David Riswick is the head honcho at John Woolfe Racing
and was a pivotal figure in UK drag racing for many years.


The pictures on this page were discovered in the back rooms of
JWR's Bedford office and Dave has kindly made them available to
The Acceleration Archive for us all to enjoy.

Click on any image to get the bigger picture

 

This page is almost entirely devoted to Mr Revell, the fastest slingshot dragster in the world for over two decades with a stunning 6.04 second pass to its credit.

 

 

Whatever angle you looked at it from, it was a real quality piece as Peter Quinn demonstrates in these two studies.

 

 

 

This looks like it was taken at an NDRC meeting at Blackbushe Aerodrome.

 

 

A fine shot of the car burning out over the Santa Pod start line . . .

 

. . . and a few seconds later Dennis eases the car into stage watched by crew man Barry Duffty.

 

Graham White took this almost surreal shot at Santa Pod (you can just make out the tower in the background) with Mr Revell burning out hard and its opponent's tyre smoke still hanging in the air.

 

 

 

 

A great shot of the car launching at Santa Pod.

 

 

Nearly the same as the last picture?
Yep, but you can't have too much of a good thing in my book.

 

Ace lensman Alan Holland-Avery had a motor drive which he put to very good use capturing this sequence of the car leaving at the Pod.

And here he is back in action again but this time at Blackbushe Aerodrome.

 

 

Still at Blackbushe Aerodrome.  Notice the ground clearance under the front body work in the left hand shot and compare it to this shot of the car at a standstill below.

 

 

 

 

The smiling face of master engine designer and builder the late Ed Donovan.

 

 

 

 

This is what happens when two Top Fuel Dragsters have a coming-together.
This accident happened on the 4th of May 1975 in a race between Dennis Priddle driving Mr Revell and Liz Burn in The Lizard at Snetterton.  Dennis did his usual thing which was to leave the line - hard.  The Lizard seemed to have problems but suddenly set off in pursuit and, as I recall, crossed the line some way behind Dennis but at over 200 mph.  Andy Rogers recalls that it was reported at the time that Liz missed the parachute lever on her first attempt which was bad news at 100 yards per second.
Unfortunately Liz lost control of her car which collided with Mr Revell causing this damage to the rear wheel and some chassis problems also.  Dave Riswick remembers that Liz went about half a mile off the end of the strip, across a field, jumped a ditch and then went through a hedge and into another field at around 150 mph.  Unfortunately the second field was about 10 feet below the first and she took flight for about 60 feet with the throttle stuck wide open and then crash landed as the photos show.  One eye witness who was driving up the A11 reported to the police that an aircraft had crashed as the rear wing and wreckage flew in all directions!  As you can see the car was totally destroyed although fortunately Liz Burn was not seriously injured.

 

 

Nasty, very nasty!

 

 

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and should not be reproduced without permission


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