The Arfonses originally got noticed by winning
the inaugural 1954 Auto Mobile Timing Association
of America (ATAA) World Series of Drag Racing
at Lawrenceville, Illinois, setting Top Speed
at 132.35 mph. That may have sounded impressive,
but there was no mass exodus to airplane engines
because of their triumph at a big (over 300
cars) drag race. At the end of 1954, top speed
for the sport's history was a 144.85 by the
conventional set-up employed by Don Yates in
the Yates-Mikkelson dragster at Santa Ana in
Southern California.
In 1955, however, the Arfonses "Green Monster"
won the 1956 World Series again, and in ensuing
years, the brothers and their "drag-plane" pretty
much owned Top Speed at any race they attended,
although they stopped winning as much.
As noted earlier, the "Green Monsters" were
heavy, way heavy, and they just flat couldn't
leave the line with the lighter, quicker blown
and injected dragsters.
Still, at the 1957, 1958 and 1959 NHRA Nationals,
Art Arfons set top speed with his "Green Monster"
Allison-powered entries with respective speeds
of 152.54, 156.25, and 172.74-mph speeds. In
the history of drag racing performance, Art
Arfons claimed the first run on gas over 160-mph
when he clocked a 168.89 Sept. 24, 1958 at McBride's
Dragstrip in Michigan.
If there was a time when one could say "night-night"
to the airplane-motored dragsters it was probably
1959. At that year's NHRA Nationals (and despite
out-distancing all the
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competition
with a 172-mph speed), Arfons lost early in
AA/Dragster eliminations to Jack Moss' "Ramblin'
Ram" side-by-side, twin-engined blown Chevy
dragster. For me, however, the crowning blow
occurred a year earlier at Lions Dragstrip in
July 1958.
The Arfonses brought out their Arfons Mill/"Green
Monster" to try out the L.A. boys and came up
short. In Top Eliminator competition, Bobby
Tapia guided the Hoffman-Bearde-Tapia/"Giant
Killer" (a 300-cid unblown Chevy dragster) to
an easy win. There is a fairly well-known picture
of this race (you can see it in the 2002 California
Hot Rod Reunion program), showing Tapia leaving
the listless "Monster" by a ton off the line.
Tapia was probably in the Lions hot dog line
when Arfons lumbered through the traps.
In July 1960, the Arfons officially gave up
on the Allison airplane engine and went with
jet power, Westinghouse jets to be exact, and
if you're at all familiar with drag racing now,
you know what that led to.
There were still a few diehards who fooled
with the airplane engine. Al Lytle made a few
bucks with his "Big Al" Allison-powered Ford
coupe, but was an exhibition racer for the most
part, never winning any race of note. And no
less a racer than Don Garlits put a helicopter
engine in the back of one of his "Swamp Rat"
dragsters and ran it during one of the Rebel
Winter Series races in Florida in the mid-1980s
with just modest success.
Airplanes in cars or dragsters? No the sport
has moved on. What wins or makes money takes
priority. I dare say like everything else in
this cash register world. 
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