Crank your speakers up when you press play on this killer vintage drag footage. If you’ve ever wondered what a SOHC Ford motor sounds like on a full load of nitro, that question will be answered, and quick! Hearing Mickey Thompson give some off the cuff commentary, and watching Danny “On the Gas” Ongais horse wrangle the car down the track can’t be beat.
The Bristol referenced in the video is the same “Thunder Valley” that hosts NHRA National events today. The track opened in 1965 under the NHRA, then became an AHRA track in 1968, and changed again when Larry Carrier started the IHRA (using Bristol Dragway as HQ) in 1971. Later, it once again became an NHRA track as it is today.
Ongais was one of the great shoes of the 1960s and he drove everything from fuelers to stock cars to Indy cars.
