This is one of the longest continually run dragsters of all time; the infamous Ike Iacono rail, originally featured on HOT ROD’s January 1959 cover. That’s one of its HOT ROD connections, but a more important one is that former HOT ROD editor Pat Ganahl restored and owns this magnificent piece of history. What started as an 11-year-old boy’s attraction to the orange dragster in HOT ROD led to him ultimately acquiring the still-running rail almost 30 years later, then putting it on hold for another 20 before bringing it back to its 1959 cover status, with help from some amazing friends and craftsmen.
Acquired from former owner Tom Taros in 1988, Pat had been after it for years. Built for a stab at the very first Bonneville meet in 1949 by Laird “Lefty” Pierce, with Ford flathead power and an aluminum streamline body, it was a homebuilt effort from the remnants of a Miller Indy racecar back when such provenance meant nothing. Purchased by 17-year-old Raul “Sonny” Balcaen in 1953, he configured it to its unique identity by swapping out the Ford for a 302ci GMC straight-6, also banging out a new body from magnesium with a hand-formed aluminum nose. The body featured doubled, riveted edges, and was young Balcaen’s first attempt at gas-welded metal fab.
The Mercedes silver dragster ran both stock and 12-port heads with three or five-carb induction. On gas, its best times were low 10s at 136mph.But the rail was known to have set 4-banger records in 1955 fielded by Ed Donovan and Frank Startup running a Fargo four-port head topping a Model B Ford block. Pat says around this same time it was seen with a Hilborn-injected small block Chevy V8, establishing its versatile pass-around workhorse status. Also at this time it received the first Donovan double-disc clutch. After shattering its Model A Halibrand quickchange, Balcaen upgraded the rail with Hilborn injection, a 1937 LaSalle transmission, and V8 Halibrand quickchange rounding out the drivetrain. In 1957 at Colton the dragster hit 151mph at 9.6-seconds. Also during this period Iacono was having much success running his 1933 Ford coupe, helping to develop the first Wayne 12-port head ever made in the process. He was consistently hitting over 130mph in quarter-mile blasts, but slowly feeling the need to go even faster.
By 1957 Balcaen was working for Jim Hall in Culver City, with the dragster collecting dust in a far corner of the shop. Hearing the car was for sale, Iacono paid $1500 for the engine-less rail, spending the next six months filling over 120 holes in the chassis and reconfiguring the roll cage. It also received its George Boskoff aluminum tail. Refinement and an exceptional display of craftsmanship and detail marked Iacono’s ownership, with aircraft fasteners and scattershields for both the bellhousing and rear being just some of the attention paid to both safety and craftsmanship. Resplendent in the bright orange and black the coupe was known for, and with the coupe’s GMC-6 now housed in the rail’s rails, Iacono was rewarded with “Best Appearing” and also Top Eliminator awards in its first showing at Pomona, with a 10.83 et at 126.93mph fastest run of the meet.
Top Eliminator awards were given for the fastest car at each meet, regardless of class. Competing against the stout V8s and twin-engine cars of the day, Iacono was piling up Top Eliminator awards from virtually every meet he attended. And then in late-1958, it was recognized as significant enough for HOT ROD to feature it and place it on the cover.
By the end of 1959, the stronger Hemis and lighter Olds and Chevy V8s were gaining on the Jimmy, and so in 1960 Iacono parked the dragster to dive into his new tune up and brake service business located near the LA Harbor in San Pedro, California.
A young Tom Taros started working at Iacono’s shop in 1961, and soon convinced his boss to take the old rail to Lions Drag Strip, tip some nitro, and let Tom see what he could do with it. Hitting almost 160mph in the low-9.7s that first race, it would become a consistent 10.50 winner, which was timely as e.t. bracket racing was just unfolding in southern California. It wasn’t long before Tom was racing the digger every weekend, presenting Iacono with a winners check on Monday.
It took a few years to finally convince Tom Taros to swap my dragster for his straight across” – Pat Ganahl
Within a year Iacono got an offer for the GMC 12-port he couldn’t refuse, and so the dragster was again idle until a friend of Taros’ loaned him his small block Chevy engine. Back on the strip, the LaSalle trans and quickchange could not withstand the launches and higher rpms of the V8, and so Taros installed a narrowed Pontiac rear end and 4-speed he massaged. A new pickle green color and Taros-fabb’d fuel injection system, along with Iacono retiring and handing ownership of the rail to Taros, it was the beginning of a whole new chapter in the dragster’s storied life.
Taros built an ever-faster series of small block Chevys, improving his fuel injection system while experimenting with nitro. He ran the “Green Pickle” across the Southland at Irwindale, Lions, Orange County, and Palmdale for the next 25 years. With nostalgia racing taking place at Fremont in the mid-1980s, Taros still had an outlet to continue experimenting to see how much faster he could go as one strip after another closed down operations.
After building a Fuel Altered for a series in HOT ROD in the early 1980s, Pat had gotten the nostalgia race bug and commenced building an A/Fuel dragster teamed with iconic engine builder Gene Adams and Hilborn master Don Enriquez to reincarnate the old Adams and Enriquez A/Fuel dragster. Reconfiguring an old Woody Gilmore 180-inch chassis, Gene supplied the Hemi, and Don drove and helped tune. They even won back-to-back March Meets proving to be an unbeatable combo. As the nostalgia zeitgeist multiplied, Pat continued to chase the ever-escalating safety rules changes instituted by various nostalgia overlords. While Taros continued to race, he fell behind the safety changes, hitting speeds of 200mph with virtually 100-percent pop in the antiquated and outdated dragster. He was running a fine line between getting caught and getting hurt, or worse.
Eventually Pat ran out of both time to devote to the A/Fueler, and money. Pat’s desire to give up racing, and Taros’ desire for quicker times finally converged, resulted in them swapping dragsters. It took a while for Taros to see the merits in giving up his old digger, but to continue his addiction to drag racing and love of chasing ever-increasing speeds he needed a better vessel.
About to embark on a re-launch of Rod & Custom magazine, Pat had no time to build anything other than an audience. He knew he wanted to restore the old dragster to its HOT ROD cover status, but for the next 20 years he did little more than score various pieces to put it back to 1959.
In a strange occurrence we’ve seen over and over with vintage dragster restorations, slowly the parts used on the car originally that have scattered over the decades slowly found a home back with the car they came from. And so the first ever 12-port Wayne head, the original Hilborn injection components, and other small pieces ended up right where they started. Big items like the one-year-only 1937 LaSalle transmission, NOS government surplus 302ci GMC short block, new Vertex magneto, quickchange, and countless small parts slowly came together as the years progressed.
Eventually Pete Eastwood in Pasadena, was contacted to replace part of the wasted frame, engine, and trans mounts; make an adaptor motor plate and motor mounts, narrow and mount the rear end, and other fabb’d pieces needed to make it a roller. Bob McKray refurbished the Wayne head, making custom valves and seats, and then assembled the Jimmy. Don Enriquez rebuilt the fuel injections system including the pump originally on the car in 1959, and a batch of small stuff came from Keith Young that included the original Chet Herbert cam used in the car, the original Iacono handmade water neck, and he loaned Pat the original Wayne front cover to have copies made since finding another one was impossible. Joe Umphenour, Bill Jenks, Bill Akin, Doug Robinson, and Derek Bower all contributed either un-obtainium parts or invaluable services in the restoration.
By 2006 it was completed, with Pat finding places few and far between to be able to run it, which he does as often as possible. On 50-percent nitro he’s hovering at the 150mph mark.
So after all of these decades—almost seven, this singular example of what drag racing is and where it came from still plies the quarter mile, a lasting tribute to all of those involved both with the dragster itself but also all of those participants that created these racing machines from scratch in an effort to have some fun and thrills racing in a straight line.
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