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No-Vember? YES-Vember.By Chris Martin
Photos by Jeff Burk and Tim Marshall FUNNY CAR vs. AA/GAS SUPERCHARGED
I'm sure I'm forgetting something here as November 21, 1964 was a long time ago. Hell, I don't think a member of our World Series wunderkinds, the Anaheim Angels were even born on that date, and what a match race those "go-for-its" missed. On that particular Saturday evening, Lions Drag Strip management had booked a two-out-of-three best between the World's Fastest Street Machine (as we called it), the Stone-Woods-Cook AA/GS '41 Willys coupe against the wildest car of the latter half of the season, Jack Chrisman's Sachs & Sons Lincoln Mercury-backed, blown and injected, nitro-burning '64 Comet. The Chrisman machine had been confined to exhibition runs since its Indy debut of that year and had all of us hardcore fans chomping at the bit to see what it would do against some real competition. If anybody qualified as real competition, it was the S-W-C Willys. Chrisman's car was only one of a half dozen blown and injected stockers at the time, and only one of two that ran nitro. NHRA, at that time, had no idea what to do with the things and lumped them under the heading of "BB"- or "CC/Fuel Dragster" or some such shot-in-the-dark grouping. Even more in-tune organizations such as the staff at Super Stock magazine could only come up with terms like "Unlimited Stock" "blown stock," or a little later on, "S/XS" (Super Experiental Stock). At the time, no one knew what the fate of these freakazoid cars would be, although now we can look back with 100% accuracy and see that they were the precursors of the modern Funny Car. In a sense, the Chrisman vs. Cook race flirted dangerously with being the first "real" Funny Car match race in drag racing history. Both were blown and injected, modified to the hilt, and wild to watch. The only other kind of pairing that might've pushed this aside in the pioneer days of Funny Car would've been an S/XS vs. Fuel Alterede match. Whatever, it remained for S-W-C to take on Chrisman in what many describe as the sport's first "Funny Car" match. None of these early pioneer Funny Cars ran especially well in terms of elapsed time. In Chrisman's case, as soon as the throttle was stomped, the Comet went up in tons of tire smoke and didn't really hook up 'til half to three quarter track. This usually produced times in the low 10s at speeds up to and a little over 150 mph. In the framework of a match race with Doug Cook, the smart money figured that his nine-and-a-half second Willys would kill Chrisman off the line and hold off the Comet driver's 150-mph charge at the big end. To a degree that's what happened. Cook left Chrisman frying his tires in round one and ran in the 9.80s to handily put away the Comet. The race was still top heavy with excitement as the crowd roared when Chrisman's tires cleaned up and he charged after Cook at about the 800-foot mark. In round two, the same thing happened again, except that Cook's mount broke at half-track and Chrisman made up the distance to win. The final heat produced plenty of heat. I think there are a lot of fans of any sport, young and old, who resist change, and in the case here, many still wanted Stone-Woods-Cook to uphold the honor of the much more established AA/GS class. The pre-race announcer popularity poll ("How many want to see ... blah, blah") favored Cook, but it was not to be on this night. Cook sprang to a huge lead at the start with Chrisman in hot pursuit. At about the 1,000-foot mark, the win in the bag, Cook's Willys hung a hard left, just missing slamming into the top end guard rail, and this forced a shut-off. In the final few feet, Chrisman chugged by to nail the match. If my memory, as dented as it is, is correct, that was the first nitro match involving two blown cars and, at least one of them, running nitro. Mr. Norm's Grand Spaulding Dodge, the two Dodge Chargers, and the Jon Thorne Motors blown Chevys all ran gas in 1964. The only other car that ran nitro was Arnie Beswick and his "Mystery Tornado" GTO, but it had not raced against any blown cars at that early date. In fact, just two weeks, and typical of Beswick's early prey was a match with Phil Bonner's carburated Archway Ford Falcon A/FXer. Interestingly enough, in December, Beswick booked a match at Houston Int'l Raceway with "Ohio George" Montgomery's blown AA/GS '33 Willys, undoubtedly because of the way the Chrisman-Cook match race captured the imagination of the race fans. If the Chrisman-Cook tiff was a harbinger of things to come, so was the supporting card, or at least part of it, at Lions that night. For the second week, Lions topkick "Pappy" Hart ran a four-car eliminator called Junior Fuel for all injected nitro-burning dragsters, 310 cubic inches or less. The winner would get a check for $150. While Junior Fuel certain |
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