All of the pictures on these pages were taken by readers of
The Acceleration Archive who have kindly agreed to share them with us.
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Click on any image to get the bigger picture |
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The first five pictures on this page are
courtesy of Chris Pretty who campaigned a Jag-powered Model T altered
appropriately called Pretty Thing. |
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Rune Fjeld is best known as a multiple Top
Fuel Dragster owner but this is how he spent his weekends back in the
1980s. |
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In the 1980s drag racing legend Don Prudhomme was winning just about everything there was to win in his US Army-sponsored funny car. This is his car being manoeuvred in the pits at a sunny Santa Pod. |
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The beautiful Tre Kronor funny car driven by Harlan Thompson. |
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The last
of Chris' pictures for the time being is the front cover of the programme for
the NDRC meeting held at Snetterton on 9 and 10 September 1978. |
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And now for 11 pictures kindly submitted
by Clive Rooms starting with some taken at Orange County International Raceway
in the good old US of A. |
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Two pictures of the Walton, Cerny &
Moody Top Fuel entry which was driven by Don Moody. |
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This Top Fuel Dragster was owned by Brent Cannon and driven by Phil Soares from Hawaii, it later became part of UK drag racing history when Peter Crane re-named it Stormbringer and clocked the first official 5 second run outside the USA. Oh, and he also beat the great Don Garlits while he was at it. |
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John Whitmore and his potent four pot Drag'n'Fly slingshot pictured in the shutdown area at Santa Pod. |
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Chicken Coupe was purchased from the well known cartoonist the late Pete Millar by John Woolfe Racing. Its 354 Chrysler engine was removed and installed in their Quartermaster Top Fuel Dragster. The car was later campaigned by Mike Treutlein and Keith Dancey. |
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John Hobbs performs a rolling burn out on
his double engined Olympus II machine at Santa Pod. |
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This is Swede Gunne Back's Chevrolet Corvette which he called Frighten Chicken. Its signature launch style is well portrayed in this shot, lots of rearward weight transfer and the front wheels tucking under. |
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Another of Clive's shutdown area shots
taken whilst he was a fire marshal at Santa Pod. |
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Mike Derry and Roland Pratt were known as the Hillbillies team, their Transcontinental funny car was one of the first of the breed in the UK. It was unfortunately destroyed in a crash before its full potential could be explored, luckily without injury to the driver Roland Pratt. |
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John Siggery turns onto the strip in Geronimo. The Santa Pod start line looks a little different nowadays. |
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The final shots on this page are from my
fellow Dartford resident Pete Smith who drives a blown 'Vette (I'm a Mondeo man
myself . . . ) |
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These shots show Alan Ritmeisters in his
Rain for Rent Top Fuel Dragster racing Owen Hayward in the Houndog funny car on
24 April 1984. Shortly after these pictures were taken Alan's car pulled to the
left before moving violently to the right and colliding with the guard rail.
Alan tragically lost his life in this accident which led to improvements being
made to the crash barriers at Santa Pod. |
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Bill Sherratt wasn't always a leading light in the Showtime funny car team, here he is in the hot seat of the Cannonball funny car. |
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This car was built by Dennis Priddle who raced it with sponsorship from John Woolfe Racing. It
then passed to the Page team and was known as Panic!, it was also driven at that
time by Showtime funny car team boss Bob Jarrett. |
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This was the first small block powered competition altered into the eights outside the USA. Magnum Force was the name and Herb Andrews was the driver. |
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All material on this site is copyright and should not be reproduced without permission |
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