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Don Schumacher

The 1970 Grand American Series got off to a riotous start for AHRA. Don Garlits (Top Fuel) and Tommy Grove (Funny Car) won the AHRA Grand American winter opener at Scottsdale, Arizona’s Beeline Dragway, January 22-25, setting the stage for what would prove to be one of the most memorable races in any hot rod association’s legacy.

The 1970 AHRA Grand American at Lions Dragstrip in Southern California ran opposite the Bakersfield U.S. Fuel and Gas Championships on March 6-8, and succeeded in pulling almost all of the top cars away from the fabled bash to the north. Garlits, Chicago’s Chris Karamesines, King & Marshall from Rhode Island, Creitz & Donovan’s Oklahoma Top Fueler with Richard Tharp driving, “Kansas John” Wiebe, and Jim Nicoll led the Top Fuel entries with Don “the Snake” Prudhomme, Tom “the Mongoose” McEwen, Gene Snow, Logghe-Prock-Howell, Mickey Thompson’s Mach I Mustang with Danny Ongais up, and the Ramchargers (photo below) with Leroy Goldstein driving heading the Funny Car list.

Bakersfield trailed in the distance in terms of field quality. The field was rich with California entries and there was no problem there, but only a few of these competitors were starting line-up touring pros. At the March Meet that year, Tony Nancy, who had never won a hot rod association Top Fuel title, did beat Harry Hibler in John Smyser’s National Speed Shop dragster in the final, but it came over a field that was realistically second-string to the one at Lions.

The Lions show, of course, was one of the most pivotal in Top Fuel history. As many recall, Garlits made the Top Fuel final against Tharp and when the light went green. The transmission exploded at the line, sawing the car in two in a flash of fire and severing the top half of Garlits' right foot. Garlits and putting him on the shelf for most of the year. While recuperating in a Long Beach, Calif., hospital from this violent incident, Garlits drew up the design for the modern, rear-engine Top Fuel dragster.

The 1970 season included stops at the aforementioned Phoenix and Lions strips as well as races at Tulsa, Oklahoma City, Green Valley in Smithfield, Texas, New England Dragway in Epping, N.H., New York National in Center Moriches, L.I., New York, Bristol, Tenn., Rockingham, N.C., and back to Phoenix again for the organization’s World Finals. The races proved to be hugely successful.

Jim Kelly, a Hall of Fame photographer if there ever was one, worked for AHRA from 1969 until Tice’s death, save for a brief stint at Super Stock magazine, and witnessed all the great Grand American races up until the final two years.

“Tice made money hand over fist,” Kelly said. “The organization was extremely healthy in 1970. I was at all of the events and the racers always played before a full house. The shows were great; you had the Garlits and Prudhommes and that brought a lot of people out to the track.

“Obviously, Tice was doing all right. Back then, he lived in a mansion in Mission Hills, Kansas, which as you can guess was a really exclusive neighborhood. To show you how exclusive, one of his next door neighbors was Mrs. Russell Stover, wife of the big time candy manufacturer.

“The racers themselves, outside of Garlits and a few of the other top guys, did okay. There were a few who probably lost some money counting only AHRA shows, but they more then made it up by the exposure they got from competing at the events.

“Overall, there were a couple of lean years in the seventies and eighties, but that didn’t mean they weren’t profitable. All of Tice’s circuit races made money, some more than others, but he finished in the black without a doubt.”

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