DRAG SPORT ILLUSTRATORS
Reviewed by Chris Martin
5/5/05
DRAG
SPORT ILLUSTRATORS, A Pictorial of 1970, Match Race Madness,
Santa Ana, Calif. (52 pages)
A number of years ago, a Santa Ana, CA, businessman
named Richard Towers Jr., bought the entire photo works
of the sport's first really famous super freelance, everywhere,
all-the-time photographer Jim Kelly, and it appears he later
snapped up the collections of two of the Southeast's busiest
and best racing photographers, Eric Paul Brooks and the
late Marty Johnson.
In DRAG SPORT ILLUSTRATORS, publisher Towers has used 117
photographs in a 52-page publication, every one by one of
these three artists (save for the very first text/photo,
which was taken by another ace, Jere Alhadeff).
When it comes to photos and history, drag racing is full
of nitro books (Top Fuel and Funny Car), but precious little
on the gas and carbs guys ... in this case Pro Stock. Why?
Because they ain't as exciting as the nitro machinery. They
don't explode carburetors, rip the roof, and go spectator-wading
in the grandstands.
But this magazine (not a book) is a glossy-paged,
photo-rich retrospective of the 1970 debut of the Pro Stock
class, and content-wise, there is very little to criticize.
Kelly's work is predominant in this rendering,
though not overly so. His cameras were everywhere, and in
a very general sense, a good deal of the 1970 national event
action is from him. Brooks, who primarily worked the DelMarVa
peninsula (Delaware, Maryland, Virginia) and the late Marty
Johnson handled the back country southeast, and if there's
any part of the country that's into haul-ass "doorslammers,"
it's our southern cousins and cousinettes.
Personally I got a kick out of the obscure
Pro Stock racers that are featured here. Having Les Lovett
and a majority of national photogs as friends, I've seen
every Sox, Bill Jenkins, Don Nicholson, Billy Stepp, Don
Carlton, and Herb McCandless picture every taken, but I
can't say that for racers like Roger Cook (Lowe Chevrolet
Camaro), Rick Holladay ("Lil' Red Snapper" Barracuda),
Randy Payne and Ed Skelton's Maverick, Bill Tanner, and,
believe it or not, Top Fuel racer Paul Longenecker's Camaro.
The captions (there is no hard copy save for an editor's
intro) are more than adequate. They are informative and
for the overwhelming most part are correct historically
and you can learn a lot from them if you are new to the
sport.
However, the stats needed improvement here. If you're going
to list the national event hosted by the two hot rod associations,
you should have all the results. At the end of the book,
the editors, and they were probably plagued by availability
problems, gave just some of the race results. For example,
the 10-race AHRA Grand American schedule was only fleshed
out with two round-by-rounds. Don't do that. The "shuk
n' jive" or whatever they called the Drag News page
two results blips should have all of that information.
From what I gathered from the introductory
copy, DRAG SPORT ILLUSTRATORS will appear again, no doubt,
detailing another class, or maybe Pro Stocks in another
year. I guess it'll be a not-so-regular mag as opposed to
a monthly. I anxiously await what Towers and his talented
crew will come up with next.
(DRAG SPORT ILLUSTRATORS can be purchased
from DragRacingOnline.com.)
