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.
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