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In a typical 1960's Top Fuel show there were easily (and this is probably understated) two dozen cars that could get at Garlits and it happened all the time. The Bakersfield race got started in 1959 due in a large part to Garlits' successes back East, yet it took until 1965 for him to get his first win at that race, and it wasn't until 1971 that he got his second such title. The reason his wins were impressive to me was because Garlits scored them without having any economic edge on his competition. Art Malone, Chris Karamesines, Don Prudhomme, Tom McEwen, the Ramchargers, Jerry Ruth, Warren & Coburn, Steve Carbone, Roland Leong's "Hawaiian" Top Fuelers, the Der Weinsreschnitzel cars of Don Cook, Leroy Goldstein, and Jim Nicoll, Pete Robinson and others were not outspent by Garlits, just outrun. Garlits succeeded at all levels of the game. Force nearly matches him, but with one obvious drawback when compared to the Florida racer. John wasn't a mechanic; Garlits was a gigantic mechanical talent. No one time stood out more in this area of comparison than the 1983 AHRA Winternationals at dusty, sandy, dirty old Tucson Dragway in Arizona. This race occurred in late January, and for the week previous to the event it had been in the 20s with snow pelting the area. The weather lightened up that weekend but the temperatures were in the high 30s and very low 40s, and getting a bite on the brutally cold and slippery old Tucson surface was like running on the proverbial ice rink. Garlits qualified at an unbelievable 6.08, but everyone else, and by everyone else I mean, Gene Snow, Chris Karamesines, John Abbott, Frank Bradley, Dick LaHaie and others ran in the seven-second zone. And the race went as one would've predicted. Garlits cut through the eight-car field with 6.1 and 6.2-second efforts while everyone else floundered in the seven's and eight's or shut off to double digit elapsed times. In the final, Garlits drew Snow and, according to Snow, Garlits said something on the order of this: "You know what I'm doing don't you?" Snow said no. "Well, here's what you .. blah, blah, blah .." I think we can at least give the fans a race if you do what I told you." Snow did, and in a decent Top Fuel final, Garlits took a 6.08 to 6.12 win. That's the kind of all-around racer he was. Force is capable of such fireworks himself, but, of course (and he'd be the first to tell you) Austin Coil, Bernie Fedderly, John Medlen, and Jim Prock would have to have their input for Force's success to be near guaranteed. In so many ways, that's the difference between the modern era and the
older era. The all-around drag racer. It's no one's fault for the modern
racing camp, it's just what it is. And what it "is" here is that Don
Garlits was last century's best drag racer and driver.
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