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On Sunday, Oct. 9, 1966, John "the Zookeeper" Mulligan pushed the candy-striped Adams-Wayre-Mulligan dragster to the sport's first piston-driven six-second run at Carlsbad Raceway. His 6.95/221.12 was not backed-up by a next best of 7.27/219.51 ... How good was that or make that how unbelievable. Super fast Lions Drag Strip's track record was a 7.12 by Dave Beebe and the NHRA Top Fuel national record was a 7.26 by Crietz-Greer-Vic Brown ... Val LaPorte's "All-American" Top Fueler won a best of three over Emery Cook in Don Garlits' Dodge roadster at Sportsman Park near Winston-Salem, North Carolina. LaPorte's dragster ran a best of 7.40/209, and Cook ran an incredible 195.64 mph in 8.05 seconds. A week later Cook would really make history with the first Funny Car 200. ... On October 14 at St. Petersburg, Fla., ran an 8.05/200.00. Cook was there running exhibition solos and carded subsequent runs of 8.23/188 and 8.30/193 ... Irwindale Raceway in Southern California hosted the first of its Grand Prix Top Fuel shows. 32 cars would qualify based on their best runs of the year up to the race's Oct. 22 date. Low qualifier was James Warren with a 7.38, but he was long gone by the time Dabe Beebe wheeled the Beebe Bros.-Vinson-Sixt dragster past Winkel-Trapp-Gerry Glenn in the final round. 25 YEARS AGO
NHRA's final national event of the Bicentennial season was the single race in drag racing history that had the most difficult act to follow, the 1976 NHRA Supernationals/Winston Finals at Ontario, California. The year prior, Don Garlits led the sport's first all-five second show, stealing the thunder with a 5.63 record that would hold for seven years. ... The weather did not cooperate at all in 1976 with temperatures hovering somewhere between 95 and 100 degrees ... As it was, Shirley Muldowney's new Ron Attebury-built dragster ran away with the show, carding a low e.t., top speed best of 5.77/249.30, and whipping Jerry Ruth in the final round. ... The Orange County Manufacturers Funny Car championships were held at the end of the month with Don "the Snake" Prudhomme's U.S. Army Monza beating Ed McCulloch's Revell-backed Plymouth Volare (DRO file photo above) in the final. ... The most interesting race from an historical perspective came in round two of the event. Top draw "Jungle Jim" Liberman lost a tire-smoke-filled joust with a young and then unknown John Force in his "Brute Force" Monza. |
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