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

Notice the lack of uprights on the robinson car

 

THANKS A LOT!!!! I was about ready for bed and now I'm gonna be a little late for work tomorrow now! Wild Willie!

 

I noticed that too, wonder if this was an early Woody Gilmore effort -- Woody built some cars that allowed the top frame rail and the engine to rise under acceleration, so either left the uprights off or welded only the top and put a plate on the bottom of the upright so it rested on the bottom rail before the car left the line...the front motor mounts also just rested on the top rail, but not welded to it...the idea was to allow better weight transfer and to avoid wheelstands....If I remember correctly, Mike Sorokin's terrible accident put an end to the "lay-in" motor idea....(I could be wrong, though, just another way for Pete to save weight, he was fanatical about lightness...

 

Hi guys! Love the thread and refer to it often in my model building, I only build models of real drag cars, and the weirder the better!
I've a couple of questions. The first is I've seen several front engine AA/FDs with Ford SOHCs in them, but when the rear engine cars took over, none are to be seen. Just Hemis and BB Chevys. Were there any Ford rear engine T/Fs?
Next question deals with a current model project. I'm building a replica of Broadway Freddy DeNames red Camaro F/C. He was quite a character I hear, and I hear a real life mobster and hitman! Anyway I'm trying to get decals made for the body and a detail is hard to see from pictures. On both sides of the car was cartoon of a 1930's mobster with a stripped suit and a Tommy Gun. Well it shows the mobster holding his jacket open, showing a note or label pinned to the lining. Well nobody can see what is wriiten on the label. Please somebody must know what the label says! Help me!!!
Dragnut55

 

The SOHC Fords were very time consuming to R&R between rounds. They were short lived in top fuel for that reason. They were out of favor by the time back motored top fuelers came along.

 

Thanks to guys like Dean Lowe etc., people who were there back in the day who fill us all in on the history and stores between the lines.

Man! this thread never gets old!

Hats off again to Royal Shifter for starting it all!

Thanks Dean and keep the stories and history coming!

From Deep in The Heart of Texas!

Now back to the morning shot of Jack Daniels and that everloving honeybun!

1940 Willys Coupe

 

I saw I think the car that followed this one, get shattered to pieces at Nashville in 75'. It was reportedly the one he won the world finals in 67' or 68' at Tulsa. It was the car that had alum pieces formed around the helmet area of the roll bar.
Driver was Chuck Turner, and still haunts me. Tom S. in Tn.

 

addendum to above: Robinson built his own cars using airplane technology. Super featherweight, but not safe worth a damn, or at least not safe on the renegade circuit. The car I mentioned above hit a known dip in the tower lane of the track at Nashville, and became airborn with an injected 354 in it during early elim's at a pro comp meet that day. Me and a friend were standing down track on the pit side watching the cars at speed that day when it occurred.
Another reason I decided to quite a couple years later. Tom S.

 

This one Tom? Also notice the "bird deflector" on the front of the injector....whole nuther story attached to that.

 

And that why he was called "Sneaky Pete"!

 

It was this embracement of being light at any cost that incited So-Cal promoters to constantly increase the minimum weight of jr fuelers as each season passed. Shelby tubing or paper thin chromemolly enabled these cars to acheive race weights of around 800-900 pounds wet. And while incredible performance was acheived, the threat to driver safety was too much to ignore. Ever see some shots of one of the early versions becoming a bit errant off the line and smack the guard rail? The whole car just collapsed. And these occurred just a few 100' feet of the line. Imagine the consequences upon reaching just the 1/8th mile where 80% of your top end speed has been acheived.

 

The only rear engined anything with SOHC power would have to be Jack Chrisman's 72 Mach 1.

 

Yes Rick, Exactly. I do not know if there could have been more than one car he built like this, but this is exactly what I recall, and the wrecked pieces cage and all looked like they were no more than probably .043 or what ever wall thickness. It only had a shorty body and had been painted orange/red color and when Turner and crew came to Nashville, they borrowed an injected 354 from Bob Amos of Cox and Amos/Music City Rod Shop A/F junior fuel et.al. fame. I later tried to purchase that motor as a spare for the Roger Grooms motor seen in my avatar.
When it contacted the dirt after leaving the track at about the 1,000 ft mark, it literally shattered and the frame members splintered in front of our eyes, leaving the motor and driver and rear axle with nothing around them.
Following this accident, 'The Judge' Kilroy Hamilton in his blown front motored alcohol car was the next to make a pass down that lane against Spivey Williams after the long pause for cleanup and reflection. Don't know if this accident had any affect on him, but he quit racing about the same time I did.
Just curious Rick Finch; where in the hell do you come up with all of these thought provoking photographs?? Tom S. in Tn.

 

Yes, and I have heard that term Shelby tubing before some where also. I have seen some of those hi-gear injected cars with small blocks weigh even less than that, but they were on portable freight scales. They'd sing past a heavier Chrysler car in the lights like a rocket.
This is the only one I recall in an accident, but I've seen them bent, and I also vividly recall a particular upright-less saddle mount jr fueler that had a habit of flexing back and forth to the point it would bounce off the ground.
I never understood why anybody would try to straighten out and restore one of these after someone wore it out dead ending it and ramming it around push starting it on the circuit? Use the old chassis components, with fresh tubing and peace of mind would not be that expensive. Tom S. in Tn.

 

He won in 66'.
Bennie Osborn won both 67' and 68.'.

 

Tom, he did a lot of innovation, engines, ducting, etc...but he got his chassis from builders -- first from Dragmaster, then from Race Car Engineering...he and Woody Gilmore got along fine because they both pushed frontiers, Woody built a car for Pete that was so light that it bent at Bakersfield (he was in the second 32-car fueler ladder that year), that's why Pete called it "Tinker Toy," because his critics said it was engineered like a Tinker Toy....but he still won, and innovated...and lightened everything...(a guy who bought his '61 Nationals-winning gas dragster ran it until the4 throttle pedal broke off, when he took it apart to see why, he realized that Pete had drilled out the bolt that held it on for a fraction of an ounce of lost weight...

 

And Ken Winward's Alcohol Dragster.

 

"The only rear engined anything with SOHC power would have to be Jack Chrisman's 72 Mach 1"

Which was also John Forces first Funny Car--the Night Stalker

 

Pics of our get together at Whyalla Oct 2011

where a small group of blokes who still remember when racing was fun

we intend to get together at Whyalla South Australia

for some old time fun with no pressure

so anyone out there want to join in ???? the more the merrier

Whyalla was the first outing in my Slingshot and my first time on a track

been dreaming of a FED for 40 yrs

was always ill get one , one day - well todays one day

http://s1128.photobucket.com/albums/m486/obnoxious1959/?action=view&current=IMG_0091.mp4

 

I was always under the impression he built all his own cars from the beginning, maybe bought his tubing and parts perhaps, I can not know for certain. However, the one I saw was patterned like a Gilmore alright, but this particular car without uprights and .043/.041 thinwall (whatever) did not resemble a production run of the mill RCE. Custom built by Gilmore in the mid 60's, then probably.
I can state with certainty though, no one around here would have certified that car in the form it was run in especially as late as 75', and examples like this is what brought about SEMA standards. This one lived to race out on the wildcat circuit. Tom S. in Tn.

 

When I had my dragster shop with Pete Ogden in the 90's. He said when he was working for Woody Gilmore he built a couple of chassis for Pete Robinson. He said Robinson's motto was " If you can build it out of steel than you can build it out of aluminm. If you can build it out of aluminum than you can build it out of magnesium. If you build it out of magnesium than you don't need it!" I don't know what that means, but I remember Ogden saying that about him on more than one occassion.

 

http://www.theaccelerationarchive.co.uk/roger/phillips_06_pt1.html

 

Woody built Pete's later cars, but your point is still spot on right...both Woody and Pete pushed the safety limits, and sometimes crossed over the line...Woody's "lay-in" motors and lack of welded uprights sacrificed strength for purpose..and Woody complied with Pete's request not to mount a chute on one of the cars, C.J Hart refused to let Pete run Lions until he put a chute on the car....I heard that one of the things that Woody out of business was safety-related lawsuits...You're right, they certainly would not have been certified even by '75, lessons learned the hard way.

 

It's been a while over here for me. Just thought I'd stop by and let you guys know I updated another old drag racing photo to my site. I've been posting them there because of gig usage issues and sometimes they're not always on topic here. The link is below. Thanks.

 

At the risk of going over the top with this, but tinker toy engineering and it's lineage cost 2 good men their lives here. Turner I was told had piloted jet/rocket type exhibition cars, and was trying to make his mark on record books and make a name by driving as much as he could, which led him during a dry spell to Nashville. I wish there was some one else here who could add accurate commentary.
The day of that crash, I learned a very important lesson about the unpredictable dangers found at the fast end of a track.

Robinson was out of the Atlanta region if I'm not mistaken, and I have to admit, I can't recall ever seeing him. If I did, I was too young to recall today.
In his recent book about early funny cars, the author Steve Magnante uses the term brutal when describing those homemade hotrods, the fellows that drove them, and the battles they fought out on abandoned county road strips as well as specially prepared sanctioned facilities all for a dime store trophy and bragging rights. At first that might seem a bit of extreme statement, but after a few moments thought, I realized just how fitting his brutal description actually was.
I don't know about out there on the coast or even up north, but Busters Rebels in Div II found down in the Georgia region, I believe exemplify the term brutal perfectly, and the outlaw renegade strips that were found at Dallas and Covington and every other rural community with enough level ground to have at least 1,000ft strip, should speak volumes for themselves.
And there's no way I could even begin to comment on all those other people who drove their homemade hotrods around chasing each other in circles.
Tom S. in Tn.

 

I recently ran across an official entry list for the 65 NHRA Nationals in Indianapolis and found where my car was entered but with a driver I have never seen associated with the car. This is what is on the list. # 665 Norman Ford Performance Associates Driver Ray Lawson Columbus Ohio 65 Ford. Anyone have any info about Ray Lawson? I'm sure it is the right car just never heard his name before.

 

Steve and I discussed that term more than once. I provided dozens of photos for that book that I had taken in the 1960's at the local drag strips.
Steve is too young to have been there back in those days, but he has a very keen intuitive nature about him to know about it.
"Brutal" is in no way a stretch of a term.
Much of what we saw was brutal, not only in their design but in the driving styles.
Some guys would try make up for having less money (horsepower) by driving without regard for their own safety.
Much of the machinery from the early 60's was just an accident waiting to happen.
Suspension pieces held in place with tons of duct tape (gaffers tape, we called it), bolts instead of welds, no scattershields, and the days when a Mopar A/FX guy would floor the accelerator while in neutral and then at the green light, he's drop it into "drive". The car would either LAUNCH or blowup. One night at LIONS, that practice would cost one woman her sight as she was blinded for life by the scattering debris.....
Yup...."brutal"......I could write a book titled:
"Brutal...Drag Racing's Early Years"

 

Outside Lil' John Buttera's shop before he moved out west....