Tue, 11 Mar 2003, 05:15 AM “Big Daddy” Don Garlits - Part 1

By Bob Frey Photos courtesy of www.garlits.com

Garlits with Swamp Rat 34

With the announcement that "Big Daddy" Don Garlits was going to run at four NHRA Powerade national events this year, and the subsequent announcement that Shirley Muldowney would also compete at selected events, it became apparent that the new year would bring happiness and joy to the race fans of America. Don, who will be sponsored by Summit Racing at his four events, will be running the classic "Swamp Rat 34" mono-strut car in an effort to win at least one more national event before he retires. And make no mistake about it, if Don Garlits is running he thinks he can win. All you have to do is look back at his great career and you’ll understand that every time Don Garlits shows up at a race he’s a threat to win. This year, with the extra help from Summit, he just might surprise us all…..again.

Don Garlits’ first big win in drag racing came in Lake Wales, Florida, back in the early 1950’ s when he dusted off a local hot shot by the name of Charlie Hogan. From that humble beginning came the most innovative and creative genius in the history of the sport. But Don will be the first one to tell you that it was a slow, painful journey. Like every thing else in life, no matter how good you are at something it always seems that there is someone else who is better and that’s the way it was for Don Garlits. As good as he was racing against the local talent in Tampa, Florida, Don knew that he was no match for the cars and drivers that were tearing it up on the drag strips of Southern California. Joaquin Arnett, Art Chrisman and Ollie Morrison were turning times in California that the young Floridian could only dream about. And dream he did. After a visit by the fledgling NHRA Safety Safari to one of the local Florida drag strips, Don realized that if he wanted to go faster and run with the guys from the west coast, he had to take a whole new approach to racing. Gone was the stock frame, a whole lot of weight and the original engine, replaced by a classic Ford engine, full race cam, Stromberg carburetors and more. The first Don Garlits dragster was officially ready for racing.

As Don’s reputation in the east was building, there were a lot of skeptics out on the west coast. Cries of "bogus times" and "phony clocks" resounded whenever Don’s exploits were reported in the pages of Hot Rod Magazine, one of the best sources for drag racing information at the time. After a highly successful run through the south and the northern part of the country, Don decided to take his act on the road, to Texas and beyond, to find out who really had the best car in the country. Don answered a lot of their questions at the Southern Invitational Championships in Wichita Falls, Texas, when he beat Lyle Fisher in the great "Speed Sport Roadster" to take home the title. Beating a field that included Melvin Heath, Jack Moss and Bobby Langley certainly didn’t hurt Don’s reputation at all, and the event marked the first time in his career that Don Garlits actually got paid money to attend a race. "I got $450 just to show up," he said. "It was the first time that anyone thought that I was worth anything as a racer."

Swamp Rat I with the blower.

As exciting as those early years were, Don got a little jolt of reality when he attended his first Bakersfield meet in 1959. For all intents and purposes, the meet was held just to lure Garlits out to the coast so the Californian’s could see just what all of the excitement was about. When Don showed up with his car he realized that most, if not all of the top cars out there were running with superchargers, something that he had not tried until then. But, after getting handled rather easily at the "March Meet," Don decided that blowers were the way to go, and within a week he had one on his car, and he proceeded to set low elapsed time and top speed at the first meet with the new combination. Don got a measure of revenge at Bakersfield when he returned a few years later to not only win the race, but to race his team car in the final round, the one with Marvin Schwartz behind the wheel.

Most drag racing fans remember the picture of Don’s car as it blew up on the starting line at Lions Drag Strip in California in 1970, but most fans don’t remember that Don had several really bad accidents long before that, accidents that kept him out of the driver’s seat for quite a while. A fiery crash at Chester, South Carolina in 1959 not only sidelined Don for quite a while but it almost took his life. In his autobiography, Don says that he remembers hearing the doctors say that, "…there isn’t anything we can do for this man." Burned over most of his body, he would recover to race again and to crash again. Two years after the devastating Chester incident, Don was burned again after a test run at Golden Triangle drag strip. Undaunted, Don put a succession of drivers into his car and he never missed a beat. Connie Swingle, Art Malone, Emory Cook and even Don’s brother, Ed, all took turns driving for "Big" at one time or another. Ironically, it was Don, driving someone else’s car, who set the drag racing world on its ear when he ran 180.36 mph at Indianapolis in 1962. The previous record was 176.60, which had been set in York, Pennsylvania by Jack Chrisman behind the wheel of Mickey Thomson’s car. Chrisman got a little measure of revenge, however, when he beat Garlits for the Indy title that year. Garlits set the record and went to the finals driving for another legend, Connie Kalitta.

Swamp Rat II

Following his success at Indy in 1962, Don went on a real tear, winning the opening race of the ’63 season in Pomona by beating his long time friend and partner, Art Malone, and then making it back to the finals at the "Nationals" that same year. In the final round at Indy, Don appeared to have his opponent covered by a wide margin. Young Bobby Vodnick of Chicago was only 19 years old and his inexperience, Don thought, would be his undoing. As it turned out, just the opposite was true, as Don jumped the gun, fouled out and, for the second consecutive year, left Indy as the runner-up even though he probably had the best car in competition. In his autobiography Don recalls how the disappointment of that race (and his failure to win earlier in the year at Bakersfield), only spurred him on to try harder. After coming up empty at the sport’s two biggest meets, Don remembers that the critics were saying the he "couldn’t win the big one." And he says that, "Naturally, all of this talk only increased my determination to win these two races before I retired." Retired? Don was talking about retiring in 1963!

1964 was probably the highlight of Don Garlits’ early career. With so many tracks running dragsters, and with appearance money being paid to a select few, the track operators were more than eager to have "Big Daddy" run at their facilities. "Drag News," the most popular drag racing newspaper in the country at that time, was constantly running ads from the cam grinders, the tire manufacturers, the piston companies and more telling of the exploits of drivers who were using their products. And all the time racers were looking to be the first to break the magical, and previously unattainable, 200-mile per hour barrier. Don ripped of a 200 mph blast at Detroit Dragway and followed that with a pair of runs over 200 at great Meadows Dragway in New Jersey. But all of those runs came at "match race" facilities, and Don was denied the record since records could only be established at a sanctioned NHRA event. Frank Cannon, driving the M & R dragster, officially set the mark at 199.10 in California and the race was on, so to speak, to be the first driver to officially break the 200 mph barrier. Don got his chance when he returned to Great Meadows a few weeks after his match race there, and he silenced all of his critics when he ran 7.78 at 201.34 mph. Finally, what everyone had suspected was now fact, "Big Daddy" Don Garlits had the fastest dragster in the world. Now all he had to do was win Indy and his year would be complete. A few weeks after the record run in New Jersey, Don accomplished his goal of being the Indy champ. After winning the eliminations on Sunday, Don got to sit out on Monday and wait for that day’s champion to challenge him for the title. Jack Williams outlasted a field that include Norm Weekly, George Van, Bobby Vodnick, Tom Hoover and more to earn the right to race Don. When the dust finally settled, Don Garlits had won his first Indy title, edging Williams with a strong 7.67, his best run of the event. Now that Don Garlits had won Indy, he could retire knowing that he had accomplished most of his goals. Yeah, right.

Swamp Rat VI

The next two years, 1965 and 1966, saw Don have relatively good seasons, although he didn’t win an NHRA national event. He did have that special final round in Bakersfield, the one that featured Don and Marvin Schwartz, and he did win the AHRA Summernationals in Ohio, but for the most part, he was silent on the national scene. In fact, in "National Dragster’s" issue right before Indy, a huge 60 pages ("The biggest in history"), Don hardly got a mention. Bennie Osborne, Don Prudhomme, Al Friedman, Tom Hoover, Danny Ongais and more were all being touted as the ones to beat at Indy. Garlits, they said, was on the down side of his great career. As a matter of fact, they noted, Don hadn’t even run a six-second time in his entire career, while guys like Prudhomme, Tommy Ivo, Hank Westmoreland and Chuck Kurzawa all appeared much better prepared for the grueling task of winning Indy. But, as history now shows, not only did Don win, but he got that six-second run in the finals against James Warren, a guy who really didn’t have a chance in the championship round. I say that because I was there that day, and as good as James was running, there wasn’t a fan in the stands who didn’t believe that "Big" would win the race, run a six and then shave his beard (something he vowed to do when he made his first six-second run). When it was over, Don left the Indy ground littered with some of the great names in the sport, guys like Snively, Sorokin, Jerry Dawson and Tom McEwen all went down at the hands of the "Swamp Rat" before Don disposed of the great James Warren. He came, he saw, he conquered. Oh yeah, and then he shaved.

Part 2….later this week.

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