Vintage Top Fuel Drag Racing

[MrRonnieG]

Way back when! Short wheelbase front-engine top fuel cars before zoomie headers appeared in '64. My first trip to the drags was in March 1963 at Lions (grew up in SoCal) and The Greek was making a west coast swing. He ran a best that day of 8:20 @ 193 MPH. My favorite car (circa; 1964-65) was Lou Baney's Yeakel Plymouth Special (out of Downey, Ca) with Tom "Mongoose" McEwen in the seat. Most exciting run, Nov '64 when "The Goose" set the Lions speed record @ 214.00 MPH. What a blast!

[RIPSNZ]

Awesome stuff, those guts had some balls. My little 182ci FED runs quicker than ford32deuce said these run but mine don't smoke the hides like that!!!

[mindeloman]

it's funny how they just smoked the tires all the way down the track. I guess you had to work that clutch manually?

[turboslag]

@mindeloman

The tyres were the clutch ! The scariest aspect is driver behind the motor !! Face full of fire and shrapnel if the engine blew was a nasty prospect !

[nitr0junki3]

killer vintage "on board" clip at 1:32, good job

[naderchaser]

Thanks for this one! Gosh, at 53 I guess I AM getting old. My first drag memories were at the old Tucson Dragway (Houghton Rd) in mid 60's. Rails being push started, flag starts, smoke all the way down, and every so often...a really really bad disaster.

[Racecarchip]

Did you take all these clips from Alex Xydias' Hot Rod Story? It sure looks like it....

[ford32deuce]

Yep

[misterlith]

The music sounds eerily like the Ren & Stimpy theme tune. Awesome clip!! Wonder what times they were running, a lot of power was turned into tire smoke but it still didn't seem too long before the chutes were out.

[ford32deuce]

They were running about 180 in the low 8-sec range.

[TEFLONTHADON]

Obviously, traction was not invented yet.

[ford32deuce]

Yeah, they did not know how to slip the clutch back in the day.

[tuberstank]

that is a cool ass old video!!!!!!

[Benhameen1975]

Thanks for sharing this! I'd forgotten they used to smoke the tyres the whole way down the strip

[fredfordguy]

super clip,,,,,

[E5Bobby]

Fun to watch. Thank you for sharing this with us. The music came from the same era no doubt.

[bluespower]

thanx, loved this!!!