The 1986 Cajun Nationals saw one of the coolest top fuel final rounds of all time. It was there that Gary Ormsby met up with Don Garlits in the run for the money and both men were sitting in streamlined top fuel dragsters. While various attempts at streamlining a top fueler have been taken over the years, none have proven themselves ultimately fruitful in the long haul. I personally think that the car you’ll see Ormsby driving in this video is one of the most beautiful top fuel dragsters of all time. I love the fact that the engine is fully enclosed, the headers are within the body, and the way it spreads out like wings to envelop everything behind the driver’s area. The Garlits dragster uses the small aircraft style front tires, a nose “bubble” that enclosed the front wheels, and a canopy style windscreen, closing the driver in from the elements. I’m surprised that Ormsby’s car had that big gaping hole in the front of it for the driver’s area. That thing would have looked like a spacecraft with a canopy style enclosure on the front of it.
You may remember the auspicious debut of the streamlined body for Ormsby. The all carbon fiber (in 1986 remember!) piece was blown to smithereens when the magneto touched it and arc’d out, causing the engine to violently explode. Thankfully the team had a backup body and ran it after the first as vaporized in the explosion. As I mentioned earlier, streamlining has come and gone with the various attempts (Ormsby’s being one of the most bold of the “modern” era) have never shown themselves to be a competitive advantage so back onto the shelf they’e essentially all gone. Bits and piece of what’s been learned over the year are applied today (canard style winglets behind the cockpit for example) but no one is out there thinking about another streamliner the like that Ormsby and Lee Beard ran with in this video.
PRESS PLAY BELOW TO SEE GARLITS AND ORMSBY LOCK HORNS IN STREAMLINER BATTLE! WHO WINS? SEE FOR YOURSELF!
Why the hell go to all that work and not enclose the cockpit