View Drag Racing Funny Cars
“Drag Racing Funny Cars: Factory Flyers to Flip-Top Fuelers”
By Lou Hart
Foreword by “Jungle” Pam Hardy
Review by Gregg Leary
Category:Auto Racing -> NHRA
“Drag Racing Funny Cars” begins with “Jungle” Pam Hardy echoing “THE” word in the Foreword…”Sunday. Sunday. Sunday!” She takes me back to my teenage years in Northeast Ohio where I heard the screamer ads on my AM transistor radio…CKLW…beckoning me to head to Milan Dragway where I could witness the likes of “Jungle Jim” Lieberman, “Wild Bill” Shrewsberry’s “L.A. Dart,” Roger Lindamood’s “Color Me Gone…” What memories. Pam describes a typical week on the drag racing circuit with “Jungle Jim:” Budds Creek, Maryland, Epping, New Hampshire and Cayuga, Canada. She dedicates her Foreword “To all the Nitrogeezers and Funny Car fans everywhere, this book is for you.”
A brief history of the Funny Car is excerpted on the back cover.
“Since the early 1960’s, dealer-sponsored Super Stockers battled for supremacy in the quarter mile. Evolving into the Factory Experimental class, these wild steel bodied, altered-wheelbase monsters were stuffed with massive fuel injected and supercharged engines that attracted crowds to the dragstrip!”
“Legendary pioneers “Dyno” Don Nicholson, Jack Chrisman, Butch Leal, Dick Landy, Arnie Beswick, Phil Bonner, Gas Ronda, Don Gay, Sox & Martin, Richard Petty, and many other A/FX stars were instrumental in the development of the funny car as it morphed from a heavy production car into seven-second 250MPH aerodynamic fiberglass, tubular chassis missile, becoming the most popular class in drag racing.”
Lou Hart’s book contains “over 400 action packed photographs.” It’s a quick quarter mile launch down funny car memory lane. The photo captions are the meat of the book. They contain entertaining information about the car, driver, owner, sponsor and often the builder of the vehicle in the photograph. The drag strip is often indicated as well as any other pertinent information.
As I paged through the book I quickly realized that Funny Car Drag Racing may have the most cool nicknames of any sport… with the possible exception of boxing and WWE Wrestling. The great thing about drag racing that moves it far above the other sports is the fact that the drivers AND the cars often have great monikers. Some examples:
DRIVERS:
Don “The Snake” Prudhomme
Tom “The Mongoose” McEwen
“Dyno Don” Nicholson
“Jungle Jim” Lieberman
Shirley “Cha Cha” Muldowney
“Berserko” Bob Doerrer
“Wild Bill” Shrewsberry
“Wild Bill” Flynn
Arnie “The Farmer” Beswick
Malcolm “The D.C. Lip” Durham
“Dandy Dick” Landy
“Gentleman Jack” Sharkey
“Mr. Norm” Kraus
Don Gay “The Texas Whiz Kid”
“Fast Eddie” Schartman
“Rapid Ronnie” Runyon
“Admiral” Gene Conway
“Big John” Mazmanian
“Professor” Kelly Chadwick
“Flash Gordon” Mineo
“Big Ed” Lenarth
“Fearless” Fred Goeske
“Mighty” Mike Van Sant
“Lil’ John” Lombardo
“Slamin’” Sammy Miller
Don “Beachcomber” Johnson
“Big Jim” Dunn
Jerry “The King” Ruth
“Nitro” Gene Snow
Paul “Wrong Way” Radici
Paula Murphy “Miss STP”
Kenny “The Action Man” Goodell
“Smokey Joe” Lee
“Fearless” Frank Federici
“Okie” Steve Bernd
“Wild” Willie Borsch
“Broadway Freddy” DeName
Ed “The Ace” McCulloch
CARS:
Strip Blazer
The Grocery Getter
Daddy Warbucks
L’il Colonel
43 Jr.
Pandemonium
Yankee Peddler
Infinity
Melrose Missile
Haulin’ Hemi
Rampage
Mr. Unswitchable
Chevoom
Tameless Tiger
Commotion
Tickle Me Pink
The Cotton Picker
Stinger
USA-1
The Shark
Old Reliable
Blue Hell
Wild Thing
Vicious Vette
Color Me Gone
Bronco Buster
Hairy Canary
Trojan Horse
Blue Fox
King Fish
Topless II.
Brutus
Flying Dutchman
Secret Weapon
Psycho
Chi-Town Hustler
Whine Maker
Super Nova
Samson
Eliminator
Pegasus
Destroyer
Ratty Cat
Out of Sight
Just 4 Chevy Lovers
Stampede
Mako Shark
Nutcracker
Rambunctious
Super Chief
Hell Fire
Funny Honey
Super Hugger
Stardust
Hawaiian
Warlord
Bounty Hunter
Bounty Huntress
Frantic Ford
Super Shaker
Dodge Fever
Hemi-Bird
Holy Toledo
Rapid Transit
Blue Max
Henchman
Tinker Bell
Invader
King Fish
#### Yankee
Drag-On
Midnight Skulker
L.A. Hooker
Quarterhorse
Boss Bird
Panic
Sopwith Camel
Invader
Lil Demon
Mr. Ed
Revellution
High Explosive
Fireball Vega
Dodge Fever
Quickie Too
Holy Smokes
Plastic Fantastic
Black Plague
Telstar
Code of the West
Yankee Packrat
War Wagon
Black Magic
Brand-X
Voodoo
Warlord
War Horse
Wonder Wagon
Rollin’ Stoned
Chained Lightning
Detroit Tiger
Motown Shaker
Pacemaker
Tennessee Shaker
The Amazing Speed Racer
Highland Bandit
Gambler
Boston Shaker
Kamikaze
Moby Dick
Magnum Force
Pegasus
“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet”
Right on, Shakespeare. “Drag Racing Funny Cars” is great fun and rates four out of five lug nuts. How many of the nicknames did you remember?