All of the pictures on this page were made available to me by Dennis Priddle,
I am most grateful to him for the opportunity of reproducing them here.

Click on any image to get the bigger picture

The Sub Sonic dragster was built in 1968 and is believed to be the first Swedish AA/FD.
Left - this shot was taken in 1969 at Anderstorp Raceway near Gislaved in Sweden.  Tage Hammerman and his wife Monica are standing behind the car and co-owner Björn Andersson is in the driving seat.  Björn worked with Loufvens Racing Services AB who were one of the largest speed shops in Sweden at the time.  The other big name in drag racing parts was Hansen Racing AB.  These two operations started in the mid-1960s and have been major players in the promotion and support of Swedish drag racing ever since.
Right - Tage sitting on the right slick probably at the at the first Stockholm Drag & Custom Show held in the Marmorhallarna (The Marble Halls) in 1969.
Below - Kjelle Gustafson toying with Sub-Sonic also at the show.
Kjelle was the Feature Editor of Start & Speed magazine at the tender age of 21 and is now the publisher of the Swedish magazine Power.  He is also the promoter of the famous Big Power Meet held at Västerås in July each year and in recent years has started the Swedish Hot Rod Reunion.  Click here to see a recent picture of Kjelle with a couple of his toys.

Two more pictures of the Sub Sonic dragster.

The Valkyrian dragster, built in 1968 by Bo Karlsson (pictured left), with the famous Californian drag cartoonist the late Pete Millar on the right of shot.
The photographs appear to have been taken by Ake Wremp (the staff photographer of Start & Speed magazine) in 1969 at the first Stockholm Drag & Custom Show.  The identity of the chap sitting in the car is unknown but he is thought to be a visitor to the show.

Les Turner standing beside his blown 1500cc Ford dragster in either 1967 or ' 68 (it ran with treaded tyres in 1965 and ' 66).
Dennis had a lot of respect for Les' engineering skills and ability which, coming from someone like Priddle, is quite some compliment.

This unknown  Swedish blown four cylinder Volvo-powered slingshot was also pictured at the 1969 Drag & Custom Show.

The engine which transformed drag racing - the mighty Chrysler Hemi.
This particular example usually resided in the Sub Sonic dragster.

The next three pictures were taken at the rain-affected British International Dragfest of 1965 held at Blackbushe Aerodrome and show some of the US entries.
This is the Dos Palmos dragster which was brought to the UK by Bob Keith/Goodnight and driven by Maurice Williamson and Bob Keith.  Then the car was sold to a British threesome “The Croft Racing Partnership” headed up by Norman Barclay.  In 1967 the car passed into the sole ownership of Keith Schellenberg who founded the Croft Racing Cicuit near Darlington.  He was then approached by American Bill Weichelt who proposed that he should run it again.  It was taken out of storage and run by Bill for about another four race seasons as Asmodeus and then Bill took it back to the US at the end of his tour of duty with the USAF at the end of 1971.  Bill and the car disappeared for 35 years.  However, Bill was recently discovered in the outback of Arizona by pure fluke.  His daughter was surfing the net looking for old footage of Bill racing the car and came across “Time Travel DVDs”.  The car's whereabouts remain a mystery!

Here is Nick Colbert's Dodge AA/FD.

And finally the late Tony Nancy working on 22 Junior in the tent which was erected to keep the American dragsters dry.

This Swedish competition altered with an injected big block was campaigned by Lasse Nigell (thought to be the driver) and Kenneth Andersson and was called Hot Tomato.  The car ran a best of 10.79 seconds at 202 km/h (126.25 mph).
This car was racing Dennis in the Reliant Whistler but it broke on the money run which was fortunate for Dennis who looked as if he was on a loser against it.

B/CA 33 was powered by a big block Pontiac V8 and driven by Ronnie Klang. It had best figures of 11.4 seconds at 195 km/h (122 mph).

Sue Coles driving Helzapoppin.  The two upper pictures were taken at Snetterton, the lower one at Blackbushe Aerodrome.

This timing ticket was for a pass by the Reliant Scimitar-bodied Whistler and I think it is fair to say it was one of Dennis' slower runs.

CThis picture shows the tower in its original position approximately 20 feet past the current finish line.  The competitors used to line up in rows on either side of the tower depending on which lane they were assigned.  The start line was then about 40 feet out in front of the tower.  The track used to run further west about another half a mile.  Then Farmer Braddock announced at the end of the first season that he had sold off everything in concrete to some contractor for mega-money and said that we would lose about a quarter of a mile so hence the move back to where it is today.  Where the runway finishes at the far west end is where the cross runway used to be, this too was taken up.  They were out there for about 18 months hauling it away.  As there was no  permission to build on the site, the tower was built on skids so it could be towed around!entre aligned text

The press release on the left records Dennis' historic 7.69 second pass at the Brighton Speed Trials in Mr Six.  If you have ever seen Madeira Drive you will understand what a fantastic driving feat this was.
The press release on the right announces a three car team for 1973 consisting of the Mr Revell top fuel dragster, a funny car, and a Vauxhall VX/490 pro stock to be driven by Pete Stanford.  Well, two out of three's not bad . . .

The press release on the left concerns a meeting at Silverstone in June 1974 at which Dennis appeared with both Mr Revell and the STP funny car.
On the right we have another race report, this time for the 1974 August bank holiday meeting at which Dennis won the SEMA Trophy for the third year in succession.
He was definitely 'Britain's Top Drag Racer'.
These press releases were written and published by Brian Glockler who sponsored and supported the team.

Click here to read a report on an NDRC meeting held at RNAY Wroughton published in Motoring News on 19 June 1975.

This is a piece on Mark Stratton and The Hustler which he built and drove and appeared in Drag Racing Magazine published by John Bennett in 1968.  The lady presenting the trophies in all three pictures is none other than Clive Skilton's first wife Christine.  Dave Riswick believes that she may have been competing that weekend as well.

Clive Skilton was Dennis' arch-rival both in top fuel dragster and funny car.  Clive received a lot of support from Castrol over the years and this advert was part of the payback.  1400 bhp, 7.3 seconds, 203 mph - those figures sound quaint by today's standards, but believe me, that was as good as it got in the UK in the early 1970s.

A couple of clippings from Drag Racing Magazine published by John Bennett showing the legendary Tudor Rose dragster which was driven by Rex Sluggett and Dennis Priddle.
Don't miss the feature article on the site about Rex Sluggett.
Dave Riswick pays tribute to the enormous amount of work done by John Bennett and his contribution to the sport at this time which is often overlooked nowadays.

Click here to read an article from Custom Car magazine concerning the construction and debut of the Quartermaster top fuel dragster.
Click here to read a report of the meeting held on 11 & 12 July 1971 which includes the demise of Quartermaster.
They say that every cloud has a silver lining and this certainly proved to be the case here because the team's next offering was the famous Hot Wheels fueller.  This car only lasted one year before the team created the legendary Mr Six top fuel dragster.  Dennis Priddle drove this car (and himself) into the history books by recording the first six second pass outside of the USA at the 1972 Whitsun Big Go meeting at Santa Pod Raceway.
Click here to read a report of that epic event.

I would like to thank Dave Riswick, Kjelle Gustafson, Nick Pettitt and Anders Olsson for providing information for the captions.

Unfortunately this brings us to the end of the pictures and clippings in Dennis' personal collection.  I hope you have enjoyed looking at these pages as much as I have enjoyed compiling them.

All material on this site is copyright
and should not be reproduced without permission

That's all folks!

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Dennis Priddle was inducted into the
British Drag Racing Hall of Fame in 2006.
 

Dennis was further honoured
in 2016 when he was inducted into the
International Drag Racing Hall of Fame.
 

Dennis sadly passed away on the
27th of April 2021 in Yeovil hospital.
Dennis was a legend both as a driver and a car builder.
We will never see his like again.

RIP