Ivo, while not necessarily the winningest driver, certainly was one who was capable of driving anything. In his career, he drove Top Gas, Top Fuel, Funny Car, jets, and in his final year, his fabled four-engine Buick dragster, arguably the most radical dragster ever built.

27. GENE SNOW
While most fans readily recall Snow's fame as a Top Fuel driver, it was in Funny Car that he guaranteed himself a spot in any drag racing hall of fame. For example, in the first Hot Rod Association Funny Car field, the '65 AHRA Winternationals, Factory Stock show, Snow qualified the Melton & Snow Dodge in the 16th spot, losing in round one.

He ran the first 200-mph time (leaving aside Don Garlits' Dodge roadster) with a 200.44 at the old Houston Raceway Park in August of 1968. He ran the first 210 a year later with a 213.77 in a winning Funny Car final at the 1969 AHRA Rockingham (N.C.) U.S. Open.

And if you are open-minded his back-to-back U.S. Nationals Competition and Super Eliminator wins in 1966 and 1967 were the first wins by what was technically a Funny Car, an injected '66 Dodge Dart.

Snow was also the first racer to win Funny Car titles in two associations in the same year when he garnered the 1970 NHRA and AHRA crowns. All in all, Snow won the AHRA Funny Car bauble in 1970, 1971, and 1978.

While Snow won three NHRA Top Fuel national event titles, he did much better in IHRA. He was the 1987, 1988, and 1991 IHRA Top Fuel World Champ. Snow can lay claim to the longest held IHRA Top Fuel record. His 4.97 pass the first IHRA four-second Top Fuel mark) at the 1988 IHRA Texas Nationals in October held as the association record until 1997(JEFF check this year in one of your IHRA books). Of course, he ran the first NHRA four at the October 1988 Houston Supernationals with a 4.99.

Like Louis Armstrong in jazz (a Hall of Famer as a trumpet player and vocalist), he well could enter Garlits' Hall of Fame as BOTH a Top Fuel and Funny Car racer.

28. ART CHRISMAN
- Uncle of Jack Chrisman

- On Feb. 3, 1953, Art drove his and partner Leroy Neumayer's roadster to the sport's first "unofficial" nine-second time, a 9.40 from a rolling start, and the sport's first 140-mph run, a 140.08 at Santa Ana.

- On the Daytona Speed Week weekend, Chrisman won a five-day drag race held on the sand, Feb. 19-25, 1956. Chrisman was the single winningest driver that weekend on the quarter-mile long, 500-foot (!) wide track, clocking a best speed of 118.42 mph.

- Chrisman ran the West Coast's first 180-mph fuel speed on Feb. 15, 1959 at Riverside Raceway. He ran an 8.94/181.81 backed by an 8.54/179.28 in the Chrisman & Cannon dragster.

- Chrisman drove that same dragster to the inaugural Bakersfield Meet title, beating Tony Waters in the Waters-Sughrue-Guinn DeSoto-powered roadster in the final.

- At the 1960 Bakersfield Meet, Chrisman set low e.t. at 8.60.

- At the 1961 Bakersfield Meet, Chrisman took runner-up in Fuel Eliminator to Jack Ewell in the Ewell-Stecker-Kamboor dragster.

At the 1960 and 1962 Southern California Championships at Pomona, Chrisman won the Fuel Eliminator titles.

29. "OHIO GEORGE" MONTGOMERY
NHRA has this well-scoped out as "Ohio George" ran NHRA exclusively. The big deal to me was that his Malco Gasser '67 Mustang was three tenths quicker than any of the pre-war coupes that he totally outclassed in 1967.

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