Horsepower Heaven Top Fuel nostalgia

First posted December 24, 1998

Memories of 1972/73

Back in the 70s, the traditional start of the drag racing season in the Northwest came on the last weekend of April. Back in 1971 Don Prudhomme 'won' the Funny Car title at the Northwest National Open in spectacular style–on fire...on the rear wheels...in the lights at speed! Beside him Dave Condit in the L.A. Hooker Maverick, had the best seat in the house. A pair of spectacular photographs captured that moment for posterity, including the most famous–a color side shot by a never-to-be-heard-from-again Canadian named Alan Kean. I did speak to a guy who was with him that day years later. He told me that he and some buddies (including Alan) had to leave early so parked at the top end to watch one last race. Snake went boom, Kean clicked off one shot with his parent's camera and went on to have it featured in every major drag publication of the day.

In 1972 at this event Gaines Markley set the NHRA national record for speed at 234.37 in his 'Assassin' car, as few recall Mike Snively's 238.92 single in qualifying. To prove that this was one of the biggest independent races of the year the Hawaiian took the flopper record here as well with a 6.59. Also of note in '72 was Larry Hendrickson's 'Gladiator' former speed record-holding slinghot running a nice 6.76 at only 208.80mph.

1972 would prove to be a year in which drag racing history was made. On the sport's first Supertrack the Ontario Motor Speedway, Mike Snively (in Diamond Jim Annin's car) became the first (or maybe second...we'll never know for sure eh Tommy?) driver to run under six seconds. It's difficult to now imagine a time when drag racing on TV was only ever seen on one program (deja vu now nearly 30 years later...). Do you remember watching Wide World of Sports as Keith Jackson called the action weeks later (between rounds of ice skating)? I have no idea if there is any tape remaining of this program, but a young kid in Victoria had his tape recorder out with the mic pointed towards the screen. It was before cable so the sound was marginal, and I often shut the recorder off at just the wrong moment, but I think you'll get a kick out of this...and it's not just the Fuelers. Hopefully posting it here doesn't piss off too many ABC bigwigs.Click here for KJ's call

In 1973 all the big guns came to SI.R. for what was maybe the best attended race ever in the Northwest prior to the Fallnationals. The radio ads sounded something like this. Those KJR jocks either knew the sport well or did not have a clue eh? Click here for the ads

A couple of hilights from Saturday qualifying sounded somewhat like what you are about to hear. Once again please note the amateur equipment this was recorded on. In this case I tried my best to clean it up, so that even a young Steve Evans comes across as clean as possible. It has never been played in public before, and if it doesn't give you goosebumps, you are not a true 'enthusiast'.

A few runs previous, another car had run a 6.01...I cannot recall who it was, but it wasn't one of the hitters, so a roll-out was done and the car was found to be too low, hence the talk of ride height and eyeballing the cars very closely as they left. (This was well before electronic reaction timers) You will hear it from about 1000 ft out, and you will get chills as you hear them push by out of 'Dragster Staging'–the road race pits on the spectator side at the top end. You may also hear the comments of a couple of teenagers who thought they knew it all. For me this recording of Don Moody and Jim Bucher will forever be frozen in my mind. Mood never came back here after this, and though Bucher did, he never regained the glory of Gainsville.

Click here for Don Moody & Jim Bucher

This page started off as a couple of clips from one race, and ended up like this. I still have a LOT more audio recordings of 1972/73 at Seattle...but they will have to wait for another time. It's now the very wee hours of December 24, 1998, it's snowing like crazy outside and I'm beat.

If you get a tenth of the kick out of listening to this stuff as I have over the years, I'm content...and oh ya, MERRY CHRISTMAS MY FRIENDS!

–Larry Pfister