All of the pictures on this page were taken by Lawrie Gatehouse,
I am indebted to him for making them available for us all to enjoy.
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Click on any image to get the bigger picture |
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Ed 'The Ace' McCulloch was another legendary funny car shoe of the 1970s. The top two pictures, taken in 1975, show his Revell-sponsored 'Revellution' which had been highly successful earlier in the decade. |
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The remaining shots show 'The Ace' driving his Plymouth Arrow in 1977 racing Tom
McEwen's Corvette. |
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The Powers Steel car appeared upon the scene in the late 1970s and was an immediate threat largely due to Dan Geare who took over the tuning after his previous car had been destroyed in 1974. Tripp Shumake is driving in this picture but then Chris Lane took over briefly before Denny Savage got the seat. Savage went on to win the 1978 IHRA title in this car uniquely using a B&J three speed transmission. |
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This is Billy Meyer driving his SMI Motivator Camaro in 1977 the
year he won the NHRA Fallnationals in Seattle. Meyer began funny car racing in
1972 but sold up in 1975 to concentrate on a land speed record attempt with Bill
Fredericks which aimed to beat Gary Gabelich's 622 mph record. This came to
nothing so it was back to this flopper in 1976. |
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The 'Super Rat' Monza was originally owned by Colorado resident Ron Kerchal using, unsurprisingly, Chevy power. Despite spending plenty of money he could never get it to run competitively so when he teamed up with Roger Guzman a change to hemi power was made. Rob Williams did the driving and won the NHRA Division 5 title in 1977. The car was then sold to Clint Miller who ran it as the 'Mountain Monza. |
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DuWayne Engness built and drove the 'Hot Sauce' Monza. He owned the Taco Shop restaurants serving Mexican food and developed his own line of hot sauce which inspired the name for the car. After two years he gave up driving and Ray Motes (who is driving in this 1977 picture) took over for the next three years before it was sold to Roger Guzman in 1979. |
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The unmistakable Pontiac Grand-Am of Mickey Thompson (left) was nicknamed 'Thompson's Torpedo' for reasons which elude me. The car was probably being driven by Dale Pulde in this 'chutes-out shot with Don 'The Snake' Prudhomme. Thompson was a real funny car innovator and is credited with the introduction of dragster-style chassis, zoomie headers, etc. Some of his ideas weren't quite so successful such as his 1970 monocoque chassis Mustang, the titanium chassis on his 1971 Pinto and his faith in the Boss 429 engine. This picture was also published on the front page of 'Drag Racer' magazine, click here to see this. |
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And speaking of 'Drag Racer' magazine, here is another front page picture showing Pat Foster's 'Chicago Patrol' flopper which was sponsored, incredibly, by the Chicago Police Department. Fortunately I don't have to waffle on about this car because Lawrie wrote an entire article on it, click here to read all about it. |
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I am most grateful to Danny White for permission to
use information from the 70s Funny
Cars website which he edits. I am also indebted to long-time Acceleration Archive supporter and contributor Andy Barrack for providing yet more information. |
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All material on this site is copyright and should not be reproduced without permission |
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Lawrie Gatehouse was inducted into the |
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