BangShift Pocket Drag Biography: The Freight Train Top Gas Twin Engine Dragster – A Nearly Unstoppable Force!


BangShift Pocket Drag Biography: The Freight Train Top Gas Twin Engine Dragster – A Nearly Unstoppable Force!

Top Gas dragsters are largely forgotten today, which is really too bad. Born of the NHRA’s ban on nitromethane that lasted from 1957-1963, Top Gas dragsters really started as weak-suck little sisters to the outlawed Fuel dragsters, but over the course of their lifespan, came to carve out their own niche and large base of fans.

The baddest of all these gasoline-fueled rails was John Peter’s Freight Train. This twin-engine terror dominated the class right up until its demise in 1972 when the NHRA decided to include Top Gas in its new Competition Eliminator class. Peters, who had spent decades busting his ass on the car to run harder and faster than anyone, had no interest in going that route, so the car was dismantled and sat in the rafters of his shop. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves here.

The first version of what would later be called The Freight Train was built by Nye Frank and John Peters in 1959. The car had two small-block Chevy engines and one large front-mounted blower to feed them both through a custom made plenum that ran over the top of both motors.

Soon thereafter, each of the motors sported its own blower, and the car would run with multiple small-block power for the majority of its illustrious career. There were a couple reasons for the car’s dominance. One was the fact that the car made so much power with the twin engines that it could run the larger Fuel dragster style slick where as other single-engine gas cars needed to run smaller tires because they’d bog off the starting line with the big rubber bolted on. Through most of its career the car was racing against normal, single-engine dragsters, and despite its obvious weight disadvantage with the dual motors and exponentially longer chassis, it managed to pound the flyweights into mincemeat. So badly, in fact, that by the end of the era in Top Gas it was abnormal for cars not to run multiple power plants.

Peters had three versions of the car during its time on the track and he never drove any of them. Peters was the wrench and a guy who liked to live somewhat behind the scenes, and ironically, so did his most successful driver.

Bob Muravez made over 1,300 passes in the Train and was its pilot through the majority of its glorious reign. At the time it was happening, though, you’d have to have been a true drag racing insider to know that. Muravez came from a rather well to do family that simply did not approve of him driving any of those dirty drag racing machines. Their disapproval was so strong that he actually stepped out of the seat to appease them, despite the fact that his driving in 1962 netted the team a win at the March Meet, the first major race for the Top Gas class.

During the time that Muravez was away from the car, guys like Craig Breedlove, Tom McEwen, Mickey Thompson, and “Wild” Bill Alexander all tried their hand at driving the car and failed miserably. The car went from winner to not qualifying for a show for five months straight.

The decision was made to plunk the only guy who seemed to be able to tame the car back into the seat. At first he raced under Peter’s name and when they won he’d not show up to the winners’ circle for photos or recognition, lest his family find out what he was doing. By the start of the 1963 season the team had its act together again and they won the Winternationals with Muravez down as John Peters on the entry sheet.

He was then given the nickname Floyd Lippencotte Jr. by NHRA Competition Director Steve Gibbs. Under this pseudonym, he would drive the car to six NHRA national event wins, this in the days when there were like two to three such affairs a year. It was no small feat. He took to coming into the winners circle in his fire mask and there are some great old ads in the pages of Hot Rod Magazine showing head shots of famous drag racers and there was always one guy still in his fire mask. Guess who that was. Hilarious stuff.

In 1967 the team became the first to go 200 mph on gas, and they won the United Drag Racing Association Championship. Aside from the national event stuff the car was traversing the country and hammering on all comers.

The team had fun with the whole train theme as well. Peters would wear an engineer’s cap and overalls at the track and the rest of the team would all be equipped with engineer’s caps as well.

That fun was at the expense of exasperated competitors who simply could not find a way around the massive car. These guys never won with luck. They were, at one point, averaging about half a second quicker than the rest of the field with consistency. That’s brutal.

In 1970 and 1971 Peters teamed up with a man named Walt Rhodes to run the car. They ditched the Mouse motors for a pair of pissed off 428ci Chrysler Hemis. They also painted the car black, a departure from the traditional red scheme that it had worn for a decade.

Despite the additional weight of the big Chrysler lumps, the car was still unstoppable. The team won the 1971 GatorNationals with the big Chrysler set up. It was to be the last big win for the car as the class was scrapped the following year and Peters had no interest in going down the Super Comp road.

Here’s a very cool list of accomplishments that was found on the website dedicated to this wild car, www.thefreighttrain.com

•  Top Gas Eliminator “ Bakersfield ’62  Muravez (last win as “Muravez” for six years)
•  Top Eliminator Winternationals ’63 (Peters was listed as driver)
•  First Gas Dragster over 180 mph  “63 (Peters was listed as driver)
•  Low ET gas “ 8.07 “ Tulsa World Finals ’65 (disallowed; NHRA said car was too light!) “ Tuller
•  Best Appearing Crew “ Winternationals “ ’66 “ Tuller
•  First Gas Dragster in the sevens “ ’66 “ Tuller
•  Top Gas Bakersfield “ ’67 “ Tuller
•  Top Gas “ Bristol Springnationals “ ’67 Tuller
•  First Gas Dragster over 190mph “ ’67 “ Lippencotte
•  First Gas Dragster 200mph “ ’67 “ Lippencotte
•  Top time, low ET gas, 7.30/200 “ U.S. Nationals- ’67 “ Lippencotte
•  Top Gas – USPD Championships, Lions “ ’67 “ Lippencotte
•  Top time, low ET gas, every meet raced in ’67 “ Lippencotte
•  Division VII points champion five years of seven
•  Top Gas “ USPD Championships, Lions “ ’68 “ Lippencotte
•  Top Gas Springnationals “ ’69 “ Muravez
•  Top Gas “ Bakersfield “ ’70 “ Davis
•  First Gas Dragster to run seven-flat “ ’71 “ Rhodes
•  First Gas Dragster in the sixes “ ’71 “ Muravez
•  Top Gas “ Gatornationals “ ’71 “ Rhodes (final major win, Chryslers)

The Freight Train

The Freight Train with Hemis


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6 thoughts on “BangShift Pocket Drag Biography: The Freight Train Top Gas Twin Engine Dragster – A Nearly Unstoppable Force!

  1. MGBChuck

    One of the first drag races my family took me to (mid 60s) as a youngster was at Half Moon Bay, Ca.,, the Freight Train kicked everyones rear, was a favorite from then on. Saw the twiin Chyrsler run a Fremont, it was awesome, but the twin SBC version just had a beastly sound to it that was totally unique..

  2. Clay Taylor

    Um, you made a major omission in the text that shows up in the race results chart. While you list “Tuller” as the driver in the chart, you never mention “Goob” Tuller in the article. Was that another Muravez pseudonym?

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