All of the pictures on this page were taken by Geof Hauser,
I am very grateful to him for the opportunity of reproducing them here.
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Click on any image to get the bigger picture |
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Back in the days when funny cars looked
funny (rather than plain grotesque) the Farconas, Coil & Minick Chi-Town
Hustler was a force to be reckoned with (bit of a play on words for all you
anoraks out there - Austin Coil, John Force - geddit?). |
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Big John Mazmanian made the switch from gassers into funny cars and his car, driven by Hawaiian Danny Ongais, is seen here about to face up to one of Don Schumacher's Stardust entries. Ongais lost in the quarter finals to Pat Foster (who ran 6.30) despite a near record 6.31 second lap. |
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Speaking of Don Schumacher and Stardust, here is one of his three entries at this race driven by Raymond Beadle. Note the unique wings mounted directly above the rear tyres. I have not seen that before, one or two Swedish cars of the period had wings like this but they were mounted low and in front of the back wheels. |
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Obviously no reverser fitted on Steve Carbone's 1972 digger so a bit of exercise is the order of the day for the crew. Bob Noice is driving the Noice & Brissette "Avengers" entry in the other lane. |
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Jerry Miller launches the Hiner Miller Pro Stock Vega entry against Larry Breaux's Demon Sport in the far lane. Breaux was one of only a handful of Chryslers at the Supernationals as the Chrysler Corporation was boycotting NHRA races in protest at the 1972 weight breaks in Pro Stock. Breaux was beaten in the first round by eventual winner Bill "Grumpy" Jenkins. The losing finalist was a new upstart from Indiana by the name of Bob Glidden, driving a Ford Pinto. |
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Wally Booth leaving the line in his unique AMX Gremlin X Pro Stocker. Qualifying in 8th position with a 9.59 at 138.67mph, Booth had the misfortune to meet Glidden in round two. But Booth remained loyal to AMC and was eventually rewarded with his first NHRA win at the 1974 Gatornationals. |
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The Doheny & Fullerton Mach 1 Mustang bodied flopper Trojan Horse came to OMS as newly crowned NHRA World Champions. 1972 also saw the team "down under" as they were invited to open the newly built Adelaide International Raceway in Australia. Shame about that div standing on the post and spoiling Geoff's shot. |
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This is Pete's Lil Demon with Bobby Pickett at the wheel. Peter Everett hailed from California and while Pickett failed to qualify at the 1972 Supernationals, he would go on to win the 1977 NHRA Springnationals driving Mickey Thompson's flopper - a race that incidentally would see Shirley Muldowney win her first Top Fuel title against a certain Clive Skilton from England. |
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And to
finish up the OMS pictures, here are two interesting cars which were very much
of their time. |
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The black and white pictures which follow
were scanned from contact prints so apologies for the relatively poor quality. |
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A good leaving shot as Clive powers Third Revolution off the line. The UK built car was the first rear engined fueler in the UK and debuted at the 2nd Annual Custom Car Show at Crystal Palace in 1972. Adept Associates Engineering of Hitchin built the 240" chassis, Don Beadle prepared the 392 hemi and as always with Skilton's cars, Castrol was the major sponsor. The car was soon superseded when Clive bought the ex Kuhl & Olson rail in the USA at the start of 1973. Ironically though Revolution III far out-lived Revolution IV and saw a long and reliable service in the hands of numerous drivers. |
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The famous wheelie Stingray owned by Santa Pod Raceway and driven by Roy Phelps. The car was a regular performer in the 1970s when it would be used to entertain the crowds whenever there was a delay in the racing. Roy even took the Stingray to York Raceway to race a best of three against Steve Murty in his Vauxhall wheelie machine, although no-one seems to remember who the winner was! |
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Here is the car doing what it was designed for. Today the wheelie car has been immaculately restored by Ronnie and Gary Picardo and Allan Herridge Jnr. and puts in occasional appearances at Santa Pod and Shakespeare County Raceway. |
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Dave Stone burns out in the injected Tee-Rat nitro burning altered. In this form the car was a solid 8 second performer. This picture was taken at an NDRC meeting at Blackbushe in 1972. |
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The Priddle, Riswick, Gane and Stanford top fuel dragster of 1971 sponsored by Hot Wheels seen in the pits at Santa Pod Raceway. |
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John Whitmore launches his incredible Drag'n'Fly supercharged BMC-engined slingshot at Santa Pod. Just about everything from the chassis to the engine was home made or modified by the talented Mr. Whitmore. The engine was bored out to 1293 cc, the blower was a GM but the two stage injection was built from scratch and the clutchless two speed transmission used parts from a Jaguar Mk IX overdrive unit. The rear axle was a mix of Morris Minor with Ford halfshafts. And all this produced 8 sec runs at over 150 mph - on hard Dunlop tyres! |
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A nice pit shot of Bruce Brown's Age Machine injected senior dragster. |
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Mike Treutlein in Chicken Coupe
(pronounced 'coop' of course - very droll) seems to have a very slight advantage
over Sutton Coldfield's Ken Cooper in his Bazooka 2 flathead slingshot. |
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The Wild Honey Senior Competition Altered of Sweden's Lars Torngren and Bjorn Jonsson is nearest the camera with the Mark Stratton-built Bond Bug-bodied Metronome Fuel Altered behind. Mad or what? Stratton obviously had a thing about Reliant/Bond fibreglass bodies having already been responsible for the Scimitar body on the John Woolfe Racing Whistler. |
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Geof Hauser was inducted into the |
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