Tue, 08 Nov 2016, 16:25 PM My Favorite Fifty- Part 4

By Steve Reyes Photo copyright 2016 Steve Reyes

So far I have presented thirty of my personal favorite funny cars. Have there been many that you have enjoyed racing in those golden years of funny car racing? I figured quite a few would also be fan favorites of the reader's of this column. I know my picks aren't going to please everyone but that is great because every fan should have a special group or single race car that brings back great memories of attending those Saturday night or maybe Wednesday night funny car gatherings at their local drag strip. With smoke, nitro fumes and bits of rubber hanging in the thick summer night air, a wonderful funny car race will never be forgotten. Hopefully these photos can trigger those great old funny car memories.

If you wish to purchase prints of the photos below or any others, they may be obtained by contacting us at breyes@reyesontour.com. Other photos for purchase may be viewed by following the links at www.reyesontour.com.

Before Butch Leal quit racing funny cars, he raced the quickest and fastest injected
nitro burning 'Cuda. Leal raced any blown car, any place, at any time. At the end of 1967,
it seemed that many of the owner/drivers were switching to a blower with different transmissions.
This would have all been well and good except that the resulting speed and quickness came with
a stiff penalty which included fires and explosions that were a serious threat to the driver's life.
When Leal evaluated these things, he decided to walk away from funny cars and proceeded to race
a SS Mopar in 1968 before entering the pro stock class. Leal was a lot of fun to watch race his
California Flash 'Cuda.

I would say the debut of Arnie Beswick's GTO funny car in 1967was the best ever show and
go race car that "The Farmer" ever raced. This car was a far cry from the Tameless Tiger
Tempest that he had been racing. Yes, the Midwest farmer entered the world of professional
funny car racing with a bang in 1967.

Okay, I admit it, I am a "homer" on this funny car pick. It was the debut of Lew Arrington's
Brutus GTO funny car. Yep, brown primer with lettering by Bobbie Liberman and behind the
wheel an unknown funny car driver named Jim Liberman. The high riding GTO made a few
lumbering passes down the Fremont mile and the new funny car was packed up and hauled
back to its home in San Jose, California. I thought the Pontiac powered GTO was the coolest
car since Chrisman's Sachs and Sons Comet.

Prior to his Beach City Chevrolet Corvette, there was Don Kirby's Fiberglass Trends Corvette
funny car piloted by Pat Foster. With Foster at the helm the Los Angeles based funny car cranked
out 200 mph plus runs to earn the fastest funny car in the country honors. This slick direct drive
Corvette was a handful for Foster. If it didn't go straight then it smoked the tires or dangled the
front wheels high in the sky, forcing Foster to lift.

Coming out of the Great Northwest was "Action Man" Kenney Goodell and his thundering
Ford Mustang funny car. I first saw Kenney in 1967 at Puyallup, Washington. Kenney was
always a showman in any of his line of funny cars and top dragsters. In the early 1970s,
Goodell was one of the first to have a team of a top fuel dragster and funny car.

You gotta like Fred Goeske when he took a slightly bent Hemi 'Cuda and recycled it into
a working rear engine funny car. After Tom McEwen flew the Hemi 'Cuda in 1966, nobody
thought the car would return to do battle on the quarter-mile but Goeske thought otherwise
and the 'Cuda was reborn. Fred raced the rear engine car in 1967 and then retired it in 1968
for a front engine Hemi 'Cuda.

Now, it is time to portray an early funny car "wall to wall" driver, Richard Schroeder. One of the
very cool injected Nova funny cars was the Bad Bossa Nova, owned and driven by Richard Schroeder.
The somewhat larger than life, Schroeder had loads of fun with this 1967 entry into the world of funny
car racing. Richard left funny car racing and his Bad Bossa Nova to enter the world of wheel-standers.

What can be said about Ed Lenarth and Roger Wolford's Secret Weapon Jeep other than it was a
very different vehicle in Southern California funny car racing in 1967. With Wolford at the controls,
the duo raced all over California and even did a small USA tour. The Secret Weapon wasn't around
a long time but those that saw it run would never forget it.

Northern Californian, Ron Rinauro, wanted to race something different in the early funny car class,
so he debuted his Blown Hell 1955 Chevy bodied funny car in early 1967. With its 392 Hemi blown
on ninety percent nitro, the Blown Hell was a fan favorite to watch. However, the car had a serious
weak link, it shelled out transmissions frequently. We are talking about blowing the transmission
almost every third run. To say the Ted Gotelli built 392 Hemi had horsepower was a vast understatement.

Jim Liberman raced many funny cars in his career but my favorite was his 1968 Chevy Nova.
Late in 1967, he put the finishing touches on his then new Nova. A few test runs at his home
track of Fremont, California, and he was ready for the biggest event of his early funny car career.
The AHRA Funny Car Nationals were held at Lions Drag Strip at the beginning of 1968 and
everybody who was somebody was there to race. Injected and nitro burning funny cars had two
different eliminators to score big money. When the smoke and nitro fumes cleared after two days
of crazy racing, there was Jim Liberman and his Nova. Jim had won the biggest race for funny cars
ever held on the West Coast.