Читать книгу 1001 Drag Racing Facts - Doug Boyce - Страница 10
Оглавление165 Bill Thomas Race Cars out of Anaheim, California built a nice little 1963 Chevy II hardtop for SCCA competition. Dubbed Bad Bascomb after an old western flick, the car, with its set-back 327 fuelie engine and live Corvette rear axle, was considered a prototype by the SCCA and immediately banned. The Chevy II was passed on to Dick Harrell, who dropped in a Z-11 427 and a stout Pontiac rear end and rechristened it Retribution II. The match racer won more than it lost and really became known for its wild bumper-dragging wheelstands, some of which were staged. In one such case at Lions, Dick used his tool box for additional rear weight, and when the car went up, the tools poured out of the trunk all over the track. In 1965, the Z-11 was replaced with a bored-and-stroked big-block measuring 454 inches and the rear wheels were moved forward. It was an out-of-control bumper-dragging wheelie that destroyed the car.
166 Another offshoot of Bill Thomas’ involvement with Chevrolet included the three fiberglass-roofed fastback Chevy IIs. Bill tried to have the cars homologated for SCCA B/Production competition and again was shot down. So like the Bad Bascomb car, these three ended up on the dragstrip in the hands of Dick Miller at Al Green Chevrolet in Washington State, Carl and Fritz Callier (CKC) in Texas, and Huston Platt in Georgia. Probably the most famous of the three was the CKC car, which was built with the help of Dick Harrell and featured one of his potent Z-11 427s. The Experimental Stock Chevy II eventually ran low-9s with a blown big-block Chevy before being replaced in 1967.
167 Dick Milner debuted the Al Green Chevy II during a best-of-three match race in January 1965 at Pacific Raceways in Kent, Washington. Although Milner lost to the Auto Sales–Trader Town B/G Willys, it was no big deal because he was still working the bugs out of the Z-11 ride. As the sun set, Milner pulled the Chevy II out for one final run. It looked like the makings of a great pass until just before the lights when the Fiberglass Trends roofing literally peeled back from the windshield and turned the fastback into an instant roadster. Milner popped the chute immediately and still managed to trip the lights with a 12.04 at 124.91 mph.
Dick Milner in the Alan Green Chevrolet fastback Chevy II. Four of these fastbacks were built, originally for road racing. One car was a test and mockup piece.
168 Hot on the heels of Jack Chrisman building his blown 427 1964 Comet came the 1965 Chevy II hardtop of Pasadena’s Steve Bovan, what many feel was the first step in the evolution of the Funny Car. Backed by employer Don Blair of Blair’s Speed Shop, Steve’s Chevy II was powered by one of the first blown 396 Chevys. Bovan’s big-block ran on 100-percent alcohol, and due to the newness of the recently released Chevy engine, he had to fabricate a number of his own parts, including the blower manifold. Bovan clocked a best of 9.29 at 160 mph with the wild ride. Like Chrisman’s Comet, Bovan’s Chevy II was forced to run in the Fuel Dragster class in NHRA competition.
169 “Jungle” Jim Liberman received his nickname while driving the Experimental Stock 1965 Pontiac Tempest of Lew Arrington. Recalls “Jungle” Clare Sanders, “A radio DJ came up with the name prior to a match race at Fontana. The announcer was doing his best ‘Sunday, Sunday, Sunday’ high-energy routine, kind of off-the-cuff, and it went kind of like this: ‘This is a do or die match race folks, Dodge versus Pontiac, ‘Dandy’ Dick Landy, versus uh, er, ‘Jungle’ Jim Liberman!” He just blurted it out and it stuck.
170 Bob Larimore had B&N (Bob & Nancy Mangold) Fiberglass of Springfield, Ohio, mold a 1966 Chevelle sedan to fit his existing A/FA chassis. The Matchmaker Chevelle debuted in early 1966 with an injected 427 and has been pegged as the first all-fiberglass Chevy Funny Car. Larimore sold the Chevelle in 1967 when Uncle Sam came calling. Where this significant piece of drag racing history is today is unknown.
171 Malcolm Durham, the DC Lip, and his 1966 Corvair became the first Chevy Funny Car in the 8s during a Cecil County match race in August 1966. It was a four-way match between Durham, Del Heinelt in Seaton’s Shaker, and Dick Landy and the Ramchargers. Durham topped the tank with 95-percent nitro in hopes of getting around the quicker Ramchargers’ Dart driven by Mike Buckett. Although Buckett took the win for the Ramchargers with an 8.63, the attention was all on Durham, who cranked a Chevy best of 8.96.
172 Hot on Durham’s heels was Huston Platt. Platt’s Dixie Twister 1966 Chevy II hit 8.97 at 159 mph the same summer. Power for the altered-wheelbase match-race Funny Car came courtesy of an Enderle-injected 396 Chevy.
173 Roy and Don Gay finally brought an end to the domination of Nicholson’s Eliminator 1 1966 Comet when their Infinity II GTO stopped him cold at a match race in Maryland. The Gays’ GTO, driven by Don, was built by Jay Howell, better known for his work with Chrysler products and Logghe chassis. The Gays relied upon a 421 for low-8-second times. After years of success, the Texas-based Gays dropped out of racing in 1972 after the death of Roy.
174 Don Gay, Sr. took his first trip down the strip at age 15, borrowing a Pontiac Bonneville from his father’s dealership floor one weekend while his parents were away. That weekend, at the Houston International Raceway in Dickinson, Gay won his first trophy. At 16, Gay became the youngest person to win class at an NHRA national event when he drove his lightweight 421-powered Catalina to A/S honors at Indy in 1963 over Ralph Swain’s Chevy.
Mike Strickler provided this photo of his father Dave’s Experimental Stock Corvette. Dave ran the glass wonder into 1969, relying on Terry Strickler and Grumpy Jenkins to put the long-nose match basher well into the 8s before Dave put the car out of its misery. (Photo courtesy of Mike Strickler)
175 With Dave Strickler’s Chrysler factory deal ending at the end of 1965, he returned to his first love, Chevrolets, and built an A/Experimental Stock long-nose Corvette. Named Old Reliable V, the Corvette counted on a Jenkins-built 427 running nitro to hit 8-second times. Although the car made plenty of power, its ill-handling habits prevented it from reaching its full potential. Dave retired the car in 1969 and it sat for some time beside his shop in York. Although some showed interest in buying it, Dave felt it was unsafe and refused to sell. Around 1972, Dave scrapped the homemade chassis, and after a few drinks one night with friends, someone thought it would be a good idea to drag the body across the street into a field and burn it. Although Dave went on to run other cars dubbed Old Reliable, the Corvette was the last numbered car.
176 On March 27, 1966, Bruce Larson debuted his USA-1 1966 Chevelle during a match against Bob Harrop’s Flying Carpet Mopar. Racing at Great Meadows, New Jersey, Larson’s Chevy counted on 480 ci running on alky while Harrop dipped the nitro can hoping to offset the weight of his heavier 1965 Dodge. Larson clicked off a best of 10.02 at more than 135 mph in defeating the hurtin’ Harrop.
177 Tom Strum was the first out with a second-generation Corvair-bodied Funny Car, debuting the 427-powered Just 4 Chevy Lovers on April 2, 1966, at Lions. Tom opened up with a match against Tex Darnaby’s Temptation Mopar out of Texas. The debut was a bit embarrassing for Tom, to say the least, as driver Bill Churchfield stood the Corvair up on end and then it spun into the Lions chain-link fence, coming to rest in a vertical position.
178 Jim Lutz and Myron Lundberg had made themselves quite the name in Gasser ranks, running a Willys and Anglia throughout the early 1960s. After crashing the Anglia at Ocean Falls, Iowa, they decided to join the growing match-race scene by building an altered-wheelbase Cutlass dubbed 442 Much. This Cutlass really was too much. Weighing 3,000 pounds and powered by a blown Jack Wheeler 496 Olds, the Cutlass ran low-9s at 175. The pair won the Division 5 Super Eliminator title in both 1966 and 1967 with the car.
179 Buick entered the Funny Car game in 1967 when Jerry Lipori rounded up 19 Northeast Buick dealers, each of whom contributed $1,000 to help finance his Skylark build. Brooklyn Speed and Machine (BS&M) performed pretty much all the work in-house, including building the Logghe knock-off chassis as well as fabricating and machining parts for the 8-71 blown 430-inch Buick mill. Ron Pellegrini’s Fiberglass Limited molded the body, which weighed in the neighborhood of 600 pounds(!). Best times for Jerry’s Ingenue were 7.91 at 191 mph. Today, Jerry’s son is restoring the car.
And when better Buicks were built, guys like Jerry Lipori and Ron Pellegrini were building them. You have to love the variety that yesterday’s drag wars provided. (Photo Courtesy John Lipori)
180 Dick “Mr. Unswitchable” Jesse was a salesman at Royal Pontiac and of course was loyal to the Pontiac brand. Jesse earned himself a name with a 1965 match-bash altered-wheelbase GTO but is probably best remembered for his radically modified 1967 GTO. Chopped 13 inches at the A-pillars and 7 at the rear, the car looked like no other with the seating position above the roofline. An altered wheelbase, which was 2 inches shorter than a stock GTO, was built upon a drilled, boxed chassis supporting a blown injected 421, and a rear air-ride suspension. The owner-built headers expelled the gases up through tubes in the tinwork and expelled the fumes behind the driver. Dick had problems keeping the Pontiac mill together and later switched to a big-block Chevy.
181 Jungle Jim was the first Funny Car owner to field two cars, doing so in 1968 with a pair of Chevy IIs. Clare Sanders was hired to drive the second car and overcame a 32-car field to win NHRA’s first national event Funny Car eliminator, which took place at the 1969 Winternationals. Jungle has been called the John Force of his generation and was always more interested in entertaining the fans. It wasn’t until the NHRA Summernationals in 1975 that he won his only national event.
182 What might have been if drag racing hadn’t lost Jungle Jim in an auto accident on September 9, 1977? At the time of his death, he was talking with Dutch Irrgang about opening up their own shop to produce fiberglass Funny Car bodies. Earlier the same year, Jim had put together a new team of Jungle cars consisting of another flopper, driven by Jake Crimmins, and a Top Fuel car for Ron Attebury.
183 Jungle Jim’s last drag race was at a 32-car Funny Car show at Englishtown in August 1977. Although Jim drove his orange Monza with fresh 7-Eleven sponsor logos, the deal with the convenience store wasn’t inked until race day. Although Jim failed to win the event, the show he put on convinced the executives in attendance to sign him. Jim died nine days later.
184 Although Jim moved onto the big dragstrip in the sky, his orange 1977 Monza Funny Car lived on, thanks to his big brother, Bob. Bob gave the seat to Carl Ruth, who handled the controls through most of 1978. Ruth, who raced Funny-bodied cars well into the 1990s (remember his 1956 Ford Funny Car?), earned his nitro license in the Jungle car.
185 Jim’s personal life was in shambles in his later years. By 1976, track-side attraction Pam Hardy had moved on. And some say just as well. An anonymous source close to Jim states, “When Jim was still married to Bobbie, she kept him in line and pretty much clean. When she left and Pam showed up, all bets were off and the drugs flowed freely.” In the end, the demons won out and drag racing lost one of its brightest stars.
186 In 1968, Dave Zachary was on a mission to build the world’s fastest Cadillac Funny Car. With a total of zero Caddy Funnies in existence, it would be a pretty easy task. Working on a shoestring budget, Dave welded together his own 2x3 boxed frame and flimsy four-point roll bar. He covered it with a stripped all-steel Eldorado shell. Relying on a nitro-fed injected big-block Chevy for power, the behemoth hit its stride of 9.70 quarter-mile times. But this isn’t the end of the story. Zachary made the fateful decision to replace the Chevy with a blown and injected Hemi, which must have had double the car’s horsepower. Heading out to Bluegrass Raceway, neither the car nor Dave survived the first outing. Catching air in the lights, the Caddy flipped and disintegrated, spewing parts in every direction. The shoddy roll cage did nothing to protect Dave who did not live to see another day.
187 On March 2, 1969, Huston Platt (in brother Hubert’s 1968 Camaro) left the starting line in Dixie Twister at Yellow River Dragstrip, in Covington, Georgia, in a match race against Frank Ogelsby in Dyno Don’s old Funny Cougar. What occurred next tragically altered many lives. As Platt came down the track, a spectator hopped over the fence to retrieve a beer and was instantly killed when Platt’s parachute opened into him. The car lost control and veered into the crowd, ultimately killing 12 people. Yellow River closed that day and Huston Platt, shaken so badly, ended his career.
Dean Dillingham figured that if one is good, two must be better and set out to prove it with his Chevy Nova. According to 70sfunnycars.com, the twin small-block Chevys pushed the Hardy-chassisied car to 8.20 times.
188 Working under the assumption that two are better than one, in 1970, Dean Dillingham built a twin-engine Chevy Nova Funny Car. The A&W-sponsored Don Hardy-chassisied car wasn’t the first twin for Don; he had previously run a twin dragster. Lewis Boyd of Boyd & Griffiths Top Fuel fame built the blown small-block Chevys for Don, which according to draglist.com, propelled the Nova to 8.23 at 177.51 mph.
189 Arnie “the Farmer” Beswick should be considered Pontiac headstrong. He’s been running the big Chiefs since 1958, and as of this writing, still runs one. When the early 1960s altered-wheelbase cars morphed into Funny Cars in the mid-1960s, Arnie was there with his blown Pontiac-powered 1964 GTO running CC/F in NHRA competition. The Farmer stuck with Pontiac power until 1970, when he debuted a pair of Fiberglass Ltd. Logghe-chassis Firebirds, one of which was powered by a Chrysler Hemi. Dubbed Mr. B’s Hemi Tractor, the car was wheeled by Dave Bonkosky while Arnie drove the Pontiac-powered Boss Bird. The best time for the Pontiac ’Bird was a 6.94 at 215 mph. To this day, these times remain the quickest turned by a Pontiac mill.
190 Beswick, who has been credited with starting the whole match-race craze in the late 1950s, was forced into early retirement in April 1972 after a large fire on his farm destroyed most of his race equipment and cars. Not until 1987 did Arnie return, taking the wheel of Jake Howard’s 1963 Tameless Tiger tribute.
191 Beswick wasn’t the only one to try his hand in a Poncho-powered Funny. To support his growing business (Leader Automotive), Ferndale, Michigan’s George DeLorean built a low-slung 1969 GTO. The Fiberglass Ltd. body featured a 4-inch dropped top; from ground to roof, it measured no more than 47 inches. To gain additional clearance, the engine and hydro transmission were offset slightly to the right, opening up room so that the driver sat beside the drivetrain rather than over it as on most Funnies. Taking the Goat to 7.30s at close to 190 mph was a worked-over 428. Other unique features of DeLorean’s Funny were a homemade chassis and a quarter-elliptic sprung rear suspension.
192 Other memorable Pontiac Funnies included Tom Nell’s Champion Automotive 1969 GTO Judge, Steve Montrelli’s 1968 Firebird, Ron and Don Gay’s line of ’Birds and Goats, Arnie Beswick’s GTOs, and the Royal Pontiac–sponsored 1970 Firebird of Harry Rossow and Fred Hargrave. And also Chuck Stolze in the K. S. Pittman S&S Race Team 1968 Firebird and Texas’ own Ellis and Faulkner 1970 Firebird. I guess those Pontiacs Funny Cars weren’t so rare after all. I do recall a few memorable Firebirds from the 1980s.
193 If nothing else, Chicago’s Herman Lesmeister can lay claim to having the first flip-top Olds 442. Herm’s Super 442 was based on a 1970 Cutlass glass body and Farkonas chassis, and it was powered by a 392 Chrysler Hemi. It was at the U.S. 131 Dragway in Martin, Michigan, that the short-lived 442 met its demise in 1971. A top-end crash destroyed the car, but thanks to the well-constructed chassis, Herm was spared serious injury. Not the kind of excitement Herm pictured when he climbed behind the wheel of a Funny Car. The 442’s last ride was also Herm’s, as he never raced again.
Herman Lesmeister’s one-of-one Super 442 Funny Car competed in 1970 and 1971. A Chrysler 392 Hemi, set in a John Farcona’s chassis, survived a 1971 a crash at the Popular Hot Rodding meet, which destroyed the body. (Photo Courtesy Rob Potter)
194 As the 1970s wore on, Olds-bodied Funny Cars became more rare. One of the memorable cars was the BB/FC 1976 Starfire-bodied Karmic Debris, which Kevin Siebert built to sponsor his Shelbyville, Indiana, Olds dealership. According to draglist.com, Karmic Debris was powered by a Donovan Hemi, had a Hal Canode chassis, and clocked a best of 6.74 at 212.26 mph in 1977. The Starfire featured magnificent eye-popping paint over a low-slung body that featured bulging pontoons covering the top half of the slicks.
195 Dickie “Mr. Chevrolet” Harrell can lay claim to being the first to propel a Chevy-powered Funny Car over 200 mph when he hit the mark with his Camaro during an AHRA Grand American race at Green Valley in 1969. Further accolades came for Dick when he was voted AHRA’s Man of the Year in 1969 and AHRA’s Person of The Decade in 1970.
196 Terry Hedrick clocked a 6.97 early in 1970 with his Super Shaker Nova, the first Chevy-powered Funny into the 6s. Hedrick purchased the 427-powered car from Pete Seaton in 1968 with a Corvair shell and in 1969, he installed a Nova body over the 118-inch Logghe chassis. No Chevy-powered Funny Car ever broke into the 5s.
197 Marc Susman of Garden Grove, California, joined the Funny Car ranks late in 1969, building himself a 392-powered Nova. According to 70sfunnycars.com, Marc joined the Jungle Jim team, driving Jungle’s third team car. The story goes that Jungle Jim had plans to switch his cars from Chevy to Hemi power and wanted to gain Hemi experience. In 1970, Jungle’s new Camaro was Hemi powered. Marc retired from drag racing at the end of the 1970 season.
198 Talk about a dry spell. Legendary Chevrolet Funny Car pilot Bruce Larson won the 1969 Super Stock Nationals with his USA-1, 1968 Camaro Funny Car. He didn’t win his first national event, the NHRA Cajun Nationals, until 1985. Bruce came back and owned 1989: He drove his Maynard Yingst–crewed Oldsmobile to six national event wins and five runner-up finishes. Bruce led the points standings throughout the season and brought his only world championship home to Pennsylvania.
Marc Susman’s West Coast–based Jungle Jim Nova was Hemi powered. Some say Jim brought Marc on board because Jim was going to make the switch to Hemi power in his own cars and needed some experience. (Photo Courtesy James Handy)
199 Bruce was the first to debut a 1970½ Camaro Funny Car, wasting little time in having Fiberglass Ltd. lay up a shell in May 1970. A unique feature of the car was the functional driver’s door. Bruce’s Camaro was Chevy through and through and ran a 427 mounted in a 118-inch Logghe chassis.
200 I’m sure you’ve heard about the bad luck Corvette Funny Cars have experienced over the years. As aerodynamic as the Corvettes have appeared, Funny Car racers avoided them for years due to their reputation. In 1970 alone, Don Kirby’s Beach City Corvette went up in flames at Irwindale, Glenn Solarno’s Invader burned at Byron, Bob Harris’ Super Shaker burned at Dallas, and Vic Morse in the Mister T–sponsored Corvette crashed on the top end of Lions. Tom Hoover lost his first Showtime Corvette in 1978 before seemingly breaking the curse with a new Corvette-bodied Funny.
201 And let’s not forget the Corvette that started it all: the Mako Shark of Don Cullinan and Jim Wetton. Theirs was the first third-generation Corvette Funny Car built and featured a 120-inch Ron Scrima chassis, a glass body by J&D Corvette, and S&R Fiber Metal with initial power coming by way of a blown 450-inch Chevy. Debuting in the spring of 1968, Mako Shark, which featured a blue-to-white fade paint (from top to bottom), saw its first body destroyed in a top-end crash at Lions during the summer of 1969. According to 70sfunnycars.com, the best times turned by the Shark were 7.68 at 191.08 mph. Believe it or not, this is one Funny Corvette that has survived and is restored.
202 Rapid Ronnie Runyan was reportedly the first to make use of the Vega body for Funny Car action, and one of the last Funny Cars to make use of an all-Chevy driveline. Ronnie debuted his car in early 1971, having replaced his Corvair shell with the Vega (which he ran through 1973). His final race with the car was at Kansas City International where he faced and defeated the Pisano & Matsubura Hemi Vega with a 6.70 time.
203 The Phoenix, Arizona–based King Camaro of Fred Totten was a unique piece, and not because of its Exhibition Engineering chassis or the colorful Nat Quick paint, but because of its Dean LaPole twin plugs per cylinder big-block Chevy. The 427 featured both a front-mounted distributor and a stock-located distributor. The additional eight plugs were tapped into aluminum plates, which were sandwiched between the block and heads. The plates created a large open-combustion chamber and a booming exhaust note. To this day, the Camaro holds the record for the fastest Chevy-powered Funny Car. Dean LaPole drove it to 6.40 at 228 mph. In 1973, a set of prototype Arias Hemi heads were bolted on the 427, and shortly after, the bottom end fell out of the engine.
204 One of the more unusual Funny Cars was Don Hampton’s Corvette, which was powered by two small-block Chevys. This was Don’s second twin-engine car, having previously run the Too Bad Competition Coupe, which he raced into 1968. The 350-inch Chevy engines were blown, ran alcohol, and pushed the car to times of 180 mph in the mid-7s. The twin Chevys were set up similar to Ivo’s early twin-engine rail: One engine ran in reverse and the two were joined at the flywheel. Don raced the Corvette into 1974 before it met its fate like so many Corvettes before it.
205 Funnies have come in all shapes and sizes with the early 1970s being a period of great experimentation. Gary Gabelich’s four-wheel-drive Vega Kamback panel is a good example. Gary is probably best remembered for his flying-mile land-speed record of 622.407, which he set in 1970 with the rocket-powered Blue Flame. His unorthodox Vega made one attempted pass at Orange County early in 1972. Gary was to perform a short smoky burnout for the cameras, but instead, kept his foot on it. Big mistake! The car launched itself into the guardrail and tumbled numerous times. When it finally came to rest, it was a wreck and Gary was nearly killed. He spent months in rehab, having a hand reattached and numerous deep lacerations taken care of. His recovery kept him out of action for close to a year. Gary later died in a horrific motorcycle crash in 1984. At the time, he was working on a vehicle with partner Tom Daniel, which they had hoped would reach 800 mph.
206 Out of 1973 came a pair of Wonder Bread–sponsored Wonder Wagon Vega Kamback wagons. As cool as the two Lil’ John Buttera–built cars looked, they didn’t handle worth beans. The recipients of the two cars were Glenn Way and Kelly Brown. Brown crashed his wagon, and shortly after, Don Schumacher took the reins. The death knell for the wagon body came soon; it was replaced by the far more aerodynamic body of Schumacher’s old 1971 Stardust ’Cuda, which was repainted in the Wonder Bread bubble paint scheme. Don earned a win at the 1973 NHRA Winternationals after replacing the ’Cuda body with a 1972 Vega shell.
207 As the 1970s wore on, Funny Cars continued to get funnier and funnier. One car that was instrumental in the Funny Car evolution was Schumacher’s Wonder Wagon 1973 Vega sedan. With its Lil’ John chassis, the yellow Vega featured a ground-hugging body, bubbled fenders for tire clearance, air ducting on the hood to relieve lift and drag, and wheel disc covers to smooth the air. The Vega body was updated in 1974 with a slant nose and new paint and was runner-up at the NHRA Gatornationals.
Dave Bowman in California Stud earned runner-up at the 1973 OCIR Hang Ten Funny Car 500. Dave’s mid-engine Vega managed low-7-second times with a cast-iron Hemi. The car later became a hit in sand drags. (Photo Courtesy Peter Quinn)
208 And speaking of unorthodox Vega Kamback Funny Cars. How about the Dave Bowman’s California Stud ex-AA/FA pilot that debuted in 1972? The panel wagon featured a mid-mounted cast-iron Hemi in a space-age frame. As unusual and poor handling as it was, Dave was actually fairly successful with the car and reportedly won a PDA race at Orange County. The Vega hit a best of 7.20 at 190 mph in 1973 before Dave was forced to retire after crashing his 18-wheeler. The Vega passed to Pat Parkhurst, who went sand dragging with it.
209 John Force, the winningest man in drag racing, gained Funny Car experience behind the wheel of a used 1974 Vega. Although lacking any real experience, or even a competition license, John sweet talked a deal where he toured Australia, competing against Gary Densham’s ’Cuda. The brief tour was a flop and John won only one race. Reportedly, Densham helped him keep the car running after Force blew his two engines. According to Hemmings Daily.com, Gary was convinced that Force had no future in drag racing.
210 “Broadway Freddie” DeName’s short line of Funny Cars were anything but killers, but that doesn’t mean that Freddie wasn’t. Freddie’s interest in drag racing started in the late 1960s and ended in 1978. His line of Funnies (a Camaro, Mustang, Duster, and Monza) never won a major race, and outside the familiar photo of his Camaro doing a smoky burnout down Coney Island, the cars were all but forgettable. The stories of Freddie’s trackside antics and his pet chimp are endless, but it was Freddie’s well-known connection to New York’s DeMeo crime family that eventually drew the headlines. According to the book Murder Machine by Gene Mustain and Jerry Capeci, Fredrick grew up on the poor side of Long Island’s Canarsie Boulevard and hung out in the same sleazy bar as DeMeo and company.
Freddie’s specialty was car theft (including Don Schumacher’s Duster), which eventually worked up to murder, and then lots of murders. In 1985, he turned over evidence against the family and went into the witness protection program. His life ended in 1986 when he was found hanging in his Emerald Valley, Texas, home.
211 Billy Meyer’s career accomplishments seem to be lost in the IHRA Texas Motorplex debacle of the mid-1980s. As many recall, Billy purchased the IHRA with dreams of merging it with the NHRA. The NHRA had no interest, and the flailing IHRA sank in a pool of bad luck and bad decisions. But Billy is a success story. At the age of 16, he became the youngest licensed Funny Car pilot, earning his ticket behind the wheel of Bob Steakley’s first-generation Camaro. By 1972, piloting his own car, Billy defeated the favored Chi-Town Hustler at a World Championship Series (WCS) points meet at Orange County. At 18 years old, he won the 1974 NHRA Springnationals, becoming the youngest person to win a national event. Eventually Billy won 13 national events before retiring from racing in 1987.
212 Like most professional drag racers, Meyer’s time behind the wheel wasn’t without incident. By the end of 1976, he was considered to be in the top echelon of NHRA Funny Car and no doubt his first world championship had to be just around the corner. With high hopes, Meyer debuted his all-new Motivator Camaro at the 1977 Winternationals. Well, the hopes of any success with the car quickly disappeared. Running the car into the pits, Meyer’s foot slipped off the gas and wedged between the pedal and bellhousing. With the throttle stuck in the wide-open position, the car took off like a rocket. It launched itself into his van and then over it and into a second truck before coming to a stop. The car was a write-off and Meyer ended up in the hospital with a concussion and broken collar bone. Surprisingly, at the end of the season, he was bridesmaid in the points standings.
213 One of drag racing’s most memorable and emotional moments came during the 1978 NHRA Indy Nationals when Tom McEwen defeated longtime rival Don Prudhomme. Just two weeks before the event, McEwen’s 14-year-old son Jamie died from leukemia. After talking it over with his wife, Tom decided to run Indy. McEwen qualified fifth in his Corvette and followed Prudhomme step for step to the final. Having set low ET in the semis, Prudhomme had lane choice and picked the seemingly better right lane. At the green, Prudhomme got the jump on McEwen, but he began to smoke the tires. Mongoose had a good grip and was on his way, thundering by the Snake to take the win with a 6.05 to 6.33. The emotional scene at the finish is played out in the 2013 movie Snake and Mongoose.
214 Underdog. It was an appropriate tag for Ric Deschner’s big-block Chevy-powered AA/FC Monza in 1975. The last of a dying breed, Ric was an independent in every sense of the word. Outside of the fancy paint by Circus, Ric built his own cast-iron 427 Chevy engines and fabricated his own chassis. He ran the nitro Monza into the early 1990s, turning 6.50 at 218 mph in 1978 on 45 percent. This is the fastest time turned for a cast-iron Chevy Funny Car. With no sponsor and no budget, Ric managed to do what few of the megadollar operations were doing at the time and that was having fun on his own dime.
215 Dale Pulde has been referred to as the busiest man in drag racing, having piloted at least 64 different cars throughout his career. All but a few have been AA/Funny Cars. Dale has captured three IHRA world championships (in 1977, 1982, and 1985), and has won 20 IHRA national events in conjunction with the six NHRA wins.
