Tommy Ivo is rightfully known as drag racing’s first great showman. He had awesome looking cars that ran up to their appearance, and even his towing equipment was top shelf. He understood that the show wasn’t just on the track, in fact, the show was 24/7. Phil Burgess penned an awesome piece over on his NHRA.com blog that details the whole history of how Ivo toted his race cars around.
Not taking anything away from Phil, but the fact that Ivo included several totally kick ass stories really knocked the piece out of the park. From the creepy single-axle trailers used to haul his earliest cars to the glass-sided trailers and later Dodge truck that would become a signature of his, Ivo always seemed to have a better idea.
We really dig the fact that, until he swapped to a fifth-wheel style trailer, he tugged everything around with either Buicks or Cadillacs. In more than a few of the photos, the big sedans that had pulling duty were basically bumper dragging with the weight of tools in the trunk and the weight of the trailer pushing down on them. He claims to have racked up 100,000 miles a year on those cars touring the country. He’d leave in the Spring and come home in the late Fall. Imagine those adventures!
Anyway, Ivo revealed in this column that his autobiography is coming out sooner rather than later. Trust us when we say that we’ll be first in line for that one! This is a great piece by Burgess and Ivo. Hell, the photos are more than worth the price of admission!
Link — NHRA.com — Tommy’s Towing Toys
