95 Prior to his Indy incident, Mulligan was awarded the Mike Sorokin memorial award for most outstanding Top Fuel driver of 1969. Mike is best remembered for his days with the Surfers T/F team. When the team disbanded, Mike continued to drive for others. In December 1967, Mike lost his life driving Tom Waters’ T/F car. Mike’s fatal accident happened during the first round of eliminations at an OCIR race when the clutch exploded on the top end.
96 In the immediate aftermath of the Mulligan accident, SEMA, with the input of aftermarket manufacturers, recommended the following changes, which NHRA quickly implemented:
• Aluminum direct-drive bellhousings must have a steel liner.
• A 1/4-inch steel plate must be affixed to the front of the bellhousing in a manner that does not allow shrapnel to escape even if the engine becomes disengaged from the driveline.
• It is advisable that an inspection hole in the bellhousing be provided. The hole must be on the backside, securely covered, and must not exceed the 90-degree angle of the bell housing.
97 The Ramchargers’ last year in Top Fuel was formidable. At the AHRA Winternationals in 1969, the team debuted a new Woody Gilmore–chassisied and Phil Goulet–tuned car with a new driver, Leroy “the Israeli Rocket” Goldstein. He set a low elapsed time with a 6.89 and drove around a 32-car field to defeat Cliff Zink in the final. The Ramchargers followed up with a win at the AHRA Spring Nationals, where they defeated Prudhomme in the final go, and a win at the Smokers meet, at New York National Speedway. The team closed the season as the AHRA’s points champion and NHRA’s Division 3 points champ.
98 Prior to rollers and self-starters, it was an involved process to fire a dragster: Couple the driveline, push out onto the track, bring it to a stop, and have your crew push you back to the front of the push car. This backs the engine down, pushing out any fuel that may be sitting in the cylinders. Next, fuel on and Mag off. You’re pushed to about 25 mph by the push car, you let out the clutch and feel the engine begin to spin. Just before flipping the switch to send spark to the plugs, the fuel system needs to be purged. You push the accelerator to the floor, the butterfly injectors open wide, and you count to three. Before you hit the magneto switch, come off the accelerator pedal. The butterflies slap shut, then you hit the magneto switch on. And with a bang, the big Hemi comes to life and pulls away from the push car.
99 When hand-held starters were introduced in the late 1960s, you still had to back the engine down, so you used a 1/2-inch extended-handle ratchet that fit on the end of the top blower pulley. You just backed up the engine with the mag off, for about 12 to 15 pulls, and you were done. The other way that the cylinders could be purged of nitro was to pull the plugs and spin the engine for a short time. If you noticed mist being pushed out of the spark plug holes, you know you did a good thing. And know this: Every engine is different. Some wind up with nitro in the cylinders; other don’t have the problem but could develop the problem. And all it takes is one time starting it with nitro in a cylinder and you can blow out the side of the block. A real downer!
100 Before Larry Dion Jr. was Top Fuel champ, Larry Dixon Sr. was Top Fuel champ. Senior set the tone for Junior when he won the 1970 NHRA Winternationals with his still-fresh SPE chassis dragster. Sixty-four cars competed for Top Fuel, but Larry moved around them all to meet and beat Tony Nancy in the final with a 6.80 time. Dixon earned his win after melting a piston in the semifinals, forcing him to borrow the engine from the Howards Cams Rattler. With 45 minutes to call, Dixon relied upon the helping hands of many to get the car ready, including a few he had beaten. In a Cars interview, Larry said, “There were people working on the car I didn’t even know. Loaning things to get us back to the line.”
101 Top Fuel at Lions began with a horrifying start in 1970 when Don Garlits’ Swamp Rat XIII grenaded its transmission off the line. It was the AHRA winter meet on March 8, and Garlits had just set the AA/FD class record with a 6.57 and was now testing a new transmission. In the final go against the Creitz & Donovan Richard Tharp–driven car, Garlits’ transmission let loose, sawing the car in half and removing a portion of his right foot and breaking bones in the left. Don spent the following year planning his next venture.
102 By the AHRA Springnationals in June 1970, 13 weeks after the accident, Garlits had recovered enough to crawl behind the wheel of the repaired car to set low ET of the meet with a 6.80 at 224 mph. You can bet every eye was on that first run, and even though Tharp, Creitz & Donovan won the race, every memory of that race, I’m sure, centers on Garlits’ return.
103 Woody Gilmore and Pat Foster can take credit for building the first successful modern-day rear-engine AA/FD dragster. After watching John Mulligan’s fateful front-engine crash and fire, Gilmore was determined not to have it happen again, and in December 1969, he tested the pair’s first rear-engine car. The dragster crashed during an early outing, but undeterred, Gilmore and Foster went to work on a second car. The new car featured a 223-inch wheelbase and went to Dwane Ong. Dwane debuted the car at Orange County in February 1970 (10 months before Garlits’ first rear-engine car), where he laid down a 6.93 at 214 mph. In August 1970, Dwane’s rear-engine car became the first to win a national event taking the AHRA Summer Nationals. In the event held at Long Island, New York, Dwane defeated Fred Ahrberg with a 6.82 at 217.39 mph to a 6.85 at 221.21 mph.
Dwane Ong has piloted Top Fuel and AA/Funny Cars and has seen his fair share of on-track excitement. His accomplishments include taking class at the AHRA Summer Nationals four years running, starting in 1970.
104 One of the most spectacular Top Fuel finishes of all time took place at the NHRA Nationals in 1970. Don “the Snake” Prudhomme, hoping to win his second Nationals in a row, faced Jim “Superman” Nicoll. Nicoll was an all-business competitor who had trailed a red-lighting Big Daddy in the semis to make his third final-round appearance of the year. Prudhomme, who had set low ET of the meet with a 6.43, was trailing Nicoll off the line, but by the 1,000-foot mark, he had gained ground and pulled even. It was going to be a photo finish, but as the cars entered the timing traps, all hell broke loose. At an estimated 225 mph, Nicoll’s clutch let loose in a fiery explosion, sawing his dragster in half. With Nicoll onboard, the rail’s back half with chute extended bounced off the track and over the guardrail, where it finally came to rest in the grass. The front half of the dragster, with a still-turning Hemi, slid across the track, past Prudhomme, and finally came to rest in the sand traps. Miraculously, Superman escaped with little more than a swollen foot and a concussion. Although Prudhomme won with a 6.45 at 230.78 mph, the incident shook him up enough at the time that he vowed never to race again.
105 Those who watched ABC’s Wide World of Sports saw the Nicoll crash; for many years it was shown during the program’s intro. A scene not caught by the cameras was the unconscious Nicoll being loaded into the ambulance. Jim, strapped to a gurney in the ambulance, gained consciousness before they headed to the hospital and recalled that someone failed to latch the rear doors. Like a scene from a comedy flick, Jim went rolling out the rear doors when the ambulance pulled away.
106 Bill Schultz, two-time Top Gas champ, opted to field two Top Gas entries at the 1970 Nationals, as well as a Top Fuel car piloted by Gerry Glenn. Although the cars failed to make the final round, Schultz loaned an engine to Jack Jones. Jones took his car to a category win over Roger Rowe with a 7.41 over a 7.57.
107 With driver Tom Raley, Jim and Allison Lee owned the Top Fuel ET record off and on for close to three years. Their last top time was set in October 1970 at