Mon, 30 May 2016, 15:00 PM The "Forgotten" Funny Cars

By Steve Reyes Photo copyright 2016 Steve Reyes

With all the fan-fare about the funny car class' fiftieth birthday, a couple of groups of plastic fantastics have been long forgotten. In the late 1970s and through the 1980s, the funny car class enjoyed success on the America's many drag strips. So if the asphalt based funny car could be popular on asphalt, why not dirt or sand?

I first saw sand funny cars and funny Jeeps in 1978 at Coalinga, California. NBC was doing a NBC Sports TV show featuring drag racing in the sand and I was there to cover the event for Argus Publishers. NBC went all out by hiring Don Prudhomme to commentate and interview racers at the event. There was a small but hardy group of sand funny cars in attendance which featured blown nitro burning Jeep bodied funny cars. Also the funny car class included rear engine cars which had already vanished from the drag strip in the early 1970s but not in the sand.

A couple of years later, I attended a large sand drag event in Ontario, California, and again was treated to more back motor funny cars owned by Ralph Pearson and Hank Eckardt. Due to the lack of races and prize money, Pearson switched to an asphalt top fuel car and Eckardt; well, he just faded from sand racing.

>From his Midwest based office USHRA/SRO President Bob George wanted something different to feature in his already successful monster truck and truck pull circuit. The USHRA was kind of the WWE of automotive events and entertainment was paramount in every show. The USHRA's shows packed small arena's and major stadiums all over the US A but Bob George wanted to give his loyal spectators more bang for their entertainment buck. He saw how drag fans loved funny cars, so why not bring them indoors and have them pull a zillion pound sled. The noise from the winding funny car engine with the dirt flying from its paddle tire slicks was surely an asset to the USHRA show circuit.

Breaking the "funny car ice" was son of speed legend Art Arfons, Tim Arfons. Tim debuted a new Arfons' Green Monster Jet Turbine funny car and the rest is funny car history. Arfons with his wheels up and fire show was a huge success on the circuit. The Green Monster was so popular on the USA pulling circuit that he was invited to bring his funny car to the Netherlands for exhibition runs at the largest pull event in the Netherlands. Yeah, Tim went and he took me with him and wow, did the Dutch crowd love his Green Monster show.

Seeing the success of Arfons, USHRA/SRO Honcho Bob George contacted Pat Minick, one of the owners of the Chi-Town Hustler funny car about a pull funny car. Minick and the Chi-town gang had already consented to a Chi-Town Hustler monster truck driven and maintained by Kevin Dabney, so why not a dirt AA/FC? Veteran tractor pull owner/driver Mike Hoff was asked to build and maintain the Hustler for the dirt.

Meanwhile another veteran of monster trucks and pullers, Dan Patrick assembled his Warlord funny car. Soon after, Mike Hollingsworth's Tennessee Thunder funny car was slinging dirt all over the United States. When the two wheel drive truck class got a bit boring , funny car bodied pullers showed up and pumped life into the class.

This "dirty" funny car revolution lasted through the 1980s. When Bob George passed and the USHRA was sold, the monster truck and racing of monster trucks took over the shows from coast to coast. The funny car days of playing in the dirt came and went quickly but it was a good run while it lasted.

This is Al Westfall in the blown nitro burning Jeep funny vs. Steve Brooks
in his Ford Mustang bodied sand funny car at Coalinga, California in 1978.
Shades of the Secret Weapon and the Holy Toledo! Jeep bodied funny cars
were still welcomed at sand drag events. This after mean ol' NHRA banned the
body style from asphalt competition in the funny car class.

Excitement was what the late Al Westfall brought to the sand funny car class.
Westfall was the Wild Willie Borsch of the sand funny car class, boy was he
fun to watch in his Utah based Jeep. In Coalinga, California, Westfall was granted
his fifteen minutes of fame being interviewed by asphalt funny car hero
Don Prudhomme who was working the microphone for NBC Sports.

If the name Butch Blair sounds familiar to you drag fans, well it should.
Blair ran a top fuel dragster on the NHRA circuit in the 1980s and early 1990s,
he also raced a retro AA/FD at the CHRR events at Bakersfield.
Before asphalt racing, Butch had been churning sand in either his
1948 Jeepster bodied or Vega Bodied sand funny cars. Blair was one
of the most popular of the sand racers ever to race.

Ralph Pearson raced a very cool rear engine sand funny car in 1979,
but in 1982, the California based Pearson cast out his sand funny car
for a NHRA style top fuel dragster at the 1982 NHRA Winternationals.

Yes, funny cars in the sand were exciting to watch and two of the best
were Steve Brooks and his front engine Ford Mustang and
Hank Eckardt's Mopar bodied funny car. These guys could put on one
heck of a show with their sand floppers. Here in 1980 at Ontario, California,
Steve Brooks carried the front end high in the sky. He almost did this the
entire length of the race track. When he set his skyward funny car down he
broke off the bumper, grill, and one headlight. No problem, since he won his race,
he just broke off any jagged pieces and ran sans bumper, grill and headlight.
Hank Eckardt was great to watch because of his Banzai style of driving with
rooster tails of sand, flames belching from the headers and the front wheels
dangling in the wind.

Tim Arfons introduced the funny car to USHRA fans with great results,
he and his Green Monster funny car toured until 1986 and then he brought
out the new and improved Starfire funny car puller. Fans were delighted with
his now larger fire show from Starfire's jet turbine engine.

Right at the beginning of the funny car puller craze was Dan Patrick
with his first series of Red Baron and Warlord funny cars resulted in
a Playskool toy deal that brought the Warlord into toy stores and
family homes nationwide. To say his Warlord funny car was popular
would have been an understatement.

Another early racer to the dirt funny car class was Tennessee based
Mike Hollingsworth. Mike was also very popular on the USHRA circuit.
So popular that ERTL toys signed Mike up and did a toy on the
Tennessee Thunder funny car. Hollingsworth also pulled with a
'Cuda bodied funny car and piloted the first top fuel dragster puller for USHRA.

The dirt funny car became so popular that the Chi-Town Hustler team
got in on the action at USHRA events. Mike Hoff built and raced (pulled)
the Chi-Town Hustler puller nationwide. The car started out red but when
the asphalt Chi-Town became NHRA funny car champion it wore the same colors.

Another legend in the asphalt funny car world got dirty in the 1980s.
Dan Patrick could be seen at the wheel of Tom "Mongoose" McEwen's
Coors Corvette dirt funny car. Coors and McEwen were very serious
about their venture into the grubby world of funny car pullers.
Coors had a representative whenever the car ran to handle press and marketing.
If you wonder about "burnouts," well these cars pulled up and did a
"dirtout" before hooking to the sled.

Gary Collins debuted his funny car as the Avenger but when Budweiser
got wind of Coors being in the class, they quickly approached Collins
and his funny car became the Budweiser Avenger funny car puller.

The Magnum Force funny car puller had a very strange story to go with it.
The owner will remain unknown because this is one heck of a bizarre tale.
The reason his line of pull trucks and funny car had the name Magnum Jr.,
Magnum Jr. II and Magnum Force was in part due to his wife. One day they
were having a rather heated argument when his wife grabbed their .44 Magnum
handgun (think Dirty Harry gun) and shot him point blank in the stomach.
No, it didn't kill him but he went down in the medical journals as the only person to
ever survive a gunshot wound to that part of the body with that large of a handgun.
He recovered from his wound and continued to pull with his truck and funny car.
As for his wife? He wouldn't file charges and the case was dropped and as far
as I know they are still married.

NTPA and other sanctioning bodies in the pulling sport saw the popularity
of funny car bodied pullers and set the two wheel drive truck class rules to
include funny car style bodies along with the standard truck brands.
John Hileman's Sultan, The Flying Farmer, God's Thunder Corvette and
Diehl Wilson's, The Virginian were built to those specs to compete at NTPA events.
The Super Flash funny car puller is an example of what not to do with your puller.
>From the looks of it a funny car body was dropped on to a truck frame in this
early effort to create a funny car puller.

Again in the 1980s, I ventured to a NMRO event in Red Bud, Michigan.
There I even found the American made Vega funny car racing through
the mud bog. Funny cars in mud racing? It got to be very expensive to
repair the broken fiberglass bodies. I did come across another mud funny car
at a USHRA/SRO event in Minnesota. Driver Mike O'Connell put the
Kwik Trip funny car through the mud filled pit.