A Rumble of a Reunion

We finally get our front-engine dragster out at the Hot Rod Reunion

7/9/04

I know we aren't supposed to shoot race cars on grass, but Beech Bend's vegetation looked so inviting. . .can you dig a "new-old" dragster? I can.

oo bad I can't review my new front-engine dragster for Motor Trend. It might start this way: "This long-nosed freak of nature, whose dinosaurian style faded out in the 1970s only to re-emerge as a "Jr." copy in the late 1990s, will snap your head back quicker than you can say 'Blink, there goes the bottom bulb, let's go, greyhound.' It has a rat of a motor that will push Gramps back in his seat like a hard shove from Arnie Schwarzenegger, and by the time he's lifted off the throttle, Grandpa is sailing through the time traps at 150-plus."

But alas, it's a drag racer, not a sports car, so the above superlatives don't fit. Or do they? Let's see: the adjectives might be. . .skinny, straight, smooth, shiny, slick. . .and fast. The first time I ran my "Yeow-eee!" (yes, the name fits) FED down the quarter-mile was at the second NHRA Holley Hot Rod Reunion presented by DuPont Automotive Finishes at Beech Bend Raceway Park in Bowling Green, Kentucky in the middle of June, and I hit 150 mph with no sweat. The second time was in competition, and I, not quite comfortable with a bottom-bulb leave off the trans brake, footbraked it to an 8.70 elapsed time and 145.19 mph, braking on an 8.90 breakout run. Take that, Mr. Motor Trend Sports Car.

Actually, it took myself, Fabrication Concepts (Douglasville, Georgia) chassis man Tommy Harris and painter/powder coater Joe Sannutti of Premier Custom Paint and Powder Coating in Baxley, Georgia, 13 months to get Mr. "Yeow-eee!" going. The day before the Reunion, June 17, Tommy and I spent 25 hours finishing my "new" front-engine dragster in his backyard shop, battling not only the clock but rain and a lack of shut-eye with zero coffee or Cokes. We loaded her up at 11:30 p.m. Thursday and by 12:30 Fran had met me at the McDonald's off I-75 and State Road 20, and we were on our way. Engine man Mike Pittman of Pittman Racing Engines in Roswell, Georgia, was right behind, towing his '64 Impala Modified Production/D/Gas/Super Street/Super Pro coupe to Bowling Green as well.

It was one of the hardest races we've ever participated in. Long story short, we first had no oil pressure in Mike's new, as-yet-cranked 383 stroker small-block, the results of too short an oil pump rod that had mistakenly been put in the oil pump kit by the shipper. A trip to the parts store by Joe and a thrash by Pittman and Fran solved that problem, only to run into another -- no fuel pressure. We swapped pumps and voila! the alky-fed engine was singing at 11 psi of fuel. Then no first or reverse gears. Joe jumped into his golf cart and tracked down a new valve body from neighbor and '41 Willys competitor Clarence Cloud, and by Saturday afternoon (and hey, this is again the short version), I was sitting in staging, ready for my first and only time run.

An 8.90 and a bad tree got me well into the Hot Rod Reunion's Quick 64 field (with 115 cars entered), and we were set for Sunday's eliminations. Trouble was, I was, according to the Reunion rules, locked into that 8.90 dial-in, so I decided to footbrake my dragster in eliminations. Another long story short -- I ran an 8.704 at 145.19 mph with another bad tree to lose to a guy in a Chevy II who knew how to bracket race (he hit a .555 reaction time and ran 10.248 at 127.19 mph off a 10.19 dial, courageously lifting, and lost at three cars to a '36 Ford). And we were through. Mike lost in the third round in Quick 64 with a .498 red light and one number high to a winning .590-something and eight numbers high. But we had fun, and "Yeow-eee!", clearly the most beautiful car I've ever owned, impressed both myself and plenty of interested bystanders.