All of the pictures on these pages were taken by readers of
The Acceleration Archive who have kindly agreed to share them with us.

Click on any image to get the bigger picture

The first four pictures were submitted by Frans Souverein and were taken by Richard Paulus at Zandvoort in 1982.
On the left is John Clift on Co-Respondent.
On the right is Rob Janssen riding his double Norton.  The engines came from America, possibly from Tom Christenson.

On the left is Ton 'The Godfather' Pels on his double Puma with what may have been the first billet heads in the world.  Pete Davis made them for John Clift and Ton.  This bike went to Roel Koedam and then to France.
On the right is the late Henk Vink on one of his many bikes all of which were called Big Spender for obvious reasons.

And speaking of Henk Vink, here are two pictures taken by Benoit Pigeon of his rocket-powered machine.  These pictures date from 1987 and were taken at Montlhery near Paris.

Next up is a great series of seven pictures by Dave Hatfield which get right up close and personal with some of the blown cars of the 1980s.
Clockwise from the top we have :

• Martin Hopp's Bifrost Pro Comp funny car,

• Ron Picardo driving The Force AA/FC,

• US star Gene Snow in The Snowman,

• the Warlock funny car (ex-Houndog 9), Andy Rogers thinks it is Trevor Young in the seat,

• the Hazelton's highly entertaining Thunderbird Pro Comp altered,

• Chris Filsell driving Satan's Sledge, and

• 'Wild Bill' Sherratt in the ex-Don 'The Snake'  Prudhomme Cannonball funny car.

The remaining pictures on this page are the work of Keith Mitchell.
Both of these shots show John Whitmore's incredibly rapid Drag'n'Fly slingshot dragster which was powered by a diminutive 1304cc A-Series BMC 4 cylinder engine.
The picture on the left was taken at an NDRC meeting at RNAY Wroughton on 8/4/73, the shot on the right shows John spinning the wheels and lifting the front end at Santa Pod on 8/7/73 against K Burrows in the Oblivion competition altered.

These four shots show the Firefly AA/FD driven by the late Allan ''Bootsie' Herridge.
The picture above was taken on 30/8/71 and the others on 8/7/73.
On the left Firefly is out in front of Dave Stone in the injected Tee-Rat altered, on the right it is Roland Pratt's turn to be on the wrong end of a hole shot in the Revolution 3 fueller.

The International meeting held at Santa Pod in early July 1973 was a fantastic event.
Amongst other things it marked the start of serious funny car racing in this country when Paula Murphy and Don Schumacher had a series of match races against one another.
The crowd (including me!) were blown away by the burnouts and the sheer speed of these two cars.

The late Tony Nancy also brought his AA/FD over from the States (left).
Dennis Priddle had recently purchased one of the last front engined dragsters made in the USA and I believe it was being driven by Norm Wilcox at this event.  It is shown on the line waiting to race Mike Hutcherson in the Houndog 6 dragster.

Clockwise from top right :

• Mike Treutlein and Keith Dancey's Chicken Coupe,

• the Wheelie Stingray as driven by Roy Phelps,

• Gary Goggin in the stetson and his Clunk Click Pro Stock Camaro,

• Ray Hoare's Saxon Senior Dragster, and

• R Bilbury's 1098cc Ford-powered Pony Express altered.

All these pictures were taken on 30/8/71 except Clunk Click which was snapped on 8/7/73.

The eagle-eyed Nick Pettitt has identified the dragster next to The Saxon above.  It is Dennis Acott's Hel-Kat II which was powered by a 6300cc Ford V8.  Nick also thinks this picture must have been taken in 1972 - hey ho - it was sometime in the early 1970s anyway!

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