All of the pictures on this page were taken by Roger Phillips,
I am very grateful to him for the opportunity of reproducing them here.
Click on any image to get the bigger picture
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Click on any image to get the bigger picture |
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2013 is the 40th anniversary of the 4th Internationals series organized by the British Drag Racing & Hot Rod Association and sponsored by Petersen Publishing (publishers of Hot Rod, Car Craft and Rod & Custom magazines). The series took place over three consecutive weekends commencing on the 7th and 8th of July 1973. The first and third meetings were held at Santa Pod Raceway, the second was staged at HMS Daedalus which, despite its seagoing prefix, was a Royal Navy airfield in Gosport, Hampshire. The 4th Internationals series were tremendous events in their own right attracting entries from the USA, South Africa, Holland and Sweden, but, more importantly, it set the precedent for future high quality international meetings. It began the trend for US drivers to bring over state-of-the-art cars which were often purchased by Santa Pod Raceway and either campaigned by British drivers, or driven on return visits by the American stars themselves. The stars of the show were undoubtedly the two Fuel Funny Cars of Don Schumacher and Paula Murphy. The performance and showmanship were like nothing ever experienced before on British soil and it was all carried out in such a professional but seemingly matter of fact way. Anyone who witnessed this meeting, as I did, would surely agree that a new era of UK drag racing started then. It certainly sparked a huge interest in Funny Cars to the detriment of Top Fuel Dragsters. But the event was not just about Funny Cars, there were two Top Fuel Dragsters driven by top US drivers, and the mighty Harley Davidson motorcycles ridden so impressively by the late Danny Johnson. Let us start this page by taking a look at the US contingent. There are excellent reports of these three meetings on the Trakbytes website. Webmaster Chris Dossett has kindly given me permission to combine these reports in to a single, downloadable pdf file which you can view and, or save by clicking here. |
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Don 'The Shoe' Schumacher and Stardust. The fans were blown away by the double burn outs and the sheer performance of the car. After being beset with supercharger problems Don ran a best of 7.21 seconds and 202.84 mph in his final run against Paula Murphy. |
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Paula 'Miss STP' Murphy in her Plymouth Duster-bodied flopper performing a characteristically fierce burn out which would be repeated before the run. She managed to take the Funny Car ET record from Don at the last meeting of the series in an incident-filled race with Bootsie Herridge of which more later. |
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Danny Johnson launching hard on his Harley Davidson-powered machine. He ran a best of 9.27 seconds at 162.34 mph which absolutely stunned the UK bike competitors. |
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Tony 'The Loner' Nancy driving his Revelliner rear engined Top Fuel Dragster. |
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Norm Wilcox back at the wheel of the Mr Revell slingshot which was by then owned and campaigned by the highly successful John Woolfe Racing team. |
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SANTA POD RACEWAY |
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Don Schumacher only drove at the first meeting and then handed the car over to Allan 'Bootsie' Herridge. |
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This unfortunate incident happened at the final meeting of the series when Allan Herridge was racing against Paula Murphy. He ran low on fuel which popped the blower and blew the roof clean off the car. |
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A fine selection of pictures of Paula Murphy's super STP-sponsored Plymouth Duster.
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There was one other Funny Car present and that was the eagerly-awaited The Sting of Liam Churchill which was debuted at the final round of the series. |
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A few more pictures of the late Tony Nancy. His car was setting terminal speed records like there was no tomorrow and he finished up with the record at 223.71 mph. |
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Clive Skilton was contesting Top Fuel Dragster in his newly imported ex-Kuhl & Olsen car. |
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Dennis Priddle was driving his 'old' car, the now legendary Mr Six. |
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Roland Pratt from the famous Hillbillies team was driving Clive Skilton's Revolution 3 fueller. |
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Dave Stone in Tee-Rat, which was powered by a 7240cc Chevrolet, about to race US serviceman Freeman Rogers in his 7000cc Ford-powered Aardvark. |
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Phil Elson in the near lane driving his blown and injected 6300cc Chrysler-powered Sneaky T against Dick Sharp in his Austin A35-bodied Dorset Horn which was powered by 6980cc of Pontiac. |
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Another of the foreign visitors was Anders Lantz in this striking '33 Plymouth five window coupe. The car was technically a Street Altered but as you can see it was running in Competition Altered at this meeting. |
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Straight 6 Jaguar-powered Competition Altereds used to be a common sight back in the 1970s and here are two examples of the breed. |
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More Jag-powered altereds - nearest the camera is K Berry driving the Austin Ruby-bodied Stagecoach, with Brian Mondey with his Model T-bodied in Optimist in the far lane. |
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Satan's Toy was driven by Kevin Pilling in the Pro Stock class. The car had originally been imported from the USA by John Woolfe Racing and driven by Dave Riswick and Dennis Priddle. |
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The late Tony Dickson burning out in |
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The Rose brothers' 'Cuda performing |
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Pete Andrews drove the Maxine's Toy Corvette in Top Street, he is racing Richard Smith's Russo's Rat (bought from Frank Russo and imported from the USA) in the left hand picture. |
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This is Dave Vizard proving that the Pro Stockers didn't have a monopoly on smokey Line-Loc burn outs. Good man! |
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HMS DAEDALUS, GOSPORT |
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Paula Murphy was back in action astounding the crowds and running match races with . . . |
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. . . Allan 'Bootsie' Herridge who had taken over the driving of Stardust from Don Schumacher as he had to return to the USA. It was a busy weekend for Allan as he was also driving the Firefly Top Fuel Dragster. |
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Tony Nancy in the Revelliner rear engined dragster preparing to take on Dennis Priddle driving the Mr Six slingshot. |
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'Movin' Mike' Hutcherson nearest the camera in the Houndog rail against 'Bootsie' Herridge in Firefly. |
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An unlikely pairing this - Norm Wilcox in Mr Revell up against Dave Stone in the injected Tee-Rat altered. |
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Ray Hoare in his small block Chevy-powered The Saxon rail seems to have pulled a slight hole shot on Phil Elson in his blown and injected Sneaky T altered. |
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On the face of it this looks like a very uneven match-up. |
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John Whitmore in the foreground launches his dimunitive blown and injected 1293cc four cylinder Drag'n'Fly slingshot in a race against Tony Anderson in his Trouble dragster powered by a 2500cc blown and injected V8 Daimler mill. |
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B/D12 was driven by John Fullerton and was powered by a 6800cc Pontiac lump. |
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Bob Messent in the all-steel bodied Stripteaser Minivan. The car was later developed and featured a one-piece fibreglass flip-up body. |
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Rick Fielding pops the wheels on his Topolino-bodied 1558cc supercharged Lotus Ford-powered altered in a match-up with Carlyle & Martin's Black Knight Vauxhall Viva-bodied altered. |
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The Stone's were another team to debut a UK Pro Stock at the 4th Internationals in the form of their small block Chevy-powered Tender Trap Mark I Ford Escort. My first company car was one of those . . . sort of. |
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Gary Goggin doing his level best to pollute as much of Hampshire as possible in his 10 second Clunk Click Pro Stocker. |
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Kevin Pilling in Satan's Toy ditto. |
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Warning! Those of you of a nervous disposition or who are allergic to circuit cars should look away now! |
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Danny Johnson raced Duncan Hocking on his 750cc ARE Triumph twice.
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The captions on this page have been prepared by copious reference
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All material on this site is copyright |
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(First posted on 29 July 2013) |
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