offset the weight of his heavier 1965 Dodge. Larson clicked off a best of 10.02 at more than 135 mph in defeating the hurtin’ Harrop.
177 Tom Strum was the first out with a second-generation Corvair-bodied Funny Car, debuting the 427-powered Just 4 Chevy Lovers on April 2, 1966, at Lions. Tom opened up with a match against Tex Darnaby’s Temptation Mopar out of Texas. The debut was a bit embarrassing for Tom, to say the least, as driver Bill Churchfield stood the Corvair up on end and then it spun into the Lions chain-link fence, coming to rest in a vertical position.
178 Jim Lutz and Myron Lundberg had made themselves quite the name in Gasser ranks, running a Willys and Anglia throughout the early 1960s. After crashing the Anglia at Ocean Falls, Iowa, they decided to join the growing match-race scene by building an altered-wheelbase Cutlass dubbed 442 Much. This Cutlass really was too much. Weighing 3,000 pounds and powered by a blown Jack Wheeler 496 Olds, the Cutlass ran low-9s at 175. The pair won the Division 5 Super Eliminator title in both 1966 and 1967 with the car.
179 Buick entered the Funny Car game in 1967 when Jerry Lipori rounded up 19 Northeast Buick dealers, each of whom contributed $1,000 to help finance his Skylark build. Brooklyn Speed and Machine (BS&M) performed pretty much all the work in-house, including building the Logghe knock-off chassis as well as fabricating and machining parts for the 8-71 blown 430-inch Buick mill. Ron Pellegrini’s Fiberglass Limited molded the body, which weighed in the neighborhood of 600 pounds(!). Best times for Jerry’s Ingenue were 7.91 at 191 mph. Today, Jerry’s son is restoring the car.
And when better Buicks were built, guys like Jerry Lipori and Ron Pellegrini were building them. You have to love the variety that yesterday’s drag wars provided. (Photo Courtesy John Lipori)
180 Dick “Mr. Unswitchable” Jesse was a salesman at Royal Pontiac and of course was loyal to the Pontiac brand. Jesse earned himself a name with a 1965 match-bash altered-wheelbase GTO but is probably best remembered for his radically modified 1967 GTO. Chopped 13 inches at the A-pillars and 7 at the rear, the car looked like no other with the seating position above the roofline. An altered wheelbase, which was 2 inches shorter than a stock GTO, was built upon a drilled, boxed chassis supporting a blown injected 421, and a rear air-ride suspension. The owner-built headers expelled the gases up through tubes in the tinwork and expelled the fumes behind the driver. Dick had problems keeping the Pontiac mill together and later switched to a big-block Chevy.
181 Jungle Jim was the first Funny Car owner to field two cars, doing so in 1968 with a pair of Chevy IIs. Clare Sanders was hired to drive the second car and overcame a 32-car field to win NHRA’s first national event Funny Car eliminator, which took place at the 1969 Winternationals. Jungle has been called the John Force of his generation and was always more interested in entertaining the fans. It wasn’t until the NHRA Summernationals in 1975 that he won his only national event.
182 What might have been if drag racing hadn’t lost Jungle Jim in an auto accident on September 9, 1977? At the time of his death, he was talking with Dutch Irrgang about opening up their own shop to produce fiberglass Funny Car bodies. Earlier the same year, Jim had put together a new team of Jungle cars consisting of another flopper, driven by Jake Crimmins, and a Top Fuel car for Ron Attebury.
183 Jungle Jim’s last drag race was at a 32-car Funny Car show at Englishtown in August 1977. Although Jim drove his orange Monza with fresh 7-Eleven sponsor logos, the deal with the convenience store wasn’t inked until race day. Although Jim failed to win the event, the show he put on convinced the executives in attendance to sign him. Jim died nine days later.
184 Although Jim moved onto the big dragstrip in the sky, his orange 1977 Monza Funny Car lived on, thanks to his big brother, Bob. Bob gave the seat to Carl Ruth, who handled the controls through most of 1978. Ruth, who raced Funny-bodied cars well into the 1990s (remember his 1956 Ford Funny Car?), earned his nitro license in the Jungle car.
185 Jim’s personal life was in shambles in his later years. By 1976, track-side attraction Pam Hardy had moved on. And some say just as well. An anonymous source close to Jim states, “When Jim was still married to Bobbie, she kept him in line and pretty much clean. When she left and Pam showed up, all bets were off and the drugs flowed freely.” In the end, the demons won out and drag racing lost one of its brightest stars.
186 In 1968, Dave Zachary was on a mission to build the world’s fastest Cadillac Funny Car. With a total of zero Caddy Funnies in existence, it would be a pretty easy task. Working on a shoestring budget, Dave welded together his own 2x3 boxed frame and flimsy four-point roll bar. He covered it with a stripped all-steel Eldorado shell. Relying on a nitro-fed injected big-block Chevy for power, the behemoth hit its stride of 9.70 quarter-mile times. But this isn’t the end of the story. Zachary made the fateful decision to replace the Chevy with a blown and injected Hemi, which must have had double the car’s horsepower. Heading out to Bluegrass Raceway, neither the car nor Dave survived the first outing. Catching air in the lights, the Caddy flipped and disintegrated, spewing parts in every direction. The shoddy roll cage did nothing to protect Dave who did not live to see another day.
187 On March 2, 1969, Huston Platt (in brother Hubert’s 1968 Camaro) left the starting line in Dixie Twister at Yellow River Dragstrip, in Covington, Georgia, in a match race against Frank Ogelsby in Dyno Don’s old Funny Cougar. What occurred next tragically altered many lives. As Platt came down the track, a spectator hopped over the fence to retrieve a beer and was instantly killed when Platt’s parachute opened into him. The car lost control and veered into the crowd, ultimately killing 12 people. Yellow River closed that day and Huston Platt, shaken so badly, ended his career.
Dean Dillingham figured that if one is good, two must be better and set out to prove it with his Chevy Nova. According to 70sfunnycars.com, the twin small-block Chevys pushed the Hardy-chassisied car to 8.20 times.
188 Working under the assumption that two are better than one, in 1970, Dean Dillingham built a twin-engine Chevy Nova Funny Car. The A&W-sponsored Don Hardy-chassisied car wasn’t the first twin for Don; he had previously run a twin dragster. Lewis Boyd of Boyd & Griffiths Top Fuel fame built the blown small-block Chevys for Don, which according to draglist.com, propelled the Nova to 8.23 at 177.51 mph.
189 Arnie “the Farmer” Beswick should be considered Pontiac headstrong. He’s been running the big Chiefs since 1958, and as of this writing, still runs one. When the early 1960s altered-wheelbase cars morphed into Funny Cars in the mid-1960s, Arnie was there with his blown Pontiac-powered 1964 GTO running CC/F in NHRA competition. The Farmer stuck with Pontiac power until 1970, when he debuted a pair of Fiberglass Ltd. Logghe-chassis Firebirds, one of which was powered by a Chrysler Hemi. Dubbed Mr. B’s Hemi Tractor, the car was wheeled by Dave Bonkosky while Arnie drove the Pontiac-powered Boss Bird. The best time for the Pontiac ’Bird was a 6.94 at 215 mph. To this day, these times remain the quickest turned by a Pontiac mill.
190 Beswick, who has been credited with starting the whole match-race craze in the late 1950s, was forced into early retirement in April 1972 after a large fire on his farm destroyed most of his race equipment and cars. Not until 1987 did Arnie return, taking the wheel of Jake Howard’s 1963 Tameless Tiger tribute.
191 Beswick wasn’t the only one to try his hand in a Poncho-powered Funny. To support his growing business (Leader Automotive), Ferndale, Michigan’s George DeLorean built a low-slung 1969 GTO. The Fiberglass Ltd. body featured a 4-inch dropped top; from ground to roof, it measured no more than 47 inches. To gain additional clearance, the engine and hydro transmission