Gary Burgin was a racer’s racer. Never one to go seeking the limelight, Burgin was happy to let his performance on the race track do the talking and over the years that strategy payed off as Burgin was a top funny car runner through the 1970s and into the 1980s before retiring from the seat in 1983 and going into the export business. In a career that spanned from vehicles like a blown hemi powered modified roadster, gassers, and ultimately funny cars, Burgin proved himself as a capable driver and tuner on every level.

His greatest career moment came in 1976 at the US Nationals where he stopped the seemingly unbeatable Don Prudhomme in the final round in an upset that people still talk about today. Prudhomme won seven of the eight NHRA national events that year with the defeat he suffered at Burgin’s hand the only blemish on his record. Interestingly, it was preceded by a lane swap after a racer blew up and oiled the lane Prudhomme was sitting in. He then smoked the tires on the other side of the track.

While that triumph against Prudhomme garnered him headlines, it did something else. It provided Burgin with a hook to work bookings and match race dates. National Dragster once reported that Burgin raced more than 60 dates a year in the 1970s. That is multiple times a week for a lot of weeks to make up for the month or two in the winter when nothing was really happening. Know what you learn doing that? You learn how to battle crummy tracks, you learn how to make your stuff live, and you learn how to sell t-shirts.

After racing successfully with Dave Braskett in gassers and right up into funny cars, Burgin struck out on his own in the 1974 time frame and raced under “The Orange Baron” moniker and that stayed with him through his heavy match racing days and right up until his retirement. Heck, we have seen bumper stickers for his export business that reference the Orange Baron name. He used a wide range of bodies over the years from Mustang IIs, and early Fox Mustangs, and ending with a third generation Pontiac Trans-Am.

While Gary Burgin may not be a name that is on the tip of the tongue of drag racing fans the world over, he was a force to be reckoned with during his career and a prolific match racer that dazzled fans young and old at races from coast to coast. Today’s world of national event competition has all but squashed the match race circuit that built a massive fan base under the sport. Undoubtedly there are still hundreds of vintage Orange Baron shirts floating out there, some likely with a tell-tale trace of grease from when a grubby handed Burgin sold it to an adoring fan out of the back of his trailer at some small strip, long after dark.

It is pretty safe to say that Gary Burgin and the late Dave Braskett have hooked back up for some action at the big strip in the sky and everyone else better look the hell out.

HERE’S GARY BURGIN TESTING AT OCIR IN 1981 – DRY HOPS AND A DO OVER