Here’s  some really neat video that will bring you back to a cool time in drag racing history, 1963. British interest in drag racing was on a growth spurt then and since the sport was exploding in America and making rock stars of its highest performers, it only made sense to have at least a couple of them over to help fan the flames of drag racing popularity and expose the sport to more and more people. Guys like Dean Moon and Mickey Thompson weren’t dumb. They knew that if drag racing grew in England and they were there early in the growth period showing support, their respectives businesses would benefit from it. As we mentioned in our Brighton Speed Trials video yesterday, both Moon and Thompson brought dragsters over to compete at both Brighton and at a couple of match races across the country. Moon’s car was a top gas machine while Thompson’s was a fueler, which certainly got the fans riled up. Amazingly, at the time nitromethane in England was selling at roughly $25.00 a quart! According to Tommy Ivo, the trick in sneaking some in the country at that time was labeling the drums as alcohol because British law classified nitromethane as liquid dynamite. Egads!

In this video you’ll also see the famous (and restored) Allard dragster, owned by Sydney Allard and a true piece of British drag racing history as it was the first “proper” dragster in the country. The Allard machine matches up with Dante Deuce in the Moon dragser a couple of times and then the capper comes at the end of the video where Deuce and Thompson run side by side down a runway marking the historic occasion of being the first time two American dragsters raced side by side in the country.

Keep your ears peeled for the elapsed time and mile per hour numbers. While the Allard and Moon cars struggle a bit early in the video, later on they are making some clean runs. It cracks us up to hear of 8-second laps that have traps speeds of nearly 180mph. That comes with the territory when you are smoldering the tires the whole way down the strip. Also take note of the cut to the shot of the seemingly endless pair of black rubber tracks laid down by Deuce on one of his clean laps. It is pretty neat.

There’s not much footage of Mickey Thompson drag racing out there so this is especially cool. The car Thompson races in this video never left England. It was bought by racer Tony Densham and campaigned before being pillaged for parts on a new dragster a few years down the road. This is bad ass video of you are a drag-o-phile…are we are!

PRESS PLAY BELOW TO SEE TOP FUEL AND TOP GAS ACTION STARRING MICKEY THOMPSON AND THE MOONEYES DRAGSTER IN 1963 ENGLAND!