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45 Years Ago
On August 6 at the drag races at Orange County Airport in Santa Ana
(Calif.), Lloyd Scott and George Smith's gas-burning "Bustle Bomb" (A
Cadillac in front and an Olds behind the driver) set a track speed record
with a 147.05-mph charge. Exactly two weeks later, Scott would win the
World Series of Drag Racing at the airport in Lawrenceville, Ill., and
in the process become the first drag racer over the 150-mph mark with
a 151.07 shot. To show you how things have changed, a week later at
Santa Ana, Bud Hare's twin-engine motorcycle beat Ollie Morris' record-holding
"Smokin' White Owl" D/Roadster, the fastest class at the track, for
Top Eliminator. Earlier in the day, Morris had set top speed with a
140.08-mph pass.
35 Years Ago
The first ever Super Stock Magazine Nationals was held at York U.S.
30 Dragway in Pennsylvania on August 21, making history as the first
big Funny Car show of all-time. An unexpectedly gigantic crowd of a
reported 21,000 showed for the race, cementing the young class as major
league drag racing attraction. The most popular classes (all cars ran
according to weight) were the lightweight injected, nitro-burning, altered-wheelbase
factory Unlimited Stock and Factory Experimental cars.
25 Years Ago
Don Garlits backed up the fastest speed in the sport's history when
he logged a 249.30-mph lap while winning Top Fuel at the Popular Hot
Rodding Magazine Championships at U.S. 131 in Martin, Michigan. In one
of the best Top Fuel finals of the year, Gary Beck in Ray Peets' Export
A dragster took a close holeshot win over Garlits, 6.03 to 6.00, to
win the IHRA Nationals at Dragway 42 in West Salem, Ohio.
15 Years Ago
NHRA Sportsman great David Rampy, who just won the recent NHRA Northwest
Nationals Comp. title, has been great for a long time. The 33-time NHRA-event
winner was the Super Rod winner at the '85 IHRA Summer Nationals at
Edgewater Sports Park in Cleves, Ohio and went on to become the association's
World Champ in that division. In the years preceding, Rampy was the
IHRA Hot Rod World Champ in 1983 and 1984.
5 Years Ago
The 14th annual NHRA Champion Auto Stores Nationals took place as per
usual at Brainerd Int'l Raceway in Minnesota. Gary Densham made his
second Funny Car final of the year in his NEC-backed Dodge, but lost
to the world champ John Force. Warren Johnson, en route to another Winston
Pro Stock championship, took a holeshot win over Jim Yates, 7.20 to
7.19, and Mike Dunn in the Gwynn Family's Mopar dragster beat Tommy
Johnson Jr. for the Top Fuel title.
15 Minutes Ago
Republican vice-presidential hopeful Dick Cheney, stung by criticism
of his reactionary stands on a variety of political issues, has vowed
to strike his name from a recent national petition where he signed himself
in support of reviving "White Only Drinking Fountains." Lifeless Democratic
presidential hopeful Albert Gore announced that he had X-rays that prove
conclusively that he is not powered by batteries.
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