "shoe" dragster and deemed it "show quality." It was so narrow, that the driver had to squeeze into the cockpit. Note the buffed tires, too. "At the State Championship at Madera in 1954 with Wayne Boden (who made the dies for Dago's louver press) driving," as told to him by Lee Scott, Jensen said, "made a couple 360s in the lights. Dago stuck some kid in it. He got upside down at Kingdon and even though it had little roll bar protection. The kid was strong and as the car skidded upside down, hanging tight to the steering wheel, he only got ‘road rash’ on his back and shoulders."


1955-56: He won a gold award trophy at the 1955 National Roadster Show in Oakland for a dragster, emblazoned with his first name on the front squarish-shaped nose. At the 1956 National Roadster Show, he exhibited a belly tank lakester (above) that he had raced at the '55 Bonneville Salt Flats Speed Week. It was powered by a fuel injected engine. At Bonneville, it overturned doing 180 mph and skidded for a quarter mile before sliding to a stop. Dick Hubbard, the driver, was uninjured. At this time, Romeo was in the Accelerators car club, based in Concord. He called his belly tank "Romeo II."

He also had another car that he entered in the '56 Roadster Show. Don Jensen told me about the building of this iconic car. "About this time, early 1956, Jim Ellison came to Dago for work with a Chrysler-powered sports car," said Don Jensen. John Walsh told Jensen that he thought it was an Allard. In fact, it was a Cad-Allard customized sports car, originally owned and raced by Bill Pollack and Tom Carstairs. It was wrecked and washed out when Ellison had bought it. He commissioned Romeo to rebuild it into an even racier sports car. "That is how they hooked up," Jensen said. "Jim [Ellison] was a principal in Harron, Rickard & McCone, a large machine shop company in San Francisco. He [Ellison] got hooked on dragsters. From then on, he [Ellison] supplied most of the money for Palamides Racing."


Ellison supplied most of the money for Romeo to build this breathtaking, slingshot 115-inch wheelbase dragster. It reportedly cost $5,000 and took almost five months to build. Every piece of metal on the car was either chromed or beautifully painted. "So Dago started on the Slingshot," said Jensen, "which was later shortened into the canopied car. This car, another show car, was finished mid-1956. It was about 115 inch wheelbase of 1¼” tubing, first with the DeSoto, then later a 331 cu. in. unblown. It ran 130 mph." An interesting feature of the "Romeo I" was the artistic upswept curved push bar that rose above and behind the driver. It was detachable. When racing, it could be inserted in slots or removed when not racing. When he finished the car, he showed it for the first time out of his shop at the '56 National Roadster Show. This is a great photo of him in his shop, working on that dragster that he had dubbed "Romeo 1." The inside walls of his shop have been signed by his buddies. His shop was behind his mother's house at 574 W. MacArthur Boulevard. Unfortunately the house and shop were demolished in building the Golden State Freeway.


Palamides swept first places with both "Romeo I" (dragster class) and "Romeo II" (belly tank class). The dragster was powered by a 305-cubic inch fuel injected DeSoto engine. This photo shows the dragster in its Roadster Show trim. There was an opening in the cowl, through which the injectors protruded.


The "Slingshot" dragster, "Romeo I," graced the cover of the November 1956 issue of Hot Rod Magazine. Notice that in the few months between the Roadster Show and the photographing of the car for the HR cover, the opening which formerly showed the injectors has been covered over. The engine is still a DeSoto, but the induction has been redesigned to allow a more streamlined flow over the top of the engine cowling.

In the fall, he started racing his "Romeo I" fuel dragster at Northern California strips like Kingdon, Santa Rosa, San Luis Obispo, and Cotati. He took top eliminator at Cotati on October 21 with a speed of 145.80 mph. He was having trouble with the clutch overheating. He thought about installing a fluid drive transmission, since he had burned out a couple of clutches. Rich Dederian of Concord was driving the dragster at this time. He raced at a 2-day event at Kingdon on December 15-16. He had made some big changes by the time of this Kingdon race including swapping out the DeSoto engine for a 392-cubic inch blown '57 Chrysler Hemi engine. The crank-driven 6-71 GMC blower was front-mounted. To solve the clutch-heating problem, he installed a Chrysler TorqueFlite transmission. You can see the yellow knob affixed to the handle on the upper right of the cockpit on the HR cover that was used to control the Chrysler 300C torque converter. Although the torque converter in the power train resulted in slower ET's, the times were more consistent and solved the clutch failure problems. With this converter setup, he could just hold the brake until he was ready to go. Then whoosh, off he went. Another interesting feature that may have been somewhat unique to this dragster was its heavy duty battery and starting unit. The engine could be fired right on the starting line without resorting to a push start.

1957: Dederian set a new strip ET record at Kingdon on February 10 with 9.89 at 150 mph in the fuel dragster. They ran the car on straight alcohol.


Romeo displayed the "Romeo" dragster at a 2-day weekend car show on March 2-3 in Chico. The above newspaper photo is grainy and very dark, but it shows the right hand side of the car. That is a side of the car, at this stage in its life, that was rarely photographed. The car has a front-mounted blower and upswept headers. When the car was first built, it had downswept headers. But in its new conformation, the headers were upswept, ending just above the chromed rear axle. Spot disc brakes on the rear wheels, another addition, providing added safety. Another feature of the car must be noted. The mag wheels were built by Palamides. It is these mag wheels that set a new course in Romeo's work life. More on that later. But because it is so important, it must be noted that the front mag wheels on the dragster were 16x5½ and 15x7 on the rear. Bruce slicks on the rear and Bruce tires on the front. It seems Romeo was forever tinkering. At Lions, probably in August, he ran 151 mph, but blew his motor. In late August, he started working on a new engine for "Romeo I." The new motor was a 392-cubic inch Chrysler with a front-mounted 6-71 GMC blower and Hilborn injectors, using a log type distribution set-up. His first outing with the new engine was at Vacaville on September 8. Pete Ogden, at the wheel, set a new strip record with 154.10 mph. The old strip record had been 142 mph by the "Glass Slipper." The next week, he raced at Kingdon, but was sidelined when his transmission broke. A broken camshaft sidelined from competing at Vacaville on September 22. At the 2-day meet at Vacaville on October 26-27, Ogden had another streak of good and bad luck. During Saturday's time trials, he set a new strip record with 159 mph. Emery Cook, in the Cook & Bedwell fuel dragster, also turned a record-tying 159 mph. Unfortunately, on another time trial run, the "Romeo's" engine blew and the dragster was sidelined for the rest of the meet. Don Jensen said, "I think Dago blew more engines than all others in No. Cal combined!" He built a new engine, using a '58 Chrysler block, no blower, and no torque converter, to run at Vacaville on December 8. Research yielded no results on this new setup.


1958: While his hired drivers had been racing his "Romeo I" dragster at the tail end of 1957, Romeo had been hard at work building a brand new dragster in his shop. Dubbed "Romeo 2," the new dragster had a shorter wheelbase. The Jack Hagemann aluminum body sported a nifty plastic canopy, completely enclosing the driver in the cockpit.


"Romeo 2" won the top award for competition cars at the National Roadster Show. George Barris and Richard Peters won the America's Most Beautiful Roadster Award for the exquisite '29 Ala Kart. In this photo, Romeo (in sport coat) is flanked by his dragster on the right and Miss Oakland and the massive 9-foot tall trophy on the left.


In addition to exhibiting the "Romeo 2" dragster, the Stockton Record (2/7/58) reported that Romeo and his crew would also completely build a roadster in view of the public during the run of the show. "One of the highlights of the show will be a day by day construction of a complete automobile by Romeo Palamides, famed Oakland car builder, and his artisans," the newspaper stated. "This stunt will be in full view of the public daily on a four foot high platform." Romeo assured the car show officials that he could complete the car's construction within the 56 hours allotted for the time of the show's running. It was one of the popular exhibits during the show and was a great advertisement for Romeo's shop. In the above photo, Romeo and Jim Ellison admire their beautiful dragster in its exhibit at the '58 Roadster Show. Romeo is wearing his work coveralls because he had spent his time building a roadster during the show's hours.


In this photo, Pete Ogden is preparing to move to the starting line to make a run at Kingdon in the "Romeo 2." At a race in late April at Kingdon, he turned 153 mph before snapping an axle. On May 11 at Vacaville, Ogden set a new strip record with 162.45 mph and an A/FD class win, but engine problems kept him out of the top eliminator competition. In mid-May, the Stockton Record (5/19/58) stated that the name of "Romeo 2" was being changed from the "Palamides Special" to "Harron, Rickard & McCone Machine Works Special." I suppose they could do that without much argument because they had essentially put most of the money into building it. It also may have been a harbinger of the impending sale of his mag wheels business to Ellison and company that would happen later in the year. On May 18, Ogden set a new track record of 160.24 mph at Kingdon. On the run following his record-breaking run, the dragster blew a clutch. The torque converter experiment Romeo had used in "Romeo I" had not been transferred to "Romeo 2." On July 13 at Vaca Valley, Ogden got the meet's quickest time with 9.33, receiving a $500 savings bond for low ET. The new paving at Vaca Valley produced good traction. Ogden usually pulled the front wheels for about 45 feet on launching. It would scrape the bottom of the pan under which Ogden sat, making for a momentarily warm seat for Pete. The dragster did one too many wheelstands, hurting it and sidelining them. "Pete Ogden’s driving was brilliant at full throttle wheelstand starts," Don Jensen said. "Pete told me he used the brake to limit the front [from going up] to about 3’ high, also he sat behind the rear-end so had a good view of smoke in the center of the slick to control it." Although Ogden was a superb driver, his driving did not equate to wins. "As good as Pete was, they were not winning regularly in Northern California," said Jensen.


They received an invitation to exhibit at a car show and run a race in Fort Worth. They arrived in Fort Worth on July 22. Palamides, Pete Ogden, and mechanic Milt Young were made honorary citizens of the city by the mayor. "Pete told me they were treated like royalty," said Don Jensen, "put up in a mansion for a week." Prior to the race, the car was put on exhibit at a car show in Fort Worth. The next day they towed their dragster to race at the Eagle Mountain National Guard Base. This newspaper photo shows the crew preparing the car for that race. On the left is Milt Young, Romeo in the center, and Pete Ogden leaning on the cockpit. With engine difficulties cropping up during time trials, Romeo decided not to cause any further damage, and pulled the dragster out of competition. Bobby Langley was one of the other dragsters at the meet, turning a record-breaking 162.16 mph.

This may be as good as any place in this story to try to tell about Romeo's involvement in the magnesium wheels business. Don Jensen said that Romeo's first idea about using mag wheels on a dragster was in 1956. Reportedly he bought some wheel molds from Rolla Vollstedt in Oregon. Jensen said that he made his first mag wheels in 1957, putting them on his "Romeo I" dragster.


Jensen said Romeo began making the wheels and that several cars were using them in 1958. "I think the rear was made first, later the spokes." This photo shows a Palamides front spoked wheel. Palamides's name is cast onto the sides of the outer spokes. He formed Palamides Racing Equipment when he started making his first four-slot mag wheels. His partners were Jim Ellison, who owned the machine shop where the wheels were machined, and Tom Griffith, an engineer who also worked on the wheels. Palamides wanted to race full time, so he sold out to his partners to get the money to do that. Don Jensen thought this sale happened in the latter part of 1958. "I do not know the date, but sometime at the end of ’58, very hush, hush," said Jensen. "Ellison, who was very smart, had put many tens of thousand into Palamides Racing and could see the increasing potential of American Racing Equipment that Dago would not be able to exploit! I believe Ellison dictated the terms. Dago got ownership of all cars and engines and lots of equipment plus a small cash-out, about $20,000 for American Racing. Ellison was done with Palamides Racing for good." Ellison and Griffith then changed the name to American Racing Equipment. From a pure business point of view, Romeo made a bad decision. But his heart was in racing and building race cars, not in making and marketing wheels and racing stuff. And when he started his jet car building business, he did alright.

Back in California, he got a new driver, Red Jones, to be the designated driver. Jones drove the dragster to top eliminator honors at Half Moon Bay on October 12 with a speed of 158.17 mph. The next week, Jones again took top eliminator honors at Kingdon.


It was about this time, prior to November, that the car was repainted, as seen above. In this photo, Romeo is kicking back, seated against his car, on the hard ground. Jensen interviewed Red in 1990. Jones showed him a photograph of the car racing against Art Chrisman at Riverside. The 396-cubic inch engine had eight carburetors and employed direct drive. "Red set the track ET record at 9.32," said Jensen. "Red drove it several times before Pete [Ogden] took over and said it ran a bit better with injectors. At that [Riverside] meet, the canopy latch broke off and ruined the windshield. Dago was pissed!! Red told him it was your bracket that broke." Understandably, Red was told to take a hike and Pete Ogden became the regular driver. Ogden finished out the season as the dragster's driver in the last two months of 1958.


The dragster was featured in a striking cover photo and four-page feature article in the December 1958 issue of Car Craft. Of course, the car had already been repainted prior to its publication.


1959: Bakersfield held its inaugural March Meet in 1959. The repainted "Romeo 2" was there--and that's about all that can be said for it. Drag News (3/7/59) tersely reported: "The strain on equipment continued as Garlits blew trying to fire his engine. Romeo Palamides followed suit, being eliminated before he even ran." At least they were in good company. In this photo taken at the Bakersfield race, Romeo and Pete Ogden are in deep discussion at the front of the car (between the smiling man wearing glasses and straw hat). Don Jensen said that for Bakersfield, he went "back to the front drive blower." Without the financial help of Ellison, Romeo was on his own. As such, '59 was a lean year. There were very few outings and precious little to show for it.


1960: At the beginning of the year, Romeo was inducted into the newly-created National Roadster Hall of Fame. In this newspaper photo, he is kneeling on the bottom row, far right. Others inducted with him in that first class include (top row, left to right): Evelyn Casaurang (for her deceased husband, Harold), Ezra M. Ehrhardt (State Highway patrolman), Wally Parks, George Barris, Joe Bailon (custom car builder); (bottom row): Walt Woron (editor of Motor Trend), Gordon Vann (sports car builder), and Romeo. Robert E. Petersen, head of the Petersen Publishing Company, was also inducted.


Palamides bought Jack Friedlands' dragster in the early '60s and did numerous modifications including this two-blower setup on the Chrysler powerplant. This was his fourth dragster, seen here at Redding Drag Strip in about 1961.


A dual supercharger drive assembly was produced in the Palamides Engineering shop in the middle of the year. It reportedly developed a fantastic thirty pounds of boost. In this photo, Romeo mounts one of the GMC 6-71 blowers on the side of the triangular aluminum intake manifold. The unit featured an integral 6-inch valve and was driven by a Gilmer V-belt and pulley assembly. A special low pressure injection system, utilizing a single pump, was used. Units for Chrysler engines were the first ones available and Romeo had plans to build assemblies for Chevy and Pontiac motors next. It never really caught on.

1961: Romeo campaigned an A/FD, called "The California Kid," that Archie Liederbrand initially drove in '61. It was a front-motored dragster with a GMC blown 392-inch Chrysler engine. Bob Smith took over the driving duties in mid-summer. Most of their racing was done at Vaca Valley Raceway, where they got the strip record with 183.50 mph. Bob Sbarbaro was signed to drive the dragster in October. They got as high as the number 8 spot on the Drag News Mr. Eliminator list. Sbarboro got it by beating Sammy Hale driving the Champion Speed Shop fuel dragster, 2-out-of-3 times, on December 10 at Half Moon Bay.


1962: This was the year that Romeo reinvented himself. He became a jet car builder. He was the kind of guy who, when he started a new endeavor, he went into it whole hog. He built two jet cars. At this point in his life, Romeo was 36 years old, married, with five children. He had started building this car in the latter part of 1961. In this newspaper photo, Romeo (left) and Jim Griswald (right) work on a behemoth F86-D Sabrejet plane engine, mounted on a 25-foot chassis. It was built for land speed record attempts. It was the first jet-engined car to go after the world record using an afterburner. Romeo believed in its potential. "We could, theoretically, hit the speed of sound on the ground," Romeo optimistically stated. Glenn Leasher was killed driving this car on September 10, 1962, at the Bonneville Salt Flats. Prior to that, this car was tested on drag strips. On the strip, it turned over 236 mph. It was called the "Infinity XUT-1." "We're going to bring the world's speed record to Oakland," Romeo vowed. Sadly, it didn't happen.

The second jet dragster that he finished building in 1962 was "The Untouchable." It first ran with a J-47-17D jet engine. It was specifically built for running on drag strips. Glenn Leasher and Bob Smith were the drivers.

He spent the remainder of his career designing and building race cars, specializing in jet engine race cars. He died in 1988 at age 62. He was inducted posthumously into the International Drag Racing Hall of Fame in 1999.

I began this biographical sketch with my introduction to the readers of Don Jensen, a drag race pioneer in his own right. It's only fitting to let Don Jensen have the final word in this story: "Romeo was not always well liked, but he was not afraid to try anything and do it beautifully, if not always right. I for one admired his drive and workmanship. He was one of a kind, an amazing character! R.I.P. 'Dago.'”

 

Max Balchowsky: Hollywood Hot Rodder


The snooty sports car journalists wrote about it with disdain. Junkyard Special. Backyard Bomb. Bucket of Bolts. World’s Ugliest Sports Car. Those were some of the names they called it. But name-calling aside, there is one fact they couldn’t dispute. This battered, dog-eared, mangy, crude-looking car, that builder/driver Max Balchowsky called “Old Yeller,” won sports car races. It beat the pants off the Ferraris, Maseratis, Aston Martins, Jaguars, Porsches, and other foreign imports. It also won its share of drag races. That’s because, at heart, Max was a hot rodder.


Born in Fairmont, West Virginia (self-described as “the pepperoni roll capital of the world”), he worked in watch repair and bike shops when he was a young lad.


This is his draft registration card that he filled out in 1942, prior to enlisting in the Army Air Force.


He served as a belly turret gunner on a B-24 bomber. Being vulnerable to enemy gunfire, it was one of the most dangerous assignments on the bomber crew. In his squadron, he was known as a guy who could fix anything. Max came home from the war, restless, with a little money in his pocket. He moved to Southern California. His brother, Casper, owned a garage and he worked there. In 1949, he married Ina Wilson. He was mechanically skilled, so he drifted toward working on cars. He discovered he had a real talent for building and racing cars.


He and Ina opened Hollywood Motors at 4905 Hollywood Blvd. in Hollywood. His wife, Ina, was an integral part of the business.


She not only kept the books and handled the business end of the shop, but she could weld, fabricate, and get her hands greasy, right alongside Max. Max called her his “carburetor guy.”


In 1952, Max started working on a ’32 Ford roadster owned by Fred Vogel. The two men got together in a symbiotic relationship of sorts. Fred engaged Max to prepare and maintain the hot rod with an eye to racing it. They both drove it in road races, like Torrey Pines and Pebble Beach.


Later, Max bought the roadster from Fred Vogel. When it was featured in the August 1953 issue of Honk! Magazine, it was powered by a ’38 LaSalle engine. This is one of the photos that appeared in that issue. Max and Ina stand on either side of the car, joined by their dog, Ted.


Max and Ina were childless, but Ted, in a quirky way, sort of became their canine “child.”


Max said, “We bought him at the pound in 1949. It was such a natural dog, never taught him anything. That dog could do anything. In fact, he could do everything but drive the car.”


When it appeared in the March 1954 issue of Rod and Custom, Max had replaced the LaSalle with a Buick Nailhead. Handling had been difficult with the heavy LaSalle, so he hoped to solve that problem with a lighter engine. It was his first foray into using a Buick engine. Max named it the “Bu-Ford Special.” It was the first hot rod that ran in the sports car races. It caused a certain amount of resentment among the sports car drivers. Evidently it didn’t look like one of sporty cars. It looked like, well, a hot rod. “Sports car racers felt that the hot rodders were greasy fingernails, backyard mechanics,” said Brock Yates, “and the hot rodders felt that these tea baggers were snobs and didn’t know how to do anything themselves, so they had to go out and spend their money to buy fancy cars. Max, of course, was in the middle of it because he had, what was, essentially a hot rod running in road racing.”


He later became the guy who could work magic with the Buick engine. In this photo, Ina is right in there with Max on the shop floor. They made the perfect team. “They made a fabulous team,” said Dan Gurney. “You could tell there was a great deal of love between the two of them.” Max had dabbled in a bit of street racing with his roadster, but he also did some drag racing at SoCal drag strips. He raced the roadster at Pomona on March 15, 1954, taking a trophy in the A/SR class with 105.52 mph. The next year, he won a trophy in the A/R class at Santa Ana on January 23, turning 102 mph. Those two successful outings whetted his appetite to return and do more drag racing as time permitted in the next few years.


His business, Hollywood Motors, catered to sports car enthusiasts who looked to upgrade the performance of their cars by ditching the smaller European motors for American V8s. Max began to specialize in making those engine swaps. Max liked to say, “We can swap anything into anything.” He also developed a yen to do a bit of racing himself. Southern California had turned into a hotbed of sports car racing. It attracted the Hollywood types. Guys like Lance Reventlow and movie star, James Dean. After the excitement of the war, racing seemed like a safer alternative. But he was not flush with cash like so many of the customers who patronized his shop.


He began with a wrecked car—Dick Morgensen’s Buick-powered special. It crashed at Torrey Pines in 1955, killing Margaret Pritchard. Max picked it up for a song. Using discarded car parts, he completely rebuilt the Morgensen Special. He cleverly cobbled together a hot rod sports car of sorts. And he didn’t confine himself to just using car parts. He might use a milk jug cap for a gas cap or a grocery cart for his grille. He painted it yellow. That was Ina’s favorite color and the name of a popular Disney movie that came out in 1957. The car became known as “Old Yeller.” Brock Yates said, “He did everything that sports car purists believed you didn’t do. This thing was very quick. He was just intrinsically a good mechanic. He and his wife. I mean, they raised hell with the best sports car racers in the country.”


People flocked to the races to see his “Old Yeller” car do so well against the expensive European cars. With Max’s innate mechanical knowhow and driving skill, cubic inches could often beat cubic money.


He was partners with Eric Hauser, a Hollywood stockbroker, in the “Old Yeller” car. Both shared driving duties. In this photo, Hauser and Ina share a moment of levity. Clowning for the camera, Hauser wears a football helmet while Ina sports a straw hat. Max hides from the camera behind the checkered flag. In 1959, Max and Hauser parted company.


After the split with Hauser, Max took the Buick engine and put it into his new car, “Old Yeller II.” He would build the car, with Ina’s help, drafting its frame in chalk on the shop floor. “I ran into him first, he had these old yellow cars that he built on his garage floor in Hollywood there,” said Carroll Shelby. He claimed to have spent only $1,456.72 (to the penny) to build this race winner.


It was this car, “Old Yeller II,” that turned the sports car racing world upside down. “The number two car was very easy to work on,” Max said. “A 12-year-old kid could work on it.”


Max did his share of driving—and winning with “Old Yeller II.” Carroll Shelby and Dan Gurney also drove the car in races. Early in his racing career, Gurney declared it “the best handling car I’ve ever driven.”


Max built and raced a series of “Old Yeller” cars until 1963, when he and Ina stopped and focused on their shop business. Max even took “Old Yeller II” to San Fernando Raceway for a bit of drag racing on November 29, 1959. He went home with all the laurels: top time, top eliminator, low ET, and a class win in modified sports. His times were 12.50 at 119.00 mph. That was the only time he stuck around for the whole race at San Fernando, but he would often go there just to test his car. He would do his testing, then leave before the racing started, so the other competitors could win the trophies.


Their racing had brought a measure of fame to the Balchowsky name. Their business thrived. People came through the garage doors with their cars to get tune ups, hop ups, and engine swaps. In early 1956, Dr. Y. L. Tiber brought in a ’56 Austin-Healey. Max put a Chevy V8 engine in it. Dr. Tiber took it to Santa Ana a couple of times to run at the drag strip. On April 15, he won the modified sports class with a speed of 103.09 mph.


One of the guys who wandered into Hollywood Motors in 1957 was Tommy Ivo. He had landed a bit part in the movie “Drag Strip Girl.” Even though he had acted a lot in movies and TV shows, he undoubtedly landed the part because he had a cool-looking ’23 Model T hot rod.


“During the filming, like between takes,” said Ivo, “they would leave the car idling for hours. They didn’t want to shut it off for fear it wouldn’t start again. I knew it would, but they were renting the car, and I knew better than to interfere. They just about wore it out between running the snot out of it and letting it idle. It was fit for a rebuild when they were through. A rebuild, which, by the way, they were more than willing to pay for.” He bought a slightly-used Buick engine from a friend’s father. Ivo confessed, “I didn’t know diddly squat about engines, but I knew a guy who did.” Max Balchowsky. “I took it over to Balchowsky’s shop. He taught me how to take it apart and put it back together again.” That’s how he got to know Max. After a long discussion about what was needed. Max suggested a welded stroker for a 322-inch engine. When completed, the engine measured 402 cubic inches. “He eventually became my guru,” Ivo said, “but there were strings attached. The price for his help was that I did all the porting and polishing on his cylinder heads.”


In 1957, Max gave the Balchowsky treatment to a British-built Swallow Doretti sports car. Max swapped out the motor and put in a Buick V8. Joseph Altzman joined with Max to race this car. When his scheduled allowed, Max went with Altzman to Sunday drag races all over Southern California in 1957-58, to help with driving and tuning. They raced the car at Santa Ana, San Gabriel Valley Drag Strip, San Fernando, and Lions. It was put into different classes at each track, ranging from A/MSP to A/SP, D/SP, E/SP, and F/SP classes. It won regularly in them all. It ran in the low 12s and over 118 mph. This photo appeared in Drag News (2/22/58), illustrating a race where Max won the A/SP class at Santa Ana on February 16. His winning speed was 115.38 mph. The caption under the photo said that his Doretti was “considered a wolf in sheep’s clothing by opponents.”


On September 28, 1958, San Gabriel Valley Drag Strip limited its racing program to just stock cars, unblown gassers, cycles, sports cars, and street roadsters. No blowers were allowed in any classes. The top five ETs ran for top eliminator. Max drove the Balchowsky-Altzman Doretti, winning the Modified Sports Car class with 12.70 at 115.50 mph. This put him in the top five for top eliminator, which he won handily.


Young Tommy Ivo is all smiles in his first dragster in this photo taken at San Fernando in 1958. It was a big step up from his hot rod T-bucket. He was racing the Buick-motored dragster at a 2-day meet on May 3-4, 1958, at San Gabriel Valley Drag Strip. The strip was celebrating its second-year anniversary. Lots of the top racers from SoCal were there. Ivo posted the top time for the Saturday race with 10.32 at 140.60 mph. He also had the top time for the 2-day anniversary meet with 10.09 at 147.05 mph. He also beat Art Chrisman for A/D class honors. Three days later, he was scheduled to leave for military service. Drag News (5/17/58) reported that Max Balchowsky would drive the dragster while Ivo was away. The article stated that Max was “one of the big reasons behind the fabulous success of the Ivo Buick.” It stated that Max would drive it the next week, but instead, Bob Zeller drove it.


Ina died after a long battle with cancer in 1986 at age 54. She was a partner to Max in every way and he dearly missed her.


Max died unexpectedly while visiting childhood friends back at his birthplace in West Virginia in 1998 at age 74.

 

he 'didn't get cheated' in life--he grabbed it all-great story!!

 

Great idea for a thread! I'll be back with some photos & history.

Bob

 

Fordors said: ↑

Jim Harrell later operated Harrell Engines and ran a ‘29 Roadster driven by Don Reynolds and sometimes Willy Borsch. The blown 354 hemi in the ‘29 eventually went into their muffler-moly framed ‘glass T and the rest is history.

1959-60 Lion's Dragstrip

Hello,

Before the era of the Altered/Modified Roadsters hit the dirt trail to oblivion, there were a lot of Hot Roadsters/Altered Roadsters/Modified Roadsters all over the USA. That class was a big draw at the drag strips. Out West, the Harrell Brothers had built one of the fastest full bodied Altered Roadsters.
1929 roadster 32 grille altered roadster 1959
I.D...The frequently posted, modified 29 roadster from Harrell Engines… So Cal

"By late 1956, Harrell Engines had completely rebuilt their '29 roadster and reentered competition with what the racing media called the Chrysler powered "Red Hot Roadster."

Here is the most popular photo that has circulated all over hot rod/drag race world.

Photo of “Harrell Engines, L.A.” in July 1960; from: 50 Years of Hot Rod
by the Editors of Hot Rod magazine, 1998, page 54.

We were fortunate to be able to see it in person in the Lion's Dragstrip Pits, fire up with our ears covered nearby, and see it run, blasting down the quarter mile in living color. What a sight and sound experience!!!
Staging area view...

Jnaki

During this early time period, the Harrell Brothers’ shop was in Los Angeles, today known as “South Central.” Nearby, Berardini Brothers’ shop, Howard’s Cam, and Joe Itow’s shop made up this portion of hot rod speed shops, all within a block or two of each other.

"JULY 1960 At the other end of the sport, where performance was everything and looks were secondary, H. L. [Jim] and N. J. [Nick] Harrell of Harrell Engines, Los Angeles, fielded this record-holding 1929 roadster. Driven by Don Reynolds or Willie Borsch,.., this roadster was strictly business. Eight Stromberg 48s sat atop a 4-71 GMC blower, which was Howard-chain driven from the 412-inch Chrysler’s crank. The car held numerous track records, and in the spring of 1960 set a new top speed of 144 miles per hour at LADS in Long Beach." (Hot Rod magazine Editors, 50 Years of Hot Rod, MBI Publishing, 1998, pages 54-55)

old Friday Art
"This is the Harrell Engines car with a hemi under the hood. The A started life as the Tony Berardini's flathead powered #7 (a sister car to the now restored #404 Berardini car) but after Bob Morgan totaled Harrell's 34 coupe around 1954 Jim (White) Harrell and brother Nick purchased the roadster and put their flathead in the car. In late 1955 they teamed up with Willie Borsch to run hemi power."

So, you could be watching the only recorded run(s) of the Harrell Brother’s record setting Red Roadster as it set the 1320 record…



Local Altered Coupes from So Cal in the staging lane next to the Harrell Brother's Roadster.

"This is the second roll bar configuration for the car with the first being the original Berardini version as run when the car still had the original paint. Later a brace was added to this single hoop so this photo most likely dates to around 1958/9 as the brace was in place in 1960 and the engine was running a 4-71 blower with a scoop off the cowl area prior to the team debuting the altered that later became the Winged Express."

Drag Cars in Motion:
Harrell Brothers & Willie Borsch before the T-roadster

 

In the spirit of this thread, I've tried to "put a face with a name" for the Harrell brothers. What did Jim and Nick look like? Before I get to photos of the two brothers, let me show a few pics of one of their early cars. Pretty interesting. Love seeing hot rods from the early 50s before things got more slicked up.


This photo of Nick and Jim's roadster was taken in 1950. The car ran Harrell heads and intake.


Nick (left) and Jim (right) take a break to admire their handiwork. Again, this is 1950.


I'm not sure why Jim went by that name (Jim) when his given name was Herman Leslie Harrell. Sometimes he went by H. L. But in 1942 when he signed his draft registration card, he signed his name Herman L. Harrell. He was the owner of Jim's Auto Parts. He lived his mother, Alice White, at this time. She was only fourteen years old when she married Jim and Nick's father. Jim was named after his father. Nick and Jim's father, Herman Leslie Harrell, died of tuberculosis in 1918, so their mother remarried, to John White. That is why she is listed as Mrs. Alice White on this form.


Jim is in line at a drag race with the Harrell-Borsch roadster.


Jim is relaxing at home in 1967 in this photo. He died at age 73 in 1976.


Although there are earlier photos of Nick, let's start with this draft registration that he filled out and signed in 1940. His given name was Nicholas Jordan Harrell. At this time, he was also living with his mother. On the back side of this form, it listed his weight as 120 pounds and height as 5'4". He had a tattoo on his right forearm.


One never knows where research will lead. Sometimes it leads to the proverbial skeleton in the closet. This article appeared in the Long Beach Sun (4/14/32). Nick was 24 years old when he got in some serious trouble. Why did he do it? This was 1932, the Depression. Could that have played a part? Did he hang out with the wrong kind of people? Don't know. The fact is, he was emboldened to hold up the Reliable Service Station on the corner of Long Beach Boulevard and Ohio Avenue in South Gate on March 20, 1932. Newspapers were calling Nick and his accomplice, 24-year-old Joe Smith, the "Truck Driver Bandits." Nick was living with his mother at the time he committed this robbery. Nick and Smith both confessed to holding up this and two other places in Los Angeles.


He was sentenced to San Quentin for a term of five years to life. Not the way for a young man to begin life.


This is the first photo I found of Nick, a mug shot from San Quentin's archives. He was still in prison when the 1940 census was taken. He was 32 years old in 1940. He was released prior to 1950 because he was living with his mother when the '50 census was taken. He was working as a mechanic in '50, probably with his brother.


Nick left prison and never went back. He made something of himself. He died in 1995 at age 87.

 

Thank you for this story, I had Gene and Larry handle my blower work in the 80's, and got to meet Al Sharp a couple years before he passed. Oh yeah, I saw the 554 run at Puyallup, Wa in 1963 as a 14 year old ! Al is on the left in this picture. He told me "this is a beautiful roadster Marty , but it could sure use a set of heads" ! I told him, it would have a set, and it does now !

 

Great to see that photo of Al beside your roadster. Thanks for sharing it, Marty! We just passed through North Plains a couple of days ago, returning to our home on the coast after going for a post-op appointment in Tualatin. My wife had knee replacement surgery about seven weeks ago in Beaverton. I always think about you when we pass through North Plains, but we are always in a rush to either get to some medical appointment or to return home on 26.

 

I met Ted Cyr at a CHRR, he had the "Lincoln" on display. My brother Jerry was stationed at Miramar Naval Base in the late 50's and Ted was his hero at the time. After a conversation between the two of the them it turned out Ted, had served there 7 years earlier. Jerry called up Ted to tell him about a car related reunion coming up at the base, and wanted to see if Ted was coming. Ted said laughingly " I don't think so, at my age, if something doesn't hurt, it itches" ! Great Man.

 

Thank you for your great work in putting this historical piece together, and you are welcome anytime !

 

I stumbled on this photo of Joe Hollish, the oft-times driver of the Hollish Brothers nifty coupe. The coupe seems almost quaint, so fifties. Love it. What's not to love?

 

In this 1956 photo, Carl is upright. He was six feet tall, but so thin, that he looks taller than his listed height.

 

Steve Gibbs took this photo of Jay's dragster at Bakersfield on the very day that Jay suffered a fatal crash into a steel drum filled with concrete at the end of the strip.

 

Fritz Voigt: A Mechanic’s Mechanic​

In the fledgling years of drag racing’s first decade, many people came to the forefront to help grow and develop the sport. Some are luminaries who enjoy the limelight in the winner’s circle. Others play key roles, but for one reason or another, end up on the sidelines, watching their opponents bask in the adulation and glory of winning big.


Fritz Voigt is probably one of those guys. As a driver, he came close to winning big time. But unfortunately, we remember the winners, but not the guys who came in second place. I can remember that Dwight D. Eisenhower was a U. S. president, but for the life of me, I can’t remember who ran against him and lost.


Red Auerbach was a Hall of Fame coach for the Boston Celtics pro basketball team. Auerbach famously enjoyed lighting a celebratory cigar on the bench when he felt a game was won, even before the final buzzer. On one occasion, with his team leading by three points and only seconds remaining, Auerbach decided to light his victory cigar and instructed his players not to foul.


For more than 30 years, I have collected autographs from sports luminaries on sports cartoons that I found in old newspapers. I either wrote to them or got their autographs in person. My wife called my hobby, “bothering the old men.” Many years ago, Auerbach signed this 1958 sports cartoon for me.


However, in the game where Coach Auerbach lit his cigar and told his players not to foul, Celtics player, Tom Heinsohn, attempted to block a shot, fouling the opponent and allowing them to tie the game with a free throw. Auerbach recalled, “The cigar's in my hand, no victory, but we won in overtime.” This near-miss victory, despite his signature victory cigar already being lit, perfectly illustrates the meaning of “close, but no cigar.” Heinsohn, a Hall of Fame basketball player, graciously signed this 1956 sports cartoon for me.


In 1955, Fritz Voigt was operating a car repair garage called Voigt Automotive in Maywood, California. He had established it several years before, but 1955 was a key year for him in the racing world. Because of Voigt’s dexterity with performance engines, his garage on Slauson Avenue attracted hot rodders and drag racers who wanted his help. They wanted him to sprinkle the magic Fritz pixie dust on their cars. Fritz was a superb mechanic. In fact, Frank Spittle, who used to race hairy top fuel bikes and is another person who is absorbed in drag racing’s early history, called Voigt “a mechanic’s mechanic.” He built or helped build cars for other people that won races. He also sponsored race cars. This photo shows Fritz in 1955, probably very early in the year, when he was just starting to get attention for winning.


In early 1955, if not before, he and Leland Kolb were partners with a dry lakes/salt flats ’32 roadster that also ran at SoCal drag strips. Kolb owned an auto parts store in Long Beach. Their Chrysler-engined roadster set a strip record at Pomona on January 23 with a speed of 118 mph. On February 20 at Santa Ana, they won the Open Gas O. H. class with a speed of 121.98 mph.


This may be a good place to explain what the Open Gas class constituted in 1955. It has a bearing in the story about Fritz, as it later unfolded, at NHRA’s first U.S. Nationals. NHRA’s rules for Open Gas (and that were in effect at SoCal strips like Pomona, Colton, and Paradise Mesa) stated that all cars in this class must run service station pump gasoline. The rules stated: “There shall be one class in this section, available to cars that will not fall into the requirements of any of the foregoing sections, i.e., Dragster, Modified Roadsters and Competition Coupes.” The numbering on the cars preceded the letter designation “OG.” The above photo shows the Voigt Automotive Special, with the proper class and number painted on the side, i.e., 121 OG.


From the beginning of the ’55 season, Fritz was a shoo-in to win the Open Gas class at the Southland’s drag strips. This photo shows him early in the season at Pomona, before he prettied it up with a dark blue paint job with white flames. That came later in the season. This might be the race at Pomona on February 13 when he broke his old record (118 mph) with a new strip record of 130.43 mph. It is more accurate to say that he obliterated his old record by a whopping twelve miles an hour!


He was taking class victories and setting strip records at Colton, Bakersfield, Saugus, and Santa Ana. In this photo, he’s making a night race run sans helmet. I like the look on his face. Sort of like he’s sitting in his Lazy-Boy, enjoying life. No pressure, no stress. I got this thing. Whereas his competitor is all stiff-armed and laser focused.


By at least March, Fritz got Glen Pingry, a 23-year-old Maywood racer, to drive his dragster. From the start, Glen did very well. This newspaper photo shows him making a record-setting run at Colton on March 13. It may have been Pingry’s first time driving for Fritz. He set a new strip record of 128.57 mph and took top eliminator. At a race at Pomona on April 10, he came out of the hole all squirrelly, close to spinning out and drifting. But he got the situation under control without mishap. It was impressive. The Drag News (4/15/55) reporter wrote, “When driver Pingry, punches that Chrysler, things happen—and fast.”


This newspaper photo shows Pingry, smiling for the camera in the cockpit seat of Voigt’s dragster at Colton. On July 17, he was racing at Pomona and reportedly had bought the dragster from Voigt. The Drag News (7/22/55) reporter stated that Pingry was now the driver and the owner of the big Chrysler rail. A week later, he made back-to-back runs at Saugus and Santa Ana but broke the transmission at the latter strip. For two months, everything goes quiet. There isn’t a peep in the newspapers about Pingry or the big Chrysler rail. Not until September 25 do we hear anything about the big gas Chrysler rail. It was at Santa Ana. It was once again being called the Voigt Automotive Special and Fritz was doing the driving. Pingry was nowhere in sight. What happened? Don’t know. I can speculate but won’t at this point because I just don’t know. With Fritz back in the driver’s seat, he took it to a convincing top eliminator victory with 137.52 mph.


The first NHRA U.S. Nationals were held in Great Bend, Kansas, in 1955. This is a page from the entry list. Fritz is number 80—and eventual winner, Cal Rice, is number 79. Everything had been going well for Fritz as the meet unfolded. He won the A/OG class with 131.57, which was the top time for gas cars and a new strip record. But then Mother Nature took over. It began raining, buckets of rain. The final runoffs in the dragster class and the competition for top eliminator had to be cancelled. NHRA officials decided to finish those events at the Arizona State Championships and Southwest Regional Championships which were to be held at Perryville on November 19-20. Six dragsters were still in the running—three from Texas and three from California. Fritz wouldn’t compete in the dragster eliminations, but he still had a chance to be the national champion. The way it worked was, after the dragster class eliminations determined its class winner, that car would automatically be in the top eliminator finals. His opponent would be determined in a jackpot, winner-take-all race between the cars that had won the Open Gas class and the A Competition Coupe class back at Great Bend.


Fritz had been the winner of the Open Gas class and Jim “Jazzy” Nelson had won the Competition Coupe class with his Fiat. This photo shows Jazzy on the starting pad at Great Bend, before the skies opened and washed out the finish of the race in Kansas. As things worked out in Arizona six weeks later, Cal Rice successfully advanced through four rounds to win the dragster class. He patiently waited to see who his opponent would be. Would it be Fritz Voigt or Jazzy Nelson? As both cars staged, Fritz in the right lane and Jazzy in the left, starter Paul Wallace leaped high in the air to set them off. Drag News (11/25/55) reported that “the start was one of the best of the meet with both vehicles leaving as one.” However, Fritz pulled ahead toward the finish and won with 10.92 at 131.57 mph.


With his win over Jazzy Nelson, Fritz qualified to be Cal Rice’s opponent in the winner-take-all Mr. Eliminator finals. Whoever won would be remembered as the very first Top Eliminator winner at the NHRA’s very first U.S. Nationals event. Whoever was runner-up would be relegated to the place where all second-place finishers end up—forever forgotten. For the second-place guy, he would have come close but gotten no cigar. I’ve taken a long time to get to this place in the story, but we are finally here. The above photo shows Fritz (left) and Cal Rice (right) moving up to the line at Perryville for their standoff. One run would determine who would be Mr. Eliminator for 1955. It was not 2-out-of-3. It would be one run, winner takes all. Only as it unfolded, it took four runs to decide the outcome. In those early days, a red flag start was not cause for disqualification. They simply reran them. Huh? Strange, but true. Anyway, according to the report in Drag News, the first start brought up a red flag. The two cars returned for a restart—start number two. Unfortunately, Cal Rice blew his transmission right on the starting line. In a display of good sportsmanship, Fritz told Rice that he could have thirty minutes to get it fixed. Rice and his pit crew finished the repair, pulling back up to the line in 32 minutes. Now we are at start number three. It was a red flag start. So, both cars returned to the line for the fourth start. Fritz left the line first in a good start (finally)—and we had us a race (finally). However, Cal Rice pulled ahead and beat Fritz to the end. Cal Rice became Mr. Eliminator and Fritz ended up on the second-place finisher heap. Cal Rice would get all the attention, acclaim, trophies, merchandise, and cash that came with winning. He would also get inducted into the International Drag Racing Hall of Fame in its first induction class in 1991. Fritz would get none of that until finally, well-deserved recognition came much later after Cal Rice. In 2009, Fritz Voigt was inducted into the International Drag Racing Hall of Fame in its nineteenth class. “Feeling that he was treated unfairly,” Don Prieto wrote, “Fritz Voigt never raced at an NHRA event again.”


Fritz wasn’t really one to dwell on sour grapes. He wouldn’t let his 1955 Nationals loss keeping him out of drag racing and motor sports. But we need to back up and fill in some of his history before 1955. He was born in Los Angeles in 1924. He was given the name Frederic but shared the same nickname as his father—Fritz. His parents had both immigrated from Germany but became naturalized U.S. citizens. This is the naturalization papers of his mother.


In 1942, Fritz registered for the draft. He was eighteen years old. A year later, he joined the Army. He got married in 1944.


Notice that he listed Lou Meyer as his employer on his 1942 draft registration. Lou Meyer was a three-time winner of the Indianapolis 500. He won that race in 1928, 1933, and 1936. I had Lou sign three newspaper sports cartoons for me thirty-five years ago when he was living in Searchlight, Nevada. This cartoon dates from 1936. As my wife would say, I was bothering the old men again.


In 1950, the U.S. census shows Fritz living with his wife, Eileen, and two children behind his automotive shop at 4917 Slauson Avenue.


In 1953, he started racing and infrequently winning with a street roadster at Pomona. He also started building and racing a rail job, seen in this photo. This is framework for the car that he raced so successfully in 1955.


By my count, he got four top eliminator victories in 1956 with his dragster. He mostly ran at Lions, with a couple of appearances at Colton, Pomona, and San Gabriel Valley Drag Strip. This grainy newspaper photo shows him in a staged press photo to help publicize a big race at Lions in April. In 1956, he got the top speed of the meet trophy seven times. His fastest speed that year was 148.62 mph. He set new strip records on three occasions, including an ET record time of 10.12 at San Gabriel Valley on May 6.

By 1957, he had moved his family to a rambler house in South Gate (on 6204 Casitas, still there today). He resumed his winning ways, primarily at Lions. He continued to notch top eliminator and top speed trophies like he had done the year before. On March 31 at Lions, he had one of his top eliminator wins. For most of his races that year, he had been classified in the B/D class. At that March 31 race, Don Rowe registered a protest against Fritz. He thought Fritz might have been using something other than pump gas. Fritz said, if they found out he was legal, then Rowe would owe him money to refill his tank. When they tested Fritz’s fuel, it showed that Fritz was not cheating. It was plain old pump gas. So, Rowe paid Fritz 72 cents for a new tank of gas. He then got to watch Fritz set a new world record for a single engine car on the new tank of gas that he had just bought to refill Fritz’s dragster. Fritz’s 139.96 mph clocking was the fastest speed ever recorded for a B dragster. That’s showing ‘em, Fritz. Fritz didn’t need to cheat to win. He just built winning race cars.


I’m not sure how much involvement Fritz had in a killer A/MR owned/driven by Leland Kolb in 1958. Maybe he only sponsored it as Fritz was very busy with other matters in ’58 that will be discussed later. Kolb’s “Whiz Bang Special” was unbeatable when he could keep his engine in one piece. This photo was taken at the ’58 Nationals in Oklahoma City, which he lost with a blown piston. Kolb is on the left rear, wearing a white t-shirt and grabbing onto the rollbar to pull the roadster back. On the right is Glen Pingry, who drove for Fritz back in 1955. According to the sign painted on the car cowl, Pingry built the chassis. Notice that Pingry is missing his left arm.


I wrote earlier that I didn’t know, and wouldn’t speculate, why Glen Pingry bought Fritz’s dragster in 1955, raced it a couple of times—and then nothing. I wondered what happened to Pingry. Two months later in late September, Fritz was back in the driver’s seat of his old dragster. Although I have nothing to confirm it, I believe that Pingry was at the Bonneville Salt Flats. He was driving the LaBlanc’s “Bardahl Streamliner,” which was at the Salt Flats in ’55. Pingry had been running his own roadster on the salt, but he badly wanted to get into the 200 MPH Club. Pingry was a friend of the owner and begged to make a run. Permission was granted. He was going about 200 mph when the streamliner blew a tire and flipped. The car came apart with Glen strapped in his bucket seat. He lost his left arm. He was never the same after that crash. And here I’m going to really go out on a limb. Leland Kolb and Fritz had been partners in early ’55 with a hot roadster. I can see Fritz going to his old partner, Leland, and asking him if he couldn’t involve Pingry in helping build the chassis on his modified roadster. Give him something to do so he didn’t self-destruct. But after this, things went south for Pingry. In 1966, he was arrested on a charge of drug possession in Alta Loma. He had outstanding warrants and was driving a stolen car. He had been sought since 1965 with outstanding warrants for probation violation. He was associated with the Hell’s Angels. He died in 1995. What a sad story.


During the time that Fritz was winning week after week at Lions in 1958, Mickey Thompson was paying close attention. MT had big ideas. He thought that Fritz might be just the guy to help him pull them off. He wanted to build a twin-engine car to drag race. He asked Fritz to help him. MT told his wife, Judy, that he would just take his time building it. He said that he would take maybe three or four months to build it. “Then he got started on it,” said Judy. “He worked day and night, got almost no sleep and had it finished in two weeks.” MT and Fritz burned the midnight oil on the dragster. The car was powered by two 392-inch Chrysler Hemis. The front Hemi was placed backward powering the front axle, while the rear 392 was in the normal position, powering the rear axle. After it was built, they did extensive tests with it, minus the body, at Lions. They were disappointed as it only hit high 9s and 149.50 mph. Other slingshot dragsters during this period were clocking in the mid-9s. Fritz and Mickey were towing it across country to run at the 1958 U.S. Nationals in Oklahoma City when they made an impromptu stop at Bonneville during Speed Week. MT turned 242 mph on the salt on his first off-the-trailer run. They had something going with this car—and it wasn’t in the drag racing realm. They stayed for the week on the salt and MT turned 294.117 mph. He couldn’t back it up as he broke a connecting rod during the attempt. But wow!


MT and Fritz learned some lessons from this two-engined dragster that they employed in the four-engine “Challenger I” Bonneville car in 1959. Once again, MT turned to Fritz for helping turn his dream, to become the fastest man on earth, into reality. Fritz was his right-hand man. If anyone could coax a car to set a world record, it would be Fritz. MT thought, if two engines did so well on the salt in 1958, maybe four engines would be just the ticket to take him to the twilight zone in 1959. He asked Chrysler if they wouldn’t give him four engines. They turned him down. So, he turned to Pontiac—and was rewarded. “They sent us four stock [389] test engines,” said Fritz. “They weren’t even new. Pontiac freighted them to Mickey’s house in El Monte. We had a helluva time unloading them because we didn’t have a forklift or anything like that.” They put the four engines, resting on 2x4 and 4x4 blocks, inside MT’s backyard garage. MT and Fritz drew chalk lines around the engines outlining how the motors would sit inside the streamliner. Just like they did the year before with the two-engine dragster, they had the front engines facing backwards, driving the front wheels, while the rear engines handled the rear wheels. When the car was finished, they towed it to the Bonneville Salt Flats, hoping to break the land speed record of 394.19 mph set by John Cobb clear back in 1947. It didn’t come close. “We had run 362 with no problem,” said Fritz. “We had a little trouble with this and a little trouble with that.” So, they left Utah, knowing that they needed to correct a few problems, but more importantly, they knew they needed to find about 400 more horsepower in the four Pontiac engines to beat Cobb’s record. The answer seemed obvious—superchargers. So, that’s what they did—they put GMC 6-71 superchargers on the four Pontiac engines.


Mickey made two attempts on the salt in 1959. In August, he set a new American land speed record with 330.5125 mph. In October, he set a new American land speed record with 363.67 and four international speed marks. During a mid-afternoon run on Tuesday, October 6, MT passed out when he was overcome by exhaust fumes in the cockpit. Fritz told about the near disaster in a YouTube video. After this close call, they called their time on the salt over for 1959. But MT wanted the grand prize. He was close. He could taste it. He would come back in 1960 to try to break Cobb’s record.


He returned to Bonneville in late August with a new look—a new streamlined body. This photo shows Mickey (middle) and Fritz (right) prior to Mickey becoming the first man to go over 400 mph. On September 8, 1960, Mickey did it. He set a new world land speed record of 406.60 mph. Jubilation. Triumph. Mickey was the man—and Fritz was the right-hand man.


Fritz continued working closely with MT on other projects. In 1961, MT and Fritz collaborated on a Pontiac Tempest four-cylinder dragster. It clocked some phenomenal times with an ET of 9.94 and 158 mph. In a bit of creative engineering, they had cut a Pontiac V-8 engine in half, effectively turning it into a four-cylinder engine. They mounted the blower on the side, giving Mickey a clear view down the track without any obstructions. In this photo, Fritz checks the mains while MT steadies the motor.


In 1962, Mickey won top eliminator honors at the U.S. Nationals, with Jack Chrisman doing the driving. This photo shows Mickey and crew at the trophy presentation. Fritz, of course, is by MT’s side, because Mickey recognized how much Fritz meant to his successes. When Mickey started a project, he needed Fritz to work on it. There are starters and there are finishers. Fritz was Mickey’s finisher. He was Mickey’s right-hand man. Fritz built the 421 Hemi head Pontiac engine in this dragster.


This is a great photo of Fritz, at home in his shop. It could be said, that his shop was where he felt most at home.


This photo shows Fritz (left) and Ed Iskenderian (right), two drag racing pioneers in the twilight of their lives. Fritz Voigt died in 2014 at age 90. Isky lived to be 104 years old.

 

boy am i ever enjoying the fruits of your 'bothering' and storytelling!

 

They are fun to write. I've got it down to kind of a formula now. I can probably produce about one a week. Takes a bit of research, but being an old geezer, I do have time. Thanks for your kind response to my storytelling. It's nice to hear from readers. Keeps me energized to continue.

 

Sam Matsuda: Santa Ana Drags Trophy Winner, 1951-54​

Sam Matsuda is all smiles, standing next to his ’47 Chevy coupe. The photo was taken in about 1952. Ten drag racing trophies are lined up on his hood. He won these trophies at Santa Ana Drag Strip. He won six of the trophies in 1951, when he first started racing there. He was a winner in the Heavy Coupe class. Everything on the car looks pretty stock, except for the removal of a couple of pieces of chrome trim from the hood. The changes that he made must be under the hood. But it is evident that he is one happy guy. He’s proud of his accomplishments. And rightly so, since a couple of the others who raced in that class at Santa Ana during the time when Sam was competing included Ed Pink, Don Montgomery, Fritz Voigt, Art Chrisman, Harold Dawson, Frank McGurk, Lou Sakata, Jarvis Earl, and Don Bishop. It was evidently a competitive class. To win in it, took some doing. Some know-how. To have one’s name mentioned in the same breath as some of those drag racing luminaries was quite an honor. This is especially so given the path that Sam had to take to get to this point in his life.



Born in Los Angeles in 1926, his given birth name was Satoshi. He didn’t start going by the name, Sam, until later in his teens. His parents were immigrants from Japan and Sam grew up speaking both Japanese and English. He was raised in the Buddhist faith. Before 1930, they moved to Encinitas, a small coastal city 25 miles north of San Diego. His parents were farm workers. Sam attended the Central Grammar School in Encinitas and in the 6th grade, was one of only two children in his class who were perfect spellers. Sam grew up with a leg in both the Japanese and American cultures. Sam was fourteen years old at the time of the 1940 census. He had two brothers, one older and one younger.


In January 1940, Sam and his older brother were injured when they were hit by a car near their home in Encinitas. Their father wanted to bring a lawsuit against the driver on behalf of his sons, but they hit a snag. U.S. law prohibited Japanese immigrants from becoming naturalized citizens, making them dependent on their children whenever they rented or purchased property. On the 1940 U.S. Census, Sam’s parents were designated as aliens. U.S. law was unclear as to whether Japanese immigrants, like Sam’s father, could have recourse in the courts for his lawsuit. The Fourth District Court of Appeal finally reached a decision in the matter in June 1942 in favor of the Matsuda’s. Sam and his brother were each awarded $2500 and $800 was awarded to their father.


The day after Japan bombed Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, America entered the war. Overnight, Japan became the enemy. Even though they were Americans, Japanese people living on the West Coast looked like the enemy. Three months after the U.S. entered the war, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066. There was a general feeling that Japanese Americans, especially those living on the West Coast, posed a security risk to the country. This 1942 editorial propaganda cartoon, drawn by the celebrated children’s book author Dr. Seuss, illustrates the climate of suspicion and public feeling throughout the country. In the cartoon, thousands of Japanese people living in states on the West Coast are picking up packages of TNT explosives. The man on the roof is looking through a telescope at far off Japan, waiting for a signal for their countrymen living in the U.S. to help wage war on American soil. Speaking Japanese and nurturing ties with family still in Japan, their loyalty to their country of residence was suspect in the minds of many. That was the rationale behind the issuance of the executive order and the actions taken to forcibly relocate and incarcerate about 120,000 people of Japanese descent into ten concentration camps. The Matsuda family were uprooted and taken from their home in Encinitas to one of those camps, located in southwestern Arizona.


In terms of area, Poston internment camp was the largest of the ten concentration camps. It housed seventeen thousand Japanese Americans in barracks constructed by Del Webb, the builder who later built the Sun City retirement community. But Poston in no way resembled a retirement community. At the peak of its population, Poston was Arizona’s third largest city.


The remote desert location was home to snakes and scorpions. Hot and cold temperatures were extreme in summer and winter. Drawings and paintings of the camp, like this painting by internee Tom Tanaka, depict the bleakness of the place. They were surrounded by barbed wire fencing, lit up at night by floodlights, and guarded by machine gun nests. In effect, it was their prison home for the duration of the war.


In 1944, Sam registered for the draft. That is almost laughable, given that he was put in prison in 1942 by a country that two years later required him to register for possible military service. The irony is inescapable. When he went to Poston, he had completed three years of high school. His Poston address, Block 44-7-A, was befitting for being housed in a concentration camp.


The Matsuda family was even given a number—10038. This accountability roster lists important dates and facts of their Poston internment. Sam (#31) was first processed in El Centro, California, in May 1942, before being forcibly taken to Poston. His younger 12-year-old brother, Tsutomu, died of tuberculosis in the Poston General Hospital, two and a half months after the family arrived in Poston. Sam left Poston thirteen months before the rest of his family left the Arizona desert camp to go back to California. Sam left earlier than they did, to go to Chicago. I don’t know why he was permitted to go earlier than the rest of his family. It was five and a half months after he had registered for the draft. Was there a connection? I don’t know. His older brother had registered for the draft two years prior to Sam. They both had registered for the draft when they turned eighteen years old. There is a gap of time when I don’t know what Sam was doing, not until 1949, when he got married. That occurred back in Los Angeles. His wife, Masako, had gone to a different concentration camp in Arizona—Jerome.


As mentioned before, Sam began drag racing at Santa Ana in 1951. He won over twenty trophies between 1951 and 1954. On July 19, 1953, he set a new strip record in the Heavy Coupe class with 109.89 mph. His fastest speed was 110.50 mph which he turned on September 6, 1953. He won eleven trophies in 1953, the most he won in a single year. He only won three times in 1954, his last year of drag racing.


In 1952, he placed third in the B Fendered Coupe class at Bonneville Speed Week with a speed of 121.04 mph.


He started working for Frank McGurk in Inglewood prior to 1955.


The May 1955 issue of Hot Rod Magazine had a feature technical article entitled “Soup That Chev!” The article focused on some engine work and testing performed at Frank McGurk’s shop. There were two photos of Sam in the article. In this photo, he is dropping a 261-inch Chevy into a Corvette.


In this photo, Sam is using an electric grinder on the ports and combustion chambers of a Chevy engine before seating the valves.


Sam is just one of over fifty men who drag raced during the 1950s who were born in the U.S. whose parents were immigrants from Japan. His story is representative of probably all of them as most were forcibly relocated to internment camps during the war. I chose to tell his story at random. He was neither the most accomplished, nor was he the least. I look forward to telling the stories of other notable Nisei. These may include men such as Larry Shinoda, Jim Agawa, Paul Ohno, Henry Tsukashima, Yeiji Toyota, Ken Hirata, Ben Noguchi, and others. Sam died in 1969. He was only 43 years old.

 

Jack Morgan and His Ravishingly Beautiful ’34 Ford Roadster(s)
​

I stumbled on this photo of Jack Morgan’s hot rod roadster in the July 9, 1950, issue of the Santa Ana Register newspaper while researching the early history of Santa Ana Drag Strip. The article was entitled “Speedburners ‘Take Over’ Airport for Their Safety—and Yours.” The headline of the caption under the photo of Jack’s car aptly entitled it “Hot Stuff.” The look of the car grabbed me, plus it also had a photo of the owner. And that’s what this thread is about—putting a face with a name. What also grabbed my attention is that this article was discussing the second-ever drag race that was taking place at Santa Ana that very day—July 9, 1950. That caught my attention quick. The newspaper article talked about two cars that were going to be there—Morgan’s roadster and Calvin Rice’s ’32 coupe. Rice had won the previous week’s stock coupe class. C. J. Hart said there was a rivalry between Morgan and Rice that might be played out on the drag strip that day. Although they were in different classes, Hart didn’t rule out a challenge (or grudge) race between the two drivers. The article mentioned that Morgan, from Santa Ana, would be racing on his 25th birthday. That drew me in too—I now had a birthday—and just might be able to find more about this guy, Jack Morgan. Unfortunately, I didn’t find out very much about Morgan, but I did find more photos of Jack and his race cars.

Before I go further, I’ll quote the description given of the car given in this Register article. It stated that the car resembled “clam chowder,” taking a few ingredients from here and there to make one delicious concoction. “Starting with a 1934 Ford, Morgan has added here and taken off there to come up with a classy entry resembling an Indianapolis Motor Speedway special in miniature. To start with, he put under the hood a ’46 Mercury motor, bored to 187/1000ths oversize. Featured are a 10-pound aluminum flywheel (the usual weight is 50-60 pounds), Lincoln Zephyr transmission gears (he’s done 65 in low, 100 in second and 124 in high at El Mirage), lightweight pistons, and a converted Zephyr distributor (Morgan claims it gives twice as much spark). Morgan, who celebrates his 25th birthday today, admits the ’34 Ford body weight of 2400 pounds is a rarity compared to the 1200-1400 pound weight of the ’27 Model T Ford body, usually used for cut-down racers. But he’ll settle for the more spacious quarters of the ’34. The body has been channeled three inches, and with four-inch tubing for dual exhausts (the usual size is two-inch), Morgan claims additional speed of three to four miles per hour. The gear ratio is 3½ to one and alcohol replaces gasoline for faster acceleration.”


In some ways, this car resembles the photo of Morgan’s yellow car that appeared on the cover of the April 1951 Hot Rod Magazine. Morgan seems to have been one of those itchy hot rodders, never satisfied, always tinkering. But the ’34 roadster was always the raw canvas on which he created the next great masterpiece. He either owned several ’34 roadsters or he kept making “clam chowder” with a couple of them. Let me point out the obvious differences between the Hot Rod cover roadster and the car photographed in the Santa Ana Register. Paint jobs are different. Upholstery is different. Radiator cap, louvers on hood, headlights or lack thereof—those are different. But the chrome exhaust pipe and wheels look alike. By the way, this Hot Rod cover is the very first color cover that Hot Rod published. The blue ’29 Ford Model A next to Jack’s roadster was owned by Skip Hudson.


Interestingly, Pat Ganahl thought this photo of the #549 roadster was Skip Hudson’s car at Bonneville in ‘51. He also thought that might be Hudson’s buddy, Dan Gurney, at the wheel.


Jack Morgan was a member of the Clutchers, a car club in Santa Ana. That club was associated with the SCTA. Morgan and other Clutchers, like Alan Crain, raced at El Mirage.


Research is time consuming, takes a bit of digging, but sometimes you strike gold. I stumbled on this photo of Jack Morgan at the dry lakes in the March 1948 issue of Hot Rod. He has his goggles on and has already made a run, given that the car is pretty dusted up.


This is Jack’s first ’34 Ford, in race trim, i.e., he removed the windshield. It’s the same car that was in the March 1948 issue of Hot Rod. However, the car lacks the patina of dust evident in the Hot Rod photo, showing that he has yet to make a run. Heck, Jack wanted the car to look good for this photo shoot before making a run. And Jack is looking pretty stylish in his classy roadster.


Now Jack is getting down to business. The photo shoot has finished. It’s time to make a run. Notice that the fellow in the straw hat behind the car is still more interested in reading his magazine than looking at Jack prepping his car to race.


The ’41 Ford flathead engine in the roadster was equipped with Meyer heads, Navarro manifold, Harman & Collins cam, and Arnett ignition.


The car sported a set of ’41 Chevy taillights and an antenna on the cowl.


This photo shows him at El Mirage in 1947. He turned 117.58 mph. He had one of the few stripped ’34 roadsters at the lakes. He had yet to add the chromed tracker nerf bars in front of his ’37 Ford truck grill that he had in ’48. I’m going out on a limb here, I’m not going to say that he was first, but Jack was certainly one of the earliest hot rodders to use that truck grill on a rod.


Jack’s chromed nerf bars show up nicely in this photo taken at a car show. Notice the “J” centered in the nerf bar. A nice touch, Jack. The car has also been turned into more of a show car than a go car. Very nice two-tone paint job, bunch of chrome, and classy headlights. The roadster now was powered by a ’46 Mercury flathead, equipped with Smith & Jones heads, Cyclone three-carb manifold, Potvin cam and ignition, Weber flywheel, and Auburn clutch. The car was also modified with hydraulic brakes. The chromed front axle was dropped and filled. Jack has dumped a chunk of change into this car.


The photo above may have been taken at the hot rod show at the Fullerton Community Fair. There were 55 hot rods and custom cars on display at the 5-day fair in 1951. Jack took 2nd place in the “beauty” category for his ’34 Ford.

Jack’s car overshadowed Jack. I wasn’t able to find much about Jack, but I did find quite a bit about his ravishing ’34 roadster (or roadsters as the case may be). It sure would be great if we could uncover more about Jack Morgan. Just saying.


P.S.: I’m not going to close this story without sharing who I think Jack Morgan might be, but this is merely a possibility—a big maybe. Jack is a common nickname for John. Given that, I began looking for a John Morgan, living in Santa Ana who might fit the bill for Jack Morgan. In 1946, a John David Morgan (hereafter abbreviated JDM), living in Santa Ana, registered for the draft. He was born on July 8, 1925. That’s pretty darn close to July 9, 1925, the date given in the article in the Santa Ana Register for Jack’s birthday and the second-ever race at Santa Ana. Often when doing genealogical research, you don’t get fussy when a day (or even a year) is out of kilter. You look to see if there are other connections. The back of the draft registration said that JDM was 5’9½ and weighed 135 pounds. He had a tattoo on his left arm. JDM had been born in Provo, Utah. OK, that’s almost 800 miles from Santa Ana. What’s the story about that? Well, JDM’s father died in 1946. His obituary said that they left Provo in 1927 to move to Santa Ana, where he had accepted a position with the Automobile Club of Southern California. In the 1930 and 1940 U.S. censuses, JDM is living with his parents in Santa Ana.


This article in the Santa Ana Register (7/24/41) mentions that JDM’s mother and sister were going to Provo to spend a month with her parents. It mentions that they will be reunited with “Jack,” their son and brother. So, in his family, JDM’s nickname is Jack. That’s possibly a connection with our Jack Morgan, the hot rodder.


The Santa Ana Register (12/30/42) said that JDM enlisted in the Navy. There is a resemblance in the photo to Jack Morgan, the hot rodder. The article said that he had been living with his grandparents at their home in Santa Ana. He spent the previous summer living in Provo with them. When his family moved to Pomona, Jack lived with his grandparents so that he could finish high school in Santa Ana. Could he also have been a little bit of a wild teenage hellion? Did his parents think that living with grandma and grandpa might help take some of the starch out of their son, Jack? Granted, that’s a bunch of supposing.

Back in Santa Ana, JDM had to pay $15 to the City Judge for a speeding ticket in August 1947. In October 1947, he had to cough up another $15 for speeding. So JDM liked to go fast. That’s a connection of sorts, albeit not definitive.


The 1949 Santa Ana city directory shows that JDM is a salesman with Santa Ana Motor Parts & Machine Works. He’s living with his grandmother, Marian Morgan, in a house on Birch Street. In the 1950 U.S. Census, he’s still living with his grandmother and still working as a salesman at the same business. So here is another connection of sorts—JDM (or Jack) is associated with an automobile business. I found just one more reference to JDM. A boy is born to Mr. and Mrs. John David Morgan at the Santa Ana Community Hospital on May 7, 1957. And that is where the trail dries up.

Do I think John David Morgan is the hot rodder, Jack Morgan? Maybe. There are a couple of good connections to make me think so, but not enough that I would bet my life on it.