3/8/06
– DON GARLITS, on the advent of the modern rear-engined Top Fuel dragster, excerpted from DECADE OF THRILLS. |
y a quirk of fate, about ten years ago I found myself in a damp tent along the midway at a drag strip in Oklahoma. The event – a match race between “Big Daddy” Don Garlits and Shirley “Cha-Cha” Muldowney had been a rainout. With not much else to do except bench race and watch the track dry, I allowed myself to be shanghai’d into interviewing some Top Fuel racers for a documentary on drag racing that ultimately never saw a release.
As camera operators and sound men wrestled with lamps, lenses and microphones, “Big Daddy” Don Garlits shifted uncomfortably in a hard plastic chair. I was kind of uneasy too, as I had nothing prepared, question-wise.
When tape and film rolled, I handed Garlits a copy of the Robert C. Post book, HIGH PERFORMANCE. It was open to page 182 and I pointed to the picture of Garlits at the sudden (very sudden) denouement of his career racing front-engined Top Fuel cars. The image is shocking and provocative. It documents how physically ruthless and violent drag racing can be. In it, Garlits’ feet are swathed in a ball of flame, and the cockpit is severed from the rest of the dragster. Garlits looks helpless, like he is attached to a bouncing ball that is going to climb over his 426 blown-on-fuel hemi.
The photograph was shot on March 8th, 1970 during the final round of the second race in the 1970 AHRA Grand American Series at Lions Drag Strip, in Long Beach, California. Until that catastrophic moment, Garlits' plan had been – after taking the AHRA race – to drive up the Grapevine to Bakersfield for another drag race the next weekend: the infamous March Meet.
 Photo by Jim Kelly, courtesy Museum of Drag Racing, published in High Performance |
But back in Oklahoma a couple of decades hence, I pointed at the picture and said to Garlits, “Tell me what happened in that picture.” So he did…
“I remember the accident at Long Beach like it was yesterday… to start off with, to start the car we had roller starters. (As we started the car), I flashed the ‘V’ sign for victory because I had (Richard) Tharp outclassed. It was almost like a single. We had been running a couple of tenths quicker than anybody in the field and the car was running perfect.
“In the burnout – we had put a new transmission in for the final because we were afraid that this was an experimental transmission -- it was a ‘GarlitsDrive,’ we were building it ourselves in cooperation with the Quartermaster company in Chicago. So we put a new one in for the final. And I heard a little noise in the thing… actually heard it over the engine when I did the burnout. That was a warning that something had give up in the transmission, but I was not aware of it, you know?
“The car staged and we went forward. I stepped down on the fuel and let the clutch out and this huge (ball of) black smoke and orange flame came into the cockpit, because when it blew up the oil was in it and it burned, you know…
“And then the next I knew is I was tumbling and in that instant I had my foot cut off. The shock of that trauma changed what I was thinking. I no longer remembered being on the starting line, I thought I was in the traps and that the clutch had exploded and cut the car in two and I was tumbling. I thought to myself, ‘God, I hope this thing doesn’t hit a telephone pole’ and just plays itself out.
“So then I stopped and all these people were around me. It took me a minute to realize that I had not left the starting line. I had not gone down the track like I thought. The first person I recognized was Mickey Thompson. He came to me and he saw the problem by the way my foot had been cut off. He tucked my leg under his arm so that I could not see it. I knew there was a lot of damage because the blood was just spraying everywhere. The car was coming down on me and I knew I was hurt pretty bad. It was a grim moment.
“As a side-note to that: Richard Tharp red-lit on that run. I was actually the winner. When the transmission blew up, it cut all the power poles down at that moment. In other words, the light went yellow-green for my lane and yellow-red for Richard Tharp and then the transmission exploded and cut all the power down. The power poles were right there. The lights went out and he went on down the track and in all that confusion they actually gave him the win. They didn’t know he red-lit, but he red-lit.”
Did they ever give you a check for it (the win)?
“No. I never got paid.”
(“Big Daddy” Don Garlits will be honored by the Goodguys VRA as the official “Hot Rod Hero” of the 47th March Meet, March 10-12 at Famoso Raceway, just north of Bakersfield. Before retiring from competition, Garlits won Top Fuel Eliminator at the March Meet five times.)
| (Cole Coonce is the author of INFINITY OVER ZERO, as well as the forthcoming TOP FUEL WORMHOLE...) |  |
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