“I’d started fooling with the idea of a rear engine dragster about a year before Don Garlits came out with it.  I’d got burnt racing my front engine car at Dallas and too many people were getting killed or injured in the slingshots.  The picture you have there is the first time I really went out to run that car.  It brings back a lot of memories.  I was back and forth to Don Long’s shop for 39 weeks while the car took shape on the jig.  Garlits came out to the shop and looked at my car, he was very impressed.  But I had so many trick ideas for a RED that is why it took so long to build.
To save weight I didn’t want no front suspension.  I built the steering using the rack & pinion off one of those little English cars, a MG Midget.  Don Long thought that was neat and took it over to P&S steering - and damn they copied it!  As for those canard wings, Long said what do you want them for?  He wouldn’t put them on.  But I had John Mitchell make them up and we won Don Long over.  Seeing your picture I should have made them laid back more.  The body panels they were all magnesium, again to save weight - the car was just 1290 lbs race ready (1500 to 1600 was normal for the time).  The chassis didn’t narrow down to a nose; I wanted it wide to hold the air, like an aerofoil to keep the front end down.  The tail thing (with no rear wing) was completely Don Long’s idea.  All the early RED’s and sidewinders (in the '50s and '60s) had crashed because they were too short or driver error and Long’s idea was we’d get the parachute up high and this might stabilize the car.
Cerny & Moody had the same tail thing but with a wing too, which was the second RED Don Long built, and he built that in 2 weeks.  They were out racing before me because my car just took so long to build.
But my first pass (7.03/163) at Ontario it didn’t run very good.  It was darting around; might’ve been because I had a spool rear end in it, might’ve been we’d quickened up the steering, maybe I had it lined up crooked.  But when I made my first full pass it was unbelievable.  You could see everything, no oil or crap getting blown in your face, no fumes.  The slingshot dragsters were a handful and this thing was like driving a little go kart.
The motor was a 392 with one of my own blowers (Air Lock Blowers, I was the first one to put Teflon strips into a blower and had a lot of customers - Gene Snow ran the first 200mph in a funny with one of my superchargers) and the injectors were one of two castings that a guy named Miller made.  They had 4” butterflies, which was huge and there was 3 of them.  I was close to Jim Enderle (Enderle Injection) and I could go in there and run the flow bench and fool with my own injector set up, try different nozzles and stuff.  The car was direct drive, I was pretty up on the clutch thing, I made a lot of stuff, adjustable clutch fingers and adjustable spring pressure and it was all my stuff I’d made working close with Paul Schaefer of Schaefer clutches.
I made two passes at Ontario but didn’t qualify but did better at OCIR (6.79/212) and Lions (6.69) but I was having a few problems around that time so the car had to go.  I sold it to the Hilton family in Cincinnati; they put a Chevy in it and did really good.  I’ve told them I’d sure like to find that car.
I drove a few match races after that and helped a lot of guys but I didn’t build another fueler.
Racing was starting to cost a lot of money back then and it was getting to the point where you needed 3 or 4 people to run a Top Fuel car.
I had been on top of my game in Top Gas but had quit that a couple of years earlier to run a fuel car.  When I was running gas I was making probably $100 a week working for my Dad, which was pretty good money.  I’d go racing 3 times a week, I’d go to Carlsbad on Friday night and I could win like $100 or more, then we’d go to Long Beach (Lions) Saturday night and that was $150 and San Fernando on a Sunday that was $75.  So almost 300 bucks which was pretty good for a weekend.  Then I’d work on it during the week and start out all over again Friday.  Lot of fun, lot of work though.
Today I still follow the drag racing, I listen to it live.  I’m close to Robert Hight, I used to help him shooting (my wife Vickie and I have been involved with Trap Shooting for many years) and I want to know how Robert does.  I know Tony Pedregon well.  I’d rather be drag racing now than when I drag raced to be truthful.  I miss it.  I’m 71 years old, I wish I was younger.  It’s so expensive but it’s relative.  I’ve loved travelling.  But it’d be too much now like being in a circus, right?
I’ve been to the Bakersfield reunion maybe 3 times, but I’m not very much into the past.  We did it.  I know what I did.  I can’t ever get drag racing out of my blood.  I dreamed about it for 20 years, then I quit, I don’t dream much anymore.  When I did go to the reunions first thing I did was go looking for Bob Creitz. But Bob died not so long ago (August 30th  2011).  That hurts me cos we raced a lot against each other. We were close.
I got more stories than you could believe.”

Tom Larkin