Fri, 4 Mar 2005, 09:03 AM OK, I Give Up. What is a “Snarpeezel?”

By Bob Frey Photo copyright 2005 Auto Imagery, Inc.

Ed Sigmon

Very few people have made more runs down a quarter mile than Ed Sigmon, and for just about every run that he has made his car has carried the name "Snarpeezel" on it. So, when I talked to Ed this week one of the first questions that I asked is, just what is Snarpeezel? "I have no idea," he said with a laugh. "When I had one of my earlier cars built I told the painter to put something on it that would look cool. He came up with the idea of this little animal that look like it was haulin', well, you know. And if you look closely, it has five feet." No wonder it hauls, with five feet it ought to be fast. And no wonder Ed's car does, too, especially after years of racing in and around the Southern California area.

Ed Sigmon began racing in 1961 with a '49 Chevy coupe that had a Chrysler wedge engine in it. He raced at most of the California tracks but he specialized in racing and winning at San Fernando and Lions Drag Strips. "Most people think that the last drag race at Lions was the one with all the dragsters racing, but I actually made the last run down Lions Drag Strip and I have a piece of the asphalt from the track hanging on my wall. It was at a bracket race and you had to win your bracket to advance to the overall championship and I did that and then I won the race. Mine was the last car to go down the track." Prior to that race Ed had already distinguished himself as one of the top racers in the country by piling up a series of divisional wins at tracks like Carlsbad, Irwindale and Fremont and he followed them up with a win at the 1969 Winternationals. That Pomona win was accomplished with one of his favorite cars, a 1953 MG that was powered by a 427 cubic inch Chevrolet engine, and of course, the haulin' little "Snarpeezel" was also along for the ride. After the big win at the "Big Go West," Ed raced for another year before switching over to the new and exciting Pro Stock class. "I ran with some of the legends in the class, and I beat Landy and Bagshaw and others when they came up to Santa Maria and some of the other tracks near me," he said. But tragedy struck Ed in the 1971 season when his home in Canoga Park suffered a fire that destroyed his garage and, with it, his Pro Stock car and his famous MG. "It was devastating, but drag racing is what I do so I knew that I'd rebuild and go on." Go on he did, and this time it was with a spiffy new flip top Opel GT that Ed got from the legendary car builder Frank Huzar. Equipped with a '71 Chevy L-88 engine the car fit neatly in the B/A class and Ed Sigmon, and "Snarpeezel," were off and running again.

Sigmon at OCIR in 1976.

After a few years with the Opel Ed decided to go back to his roots and build a more conventional Competition Eliminator car. Enter his beautiful pink 1927 car that ran in the very competitive A/SR class. And speaking of competitive, in it's early runs the car went 8.83 on the existing national record of 9.22. The car had a 394 cubic inch engine and there was "Snarpeezel" along for the ride again. When Ed finally retired the car it was listed as the quickest and fastest A/SR in the country. "After that car I got hooked on the bracket racing bug and I did that for a number of years," Ed said. He and some friends were very instrumental in the establishment of the Pro Gas class in California and Ed, as always, was more than competitive in the new heads up class. "I did pretty well out here and I was one of the top points guys the very first year that we ran the class out here." The fascination with Pro Gas, and later Super Gas, lasted for about twenty years and all the time Ed was still running the heating and air conditioning business that he started about the same time he started racing. He also was married and had two children that kept him kind of busy. When I asked him about the family's involvement in drag racing he said that his son, Bryan, likes to come to the races but he has to stay home and watch the business when Ed's away racing. As far as his wife, Patricia, Ed says he thinks he burned her out on drag racing a long time ago. "It's what I love to do and she supports it," he said. After forty six years of marriage I guess he knows what his wife likes and what she doesn't.

Sigmon slams into the wall.

Ed's latest creation is magnificent car that he runs in the C/SR class, a class reserved for V-6 engines and, as you might suspect, his is one of the quickest cars in the class. Unfortunately, the car was demolished in an accident at the Division 7 race at Firebird Raceway last year. To see the car, and to talk to those who saw the accident, it's amazing that Ed walked away from it and that the car could be salvaged, and to listen to Ed, it's nothing short of a miracle that he got out of the car at all. "I was making the run when all of a sudden the car made a sharp turn and headed for the wall. I think I might have hit some moisture on the track or something but by the time I realized that the car was out of shape there was nothing I could do. I saw the wall coming and I knew it was going to be a pretty hard hit." After he hit the wall, the car flipped over and caught fire. "I must have been going about 125 mph when I hit the wall and these roadsters like to fly once they turn over. When it came to a halt I was upside down and the car was on fire." Ed then goes on to tell about his escape from the car. "As you can imagine, in a roadster, there isn't a lot of room to get out when you're upside down. The steering wheel was in the way and the roll cage was there and I couldn't get out. But the next thing I know, the steering wheel 'melted away' and I slipped out of the car. When I got out and looked back, the steering wheel was in place and to this day I think it was nothing short of a miracle that I was able to climb out of the car. Really."

Sigmon wins Best Appearing Car Award.

Over his sixty two years Ed has tried a lot of things, from water skiing, to sky diving and even bungee jumping but drag racing is and always has been his first love and that's why he knew that he wouldn't let this latest set back keep him off the track for long. "I knew I'd race again, and so did my wife." He called Gary Hansen, at Hansen Race Cars, and he put the car back together. Then a call to Jeff Gracia to re-paint it, only this time he would reverse the familiar colors, and make the car purple with pink flames. To say that it's a thing of beauty would be an understatement and at the end of last year Ed picked up the "Best Appearing Car" award at the Las Vegas race and he followed that up with a "Best Engineered" award at the final race in Pomona. "I've always taken pride in the way my cars look and I've probably won more best appearing awards over the years than anyone else." But the real test for Ed would come at the recent Firebird Race when he would return to the scene of his devastating crash from a year ago. "I have to admit that I was a little apprehensive the first time I made a run down the track in the same lane as the one I crashed in last year," he said. "But as soon as it was over I knew I was back and ready to race."

Sigmon at CSK Nats.

When a guy has raced for as many years as Ed Sigmon has you know that he's made a tremendous amount of runs down the quarter mile, and I wondered if he had any idea of what the number may be over these forty years. "Over 5,000," he said without hesitation. "I know that because I stopped counting at 5,000." Now that's a lot of runs for any driver and any car with four wheels, even if it does have a mascot with five legs on it. And Ed is determined to continue to race and he's still looking for his first national event win since that 1969 Winternationals. "I just can't seem to win a national event. Everyone I run always seems to cut a good light or make their best run against me. But I won't give up. This is what I love to do." He also loves stacking his latest car up against the other top C/SR cars in the country, including Tom Schmidt and Steve Wilmoth. If all goes well for Ed this year, we'll see him at a lot of divisional races as well as several national events including some that he has never participated in before. "I'd like to be able to go to Houston because I hear that's a really fast track and I've never raced there. And if all goes well, I want to go back to Indy. I haven't been there since the mid-seventies and I'd really like to go run that race again." Wouldn't it be something if, after all these years, Ed Sigmon and "Snarpeezel" finally got that elusive, long awaited second national event win at Indianapolis?

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