Drag Racing Online- Special (page 1 of 3)

Fanning the Flames of Udder Nonsense

Text by Chris Martin
Photos by Tim Marshall

Free beer. Can you think of a better pair of motivating words? I'm sure "Care to come in and have a nightcap?" rates up there close, but complimentary suds? That's a four-alarmer for the seat of the pants.

Those words led to Brent and Vicky Fanning beginning a career that would lead to the eventual formation of "Udder Nonsense" Racing, a venture that would include a string of Funny Cars, a Top Fuel dragster, a rocket car, and currently two blown and injected, nitro-burning trucks. Now that beer part might sound like a cutesy way to whip out a capsule narrative, but Fanning swears its true.

"Vicky and I got married young, "he said. "I was 18 and she was 17 and one night we decided to go to the drag races at Green Valley (Race City in Smithfield, Texas). It was 1973 and at the time, I wasn't even sure what a Funny Car was, but they had these guys - 'Jungle Jim,' Gene Snow, the 'Moby Dick' Corvette, the 'Blue Max" - racing and better than that, the announcer said 'Free beer.' Well, I felt I could relate to whatever was going on there whether or not we knew what a Funny Car was. We went and when we left we both agreed a Funny Car was something we both wanted."

It wouldn't be easy. Not only were the Fannings young, but they didn't come equipped with attaché cases stuffed with Benjamins. The Fannings had a small dairy farm in Stephenville, Texas, smack dab in the middle of the state, and while it provided a living it wasn't enough to support a drug habit like nitro racing.

Worse yet, their saving money throughout the 1970's was done in competition with the big corporate farms of the area. On the best days, the Fannings might milk 100 cows a day, the corporate farms could do 7,000 to 8,000.

So their career began modestly enough. Brent ran his 1973 Ford Ranchero at Texas Raceway in Kennedale in his debut and a few years later he and Vicky ran an A/Fuel Dragster at the local tracks.

"Dairy farming was not going to produce a Funny Car nor was an A/FD," recalled Brent. "So we had to do some strategic thinking on the matter. I had to clamp down on my cigar, tilt my hat, squint my eyes and do some plotting."

What he came up with was a rocket dragster. It didn't happen overnight. Fanning bought the car around 1980 and it was the last (or one of the last) cars built by the late Frank Huszar of Race Car Specialties in Tarzana, Calif. The rocket engine was the one that had powered the late Chuck Suba's X-1 dragster, and the unconventional (a trick the Fannings would prove to be very good at) exotic body was made by, as Brent said, "some guy who built surfboards."

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