|
|
|
Click on any image to get the bigger picture |
|
|
|
Dennis Priddle and the John Woolfe Racing Team imported this beautiful slingshot from the USA in 1973. It was later named Mr Revell when they secured sponsorship from the model kit company. Dennis took it down to a phenomenal 6.04 seconds before concentrating his attention on funny cars. Crew man Barry Dufty is kneeling while Brian Glockler looks on. |
|
|
|
|
The picture on the left was taken at Blackbushe Aerodrome and shows Dennis Priddle nearest the camera in the second of his Hillman Avenger-bodied floppers racing Clive Skilton in his second funny car, which was fitted with a Vauxhall Cavalier bodyshell. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Clive's first flopper featured a Vauxhall VX/490 body and here it is well and truly crossed up at Santa Pod Raceway. |
|
|
|
|
You never know what you will see next on a drag strip as Dennis Priddle found out when he bumped into this Womble. |
|
|
|
|
And how about these two gigantic wreckers duking it out in slow motion on the hallowed Santa Pod tarmac. |
|
|
|
Santa Pod's Scorpion exhibition jet car was without doubt the largest jet ever seen on a UK drag strip. It was powered by the engine from a Lightning jet fighter and was incredibly noisy. |
|
|
|
|
This is what I call a real flame-out, it looks as if the entire car is on fire. Good job it was just a model. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
In the foreground from left to right we have the King of the Dragsters 'Big Daddy' Don Garlits, the late Allan 'Bootsie' Herridge and Ronnie Picardo. |
|
|
|
|
This is Graham Hawes with his immaculate Dennis Priddle-built Black Magic Pro Comp funny car. |
|
|
Radio 1 DJ Dave Lee Travis drove in Top Fuel for a while in this rather exotic Fibreglass Repairs creation called The Needle. I read somewhere that it was based on the Houndog 8 fueller chassis. |
|
|
|
|
Ron Picardo was (and still is) a renowned showman. Here he performs a flame burn out for the Santa Pod crowd in the Highway Patrol Top Fuel Dragster. |
|
|
|
|
This was the second incarnation of Colin Mullan and Reuben Johnson's Invader competition altered, the previous version used a Vauxhall Viva HB bodyshell whereas this is a Xauxhall Firenza. Colin is launching the car hard in front of a packed crowd at Santa Pod Raceway. |
|
|
|
|
Stripteaser was another of those iconic cars of the 1970s. This is the very first version of the car which featured an all-steel Minivan body. You can see how far back the Jaguar motor was by looking at the exhaust headers exiting through the roof. This picture was taken at Madeira Drive during the Brighton Speed Trials. |
|
|
|
The very popular Readspeed team used this double-decker bus as a transporter for a number of years. |
|
|
A great shot of Sylvia Hauser launching her superb looking Sunoco-sponsored Dodge Charger at the Pod. |
|
|
|
This is the second funny car constructed and raced by the Hillbilies team of Mike Derry and Roland Pratt. |
|
|
|
|
Peter Crane was driving the Eazy Ridin' Chevrolet Camaro when this picture was taken at Silverstone. |
|
|
This is one of a series of Austin A35-bodied competition altered cars campaigned by Richard Sharpe and Bunt Wilcox and a very fine piece of kit it was. |
|
|
|
|
The Fire In'jun altered was raced by Jason Smith and Roy Fursman with Jason doing the driving chores. The car was powered by a 7017cc Pontiac lump. If you take a look at the larger version of this picture you will see that it is launching very hard with the wrinkle-wall slicks really doing there stuff. This shot was taken at an NDRC meeting at Wroughton. |
|
|
|
The name Keith Lee is inextricably linked with motorcycles. After all, he rode a really mad Triumph-powered scooter and lived to tell the tale and was a photo journalist for Motor Cycle Weekly as well as commentating at Santa Pod for a number of years. |
|
|
|
|
John Hobbs was unquestionably one of the greatest bike riders this country has ever produced. You can read an in-depth article elsewhere on this site which was produced with John's active participation (click here). |
|
|
|
The team of Ian Messenger and Derek Chinn was one of John's greatest rivals. Whereas John used Triumph engines (or derivatives) the Pegasus team started with mighty Vincent V-twins before graduating to a pair of Norton lumps. The presentation of their bikes was almost to concours standard. |
|
|
|
|
Jeff Byne built and rode this double-Triumph powered machine which was allegedly financed by a win on the football pools. My abiding memory of Jeff was a shocking accident he had at Santa Pod one Saturday morning when he couldn't shut the bike off having gone through the traps at 140mph+. Jeff bailed out without serious injury. The bike was subsequently retrieved from the field at the end of the strip and he was seen in the pits a little while later trying to see if the engines would turn over! I think you need to be a bit barmy, no make that very barmy, to ride one of these things. |
|
|
In the foreground is Brian Chapman on his tiny blown 500cc Vincent Comet-powered bike, Ted Dunmow is the far lane. Brian managed to extract simply incredible amounts of power from this most unlikely engine and eventually got the bike down into the eights. |
|
|
|
|
John Clift is known as a master chassis builder but he rode a succession of machines called The Co-Respondent always sticking to the single-engined format when many of his contemporaries stuck a second mill in for good luck. |
|
|
Keith Parnell was another of the single-engined brigade and he proved the success of this approach by being the first European to put down an eight second pass. Keith called his bike Rouge et Noir which means red and black in French. |
|
That is Mick Hand standing behind the bike and Maurice Takoor is looking on from the sensible side of the barrier. |
|
|
|
'Mighty' Mick Warne started with a single-engined bike but then decided to go the twin-engined route with Big Blue probably to even up the power-to-weight ratio with his competitors. Mick was a very big man. |
|
|
|
The late Dutch rider Henk Vink is pictured here being towed through the pits by his faithful crew chief Jan Smit. |
|
|
|
|
Brian Johnson pictured on his incredibly rapid Imperial Wizard Top Fuel Bike. I believe it is true to say that, despite retiring from competition in 2001, Brian is still (as at December 2009) the quickest and fastest UK rider of all time. He was also a regular competitor in the USA and even beat the Yanks at their own game and became the IDBA World Champion in 1984. |
|
|
All material on this site is copyright and should not be reproduced without permission |
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
Navigate through the |
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
