All of the pictures on this page were taken by Peter
Jones,
I am indebted to him
for allowing me to reproduce them here.
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Click on any image to get the bigger picture |
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Gene Snow visited Santa Pod on a number of occasions. Here he is at the wheel of his Plymouth Arrow flopper appropriately called The Snowman. |
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UK ex-pat Clive Skilton campaigned this car in Top Fuel Dragster in the US until it was imported into the UK by the Hazelton brothers to run in the Pro Comp class. |
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And speaking of the eclectic Pro Comp class, here is the Page brothers' legendary Panic! methanol-burning altered. To give you an idea of the quality of this team - Gary Page drove this car down to a best time of 7.1 seconds. That would be a good effort today - but that run was made 30 years ago in 1977! |
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Ron 'The Joker' Picardo is seen here in the hot seat of the Highway Patrol fueller in the fire up road at Santa Pod. Ron seems to have gone all-out for aerodynamics by removing the blue lights which used to grace the rear wing (really!) and adding canard wings below the roll cage. |
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Two very nice shots of the late Allan 'Bootsie' Herridge pictured with his Asphalt Alleygator top fuel dragster. |
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Peter Crane found the pace of The Hustler funny car to be rather slower than the blistering 5 second times achieved in his Top Fuel Dragster so he soon gave up the ride. |
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This black and white picture does complete justice to the fantastic presentation of Ian Messenger and Derek Chinn's Pegasus double Norton-powered bike. It was always absolutely immaculate and, believe me, it went every bit as well as it looked. |
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This is Jonny Munn riding John Hobbs'' The Hobbitt, he looks to have been beaten off the line by the late Henk Vink on his double Kawasaki Big Spender. |
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Dave Branch riding his MGB-powered Special Branch machine. Although there were several car-engined bikes about during the 1970s and 1980s, I am pretty sure this was a unique choice of powerplant. |
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A great launch shot of Sue Coles in Helzapoppin' getting the slicks digging in and the front wheel up. |
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The car the Swedes called 'the jumping doghouse' - the famous Jag-powered Stripteaser Minivan. |
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Herb Andrews was the first man in Europe to run an 8 with a small block-powered car. Herb is still involved in drag racing as he crews on the Paranoia altered of Martin Holgate. |
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Jim Briggs in his 351 inch Wildman Ford Maverick Pro Stocker. My thanks to Mark Newby for putting me right on the model of this car. |
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This is a Junior Dragster but not as we know them today. Malcolm Beken both built and drove Fusion which was powered by a Chrysler/BRM engine of which only 24 were ever made. Click here to see another picture of this very interesting car. |
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Pete Goddard's 440 cubic inch Liquidator launching hard off the line in a race with Colin Fisher's Themis in the far lane. |
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Santa Pod Raceway's Hellbender jet-powered exhibition car was driven by a number of people and I am not sure who is at the controls in this picture. Andy Rogers (aka Tog of Eurodragster.com) says he thinks it is Bootsie driving in this instance. |
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These days people think of Rune Fjeld as the owner of a number of
Top Fuel Dragsters. |
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Leif Helander has been driving funny cars for more years than most people can remember and he still does to this day (2007). Peter caught this great picture of him burning out in a rather earlier car. |
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This is Björn Bergström in his Expert-sposored Pro Comp funny car. |
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Another of the regular visitors from Sweden was this beautiful Corvette Pro Comp flopper driven by Martin Hopp. |
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Does the name Knut Söderquist ring a bell? Thought so. He is getting into funny cars for the 2007 season but not for the first time. He owned this beauty way back when and Harlan Thompson drove it for him. |
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Tony Donges looks in reflective mood as he waits to run in his Strike 10-sponsored Pro Comp dragster. |
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And finally, a picture of the man who kindly made all
these pictures available for us to enjoy. |
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All material on this site is copyright and should not be reproduced without permission |
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Contact Peter Jones |
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