All of the
pictures on this page were taken by Lawrie Gatehouse,
I am indebted to him
for making them available for us all to enjoy.
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Click on any image to get the bigger picture |
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If you have arrived at this page after reading Lawrie Gatehouse's
Introduction page, you will be in no doubt that he is a VERY BIG FAN of fuel
altereds. He is not only the instigator and main man of the Nostalgia Fuel
Altered Association, but he has put his money where his mouth is and had a fuel
altered called Chaos built which is due to debut at Easter 2006. |
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This is the legendary Tee-Rat AA/FA driven by Dave Stone. I think it is fair to say that the engine was a bit too much for the chassis on this car. I recall Dave Stone being interviewed on the PA by Alan Wigmore and confessing that on one pass with a 196 mph terminal speed it was vibrating so much he had double vision! I think this shot was taken at Silverstone. The chap towards the right of shot with the yellow jacket and jaunty head gear is Gary Goggin. |
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Here are a
selection of burn out shots of Reg Hazelton's Thunderbird Pro Comp altered. The
car was debuted at the 1978 Big Go held over the Whitsun bank holiday weekend of
27 - 29 May and featured a chassis by Pat Cuss, a grotesquely distorted Fiat
Topolino body and a 6.4 litre Chrysler mill. |
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A couple of great shots of the slicks really digging in at the launch, and the parachute being deployed quite some way after the Santa Pod finish line. |
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The demise of the altered led to the acquisition of a rear engined
dragster - this one! |
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Thunderbird must have made quite an impression on Lawrie as this
sneak preview shot of his own altered, Chaos, under construction
shows. |
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An excellent shot of a really cracking car. The ex-Lawce & Gunn AA/FA was imported into the UK by Keith Harvie, re-named Dream Machine, and campaigned for only one season before being sold on. |
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The Page team consisted of brothers Dave, Clive and Gary. They started in competition altered with the ex-John Woolfe Racing Hustler and then built a Topo-bodied car called Panic which was destroyed in a crash. |
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Undaunted, they came out with a Model T-bodied car, again called Panic, which they ran with great success in Senior Competition Altered. With the advent of the Pro Comp class a supercharger was soon added. |
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In this form the car was developed until it was capable of low seven second passes which was within three tenths of the fastest US altereds. A low seven on methanol is quite some run today, in the late 1970s it was a World-class effort. |
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The Wolfrace Wheels sponsorship deal must have folded for some reason because these shots, taken in 1979, show the car in its more familiar red and white livery. |
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To end the
section on big altereds, here are a couple of shots taken by Lawrie on his
travels to the USA. |
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These
pictures show Mickey Naylor's stunning slingshot dragster which he called
Medicine Man. The paintwork on this car was superb and you had to see it close
up to really appreciate it fully. |
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As this shot on the left, taken at Silverstone, proves Mickey liked to leave the line nice and hard. Sadly disaster struck at the 1978 International meeting at Santa Pod when the nose weight came off with terrible results. |
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This incredible sequence of shots shows the car rearing up and over and then careering down the track. I think we can forgive Lawrie for not centring the second picture properly in his viewfinder, I would have been half-way up the banking at that point! |
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You tend to think that anyone with a press pass has got it pretty cushy when it comes to taking photographs. Most of the time I would agree, but take a look at that blower in the picture on the right heading towards the safety area. Nasty! |
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Extensive use has been made of information from Chris
Dossett's |
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All material on this site is copyright and should not be reproduced without permission |
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