We're fairly sure we don't have to tell you who Don Garlits is. Baseball has its Babe Ruth, boxing its Jack Dempsey, and Indy car has its A.J. Foyt. Garlits is certainly this sport’s most fabled figure. Suffice to say, he was a 10-time AHRA Top Fuel World Champ, a three-time NHRA World Champ, and a three-time IHRA king.

I remember it was September of 1949 and I was 17 years old, heading into my senior year at Hillsborough high school in Tampa, Florida. I had gotten a job and saved my money and got myself a ‘40 Ford two-door and I was like any kid-really proud of my new car and just cruising around.

I was driving near the high school, I think it was at Florida and Buffalo avenues, and a kid pulls up alongside me in a brand spanking new ‘49 Chevy, probably had less than a hundred miles on it. I’ll never forget his name: W.P Robinson, he was a rich kid. He had air conditioning in his car and he had his windows up, and he rolls ‘em down and says, ‘Hey, you wanna race?’ I figured why not.

Well, we went to a light about 10 blocks from the school and at the green, we took off. Well, my Ford had a lot of miles on it; it was 10 years old, and it just lugged along. This Robinson kid knew how to drive better than I did and he was speedshifting. Heck, he had his rear tires by my front door when he went into second gear and those tires just chirped at the gear change.

I wasn’t happy about losing, but, boy, that race was something. I loved it. The speed charging down that four lane road and we only went, maybe a 100 yards, and we didn’t even call it a drag race back then. But man, I thought to myself that probably wouldn’t be the last time I did that. I was hooked.

I went right home after that because at the time, I couldn’t believe the guy had beaten me like that. I had a V-8 and all he had was a 216-cid Chevy in it. Of course, I was young and didn’t realize that my car was tired and that Chevy was in a lot better shape. I didn’t know what I was doing; I took off the air cleaner, sort of looked it over, but I was a year away from learning about cars.

That came in my senior year. I was an accounting major, but because of the credits system at the school and because I had ROTC, I had my mornings open. My father had been a mechanic, and I was always interested in it, but he and my mother divorced when I was 10, and I never followed up on it.

But, one morning, I went by this class room and it had mills, bandsaws, lathes, welders, and it got me interested and I wound up taking a General Metals class. There was a Mr. Fowler, who was our teacher, and one day he came in with a 1949 Hot Rod magazine and I looked at all the pictures of heads, engine blocks, carburetors, and roadsters, and I just felt myself being drawn into this whole deal further and further.

In the summer of 1950, I traded my ‘40 for a Ford convertible and was the first driver in the lanes at Zephyr Hills Dragstrip. My Ford had a 110-horsepower Merc engine in it and I was ready to go. One of the starting area guys came by and painted a No. 1 on the window and I just thought that was great. I didn’t win that day, but I did later on.

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