The photos and video below represent some of the last existing evidence of the coolest and weirdest timing tower in drag racing history. For starters, lots of strips had and continue to have humble structures where the announcer and timing system operator do their work in. There’s nothing wrong with that. Hell, some of them are still on wheels or can be easily dismantled like the old days. Again, no shame in that game. On the other side of the spectrum are the mega-luxo near hotel-like structures that are found at the country’s largest drag strips. But what falls into the middle? How about a mobile tower built to look like a massive dragster with a two story building on top and enough room to park a fuel dragster on?
Corpus Christi Raceway or Cuddihy field was the home for this machine and the place where it literally roamed and served as the base of operations for the drag strip from the time the track opened in 1969 right up until it was shuttered forever in 1977. According to Steve Gibbs, who went looking for the thing, it has since been cut up and scrapped…but a lot of stuff happened between the time it was born in 1969 and the time it met its end under the blazing heat of the cutting torch.
We saw these photos because Steve Gibbs shared them and so we figured that he was the man to give us the inside story on this amazing piece of drag racing history and he didn’t let us down. “In 1969 I took at job down in Corpus Christi working with the guy who was planning on opening the facility,” Gibbs said. We believe that man’s name to be Jimmy Adair (Adair recently passed away). “This guy was a pipeline contractor and he had some really big ideas. This was an old WWII training airfield that he had bought and was going to have a drag strip, circle track, horse racing track, a boat racing lake, and all kinds of other stuff built there. He was going to turn one of the hangers into the world’s biggest dance hall”, Gibbs said. He continued, “I have never met anyone like him before. He was a pipeline contractor who went to work at like 5am and at 4pm he’d crack open a bottle of J&B and by the time the night was out, it would be gone. Then he’d do it all again the next day!”
According to Gibbs, the tower was built without one stitch of a blue print. “The guys built that thing from the ground up with no plans or anything, they just figured it out as they went along. It was built on a huge truck chassis and had some kind of a big truck engine in it. The building had two stories and the second story was race control. The front ‘dragster’ wheels are just dummies, the big truck wheels are hidden in the front. There were really big truck tires on the back of it,” Gibbs said. Like all mechanical things, it wasn’t without trouble, “So before the track was opened in 1969 we were on a big promotion push and Corpus Christi had this big parade during a city celebration called Buccaneer Days. We decided to put the tower in the parade as a float. We took the second floor off to clear the power lines and stuff. Also, the deck was so big, we loaded a fuel dragster on it and fired the dragster several times during the parade to get people excited. It was a really cool thing and it was a big hit!” We’re wondering how it couldn’t be?! Then the trouble came according to Gibbs. “We had just finished with the parade and wouldn’t you know it the big truck motor threw a rod out of it. It was like a drag race, we worked all night to get the thing fixed so we could be back at the track with it.”
Steve told us that with the truck drivetrain the dragster/building/tower could drive around at decent speeds (20-30mph anyway) and was super handy because it simply rolled up to the starting line was plugged into the timing system, a power source, and the speaker system, and you were in business. At the end of the race, it was driven back into a hanger where it was stored and that was that. “Believe it or not, the whole thing was very well done and it had cool lace paint down the sides and really did function well,” Gibbs told us.
The two photos below and the video at the very bottom are the only piece of media we have ever seen regarding this building on wheels. It is an amazing and pretty whimsical concept but according to Gibbs, it did what it was supposed to do and helped the track run many drag races in its eight year run as a functional place.
Oh, one last fun story from Gibbs. “I remember one time we had a group of AA/FAs come in for a show and at the end of the night Willie Borsch, Sush Matsubara, Leon Fitzgerald, and a couple of other guys were all excited to be driving on the thing once racing was over. If that gives you an idea how cool people thought this thing was!”
It stinks to hear that the whole works was cut up and made into scrap. It would be a centerpiece at a place like Don Garlits’ museum or even the Wally Parks museum in California.
SCROLL DOWN TO CHECK OUT THE PHOTOS STEVE GIBBS PROVIDED OF THE NEATEST DAMNED TOWER EVER! THERE IS EVEN VIDEO EVIDENCE!
Note that this is not a dragster in front of a building…the dragster IS the building. That two story timing tower was mobile and could be cruise around the race track and even in parades and for other occasions.
Lots happening here to pay attention to. Firstly, see the dude on the right sitting in the driver’s pod? Also on the far right of the frame you can get an idea of exactly how big those rear tires were by using the man standing in that area for perspective. Now, check out the chicks in the first floor of the building. The note that there is a full sized top fuel dragster sitting in front of the building. This is the parade shot Gibbs was telling us about. As we mentioned the front wheels you can see are dummies but the big truck wheels can barely been seen on the bottom. How freaking awesome is this?
HERE’S VIDEO FROM CORPUS CHRISTI IN 1971 — THE DRAGSTER TOWER CAN BE SEEN IN FLEETING FRAMES OF IT!
Freaking awesome it was and typical of Jimmy Connor Adair (pictured front with one hand on the forward \”dragster\” wheel and the other hand on his hip — been a long time, but, I think it\’s Steve Gibbs standing behind him), who, by 1972 was my step-dad. I remember all of it, from inception forward. Fell in love with Double A dragsters and funny cars, while sitting in the top of that gigantic control tower and feeling the whole tower shake from the roar/vibration of the engines below me waiting for the green. I was just a kid, but still remember Big Daddy Don Garlits and Cha Cha Muldowney, both bigger than life, but, as anyone who knew him would attest, biggest of all was Adair. End of an era. BTW, hate to disappoint, but the \”chicks\” in the control tower were wives and family members…LOL