Did your father/grandfather drag race his Porsche?

[Mo_Gearhead]

At an auction last Saturday there was a box filled with old books and magazines. The box was purchased by a woman who saw me bidding against her and later asked me what I was interested in. She said she was only bidding for a particular Bible that had belonged to the family. I told her I too was only after one item and dug it out. She let me have it for a dollar.

It’s a program from the fourth NHRA Nationals races in 1958.



It lists the five-hundred individuals that had entered - and includes their home city and what car they had entered. Fun perusing the names and seeing people that became synonymous with drag racing in the decades to come;

Art Chrisman
Don Garlits
Mickey Thompson
Art Arfons
Eddie Hill
Conrad Kalitta
__________________

...and then there were there these;

Racer Brown Special - LA Calif. - 1957 Porsche
Gilbert Dunne - Rockaway New Jersey - 1955 Porsche Spd.
Sherman Golub - Wappengers Falls New York - 1957 Porsche
Frank Fries Jr. - Topeka Kansas - 1956 Ferrari

*with a couple of MG's thrown in too.

[asphaltgambler]

Drag racing is something truly American, certainly bigger than any circle track or road racing at that time - doesn't surprise me a bit that the owners were there tryin 'em out then...........

[Nostril Cheese]

My Grandpa raced a GTX at Lions back in the day.

[ckelly78z]

I have alot of memories of Art Arfons pulling his turbine pulling tractor the "GREEN MONSTER" at our fair every year....he put on a show.

[wdfifteen]

Those 519 transmissions have really weak syncros. I took my Speedster to Kil-Kare (our local strip) once and the sound of the crunching going into second was just too painful. I did one run 15.xx seconds. I rebuilt the transmission a year or so later with new synchros and it wasn't a bit better.

[GH85Carrera]

My grandfather never learned to drive. He tried it once and scared himself so my grandmother always drove him around. My dad had a 66 Olds Delta 88 with a 454 for a while but only because it was cheap. He drove Toyota appliances from the 70s on.

It would be cool to have a time machine and go watch that race day.

[Dantilla]

Grandfather was usually on his John Deere tractor. Grandma had the Plymouth Valiant with the slant six.

No racing in the family until I came along.
Was once invited to go watch a friend Autocross, had no idea I'd soon have a car with a roll cage and big numbers on the door.

[Nickshu]

Dad grew up in the mid-west and was into drag racing in the mid/late 60's, had a Tri-power '65 GTO, then a Chevelle, setup for drag racing, then sold them and got into motorcycles. He's got some great stories from those days.

[rfloz]

Who you calling grampa?

I drag raced my slightly modified Corvette in the mid-sixties, mostly San Fernando and Lions - high 12s at 110 mph. I still have trophy stickers from back then.

[nota]

no drags but scca road races in the late 50's by my older brother in 356's

I remember reading about porsche motors swapped in to vw bugs for cash winning street drag races