Whatever happened to customizing newer cars? How did such a popular trend in car building come to a screeching halt? In the 1940s through 1950s, turning a car into a “mystery car”—one that contained body mods, shaved emblems and door handles, and grille changes so that it was not identifiable—was part of our hot rod lexicon. HOT ROD, and especially sister publications Motor Trend and Car Craft, were founded on featuring customized cars and showing you how to sling lead to do it in your own garage. In the late-1950s, newer cars customized with wild Larry Watson and Dean Jeffries paint jobs helped eliminate the need for major body changes, partially due to Detroit’s flamboyant styling matching or exceeding anything customizers could conjure. Panel painting and wild, scalloped designs helped to hide a car’s styling, which was always part of the basis for customizing.
But then in the early 1960s, the art of customizing just stopped. Maybe it was because of Detroit’s newfound cleaner designs? It would be hard to improve on a 1961 T-bird or 1963 Riviera, right? Or maybe the big-block Fords, fuel-injected Chevys and cross-ram Mopars shifted the focus from low-and-slow to quarter-mile madness?
This snapshot of Larry Watson’s 1972 Ranchero in front of his Hollywood paint shop shows his attempt at reviving customizing on new cars in the 1970s. The front end was extensively modified, the taillights were changed to Ford station-wagon units, Candy Red paint was beyond anything that came on stock Fords, and it was severely lowered—all classic 1940s-type customizing tricks. When was the last time you remember seeing a customized late-model car from the 1960s to 1970s?
The Woodward Avenue Dream Cruise in Detroit keeps getting bigger, better, and more bodacious. The boulevard is more engorged with iconic and interesting cars and trucks, and a lot of what passes by in the endless cavalcade of cars is vintage, modified, or just plain cool. Also, some of what you’ll see are pre-production factory cars, or even prototypes lurking about—but you’ve got to be paying attention. Another important part of Woodward is that the streets that spread out from Woodward also contain their own car shows with hundreds, and even thousands of cool rides displayed for all to enjoy, while their owners are congregated along what seems like the endless groups of humanity along Woodward taking in the free, seemingly endless, and historic parade of carnucopia. We’ve got a flood of shots from Woodward itself and also shots from some of the sideshows of fantastic hot rods and restored muscle cars, along with vintage specialties—all from American manufacturers, celebrating the heritage and social significance of the Detroit conceived American automobile.
Let’s say you love your BMW CS coupe, but you also love NASCAR, and especially Richard Petty and his 1970 Plymouth Superbird. The answer to this conundrum is easy, and here before you. Just convert your BMW into a close facsimile of Petty’s 1970 NASCAR ride. As you can see, the CS coupe makes a nice starting point for your Petty copy. We were almost fooled; the lines of the coupe are so close to the Plymouth’s. And the “towel rack” looks to have been lifted right from a real Superbird, if you see things shorter and in a blurred, out-of-it sort of way. And this dude actually races this, so give him extra points for that!
We’re not sure what the owner of this customized truck was after, but it’s definitely extensive, exclusive, and unique. There is obvious affinity for the newer Camaro, as that is prominently on display, but beyond that we are stumped as to what the objective was other than scoops and vents. Lot’s of them! And wings. We see at least 3 of them, but who knows what else lurks out the back end that we can’t see here. The variety and extent of the freaks invasion is no better exemplified than with this Chevy truck, which will be hard to top for Freak of the Week!
With the announcement of the passing of Drag Week staple Mike Wenzler of Battle Creek, Michigan, we dug up this video of he and Thom Taylor in his Pro Stock/Pro Street 1987 Camaro headed for the final 2016 Drag Week stop at National Trails Raceway in Ohio. Mike just gassed the Camaro up outside of Lucas Oil Raceway in Indy, when he and Thom discussed the car while shooting through town and onto the highway. Quality is a little shaky as it was shot with a phone, but it gives you a somewhat candid look at a happy Wenzler driving on Drag Week in his pride and joy Camaro. RIP Michael Wenzler.
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Friday night Jeff Pagano, from East Hampton, New York, was just getting out of emergency surgery after driving from home on his way to Drag Week. Friday afternoon around Detroit, he started feeling pain in his gut, pulled into a hospital, and was told he needed an emergency appendectomy. He argued with the hospital staff, insisting he instead needed to attend Drag Week. The agreement they all came to was to schedule Jeff for the final surgery on Friday. Then, Saturday at noon, he checked himself out of the hospital to continue his trek to Cordova for Drag Week tech inspection and test and tune today, Sunday.
When we asked him how he felt, he said, “Bloated.” OK, then! But he wouldn’t, couldn’t miss Drag Week, and so bloated and all he’s a happy racer.
Jeff’s had some bad luck at Drag Week having smacked his 1972 El Camino into the wall last year. He may have found his lucky mojo as who has an appendectomy a little over a day before Drag Week tech? Good luck Jeff, and keep it between the lines.
HOT ROD Drag Week 2017, powered by Dodge and presented by Gear Vendors Overdrive
If you do this at Drag Week, or any strip for that matter, stay into it. If you drop it hard, as Mark Gissendaner did soon after landing his green 1940 Chevy Gasser blimp, your car will look like a cartoon with the tires cambered out. This is Mark’s second year at Drag Week, and he makes plenty of passes with his original Gasser, but Cordova was gripping like crazy, and on launch, well, he quickly wheelie’d up, then banged down. Rick Jones at RJ’s Race Cars in Galesburg, Illinois, came to Mark’s rescue. They packed up and split to RJ’s, where they chained down the ends of the front axle and raised the center of the axle. Presto! Alignment restored. Now when Mark gets home he’ll be ordering a new front axle. In the meantime he’ll be pussy footing off the line the rest of Drag Week.
HOT ROD Drag Week 2017, powered by Dodge and presented by Gear Vendors Overdrive
Each day of Drag Week is a drama, times 400. There are 400 cars with millions of ways they may or may never finish Drag Week. Will the car break at the track? Can it be fixed? Will it make it the almost 300 miles to the next drag strip—in the case of Day 1, that strip being Gateway Motorsports Park? Will there be enough time at the end of the day for sleep? A shower? It’s an insane week of fear, fun, and frustration. We captured just a few highlights of Day 1 at Cordova, and as we trekked from Cordova to Gateway, we gathered more shots of what we encountered to give you just a snapshot of Day 1 of Drag Week 2017. We saw racers seamlessly adjusting their cars from strip-ready to street-ready. We encountered breakdowns in an array of severity—taxing both cars and drivers. We followed Drag Week’s first nitro-powered entrant as he blitzed through Illinois. Being the first day spirits are high—except for those at Cordova experiencing problems they need to overcome before the 3:00 closure of the track. See what we saw on the road for Day 1 of 2017 Drag Week.
Les Smith’s 1967 Nova is hard to miss on the highway. He’s cruising after running an 8.64 in Cordova.Daniel Boshears piloted Finnegan’s Blasphemi Gasser on much of the first day’s drive.We missed Addie Ross in 2016. She’s back with her 1963 Nova wagon, quicker than ever.
This Plymouth VIP, the entry from Finland rolled into the second checkpoint with a malfunctioning cooling fan. The secondary fan was still operational and they were able to continue the drive.This efficiently packed trailer even includes a spare driveshaft.
The Green Go Challenger SRT Hellcat loaned to us by Dodge chewed up the highway miles with ease.
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The fantastic times and speeds we’ve seen at both Cordova and Gateway are really only half of the picture that is Drag Week. The other half? Getting to the next venue, of course. And so for the second time of the 2017 edition HOT ROD Drag Week the racers that turned in their best time slips march on to the next strip—usually 200-300 miles away. Today was a bit unusual for the intrepid HOT ROD staff as we witnessed few major breakdowns on our way to Byron, Ohio. But that may be due to the high number of cars that broke at Gateway, including Tom Bailey, Mike Finnegan’s Blasphemi Gasser, and the Finnish group with their 1967 Plymouth VIP Fury. Sadly, all are out for 2017. You can read about this elsewhere on HOT ROD’s website. Still, we captured some great shots of Drag Weekers en route to Byron, and also at the one checkpoint stop that proved to be a welcome retreat for hot, weary, and still eager participants. We’ve got great shots of all of that and more, which you can access HERE.
Matt & Michael Tracy needed a 15×7 Chevy wheel. Thanks to Roadkill’s Facebook fans, they found one!The Schroeder/Ens team pulled over because a fellow competitor noticed their front wheel was a bit wobbly. A quick check and a snug on the wheel bearing and they were soon back on the road.
Dale Gebhart pumped used his fuel return line to pump some fuel into a tank for Brian Gebhart, whose Duster had run out of gas.
Bryan Hansen had fuel pump troubles. His backup pump was the wrong size, so he couldn’t even scavenge the right bearing.Richie Crampton was having steering issues in this ’57 wagon. He was still working on the offending U-joint with fellow Top Fuel racers Larry Dixon and Jon Lindberg when we left the first checkpoint.
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Talk to Drag Week veterans and soon enough previous years hot summer days will come up, so it’s been noteworthy that the 2017 Drag Week weather has been superb. With the cooler temps the air is thicker, which makes for quicker times, and we’re seeing that. Also track prep at Cordova, Gateway and now Byron has been awesome, which also helps. On Day 1, 11 cars were in the 7-second range. As of the end of today there are nine cars averaging in the 7s. Need we say it’s unbelievable that these street cars are averaging in the 7s? Also, 38 cars are averaging in the 8s. The bad news? 61 cars are now officially out, and that number is sure to go higher as cars take a pounding at the strip and a beating on the road—but that’s Drag Week, right? Along the route from Byron, Illinois, to Great Lakes in Wisconsin, we passed a number of cars with broken rockers or broken valve springs, so at least for today valve train woes were a common malady. If you can’t come out to one of the Drag Week venues, slip on over to the daily live stream to see all of the action remaining at Great Lakes and then Friday at Cordova. The weather predictions are for fair weather so no rainouts or unbearable heat, making for possibly the fastest Drag Week ever.
Car Craft’s John McGann documented the valve spring swap on Vince Rasch’s 535ci Pontiac.Gavin Lusk’s 8-second, wheel-standing Cougar also had valvetrain issues and was in need of springs and a rocker.Jesse Madaffari Jr. stopped to help with Keith Harrison’s ’33 Ford. A backfire started their shop rags on fire and made for a moment of drama although there was no real damage.
Looking like Luke Skywalker’s earth-pod, we are hard pressed to determine what this is, or what it’s for. It looks like a movie prop, but then it also looks like it is driven. We do recognize the late 1940s Packard grille, so we know it’s of earth origins. In some ways its design origins are based off of a catamaran, where two round pods at either end support the interior, hood and trunk. The fins, V’d windshield, and “power dome” hood harken back to the 1940s, but present a contemporary look. Think of this as inspiration for whatever is lying around behind your shop as fodder for a future project.
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Wrapping up Day 4’s drive from Great Lakes back to where we started at Cordova, we’re near the end and it shows. Accomplishments, new friends, thrashing, and lots of sweat will be remembered for participants’ lifetimes. The HOT ROD staff was witness to very few breakdowns along the final day’s route. Was the cooler weather a major factor in less cars breaking? Are participants using the more expensive parts to avoid any excuses? Have they figured out how to improve their cars to last for five grueling Drag Week days? Or was Drag Week 2017 just an anomaly? With 20-perecnt of those that started now out of competition, Drag Week took its toll, despite the appearance of no on-the-road drama.
Drag Week 2017 will mark the end of an era of sorts, as over the winter the three year freeze of Drag Week rules will be scrutinized and tweaked. We’ve heard that the route next year could be less car friendly as our intrepid behind-the-scenes team is already finalizing the Drag Week 2018 routes. Will the rumors of GPS tracking become a reality to more easily keep track of participants wandering off of the routes, as well as giving family, friends, and fans of Drag Week the opportunity to follow each and every car from laptops and phones? All we can say for sure is that we can’t wait to see how Drag Week 2017 ends, while we all wish it didn’t have to end at all.
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Shifty Frank Romano will never give up his manual shift 1955 Chevy. If you talk to most people running manuals at Drag Week they’ll tell you their cars would probably run quicker with automatics, but then racing would be no fun. They love the brute strength, violation of their racecars, brutally banging gears barreling down the quarter mile. We did a short piece on three of these shifty Drag Week stalwarts so you can hear in their words what shifting means to them.
Frank felt there should be more reward to his and his fellow shifter’s quarter mile efforts, and so last year he came up with a shift-off at the end of the last day of racing, where those with manuals could race heads up to see who had the fastest arm. No awards were involved; it was all about the bragging rights. Of course Frank won. Over the last year Frank wanted to make it more coveted than to brag, and so to help goose the shift shoot-off he’s created this super-bitchin’ award with cast off pieces of past shiftcapades in his Chevy. His hope is that the “Shifty” will be passed on year-to-year to each winner, and that they will add their names to the perpetual trophy. We suspect every Drag Week entrant would love to have this—but you can only win it if you win the Shift-Off, which takes place later today on the last day of Drag Week competition.
HOT ROD Drag Week 2017, powered by Dodge and presented by Gear Vendors Overdrive
Drag Week is the most fun you can have in drag racing—unless you’re blessed with lots of cubic-dollars or significant luck. But as much as it appears like it’s fun, and it is, there’s also the work. Yes, the work that goes into swapping from street to strip tune, going 200-300 miles between tracks with clang, bang racecars in the hinterlands heat with no air, and the mental drain knowing your next run or next mile could be the last for this year’s Drag Week. Wrenching in the hot sun, under pressure, miles from the friendly confines of your own shop, fishing out lifters with coat hangers off a dirt road 120-miles from the next Drag Week venue, it’s both mental and physical pressure. We’ve assembled over 100 images of wrenching, reaching, ratchets and racing. Also, here are the many shots of just the engines of Drag Week, in all their gleaming, gooey, greasy glory. See for yourself how some of these guys have routed turbo exhaust, supercharger placement, relocated radiator supports for a little extra room, and marvel at how many applications there are for LS swaps.
With all of the radical changes we see in the design and execution of some professional and garage-built projects, it’s puzzling to look at a car like this 1928 Ford roadster—originally built by Fat Jack Robinson in the 1970s, though this is a contemporary shot—and not see a thing we’d change. We’ve come to expect design changes made to many professional builds, but sometimes you’ve got to wonder if it’s because it’s an improvement or a desperate grab for attention.
All these decades after Jack built this hot rod, it still stops people in their tracks and swivels heads. Yet, there is not a single body modification performed on this 90-year-old design. The body is exactly as it came from Ford. The drivetrain was obviously improved, and stance and relationship to the pavement is substantially different from those high-riding stockers from before WWII, but Jack felt no need to change what has always attracted us to these old heaps in the first place: their simple, era-defining designs. Old cars represent a particular time, and we marvel at their design and execution from our current perspective. Why try to complicate, overthink, and change what it is that attracts us to these old works of art? Execution and details are way beyond what was found when new, but the design, character, and essence of the car has remained unchanged.
Did it need to be changed? Would you have changed it? Why do so many contemporary builds seem to require changes when you see a ride like this? If you’re attracted to a car to such an extent you want to build it, why make changes to that which originally attracted you?
Kenny Arnold is behind the wheel of the brutal, heavily gusseted Scotty Fenn 100-inch dragster at the 1956 National Drag Championship campaigned by the Yeakel brothers. With a Cadillac engine built by Ted Griffin, the dragster would become the prototype for Fenn’s Chassis Research model TE 440 slingshot chassis; one of the most popular chassis of the 1950s, but that’s just the beginning. Fenn sold this dragster to two racers from San Diego to help fund his budding Chassis Research Company.
Cliff Bedwell and Emery Cook initially ran the dragster with a flathead Ford, then a 331ci Chrysler, before heavily reworking the chassis and dropping in a nitro-fed, 354ci Hemi with the first Isky “Five Cycle” overlap cam and one of Crower’s U-Fab six-carb log intake manifold. The accepted theory that a wheel-driven car could not exceed 160 mph was debunked with this car when it reached 166.97 mph in early 1957 at Long Beach.
Of course, the frightening speed quickly led to nitro being banned at Santa Ana Dragstrip, adopted quickly by the NHRA. After winning it all at the 1957 AHRA Nationals at Great Bend, Kansas, and appearing on HOT ROD’s Oct. 1957 cover, the rail was sold to tinmaster Tom Hanna, eventually evaporating into the Wichita, Kansas, ether.
At the dawn of drag racing, it was easy to tell which cars were fastest. They were the ones that looked like two rails, an engine, and four tires that someone sat on. Those stripped-down “bugs” or “rail jobs” were always the fastest, because they were pared down to the absolute minimum necessary to blitz the quarter-mile.
The evolution of the dragster has seen leaps and also years that seemed they hit the limit of physics and technology for any further reduction in elapsed times. Then, the continued march of lower times and increased speeds would erupt, with teams and builders sharing or otherwise divining the factors for the latest chop-chop to conquering that familiar strip of concrete and asphalt. The advancement happened natively, with trial and error or a secret shared. Says longtime chassis builder Don Long, “There was no science with the early dragsters, you just looked at what was out there and you added to it.”
There were advances from things like slicks, superchargers, nitromethane, slipper clutches, and ultimately data logging, but mostly it came down to slow tinkering. For the spectator, this arc of higher speeds and shortening elapsed times drew crowds witnessing a spectacle—“the show”—but also possibly a record, something he or she could hold onto as a historic, meaningful mark in the evolution of man and machine.
Held at abandoned airstrips or blocked-off country roads, “slingshots” as dragsters were called, hit more than 120 mph in 1950, the beginning of organized drag racing in California at the Santa Ana airstrip just east of Newport Bay. Then within a few years, the march quickly saw dragsters topping 150 mph.
Dragster evolution came from a myriad of sources. With organizers like HOT ROD’s Wally Parks, who founded the National Hot Rod Association (NHRA), and promoters like Mickey Thompson, CJ Hart, and Lou Baney, opportunity and incentive converged with safety to mold drag racing into a more homogenous assemblage. Hundreds of different classes for every conceivable variation of machine were developed, but the “unlimited” Top Fuel dragsters were the top tier of the professional category. By the early 1960s, there were certain combinations normalizing the front-engine dragster to a general form evolving until the early 1970s when a major shift in the dragster paradigm happened: the modern rear-engine dragster.
Early chassis builders were Pat Bilbow’s Lyndwood Chassis, Joe Schubeck’s Lakewood Chassis, Frank Ito, and Scotty Fenn’s Chassis Research, all helping to make Top Fuel more attainable. The earliest “standard,” if you could call out a standard in this still-chaotic time, was the “dogsled” style of dragster at a 98-inch wheelbase. The Chassis Research TE 440 model was most identified with this design. The downside was that it left the area over a driver’s head exposed, so soon there were cross bars added from one side to the other, before an additional hoop surrounded the driver, adding more weight and complexity. By 1961 most dragsters had adopted the three-point roll bar or something similar, and by 1963 the evolution was complete. Writer and historian Don Prieto gives credit for the three-point cage to Bay Area builders Pete Ogden and also Romeo Palamedes, who would eventually found American Racing Wheels.
Once Mickey Thompson found luck with the driver sitting behind the axle, builders all saw the driver’s weight leveraged behind the rear axle produced better traction. Traction was always a problem with these lightweight cars and 8.20 skinny tires. By the early 1960s, professional builders like Don Long, Kent Fuller, Roy Fjastad, and Woody Gilmore added more development and refinement for pro chassis—or a good copy. Combined with the aftermarket providing accessories and components, there were more cars and more minds advancing the state of the art.
Failure was always on the minds of chassis builders and, really, all component manufacturers, because if you pushed the envelope too far, you and your product or services were instantly no good. So dragster momentum was artificially slowed as builders trickled into dragster evolution, even though the drag racer’s creed that more is better was abundant throughout drag racing.
At match races and non-NHRA sanctioned tracks across the country, nitromethane was the breakfast of champions. But with it came new problems. Dragsters and drivers that previously tamed gasoline power were introduced to an insane abundance of power. Nitro was banned by the NHRA in 1957, but this inadvertently resulted in drivers racing full time like “TV” Tommy Ivo, who was paid handsomely to race at nitro tracks across the country because the noise, times, and quality of the Top Fuel dragsters brought in the crowds. Tommy was making $3,000 a weekend booking match races, and that was real money in the late-1950s. With Top Fuel classes allowing nitro again at NHRA-sanctioned events in 1964, it wasn’t long before every run at every Top Fuel meet became an unpredictable performance, ranging from a riveting, clean run to all manner of mayhem and even death—plus plenty of death-defying brushes along the way.
Engines were not immune to experiments in chassis installations. Weight shift was of prime concern because traction was needed to fight the effects of inertia, while at mid-track the need shifted to speed, not launching traction. Woody tried mounting engines on tubing attached to the Chrysler Hemi blocks, which ran forward attaching to the chassis. This allowed the engine to move up upon acceleration. Fuller went one step further by making a structure the engine sat in, separate from the chassis, that pivoted up and down in the “Magicar” Top Fueler. (That’s how the Magicar got its name.) Frank Cannon’s “Hustler VI” went even further. It had a hydraulic cylinder between the bellhousing and chassis mount. The foot-brake hydraulics were tied to the cylinder, so when brake was released to launch, the hydraulics actuated the cylinder, lifting the engine 2 inches. Once it reached its apex, it slowly bled off so the engine moved back into the chassis. Clever minds, theories, and experimentation have always been part of drag racing.
As new ideas were introduced and new components perfected, there needed to be some oversight to recommend and even conduct testing of components. The SEMA Technical Committee was established in 1966 to put forth safe construction practices, as insurance was becoming an issue from the “high death-to-accident ratio.” And, of course, NHRA had clear sets of rules instituted with inspection of each car, and ultimately certification to ensure the safest, technologically up-to-date advances for both racers and spectators.
As chassis developed, everyone had a theory for where the engine should be positioned. Some liked the “Tampa Dump” named for Garlits’ penchant for angling the engine down at the front for perceived better torque transfer. Others wanted the engine level with the ground. Then how high or low should the engine be in the chassis, and how far forward? The accepted location was that there wasn’t an accepted location. Some believed you wanted the center of gravity as close to the ground as possible, so the dump was a means to get the engine down as low as it could go and still clear the oil pump and oil pan; it was a case of clearance rather than weight shift. Rear-end pinion height and how far from the rear-end the engine also factored into its location. As you can see, there was no magic awakening, but rather theories proved or not, and the march of dragster evolution continued.
Slowly it was determined that the longer chassis handled better, but in the late-1950s no one needed the length for taming wheelies because nobody was popping wheelies. That didn’t occur until Tommy Ivo experienced the phenomena at San Fernando Dragstrip after putting on a pair of Ted Cyr’s new M & H “slicks.” Prieto says, “When Tommy launched, his front end went up 4 or 5 inches. When he came around to run again, there were 10 guys lying on the side of the track to see if there was daylight under the wheels. That time he got about a foot in the air.” With those 10.50-16 tires, there was extra shear in the sidewalls, so the extra grip, weight transfer, and inertia made the car climb the ring gear in the axle, creating the wheelie and also a new phenomenon racers would face. While sounding prosaic, at the time it caused a major challenge, and an added attraction—air under the front tires had never been seen in drag racing.
Mathematics took a part in adapting the dragster to this new challenge posed. The theory of angular acceleration started factoring into dragster design. It posits that, all things being equal (weight distribution, engine, engine location, and so on), a 200-inch wheelbase dragster will have four times the resistance to lifting as a 100-inch car. As the wheelbase is lengthened, it squares the resistance. There’s more to it because you have traction issues and rate of climb, but whenever you get acceleration and then resistance, you have a transfer of weight, and something is going to happen—usually a wheelie.
By 1967 speeds of more than 220 mph were seen from the rapid march past the magic 200 mph. Then after 1967 the speed and e.t. gains fell flat. Everyone hovered around the mid-220-mph mark at 6 seconds for years. Was this all there was? It seemed that way until that fateful day in 1970 at Lions Drag Strip when Don Garlits’ clutch sliced through his car and the age of the rear-engine dragster had dawned. This paradigm shift not only radically affected dragster design but also speeds.
Garlits’ revolutionary rear-engine dragster seemed to magically appear, but everyone in Top Fuel knew for years that dragster evolution had bigger problems than stagnant times, and this represented a more sensible design. Violent, deadly engine and clutch explosions were occurring on a regular basis. One seen on a weekly basis was Jim Nicoll’s dragster ripping apart at the 1970 Nationals, used as part of the opening segment of the weekly ABC TV series Wide World of Sports.
But the timing was interesting, as chassis builder Woody Gilmore had just given up on a rear-engine design with the horrific obliteration of his experimental dragster piloted by Pat Foster. And we do mean “piloted,” as the dragster flew into the air at Lions Drag Strip in December 1969, smashing into a light pole at 200-plus mph. Foster spent months recuperating. His suggestion to Garlits? Slow down the steering, which “Dyno Don” heeded.
Bill Schultz, owner of the Schultz and Glenn Top Fuel dragster, thought front-engine dragsters had plenty of developments left to reveal. He ordered a new car from California Chassis Engineering with the engine set forward 50 inches from conventional dragsters of the time. It set both ends of the record at the 1971 NHRA Nationals, but was runner-up to Steve Carbone in his front-engine dragster. Some—like Tom McEwen, Don Prudhomme, and Roland Leong—campaigned both flavors of Fuelers to hedge their bets. But with Garlits winning the 1971 NHRA Winternationals, 1971 March Meet, plus runner-up at both Lions and Orange County Raceway just before the Winters, there was no longer any need to ponder Top Fuel’s future.
Rear-engine dragsters were lighter, the weight distribution kept front ends planted, locked rear spools could now be used to help dragsters achieve quicker launches, steering corrections were easier and more controllable (not to mention drivers were out of harm’s way from an engine or blower explosion), and they could see without a big, blown Hemi engine to look around. Before the end of 1971, Garlits had discovered the rear wing, giving designers another development to incorporate into their dragster designs. Gilmore, Huszar, Long, and Fjastad immediately began getting orders for rear-engine machines. “It increased my business especially,” Long says.
Eventually, big increases in dragster wheelbases got crazy. Where front-engine dragsters went to 225 inches, the rear-engine rails ramped up to 300 inches (and also bigger rear wings) before the NHRA mandated 300 inches maximum, squelching the racer’s creed of more is better. One of the last innovations to keep front-engine dragsters competitive was the introduction of canards ahead of the slicks. These wings created a low-pressure area ahead of the slicks and also helped direct air over the slicks, aiding aerodynamics. But by 1974 the front-engine dragster had disappeared, giving racers and builders a whole new combination of challenges and puzzles to solve.
At the dawn of drag racing, the slingshot dragster design was in a state of chaos—crazy combos came and went. The prevailing factor was that these were machines made for one thing only: to get down the quarter-mile in the shortest amount of time. More expensive than other cars, your investment required having a truck and trailer, as these, unlike most other quarter-mile terrors, were not legal to drive on streets.It was quickly determined that an independent suspension on a dragster, as posited here by chassis builder Woody Gilmore in 1966, did nothing to improve a dragster’s performance—but, man, it looked good. And that was part of dragster development, too: getting attention and recognition for your and your shop’s efforts. Woody was good at that. The simple, efficient stuff garnered no attention.
For years, this was the standard dragster front end, developed from Kent Fuller’s original use of a narrowed VW front end with the two torsion bars used on Dick Guyette’s “Clown” dragster from the late-1950s. From there, Fuller felt that only one bar was needed and soon the VW trailing arms were pitched in favor of this simple, light approach with friction shocks for dampening. The design stuck for more than 10 years, before solidly attaching the axle found favor in the early 1970s.
The pursuit of lighter weight in most cases took precedence over safety to a degree, or at least to the degree you could keep within the rules. Complicating a basic Huszar or Long chassis in most cases only added weight and could also complicate maintenance, because among all of the parameters a dragster required, it had to be worked on under less than perfect conditions in the pits between rounds.“TV” Tommy Ivo’s first dragster, this Chassis Research copy done by a young Kent Fuller is considered the first digger to pop a wheelie after Ivo got a couple of practice runs on a borrowed set of M&H 10.50 slicks belonging to top racers Ted Cyr and Bill Hopper. The following Monday, Ivo headed to Isky’s shop and convinced him to use his influence to obtain a set for Tommy. By that Saturday, the news of wheelie antics had traveled to Lions, where operator CJ Hart told Ivo not to or he’d be kicked out. Ivo did, and Hart kicked him out.“I was making the cars a little longer and longer because my name was Long, and they seemed to be handling better,” chassis builder Don Long jokes. “It was just something to offer the customer against my competitors, so I was always a little longer, but I noticed that my front ends stayed down better with the longer length.”Jim Ward put a wing on the front of the Yeakel Plymouth dragster, and when he quit Yeakel, he put it on his Imperial dragster, but he bolted it onto the cage instead; as best we know, that was the first back wing on a dragster. He did it because he thought it looked cool, and because he was a disciple of Chet Herbert. Herbert was always coming up with theories and ideas for people to try. There were instances where plastic or aluminum (even wood) wings started showing up in about 1962 on the front of dragsters because racers knew they needed to keep a front end down. For some, those front wings also hid lead shot for added weight to help plant the front.Weight up front, longer wheelbases, better slicks, slipping the clutch, how far out the engine was from the rear end, slipper clutches, and even wings and winglets above the front axle were all the approaches to wheelies—sometimes adapted individually, and sometimes in concert. But you still had thousands of combinations with engines, clutches, chassis setups, track conditions, and more, all needing attention before every run. Dragster design jockeyed between weight, chassis length, chassis rigidity, power, a team’s actual and perceived success, available resources, luck, and a lot more.Continued improvements in traction, a result of the introduction of slicks, created other phenomena to further complicate mysteries and challenges. As Long told us, “It was like a card game. Everyone could have the same amount of cards, but it was the order they were placed that could lead to the winning hand.”The march of dragster design, speeds, and innovations, took on a whole new look in 1971 with this dragster, Don Garlits’ “Swamp Rat 14.” Rear-engine dragsters were not new—they were seen at the very beginning of drag racing—but dragster evolution, technology, and continued instances of destruction and sometimes death had advanced to where the advantages and success of the rear-engine slingshot could not be ignored.This is a Dragmaster “Dart” chassis, one of hundreds built by Jim Nelson and Dode Martin out of San Diego. Their lightweight chassis, which won the 1962 NHRA Winternationals, saw action around the country, giving more racers a chance to experience drag racing and advance innovations.If you accelerate at 1 g, moving the engine back or up the same amount gives you the same results. At 1 g, your vector is 45 degrees, so the more you accelerate, that angle gets smaller, and the higher the engine is in the chassis, the more weight is transferred to the rear. But the height of the tires, clutch, and pinion height all factor into the equation, so it was not simple math; in reality, it was more like art.The Schultz and Glenn Fueler from 1971 was the archetype for the final evolution of the front-engine dragster, with the engine set 50 inches farther forward than contemporary dragsters of the time. Unfortunately, few followed their lead. Adding weight further forward balanced the chassis, with this car setting a world record of a 6.41 e.t. at 226.13 mph at Lions in July 1971, right in the midst of the rear-engine revolution, but it lost out to Steve Carbone’s front-engine dragster in the finals at the Indy Nationals.The “Hawaiian II” 173-inch wheelbase dragster with the latest Top Fuel puzzle, the new Gen II 426 Chrysler “Marine Engine,” might have started the “flexy flyer” period of flexing chassis. After a disappointing run, engine builder Keith Black hacksawed the uprights in the chassis to gain flex and won the meet with a 7.07 .e.t at 221.66 mph. “The car came back to me all cut up, and I fixed it. I didn’t agree with what they did at all,” Long says. “This one episode started the experiment by chassis builders of the flexing chassis.” Sleeved uprights, no uprights, uprights with saddles that could slide on the main rails, independent front suspensions—all kinds of flex-sanity developed. “Everyone thought they ran better because they flexed the chassis,” Long says. “But there were a chain of cars that didn’t have flex that beat them.”Beautiful in their own right, the beginning of the rear-engine revolution gave birth to slingshots like this Don Long car campaigned by JL Walton, Wes Cerny, and driver Don Moody. Here it’s participating in the Last Drag Race at Lions Drag Strip in December 1972, having just come off of winning the 1972 NHRA Supernationals at Ontario, just an hour drive from “the beach.” The Kuhl and Olson rear-engine digger with a Woody chassis won this event.One aspect of dragster evolution seldom considered is the marketing potential from advertising and how “the show” factors into slingshot design. George Schribner’s “Yellow Fang” was as much a 175-mph advertisement for Ed “Big Daddy” Roth as it was a cog in the dragster-development gear. “The show” became a key ingredient to drag racing, even if it meant a reduced speed.As beautiful as they were, aluminum bodies added weight, negating any perceived advantage in aerodynamics. Still, there were advantages from a marketing and also identification standpoint. This is Dusty Rhodes’ “Rhodes Runner” Top Fuel dragster from 1965 with a Kent Fuller chassis, Steve Swaja body design, and Pat Foster at the wheel.The last front-engine dragsters benefitted from engines set further out from the driver, longer chassis length, and those canards located ahead of the slicks, which helped move air over the tires and also created a low-pressure area at each side of the engine to move through the atmosphere quicker. This is from the 1971 NHRA Summernationals at Ontario, California.In 1966 the second-gen 426 Hemi appeared, which wasn’t initially accepted by drag racers because it represented the unknown, with few components and no experience behind it. Some racers did embrace it, including Garlits, shown here from 1966, but this may have been as much because Dodge was a sponsor as it was to be the first kid on the block with the latest toy.
Forty years at one company is crazy, but that’s the landmark we’re celebrating for HOT ROD’s very unique, devoted, and walking GM part-number catalog, Marlan Davis. Forty years! You know him as HOT ROD’s Tech Editor par excellence—and he’s that, for sure. But Marlan is somewhat of a mystery, even to the staff, as his desert residence in Neenach, California, isolates him from city hustle and bustle, making commutes into Los Angeles a long haul and sightings at the HOT ROD mothership rare.
His longevity at HOT ROD is serendipitous, as he came here when Jim McCraw was editor. Says Jim, “I was the editor of HOT ROD when Marlan was hired in the spring of 1977. He was the son of Petersen Vice President Dick Day’s next-door neighbor, who asked Dick to please give him a job. At the time, Marlan was driving a 1970 SS Chevelle LS7, so Day must have known he was some kind of gearhead. He started out as a gopher and car schlepper all those years ago, but after a while he started to show some interest in engines, and 40 years later he’s one of the most savvy guys in the building.”
HOT ROD needed a car wrangler to shuffle cars and projects around from shop to scenic backdrop to press fleets, and once offered a job at HOT ROD, Marlan grabbed the opportunity. David Freiburger, former HOT ROD editor and current Motor Trend OnDemand star says, “I doubt Day knew that Marlan could write tech, it was just sort of a fluke.” But soon, Marlan was not only writing but also doing features and anything else the staff position required.
Marlan’s thing is automotive technical knowledge, and with his intellectual capacity, he has this incredible ability to dive deep into other people’s automotive maladies—probably much deeper than anyone would’ve considered. Not only that, but he challenges himself to reexamine both the mundane and complex even when past results seem non-refutable, smashing the old adage, “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.” Says former HOT ROD Editor David Kennedy, “He was always willing to reevaluate things he knew about just to challenge himself.” So it might surprise you that Marlan’s degree is in political science.
Marlan also has a thing for numbers. Says another former editor, Pat Ganahl, “He can spout GM parts numbers, aftermarket cam specs, and all of the gear ratios used in Muncie four-speeds from memory.” Numbers and details are just some of his gifts, but that’s not all. Says Ganahl, “Marlan is so into Snap-on tools that after his father retired, Marlan talked him into getting a job with Snap-on so he could take advantage of the employee discounts.” It sounds like a joke, but he’s serious. He was quite proud of this connection and would take orders from the staff and pass along the discount, too.
Marlan could be called an extremist, because anything he really gets into, he takes to extremes—like aircraft fittings and braided hoses. He refuses to use anything in his projects that isn’t aircraft-spec. Says Kennedy, “I think he loves anything with a mil-spec because it has a paper trail and not only tells you what it will do but why it does it, so to Marlan, its purpose has been studied and results backed up.”
All whom we spoke with say Marlan is also a research fanatic, which you probably figured from reading his many articles over the decades. Ganahl says he researches to a fault. “With deadlines looming, I would have to tell him to stop researching and write the article. Sometimes he’d want to give six alternatives for solutions when two were plenty.”
Says current Editor Evan Perkins, “Marlan is the most detail-oriented writer I have ever worked with, but it comes from a deep-seated and selfless desire to help people. He is the Robin Hood of tech writing, cramming hours and hours of painstakingly compiled research and part numbers into elegantly complex tables and charts just to make sure readers have every gram of information to do the job right.”
That pursuit for perfection and attention to detail has posed a problem with the car he’s owned since 1974, his 1969 L-89 Corvette. Originally a Tri-Power four-speed big-block car, that engine was soon plucked for an L-88 427 crate motor that Marlan couldn’t leave alone. Numerous changes to the mill have kept the Corvette a garage queen forever. These recent Ganahl shots are the first images of the car seen in decades. Marlan picks at it from time to time, at his generous home garage sharing space with his GMC Syclone pickup he bought new, and his current daily driver, a two-wheel-drive, 6.0L Trailblazer SS, which is kept in pristine condition. Marlan’s cars of choice are a predictable pattern of big horsepower and unique production orders.
We often wonder if Marlan is aware of the amount of information he has provided over these 40 years and how it may have affected gearheads young and old. Says Kennedy, “When I was HOT ROD editor and Marlan would come into my office, he always called me ‘Mr. Kennedy,’ even though he started working at HOT ROD before I was born. And he finally told me he was always puzzled that he and I thought so much alike about mechanical things. I had to remind him that he taught me a lot of what I know today through the pages of HOT ROD.”
With so many years at HOT ROD, we asked Freiburger what he thought Marlan would be doing if not writing: “Marlan thinks in black and white flowchart terms, he’s super analytical. I think he’d be a great computer programmer.” For all of us, we’re glad he’s not, and we’re happy after these last four decades to still be looking forward to the next technical Easter egg from the incredible Marlan Davis.
HOT ROD Tech Editor Marlan Davis in the midst of project parts in his original office at the Petersen Building on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood. For years, he wrote about cars, events, and projects, as well as doing the bulk of technical articles, but over the last couple of decades, he’s concentrated on technical info exclusively.A five-year anniversary shot of Marlan from 1982. Lenny Emanuelson was editor during this period, and Marlan had already jumped from associate editor to tech editor.Marlan’s shop-worn 1969 Corvette in its current state in his home shop in the desert. Factory flares, red respray, and vintage Jongbloed racing wheels all give the impression this canyon-carver is close to being finished.An L-88 427 crate motor currently resides in Marlan’s Corvette, which has had a substantial amount of mods. Originally a Tri-Power four-speed big-block car, you can see his attention to detail and obsession with AN fittings and hard lines.Caught recently in the HOT ROD offices, Marlan’s hair may have gotten a bit grayer, but his mind is sharp as he intends to continue in the technical editor’s chair for the foreseeable future.The original hood has been mocked up for the added height necessary for the dual-plane intake/four-barrel setup. Marlan’s perfectionism is evident, but maybe seeing it will provide the necessary push to complete it.
Robert Freeman’s 1959 Beetle takes “buggin-out” to new heights.
No, you didn’t pick up Hot VWs Magazine by mistake. This is HOT ROD, so relax. Behold Robert Freeman’s “Berlin Buick,” christened as such because there’s a whole lot of Buick wrapped in that Volkswagen shell. Robert has wanted a mid-engine Volkswagen since he was a kid, and this is the manifestation of that childhood dream. The key to this fantasy fulfillment was to find the right people to help with the hard stuff, and that happened when he took the old Beetle body with a sunroof grafted sometime in its ugly past to Gary Brown at Browns Metal Mods in Port Leyden, north of Syracuse, New York. Robert arrived seeking only a top chop for the body he’d owned for 15 years, to kick off what would be a two-year build. When Robert confessed he was after a mid-engine bug with American V8 power, Gary suggested the 215ci Buick would be perfect because it’s light, narrow, and there’s still a ton of speed parts for the little aluminum terror. He also offered up his shop’s services, and the rest is Deutschamerikaner synchronicity.
The diminutive 215 Buick has been a go-to engine for tight engine conversions since the 1960s. Introduced in 1961, it’s light weight and 4.24-inch bore spacing combined with 3 ½-inch bores, making for compactness that’s just part of the reason it’s a popular engine swap. Only in production by Buick for three years, the rights to the design and tooling were sold to Rover in England, which kept it in production until the mid-1980s, finding its way into MGs and Land Rovers among other British marques. In 1961 it was the lightest weight, mass-produced engine made, at 315 pounds.
Robert’s engine has seen some massaging performed by Jack Dineen, including custom flat-top pistons increasing the compression to 12.5 to 1, a polished stock crank, and adapting a 1999 Buick oil pump with bored galleys and chamfered oil holes. The heads are later Rover 4.0 heads with stainless valves. A Schneider flat-tappet cam was used with .484-inch lift, .305 duration at 0.050, and 106 lobe separation angle. In addition, Chevy small-block valve springs were used. Up front a double-roller chain keeps things in sync.
Crowning the Buick is the Hilborn stack fuel injection using a Holley stand-alone EFI system with custom BMM fuel rails, a FAST regulator set to 47 pounds, and ACCEL injectors. An MSD Pro Billet distributor and MSD coils control the spark. Exhaust is dramatically handled with Brown-built zoomies. Cooling things off are twin Davies Craig water pumps, and custom twin SPAL radiators.
Of course all of this power has to be harnessed, but not with a weak VW transaxle. A new Medeola 4-speed was adapted to the Buick with a Kennedy Engineering bellhousing, enclosing a Stage 2 Kennedy billet steel flywheel. The Driveshaft Shop created the 8-inch 930 CV drive axles, spinning ET Classic V aluminum 15×12-inch wheels, and 15×4-inch ETs up front, mounted with 345/50R15 Nitto Drag Radials and Firestone 145SR15 tires respectively.
The ball-joint front suspension beam was narrowed 6 inches, with dropped spindles and modified shock towers all combining to get the beetle low and riding smooth. Ride Tech Shockwave shocks are at the corners. Brown’s attached all of this to the stock VW pan that has been reinforced with tube rails front to back. Brakes are 8-inch JBugs up front, and Wilwood 8-inch rears, actuated manually, with stainless lines and fittings throughout.
All of this gave the Berlin Bug a stout foundation for the body mods Robert had fantasized about, which were all executed by the Brown brothers Gary, Luke, and Dylan. Things got going with a 4 ½-inch top chop, then roll pans were fabricated for both the front and back, along with rolled fenders, which were left stock width. Both the (former) engine lid and trunk lid were smoothed and also peaked. The running boards were eliminated, and the doors were converted to rear hinges with electric poppers. All of the door corners were rounded, an ode to 1950s customizing where no straight lines or corners were allowed. The stock bumpers were split, narrowed, and tucked tight to the body. 1957 Buick side trim sweep was frenched into the body sides, and 1953 Buick “Venti-port” portholes were added that now function as exhaust ports. Emblempros created all of the Berlin Buick chrome badges.
After all of the body mods were completed, Browns blocked it out, gapped all of the shut lines, then shot a combo of PPG Tonic Brown and Ginger Beer, buried in four coats of clear.
Inside, a rollcage, fire system, and belts were all incorporated. A 1949 Buick dash was sectioned to fit, and then dash-to-door surrounds were fabricated. The portholes, trim to match the exterior, shift knob, and shift boot bezel are all the handiwork of Mike Ripp. A 1949 Buick steering wheel was cut down to fit the stock VW ring, and one-off Classic Instruments gauges fill the Buick dash. Stock VW seats were cut down for clearance, and then Rich Perez at RP Interiors in Horseheads, New York, covered everything in beige replicate leather.
There are many pitfalls and detours that can kill such an involved project like the Berlin Buick, but when everyone is on the same page and the owner has a concept in mind he and the shop he chooses sticks with, then unique and impactful vehicles such as this can be the result. As Robert’s VW attests, the wildest cars are yet to come.
The Berlin Buick hides its motivation well, with the only hint the wide ET Classic-V rear wheels and Nitto Drag Radials. Wheel tubs were fabb’d by Browns Metal Mods, who did virtually all of the body mods, body prep, and paint. Colors are PPG Tonic Brown and Ginger Beer.Robert Freman originally purchased the 1956 oval-window Volkswagen body for $1,000, then spent years formulating his mid-engine plan. The tucked-in stock rear bumper incorporates 1959 Lincoln bumperettes housing the round taillights. Stock lid has been shaved, and while the fenders look widened, they are not.Hiding in the back seat is the heart of this mid-engine Beetle beast: the 1963 215ci Buick/Rover aluminum engine. Jack Dineen at Dineen’s Repair in Little Falls, New York, handled all building aspects of the aluminum V8, including the Hilborn stack injection, now Holley/MSD-controlled. Through-the-body zoomies are by Browns, exiting through 1953 Buick portholes.The entire car is a combo of Buick and Volkswagen, which is no more evident than inside where a 1949 Buick dash was modified to fit the bug, and the steering wheel is a mashup of Buick and Beetle. The gold shift knob is by Mike Ripp.The Buick dash extensions are prominent here, as is Rich Perez’s upholstery work at RP Interiors in Horseheads, New York. Retro/contemporary beige replicate leather and rich cloth pattern blend well with PPG paint. Doors were converted to suicide with electric poppers. Note all of the rounded door and sill corners.Check out the nasty profile. Windshield posts have been leaned back, and there’s a nice, subtle rake to the heavy top chop. Besides the removal of the stock running boards, the rockers have been rolled in to finish off the car’s bottom.Stout Medeola 4-speed was adapted to the Buick with a Kennedy Engineering bellhousing, all supported by a tubing structure by Browns, who also created the belled panels. The Driveshaft Shop built the 8-inch 930 CV drive axles, all slathered in PPG Ginger Beer paint and chrome bracket accents.Uh, uh, don’t get too close to those Buick portholes, they are the real deal conveniently exiting the exhaust through Browns-built zoomies.It all looks so natural and like it was produced this way when you see it shiny and finished, but hundreds of hours went into planning and fabricating so that it looks this way. Robert says there is no tire rubbing or mystery noises, and that he plans on driving it every weekend he can, New York weather permitting.
In 2016, Brent McCoy started what is now an unofficial tradition at Drag Week: the Stick Shift Shootout. Brent noticed there was a bit of downtime between rounds of the Street Machine Eliminator brackets, so he approached Frank Romano with his plan. Brent knew fellow gear-slinger Frank was in cahoots with several other Drag Week racers who survived the races with their stick-shifted cars, so they assembled a list of interested parties and asked Drag Week staff if they could form their own single-elimination bracket. We had no objections, so a handful of racers ponied up $20 each for an entry fee, with the winner taking the whole purse. The Stick Shift Shootout’s inaugural run ended with Frank Romano grabbing the win and the cash.
For 2017, many of the same players were ready to pitch in to take their own shot at the purse, and more importantly, the trophy that Frank Roman built in the meantime. Assembled from bits of fragged transmission donated by Randy Franklin, Jeff Sias, Andy Starr, Rich Guido, and Frank himself, the base is part of the clutch disc that blew up on Frank’s first Drag Week in 2010. Engraved on one tab of the disc are the racers’ names and the final e.t.’s.
Frank Romano, winner of the inaugural Stick Shift Shootout, built the trophy that is now presented to each year’s champion.Loss: Randy Franklin // 1964 Buick Skylark // 11.90 at 118.17 mph Win: Ed Hohenberg // 1966 Pontiac GTO // 11.49 at 113.76 mphLoss: Dominic Zvarek // 1973 Camaro // 10.23 at 133.34 mph Win: Rich Guido // 1965 Pontiac GTO // 9.90 at 143.61 mphLoss: Frank Romano // 1955 Chevy 10.49 at 97.80 mph, far off his typical high 9-second Win: John Puckett // 1983 Mercury Capri // 9.21 at 151.56 mphLoss: Jeremy Heizer // 1991 Trans Am GTA // 10.34 at 136.51 mph Win: Jason Hoots // 1985 Mustang // 9.53 at 142.16 mphLoss: Jonathan Ratz dead-hooked his 2014 Mustang, and that put him behind from the beginning, running a 13.91 at 105.39 mph Win: Jeremy Stelford // 1968 Camaro // 13.09 at 105.20 mphLoss: Ian Christiansen and his crowd-favorite 1984 Honda Civic ran a 22.91 at 54.85 mph Win: Greg Millershone // 1969 Camaro // 13.73 at 105.18 mphLoss: Brad Morris // 1989 Dodge Caravan’s 12.59 at 109.76 Win: Nelson Santos // 2002 Chevrolet Corvette // 12.94 at 107.94 mphLoss: Brian Lum // 2017 Camaro // 11.99 at 120.43 mph Win: Kurt Stewart // 1991 Eagle Talon // 10.75 at 137.39 mphLoss: Greg Millershone // 1969 Camaro // 14.23 at 100.88 mph Win: Ed Hohenberg // 1966 Pontiac GTO // 12.00 at 115.92 mphLoss: Nelson Santos // 2002 Chevrolet Corvette // 14.24 at 85.95 mph Winner: Jeremy Stelford // 1968 Camaro // 13.19 at 104.31Loss: Kurt Stewart // 1991 Eagle Talon // 13.68 at 85.57 Winner: John Puckett continued his hot streak with a 1.38 60-foot on the way to a 9.26 at 150.73 mphWin: Rich Guido // 1965 Pontiac GTO // 9.98 at 142.84 mph Loss: Jason Hoots // 1985 Ford Mustang // DNFLoss: Jeremy Stelford // 1968 Camaro // 13.80 at 103.10 mph Win: John Puckett // 1983 Mercury Capri // 9.78 at 145.06 mphLoss: Ed Hohenberg // 1966 Pontiac GTO // 12.73 at 87.73 mph Win: Rich Guido // 1965 Pontiac GTO // 9.90 at 143.46 mphLoss: John Puckett // 1983 Mercury Capri // 10.84 at 103.87 mph Win: Rich Guido // 1965 Pontiac GTO // 9.80 at 143.76 mph John Puckett, who had been putting on a bang-shifting clinic all week, charged off the line ahead of Guido, but missed the 1-2 shift. Guido pulled ahead and didn’t look back, taking the trophy and adding his name beside Frank Romano’s.Another Drag Week trophy tradition is the guitars given by Gear Vendors to the three quickest drivers. This year they went to Dan Saitz (third), Joe Barry (second), and overall winner Dave Schroeder.
