Nitro Revival

[papajohn97]

I enjoyed attending a fabulous vintage drag meet yesterday at Irwindale Raceway east of Los Angeles. This is an 1/8 mile track at the edge of a speedway complex, not the original 1/4 mile track that was operating in the 60’s. I’m guessing there was +100 vintage AA/FD dragsters and fuel altereds as well as a nice group of 60’s gassers and SS’ers. I believe the nitro burning cars that ran were limited to lifting off the pedal at half track (probably for liability reasons?) but the gassers and stockers put on a great show with lots of wheel stands. The participant and crowd demographics were at the white hair and wheel chair side of the curve so I suspect these shows may go away soon. A number of legendary racers were supposedly in attendance (Prudhomme, Ivo, Karamesines, Butch Leal) but the autograph lines were mobbed so I missed that part. I took a gazillion pics, here’s just a few. Enjoy, John

[espo]

Great looking pictures. Nothing like the sound waves beating on your chest when you're around the Top Fuel Dragsters. 

[papajohn97]

Yeh, it’s been awhile since I breathed in that wonderful smell of nitromethane and burned rubber….I’m going to miss it. 
Makes you wonder what’s going to happen to all of these beautiful museum pieces when the grandkids inherit them?….

[cobraman]

I'm interested in info on that aluminum bodied wedge looking dragster. Looks like a sidewinder. Anyone know of photos anywhere ? Never saw that one before.

[papajohn97]

Hi Ray, it’s the “piece-of-pie” tribute car, here’s an article that includes info:

https://www.edelblog.com/cars/edelbrock-equipped-rick-kersh-1929-ford-model-a-sedan-delivery-with-324-olds-v8
 

 

[papajohn97]

Here’s two more pics of the “piece-of-pie” that I took: