45 YEARS AGO…
On November 20, the results at the drag races at Orange County
Airport in Santa Ana produced some interesting names on the class winners
list. In Heavy Coupe, Jim Dunn's V-8 - powered Volkswagen took the win
with a speed of 103.09 mph. Jim Dunn? Mooneyes? Al Hofmann? Yep, one and
the same... The Strip Gas Overhead Valve glass went to Pancho Gonzalez
in a roadster. Who's he? A U.S. Open tennis champion, among other things,
and a regular at Wimbledon... And if all that's not enough...the winner
of C/Stock Automatic was Ben Franklin at 80.64-mph. Most agreed, he was
remarkably preserved.
35 YEARS AGO…
We realize this tests the limits of credibility, but on Nov.
5 at Lions, Paul Sutherland drove "the Charger" Top Fuel dragster of
Woody Gilmore to an outlandish 230.43-mph speed ... the first 230 ever.
Problem? 230.43 didn't come up that way in the hundredths column of
the clocks of that time. To Sutherland's defense (somewhat) the block
did explode spectacularly at the end of the run. The real first 230?
Likely James Warren's 230.17 in "the Ridge Route Terrors" fueler in
April of 1967 at Fresno Dragway in central California ... One number
that did likely occur was Gary Southern's 191.48 that same night in
Pat Akins and Roger Hardcastle's "Stinger" Aston-Martin Funny Car in
a two straight loss to Don Nicholson's Comet at Irwindale Raceway. 190s
were extremely rare at that time, "popcorn" clocks or not.
25 YEARS AGO…
Okay, we promise no allusions to the 1975 Ontario NHRA Supernationals
... Instead ... In early November, the performance world was mourning
the death of "Honest Charley" Card Jr., one of the great pioneers in
the field of mail order performance ... Taking the wins at the Phenix
City Dragway (Ala.) $10,000 was Top Fuel racer Clayton Harris, who won
two out of three races from "Big Daddy" Don Garlits. In Funny Car, "Jungle
Jim" Liberman took two out of three wins over Paul Smith in the Wilson-Franklin-Greer
Monza ... IHRA President Larry Carrier announced that construction had
begun on a "new million dollar dragway at Commerce, Georgia." That track,
of course, is Atlanta Dragway.
15 YEARS AGO…
At the end of the 1985 season, IHRA had crowned two Pro champions,
Dale Pulde in Funny Car and Bruce Allen in Pro Stock. Allen's season
championship was really something special as he had to fill the shoes
of 1983 and 1984 IHRA Pro Stock champ, the late Lee Shepherd at the
wheel of the Reher & Morrison Camaro ... Pulde and Allen really went
on a tear that year winning three mid-year event titles consecutively,
the Winston Spring Nationals (Bristol, Tenn.), the Motorcraft Northern
Nationals (Milan, Michigan), and the Kangaroo Gateway Nationals (St.
Louis, Mo.) ... And the NHRA World Champs? Don Garlits (Top Fuel), Kenny
Bernstein (Funny Car) and Bob Glidden (Pro Stock).
5 YEARS AGO…
 The
late Blaine Johnson scored the first win of his Top Fuel career at the
NHRA Winston Select Finals. The four-time NHRA Alcohol Dragster champ
ran a 4.68/300.10 to nail Larry Dixon Jr. in Don Prudhomme's dragster
in the final ... Possibly the best speed effort of the nineties remained
uneclipsed as Joe Amato's 312.50-mph event and year topper failed to
match Kenny Bernstein's world record 314.46-mph charge of a year previous
… While the publishing date is 1994 at the intro, Robert Post's High
Performance book on drag racing, a remarkable 417-page hardback on the
technological development of the sport, hits its stride.
5 Minutes Ago ...
Heard a decent presidential joke. Former presidents Nixon, Ford, Carter,
Reagan, and Clinton are on a cruise ship that is taking on water seriously.
Ford, ankle deep in water, says, "It looks like we've sprung a leak."
Reagan says, "You gotta do what?" Carter says, "This is bad, we better
get the women off first." Nixon says, "Scr*w the women." Clinton responds,
"How much time we got?" Rim shot, drummer.
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