Oh man was this a bad ass race. I actually remember watching this Diamond P production as a little kid and hanging on every one of Dave McClelland’s screaming words and Steve Evans’ color commentary. I remember the wheelstand that you are going to see at the beginning of this video, the noise that Dick LaHaie got as he paraded his championship car up the return road after beating Amato for the championship, and how the pro stockers sounded as they screamed through the lights. Weird, but I do.
This is what the world finals looked like 30 years ago. One of the things that you’ll notice is the violent of the pro stockers. The dry hops were an example of just how vicious these cars were. Ironically they are even more violent now but through chassis tuning and advances in suspension they have lost that ragged edge feel on the launch that these cars have.
Among the best parts of this video, aside from the obvious killer racing are the top end interview with Ace where Steve Evans talks to him about the wheelie and he kind of nonchalantly just explains what happened while the rest of us mere mortals watched on with eyes the size of pie plates. Another day in the office as a funny car driver. A point that many people miss when they think about the good old days of pro stock is that not only was that Bob Glidden was THE ONLY Ford out there running at the time. The description of his operation and how he finds his horsepower in the “dark of the night” gave me some legit chills.
So, here’s how the season ended some 30 years ago. Great names, great racing, and hot damn if the call of this event ain’t straight out of the hall of fame playbook.
I’m surprised they let McCulloch run with Dale Puldes disabled car still sitting downtrack. I don’t think they’d allow that today.
Gotta love those dry hops. The good old days.
I miss Steve Evans…
The mid 1980’s were the best of times when I look back at a career that spans almost 40 years in Drag Racing. Expen$ive but not to the point of ushering out the independant’s. I’d attend four to six National Events a year including Indy and every moment at Pomona twice a year.
Talk around the pits back then was that all that “Beer Money” Larry Minor set La Haie up with would spoil him, now he could afford all the “Tip O’The Week Stuff”. Nope! He remained as conservative as ever. You may not have noticed, but La Haie was the last of the Fuel Teams who DIDN’T pull the heads and drop the pan after every run. They never took the heads off all weekend! He was forced to the following year when he found the billet heads wouldn’t let the thing cool off between runs.
The car Gwynn was driving was the 290″ Uyehara that started out the year with a canopy, but it was too heavy since the minimum was still 1750lbs I think. The new car Darrell mentioned was the first 300 inch Top Fueler. I noticed at the Winternationals that the rear wheels weren’t on the concrete starting line pad until he was fully staged! 25 feet behind the line and all of 60 feet in front back then! Shame his career was cut short just a couple years later.
That semi-final race between Oswald and Billy Meyer is the hi-lite of this bundle of memories. So close nobody knew who won! Who cares the times were that of the Alcohol Funnies today! Just a Damn Good Drag Race!
Thanks Guy’s! That got my blood pumpin!
~Dave Tuttle~