Died 6/3/59 at age 23. May have been shortly after this photo. I see a (58?) Edsel grille in the background. Since he was a salt flats driver, could this have been a land speed chassis minus a belly tank body? Wonder what track this is at? Can anyone make out the partial writing on the back of the official's shirt? Jeez, what a ride!
I'm at a bit of a loss here. It was in the 50s. How many Bonneville attempts were made in a similar if not the same configuration with a skin over it? Hundreds I'm sure, yet this pic/car is somehow pulling the "pussy" out of some of the replies. Have airbags and seatbelts and back up alarms really screwed some of you up that bad? Most of em were stick welded. Wild Willie and crew used muffler tubing. Craig Breedlove almost drowned. COURAGE AND DEDICATION are what I see. Dumb? Stupid? No way. It's what they did back then, just like building a wooden skeleton and skinning it with sheet metal, BY THE THOUSANDS, and selling that to the public. On the other hand, I'm impressed that this single image evoked such an entry to TJJ by our, umm, "fearless leader". Just sayin...
The first thing I saw when I saw the pick is that there must have been a heated argument going on. Look at all the guys standing back and listening intently. Something was happening. The guy in the car is noncommittal, sort of like he's waiting for -Them- to figure it out. Yeap I agree, there is defiantly some official business happening all the while, no one makes a move pending the outcome of the officials. Irregardless, the car looks totally bitchin and downright scary which makes it all the more intriguing. I like it, it looks like a bear to drive. A bear that needs a patient hand. .
I thought the "Hemi Go-Cart too! but you have to remember the racers back then were cut from a different cloth and were of a generation that survived World War II and the Korean War and knew fear and faced it,the thrill of speed and the rush was therapy to them they did not have insurance companies dictating track rules to them they took the risks and faced them too.That was an era when racing attire was jeans and a T-shirt and a helmet and less roll cage equaled less weight to run faster.
A hysterical history of auto racing, Day one.. man invents self propelled carriage (car) Day two.. man races car against horse & carriage Day three.. we now have two cars and they race Day four.. a tire departs its demountable rim. Bare rim digs in the dirt, tosses driver in the pucker bushes. He gets up and says... "WTF, I didn't think that could happen." Day five.. defective wheel and tire replaced. Racing continues. A flying stone chips driver's tooth and another gives him a black eye. Day six.. another wheel comes apart, but this time the car flips and the driver breaks his arm landing on a fence. Tows car home and goes to see the doctor / dentist. Day seven.. rest and think. Day eight.. replace all wheels and tires. Tear down fence. Gets a buddy to drive the car until his arm heals. Etc, etc, and flash forward a 100+ years Things like roll bars, seat belts, safety rims, disc brakes, shock absorbers, fenders, bumpers, etc keep being invented because some guy just crashed and everyone says, "WTF, I didn't think that could happen." This has nothing to do with the size of your balls. Gary
It must be me but what I see in that photo is ingenuity and a man that's not afraid to put that ingenuity into action. I was very sorry to read of his death. But if the throttle hadn't stuck drag racing might have gone a different direction.
Read between the lines of my article and the point isn't much different than yours... You just have to use that mellon of yours.
Exactly. You were not really in the comment there bro. I was taken back a bit by the responses, and I stand by the fact I was impressed with what that picture drew from you. The point isn't remotely different from yours but you used up all the kool words!
I'm not... That was completely expected. It seems a good portion of the Traditional Hot Rodders want something that looks kinda old fashioned. But is as save and bland as the Prius they really should be driving. So who would get in this thing and drive it? I would. The fact that it crashed, doesnt concern me much. Throttles have stuck open on less radical machines, with similar results...
Well ya nailed it there 'shapes. That's what I meant. We lost Scott Kalitta in a current "safe" nitro car. How many other FED drivers in the 60s lost their lives and those cars were then "state of the art"? It didn't matter to them, owner/drivers or just drivers. I call it being ALL IN.
I dont post here much but through my experience I would like to share. Reading what Ryan and others have posted this is my opinion of it all. I see the art of competition. I lost one of my best friends to racing (John Shoemaker). I was the last person to look into his eyes. I remember one thing. WIN! Just win! Thats what we were there for. Not business. John was one of the inovators of drag racing. I can go ono and on about what he did for the sport. He did those things to make it better not for money. Judy was here this last week (his wife) and talking with her and my father it is crazy to think that for a time there in drag racing they said the phone would ring most saturdays and sundays with news that someone crashed or had died from a crash. My two cents. That and 3bucks will buy you a cup of coffee. Steve Glucoft Amocat Speed Emp.
Oh yeah one other thing to add. We will be racing soon again. We always keep old in mind with everything we build to keep the tradition. Then that thing called being safe comes ito play and we change things from there. But once again we will be out there for the competition!
I didn't even see the dude in there the first time I looked at the photo. It wasn't until I read the post and looked at it again!! DAMN.
I've gone a whole hell of a lot faster than 170. In fact, I've crashed going faster... And after going through that, I'm not sure I would drive it. I probably would before I had a wife and kids, but not now. I talked to an old timer that you all know this afternoon about the car. I won't use his name as he didn't want to come across as inappropriately and publicly trashing another man's car, but... Direct quote: Just to help legitimacy... The quote comes from a multiple national NHRA event winner from the years of 1956 through 1970.
People tend to look at cars like this with the smugness of 20/20 hindsight. And that bothers me... A couple more tubes in that chassis might not have saved that driver. But an afternoon spent on the injection setup, making sure it all works OK and the linkage cant go overcenter, etc, might have. It probably wasn't a lot less safe than the cars it ran against. And a modern Ha/Gr type cage would have made it uncompetitive against its competition. People took it for self evident that rear engined GP cars did not handle, for years. Based on the performance of the pre war Auto Unions, that were a handfull. Sometime in the '60s it became clear that those people did not have enough information to come to a informed conclusion... The Cagle, Callahan and Case RED looks like a serously built car to me. It must have been to run the times it did...
Ryan, you posted while I was typing... If a guy who raced at the same time, has that opinion off it. That changes things... My point still stands, but maybe not about this car.
Wow--Cagle, Callahan and Case: it almost sounds like a law firm. Almost. I just want to reiterate what some others have touched on about THESE guys being from a generation that was hardened in ways which others are not. I'm amazed, as always, that the HAMB has figured out exactly which car this was, and I have say--as some of you already have--that you would have had to have balls of brass to drive this thing. R.I.P. to the driver. The Hunter S. Thompson quote about Oscar Acosta certainly applies here: "One of God's own prototypes. A high-powered mutant of some kind never even considered for mass production. Too weird to live, and too rare to die." Surely one of a kind.
I read almost all of the bigraphicals from the fatalities from 1950-1964... and I think it's safe to say that most if not all have a rule in the NHRA rule book that would have prevented them from happening today. http://dragstripdeaths.webs.com/195059.htm and http://dragstripdeaths.webs.com/196064.htm I think back then though... life wasn't worth as much as it is today... it sounds weird, but as much as we celebrate, document, put on a pedastal our own lives and the lives of others... that stuff wasn't done back then. Add to that... most those guys had peers that signed up for the war full well knowing they probably weren't going to come back alive... and all I gotta say is, they had more balls than people do now. Sam
Good read, the whole thread! Great pic of an amazing Rail, interesting to contemplate which ever way you look at it.
I dont think so... Seems to me a human life was worth exactly the same. Difference is, maybe, that these guys were used to taking more of their own decissions. And living or dying by them. I was talking to an old racer recently about his HANS Device. He said he wouldnt even get in a racecar without one anymore. and then he said " and that is weird, I used to race without them 30years ago..." I said Yeah, that is weird. You had a lot more to loose 30 years ago...
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