....last weeks top ten 70's Funny Cars elicited several responses about , "What about this car, or that car", well it was MY top ten and very subjective. It was not based on performance, or even on appearance , just the top ten I liked.
Of course there is just no way to limit funny cars to 10, so here goes ten more...No doubt it'll leave someone in the lurch, but here goes! (Tom Nagy photos unless other wise noted)
Another Texas hard hitter, the Blue Max of Raymond Beadle. Beadle originally partnered with the "original" Blue Max, Harry Schmidt who had Jake Johnston behind the wheel. Beadle eventually replaced both JJ and Schmidt and expanded his racing empire to include a WoO Sprint car and the Winston Cup car of Rusty Wallace. Beadle was a 3 time NHRA world champion and passed away in 2014.
One can only guess as to what was attracting such a crowd around Tom "The Mongoose" McEwen's funny car at the 74 US Nationals. What ever it was it worked. McEwen while being a worthy competitor was not quite the racer Prudhomme was, but no one had more fun than the Goose. This was not his prettiest FC, I would suggest the Silver and Black English Leather car for that list, but I like it none the less!
Gary Burgin was a West Coast drag racer who most famously ended Prudhomme's streak of NHRA National event wins with his spoiler at the 77 US Nationals. He gave up racing in the early 80's and concentrated on selling racing parts to European drag racers prior to his death in 2015.
Known for his " imaginative paint schemes" on earlier funny cars, Lombardo makes the list with this Mustang II that was actually quite attractive. Lombardo had a connection to Raymond Beadle as he replaced Beadle in the drivers seat in the Blue Max when Beadle retired from driving to concentrate on his racing empire. Lombardo won the 85 US Nationals in his first year driving the Blue Max. shown here at the 76 Gators. Note the tried and true 392 Hemi that powered a lot of the Fuel cars prior to the all aluminum motors.
Shown here at the 74 Gatornationals is "poor little rich kid" Billy Meyer. Meyer had a string of Mustang funny cars and got his NHRA fuel License at the tender age of 17. Meyer was the first to feature the now iconic Mustang II style body. Meyer later went on to build and manage the Texas motor plex in Ennis Texas.
Tommy Ivo was much more famous for his top fuel dragsters than his AA/FC, but I always liked this car. This was Ivo at Indy in 78 and was his last Funny car, and in fact gave up Fuel racing all together, eventually running Jet cars before retiring from the sport.
For no other reason than it was one of the very first Nitro Funny cars I saw in person, the " Mr Norms" Charger makes my list, the Kenny Safford version. Gary Dyer of Dyer supercharger fame also shoed this car before vacating the seat to concentrate on his Blower business . Safford was a Norcal racer who's early fame came at the wheel of the "Sour Sisters" olds powered dragster as well as the original (not the nostalgia version) of the Champion Speed shop dragster and the AA/FD of "Terrible Ted" Gotelli. Safford was also a member of the "Road Kings' car club the likes of which included , Ivo, Prudhomme, Bob Muravez, Tony Nancy and others.
Jungle Jim Liberman was a showman for the ages who was famous for long burnouts , 70 MPH plus backups and of course Jungle Pam Hardy. There have been many a story of JJ showing up 15 minutes before scheduled race time, unload the car and be ready to run at the advertised time. Those antics drove promotors crazy. His cars were rarely of the Pristine variety, but for shear fun, he was hard to match. Lieberman distrusted the NHRA and was more often than found running the match race circuit, winning only the Summernationals in English Town NJ in 1975. (Claire Sanders won the 69 NHRA Winternationals in a JJ car). Lieberman died in 77 in a highway crash in his home state of Pennsylvania. Shown here at the 73 PHR Championships at Martin Michigan
From the 1974 Springnationals in Columbus Ohio, Ed "The Ace" McCulloch "Revellution" Demon. McCulloch originally teamed with Art Whipple and Ed Willis and split with the two after Pomona in 72, McCulloch went on to run one of the first Revell sponsored cars and is considered one of the best Funny car shoes ever. He was one tough Dude, one need look no further than the famous picture of him beating the snot out of another funny car racer "Flash" Gordon Mineo over a misunderstanding about an air tank of all things! Some fun facts about the Revell sponsorship, Ace claims that only he, Gene Snow and Jungle got money from Revell, all the some dozen or so others got royalties from the model kit sales. He also stated in a Phil Burgess interview that the Revellution name was one chosen by Revell. The original Revelloution had 14 R's but by the time the sponsorship ended in 77 it was down to 5 R's. Ace blamed the painters saying it seemed every time the car got painted it lost an R. He claims in the same interview that Revell ended the sponsorship in 77 with McCulloch telling Burgess, "Revell pulled out after 1977. We had a great run and I respect them and the way they handled it. They explained to me that what they did was changing courses and that automotive models were going by the wayside." hmmmm......
Don Schumacher's Wonder wagon Vega. This car was a revolutionary design of Lil John Buttera who built many a FC chassis before giving up the chassis business to concentrate on Street rods. Schumacher's list of accomplishments are way too numerous to list and while I'm a bigger fan of the Stardust cars, this one was first of the laydown chassis design that allowed the Funny cars to get " Low Down" and slippery! from the 73 US Nationals! from the did you know files: Don Schumacher was for a short time the driver of the Barry Setzer Vega.
This story line almost assuredly will continue next Saturday, as it seems even 20 doesn't seem to be enough.