This engine is a 296ci flattie topped with the Ardun heads, what looks to be a 6-71 blower, and a pair of four barrel carbs. The description on the video claims that the engine made 456hp @ 6500RPM and the torque number was about the same as the HP peak. The engine sounds really good and looks even better with the OHV heads on it. It has none of that poppy little sound a normal Flathead has, this thing is all business!

Press play to head one mean ass Flathead on the pump!

I’ll be on Wally’s show yakking about EJ and his awesome life as one of drag racing’s true legends. Few racers in straight line competition have run on three continents and as frequently as EJ did. He never missed a booking, even after being hellaciously burned in the Nightmare I 1957 Plymouth, he still ran the V8 bike. His burns were so bad that his then wife had to keep sopping up the ooze that was coming out of his wounds as he drove down the road from place to place to run the bike.

I was lucky enough to have several conversations with EJ over the years, some for published stories and some because I just wanted to call him and shoot the breeze. I still refuse to take his number out of my cell phone.

If you are a fan of old school drag racing, if you are a fan of EJ Potter, if you are a fan of great radio, tune in tonight! All you have to do is to click the link below and once there, click the huge button in the middle of the screen that says, “CLICK HERE TO LISTEN LIVE“.

TUNE IN AT 8pm EASTERN TIME AND LISTEN TO A GREAT TRIBUTE TO EJ POTTER WITH OUR OWN BRIAN LOHNES!

LINK: THE WALLY BELL SHOW — HIT THE LINK AND HIT THE BUTTON IN THE MIDDLE OF THE SCREEN TO LISTEN LIVE

Dragstrips typically have cooler names than circle tracks. Top-level facilities often have corporate sponsors and all kinds of junk that make them sound like a shopping mall, not a race track. The tracks listed below have no such problem. In fact, at several of these tracks the only “sanctioning body” is the huge dude at the end of the bleachers collecting the bets from spectators.

The Top 11 Best Dragstrip Names

11) Skyview Dragstrip, Tioga Center, New York:  This is a nice, fairly new strip that’s located on a gorgeous piece of real estate in upstate New York. IHRA Sanctioned.

10) Santa Pod, England, Wellingborough, England: It’s the Indy of England and one of the most well-known strips in the world, partly because of its weird name, but mostly because of it’s rich history. The name came from using the first part of the name of the old Santa Ana track back in California and the first section of the name of the Poddington Airfield, which is where the track is located. Hence, Santa Pod. FIA Sanctioned.

9) Action City Dragway, Terre Haute, Indiana: It’s a nice little 1/8-mile facility with a killer name. A promoter’s dream we’d say. We can hear it now, SUNDAY, SUNDAY, SUNDAY at ACTION CITY DRAGWAY! NHRA Sanctioned.

8. ) Summerduck Dragway, Summerduck, Virginia: Sure it’s just named after the town it’s located in, but you’ve got to admit, you scratched you head when you first read it. It’s an IHRA sanctioned 1/8-mile.

7) No Problem Raceway Park, Belle Rose, Louisiana:  This is a great ¼-mile strip that’s host to one of the NHRA SportsNationals events, which are Sportsman-only national events. Praised for its racer friendly atmosphere and hard-biting strip, it’s only 12 feet above sea level and can provide some killer conditions when the air is right.

6) George Ray’s Wildcat Dragstrip, Paragould, Arkansas: It’s not just a track, it’s a living history museum and a look into what drag racing is when boiled down to its wonderfully simply essence and it happens every Sunday in George Ray’s backyard. The name is as awesomely retro as the rest of the place. Sanction? Not exactly.

5) Redline Raceway, Caddo Mills, Texas: Another great retro name from a little 1/8-mile strip in Texas. This track is an IHRA sanctioned facility and is neat in the fact that is seems to never close. They are racing continuously through the winter, every Sunday. We’re shoveling snow…suck. Does anyone know if this is the same location as the Drag Safari stop in 1955?

4) Quarter Aces Drag-o-Way, Boiling Springs, Pennsylvania: Here’s a track that made a name switch. They would have never made the list when the facility was know as South Mountain Dragway. We are a little confused on why it’s called Quarter Aces and it’s an 1/8-mile strip. It sounds better we think. It appears to be NHRA sanctioned

3) Yellow Belly Dragway, Dallas, Texas: This place lives up to its name because many “yeller bellies” have probably run screaming and yelling from the place after experiencing a night of action there. It’s an outlaw track in every sense of the word. Everything we have read tells us that this place is wild west outlaw drag racing personified, both good and bad. Sanction? HA!

2) Headhunter Motor Club Putt Putt Bush Track, Eatonton, Georgia: Sweet Jesus! Unsanctioned.

1) Junkyard #1 Dragway, Canton, Mississippi: We almost fell off of our chairs when we learned of this place. There’s not a ton to say other than things you’d expect, like, it’s an 1/8-mile, there’s no sanction, seemingly no rules, and no guarantee you’ll get out alive. A guy on another message board talked about racing through a puddle the size of a lake at the end of the track. This ain’t a list of great tracks, just great names and they don’t get any better than this one.

The driver of the ’57 lands on the throttle when the tree comes down and all of the wheel studs retaining the left rear wheel shear off. Just going on the reaction of the car, this Chevy must have a spool in it because it goes into an immediate donut, turning virtually on it’s own axis. Luckily the other driver jumped the tree, because the Chevy heads directly for the left lane and may have contacted the other car if he was late on the leave.

We’ve seen lots of weirdness on the strip, but a guy pulling a donut before even reaching the Christmas tree is pretty impressive. The good news is that nothing other than the studs and the man’s pride appeared to be injured during the filming of this video.

Check your wheel studs…don’t suffer the same fate as this dude and the guy in the Camaro!

Right there on the sidewalk was a little tricycle padlocked and chained to a bike stand. There’s got to be some back story here. Did a little kid pedal this sucker all the way to this spot with the chain around his next Flava-flav style? Did the kiddo some with a BA Barracus style security guard that had the chain and honkin’ pad lock?

Chad didn’t stick around the find out and we don’t blame him. Any place that you’ve got to lock up the trike with a chain capable of dragging a locomotive is no place to be spending extended periods of time!

Caption this photo!

Hit the link below to see Scott’s gallery from the 2012 Car Craft Anti-Tour kick off car show!

LINK: 2012 Car Craft Anti-Tour kick off car show

As we mentioned above, these cars used and aluminum front end and bumpers to reduce weight. This care is amazingly rare because out of the 179 produced, only 20 had bucket seats. This is one of those twenty. The white exterior paint and teal interior are the correct factor combo and there’s not much stuff that we dig more than a four speed handle coming through the floor of a muscle car with no console, just a long handle and a rubber boot. That really looks the business to us.

The motors in these cars were impressive for their era. Displacing 421ci, they were equipped with a custom ground solid lifter cam, heavily worked cylinder heads developed for Pontiac’s NASCAR efforts, an aluminum intake manifold, twin 500CFM carbs, forged pistons sourced from Mickey Thompson, cast iron full length headers with exhaust dumps built in, and it was all based on a beefy four bolt main block and forged crankshaft. This was one hairy chested mother of a factory hot rod!

The amazing thing about the Super Duty Pontiacs was how well they ran and for so long. Typically during this time, the factories were cranking out newer and faster race models each year. Chrysler with their Max Wedge and then Hemi cars, Ford with the lightweight Galaxies, then the Thunderbolts, and Chevy with Z-11s and then Z-16 Chevelles, etc. The Super Duty cars were so good that they were able to hang with the newer stuff a couple of years after they should have been too long in the tooth to compete.

This car is beautiful and appears to have been cosmetically restored to a level of perfection it may not have seen leaving the factory. From underneath, the oil pan looks like it shows the wear and tear of years on the street and strip, which we think is boss. This baby hasn’t lived in isolation forever, it was used in anger! We wish we had the cash, because after we made sure the motor was OK, we’d be out there on the strip with a helmet, a lap belt, and that shifter handle in our right hand. How cool would it be to just wipe out new Camaros and Mustangs with this big ol’ Poncho? We can’t think of a better way to spend $175,000. Hey, we never said it was going to be cheap!

AutoTrader Link: Real Deal Restored 1962 Catalina Super Duty

There will be no Lamborghini at Indy for the most totally tubular celebrity chef on basic cable. Instead he will be at the helm  of a 2013 Corvette ZR1. The Vette is capable of running 205mph flat out but the speeds on the course at IMS will be significantly lower. The only real way to rate his performance at this gig is to see gauge it on the infamous drive of Eldon Palmer in 1971 when he crashed the pace car into a grandstand of media and VIPs at the end of pit road. The Vette has far better stoppers on it than the Challenger that Palmer was driving, but you get the idea.

The photo below sums up Fieri’s response when told that he got the gig. Reports have him screaming nearly 50 of the overused, tired phrases he normally slings like hash on his show upon hearing the news. Hey, at least he’s not driving a damned Camry hybrid.

(Full disclosure: I ate at Fieri’s original restaurant Johnny Garlic’s a few years ago and it kicked all ass. This may have been before his flamed clothing period.)

Link: Guy Fieri to Drive Indy 500 Pace Car