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Click on any image to get the bigger picture |
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This page is exclusively devoted to nitro-burning Funny Cars, the pictures were taken on Peter's 1972 trip to the USA and were mainly taken at Ontario Motor Speedway, but with a few from Orange County International Raceway. |
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'240' Gordie Bonin was the owner/driver of the 1972 Vega-bodied Pacemaker Auto Ltd flopper.
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This is Shirl Greer's Chain Lightning Dodge-powered Mustang pictured in front of the massive, but very empty, OMS grandstands. |
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Big John Mazmanian's 1972 Barracuda-bodied funny car was being driven by Danny Ongais in these pictures. |
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Don 'The Beachcomber' Johnson at the helm of his Dodge Charger bodied and Dodge-powered flopper. |
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The Brand X team of Sien and Lankford hailed from San Antonio, Texas. The Mustang-bodied car used a Ramchargers mill and was driven by Cecil Lankford. |
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Barry Setzer's Vega was one of the most feared funnies of the early to mid 1970s. Pat Foster was in the seat when Peter took these four pictures. |
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Shirl Greer's Chain Lightning again but this time being guided back to the line at Orange County International Raceway. |
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Mustang bodies seeme to have been quite popular Stateside in 1972 because here is another - the Doheny and Fullerton Trojan Horse. This car held the quickest elapsed time record for a while with a 6.42/228 effort at the NHRA Summernationals. Show and go. |
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Now this is a bit on the confusing side.
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Left : Bobby Rowe -v- the King Camaro Right : Bobby Rowe -v- 'Flash Gordon' Mineo. |
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And speaking of 'Flash Gordon', here are a few shots of him at play in his Chrysler-powered Vega flopper together with his lovely young lady assistant.
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Jim Thomas' Genuine Suspension Mach 1 Mustang-bodied car was driven by former Fuel Altered ace Gary Read in this picture. |
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Jeg Coughlin's The Captain Camaro-bodied flopper seems to be getting plenty of traction away from the line with Bob Durban at the controls. |
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'Big Jim' Dunn's rear engined flopper was without doubt the most successful car of its type with a best elapsed time of 6.44 seconds (half a second better than any other RE funny) and one NHRA race win - it won this race. |
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Dave Bowman's California Stud Vega panel van was also rear engined. It managed a best of 7.20/190 which was all its cast iron Hemi could manage. |
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A couple of shots of Billy Meyer's Motivation Mach 1 Mustang-bodied car. |
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The name of 'Jungle Jim' Liberman is legendary in Funny Car racing circles (as is his lovely assistant 'Jungle Pam' seen top right). |
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Another legend of funny car racing - Don 'The Snake' Prudhomme. He went on to dominate funny car racing in the '70s is a series of cars sponsored by the US Army. |
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The Braskett & Burgin entry featured a 1973 Vega body, Gary Burgin handled the driving.
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The famous Chi-Town Hustler of Farkonas, Coil & Minick was driven by Ron Colson when this picture was taken. Austin Coil went to achieve huge success as John Force's Crew Chief. |
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Ed 'The Ace' McCulloch driving Revell's Revolution. |
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This is Larry Huff's Soapy Sales Dodge Challenger-bodied entry being shoed by Dave Uyehara. |
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'Lil' John' Lombardo driving his 1973 Vega-bodied flopper. |
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The late Gary Hazen had previously driven AA/FAs with some success before making the switch to a funny car in 1972. His best pass in this car was 6.73/214.74 but he could not match his earlier success so he switched to a Top Fuel Dragster for the 1974 season. |
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Leonard Hughes driving the Candies & Hughes Cajun 'Cuda. |
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Dick Bourgeois drove the Doug's Headers sponsored Vega-bodied flopper. |
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This is Sush Matsubara shoeing Revell's Pisano & Matsubara Vega-bodied funny car. |
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Bill Leavitt winding up those wrinkle wall slicks as he blasts off up the quarter in the Quickie Too entry. |
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Following the abolition of the Fuel Altered class, Don Green and Jim Fowler teamed up to build this Satellite-bodied car which was based on a Dennis Watson chassis. Tom Ferraro is probably driving in this picture although Jim Adolph also did a stint behind the butterfly. |
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Pete Everett's Lil' Demon flopper was being driven by Bob Pickett in these pictures. |
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Tom 'The Mongoose' McEwen's car was sponsored by Hot Wheels and used a 1972 Plymouth Duster body shell. |
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Joe Lee at the helm of Smokey Joe's Charger. |
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Gary Henderson driving the Memphis-based Bill Taylor and Stanley Wolff's Super Duster. |
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Tom Hoover at the controls of the White Bear Dodge entry. |
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It says Stone, Woods & Cooke on the Swindler IV Mustang but Fred Stone had retired and Doug Cooke was wrenching on Big John Mazmanian's car which left only Tim Woods from the original line up. |
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Omar 'The Tentmaker' Carrothers at the wheel of his Mustang-bodied car. It featured a Gilmore chassis and Ed Pink power. |
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As you might guess I am not the font of all |
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All material on this site is copyright |
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Click here to |
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visit Peter's website (First posted on 16 March 2012) |
Navigate through the Peter Quinn |
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