Vintage Drags

[pwd72s]

Ahhh, memories. Anyway, an hour of 50's & 60's cars you'd see at the strip back in the day.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWJpsG_TaR8&ab_channel=tomeighty

[JackDidley]

I love the old drag cars. New ones too.

[stomachmonkey]

[pwd72s]

^LOL! Shoulda known that was coming..

[sc_rufctr]

The G.O.A.T "Jungle Pam" (Pamela Hardy)

[John Rogers]

Great video although the "vintage" drag cars made today would blow the doors off the actual ones from the 50s and 60s. I helped two brothers name james and Bobby Walls with a 1955 Chevy drag car for a couple years until it was destroyed in 1963 when the "blowup proof" flywheel came apart when shifting from 1st to 2nd at 9000 RPM with a 283 cubic engine. I was a little monster with 13 to 1 compression, an experimental Crower roller cam that made the engine idle at 2600 RPM and the redline at 10,000 RPM which we thought was atad high. The block and heads were taken to Bill "Grumpy" Jenkins shop and two weeks later we drove to get the parts. It used 2 Carter AFB carbs (what we had) and a set of 4 into a side collector exhaust that shot flames out about 2 feet at full throttle.

Towed it with a '48 Chevy pickup, trailer was made from the frame of a burned house trailer and 2x6s, all were painted fire engine red! Oh yeah the best part was the locked 6.86 ratio rear end! We had also moved the engine back 10 inches as was permissible. I rode in the back where the rear seat used to be several time and the acceleration was about the same as I felt when I was catapulted off the USS Enterprise! I think even with all that stuff the best time was 11.8 seconds or something but that was loooong ago!
John

[2.7RS]

RuPaul???

[asphaltgambler]

Originally Posted by John Rogers

Great video although the "vintage" drag cars made today would blow the doors off the actual ones from the 50s and 60s. I helped two brothers name james and Bobby Walls with a 1955 Chevy drag car for a couple years until it was destroyed in 1963 when the "blowup proof" flywheel came apart when shifting from 1st to 2nd at 9000 RPM with a 283 cubic engine. I was a little monster with 13 to 1 compression, an experimental Crower roller cam that made the engine idle at 2600 RPM and the redline at 10,000 RPM which we thought was atad high. The block and heads were taken to Bill "Grumpy" Jenkins shop and two weeks later we drove to get the parts. It used 2 Carter AFB carbs (what we had) and a set of 4 into a side collector exhaust that shot flames out about 2 feet at full throttle.

Towed it with a '48 Chevy pickup, trailer was made from the frame of a burned house trailer and 2x6s, all were painted fire engine red! Oh yeah the best part was the locked 6.86 ratio rear end! We had also moved the engine back 10 inches as was permissible. I rode in the back where the rear seat used to be several time and the acceleration was about the same as I felt when I was catapulted off the USS Enterprise! I think even with all that stuff the best time was 11.8 seconds or something but that was loooong ago!
John

John - how cool is your story?? Have any pix to dig up?

[John Rogers]

Sorry I was in a family that never had a camera until I got one when I was working!!!
John

[pwd72s]

Originally Posted by John Rogers

Sorry I was in a family that never had a camera until I got on when I was working!!!
John

Maybe some reminiscing for you here, John. A mustang guy posted this one on another site. Old home movie footage depicting what it was...at least in Ohio.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jS7jwmTmCpQ&t=626s&ab_channel=natikdub

[John Rogers]

Ahhhh that video sure brings back memories! Back in the early 60s the biggest engine you could get was a GMC straight six of nearly 400 cubic inches. It was used in some of the drag cars but from what I remember it did not rev fast even after a lot of mods. It was however very popular with dirt track stock car racers as was using sedan bodies from the 40s and 50s as they were tall and could be thrown very well in corners!

That video had Atco New Jersey and we went there a lot as it had folks from Philly and New York City come and race. Probably there were two really great races; first was Don Gartlis with his Swamp Rat racing Art Arfons in a match race....each won 2 races! The other was at the final of the FIRST super stock race meet at the new Cecil County Dragway and that took from 11 AM to about 12:30 at night. There were hundreds of cars including Phil Bonner and the Georga Frog, Malcom Durham (first real good black drag racer) and his Strip Blazer but the final was between Dyno Don and his Comet and the Ram Chargers and their Hemi with a Torque Flight. The Ramchargers had figured out a "line lock" type of system and I remember it had a huge stall speed and with the front wheels locked the rear wheels were slowly turning! Poor Don never had a change even though he reved to 6k before he poped the clutch!
John

[Tobra]

Arfons and his Green Monster


you guys are old AF

[Jeff Higgins]

One of the tool makers in one of the fab shops that built our tools wound up with one of the original Nanook fuel altereds many years ago. He ran it for probably a decade. No racing, just "exhibition" stuff. Lots of just starting it up and blipping the throttle in dealership parking lots and that kind of stuff. He did do some 1/8th mile "racing", but it really wasn't. Motor was pretty substantially detuned, running maybe 50% nitro, blower well under-driven, not a lot of timing. Still a real hoot to play with, though.

[herr_oberst]

Modern drag racing is still exciting; This happened last weekend.

It would have been great if Capps could have gone ahead and won the event.

[pwd72s]

^^ Wow!