Funny Cars

A continuing reminder that this blog page
is dedicated to the memory of my brother, Carl.
He was one of the founding members of the
National Hot Rod Association and a former
National Champion.
In previous posts I have told you about his
venture into the competition classes of Roadsters,
Altered Roadsters, Competition Coupes, and the
early outing in the Funny Car Class.
Funny Cars and Fuel Dragsters are the Major
Leagues of Drag Racing. These are the two
divisions that fans come to see. The Fuel Dragsters
used to be the fastest thing at the track, but
the Funny Cars have equaled them in speed and
elapsed time in the past five to ten years. The long
wheel based dragsters allow a lot more control
over the car, while the Funny Cars are a crap shoot
at the least.
My brother was loyal to Chevrolet from his first
venture into drag racing right to the last. All of his
cars had Chevy engines in them beginning in 1956.
Before that he was like everyone else in running
the Ford flathead engine in his early cars. In the
early 1950's he raced at Bonneville Salt Flats in a
car that looked more like a torpedo than it did a
car. It was powered by the Ford flathead V-8 and
ran the course over 180 miles per hour.
The photos posted here are of the Funny Car he
campaigned right up to his death in 1981. This car
had a Chevrolet engine with Donovan heads, a
Chet Herbert cam, among other things. The exhaust
was custom built by my brother. This car ran on
alcohol instead of nitro and still turned in the low 8
second bracket around 245 miles per hour.