Just when you think that you've seen them all - Old Hot Rod Magazine documentary. Some Hot old video on a Damn Cold Winter day. Enjoy, VR&C.
Wow! That was the first HRM meet at Riverside. Hard to believe that we were ever that young, I was one of those 13 year olds in the striped surfer shirts! Billy Scott is just 16! Snake, Mongoose and Ace are just mid/early 20's! Drag racing lost something when they went to slipper clutches, there is NOTHING like a 60's tire smoking from start to finish run! Cars even sounded different. Ah well, you can't go back...except for stuff like this. Those really WERE the good old days! Thanks for posting.
Thanks for posting! Pretty risque for the time, no? And who was Perky Patty? Oh, the dragsters were cool too.
GREAT movie , make's me want to go out & Yank the 33x17.0-16 off my mid 6 second Blown Altered , Install a set on Pie Crust Firestones and make a few pass down I95 sawing the wheel back & forth , Dreaming !!! Back to reality , does anyone know when Reaction time was discovered & by who ? It looks that all the Racer's where asleep leaving on A day long Green .
Don't think Garlits entered the race. This was the Hot Rod Magazine Championships, Big was probably off match racing for a thousand bucks a pop. GOOD MONEY in 1965! There were only TWO NHRA National events then, local track racing was where it's at!
Reaction time was always known, but reaction TIMERS were not. First I remember were in the early 70's. Timing was either just quarter mile or half track and quarter. Speed traps were 66 feet in front of the quarter and 66 feet after, a total of 132 feet. Guys would really drive 'em on through to get a good speed. Hey, NHRA actually gave money and a Wally for top speed then! It was a really big deal.
Gary, Let me tune up your memory a little bit on the speed traps. In the 60s the speed traps were actually 132 feet ahead of and 132 (1/10 of a 1320 ft. quarter) feet past the finish line. It wasn't until the Fuel Dragsters started outrunning the shutdown areas of many strips that steps were taken to limit their top speeds. One of those things was to shorten the speed traps - cut them in half - to 66/66 to enable the T/F cars to get on the brakes earlier. While 66 additional feet doesn't seem like much, the rocket scientists calculated that it was equivalent to adding something like 400 feet to the end of each strip. When the traps were shortened the top speeds dropped for a short time until advancing technology restored and exceeded the old speeds. I don't remember the exact year when that occurred. I'm sure someone will fill that in. Of course, nowadays the T/F cars and AA/FC cars only run to 1000 feet, a further effort to contain the performance of these cars on existing drag strip property.
Regarding reaction times: Since the time interval between each yellow bulb and the green was exactly .500 seconds it was relatively easy to measure the time interval from the green "on" to the time the car rolled through the beams. A timer would start at the instant the last yellow turned on. If the driver was perfect on the tree he would get a reaction time of ".500". If he was late by, say .100 second, his reaction time was .600. Some tracks with older timing equipment still display reaction times like this, .500 being a perfect light. Newer equipment has been tweaked to display this time as .100. FYI, modern O/T bracket racers in our "RoboCars" can consistently cut lights inside .020 seconds. For comparison, it takes about 70 milliseconds (.070) to consciously blink your eyes. About 300 milliseconds if done unconsciously. Think about that next time you get a perfect reaction time on your time slip.
I knew that this great old movie/documentary would bring back some great memories and conversations. VR&C.
The Jalopy Journal
