Lou Hart has released some awesome drag racing photo collection books over the course of the last several years, but nothing has come close to this amazing opus to the class of Pro Stock. Pro Stock Drag Racing is a 158-page book packed wall-to wall with photos from the years predating the creation of the class right through modern times and it doesn’t miss an inch.
The best part is that the photos are all captioned with great detail talking about the cars, the driver, or some cool tid bit about the era shown. All the brands and makes that have competed in the class are covered. We think the AMC guys will be especially delighted because there are dozens of AMC stockers, super stockers, and pro stockers shown throughout the book.
Other neat features are highlighted memories and quoted by people like Don Grotheer, Arlen Vanke, Hubert Platt, Shirley Sahan, and tons of other historic figures from Pro Stock history.
As certified drag racing history dweebs, nothing delights us more than seeing photos that we have never seen before and this book delivers them in spades. Back in the dark ages when NHRA drag racing was driven by divisional racing with a few national meets sprinkled in, there were hundreds of Pro Stock cars around the country. As time and technology have progressed, that number has shrunken to a handful of finely tuned machines.
While NHRA Pro Stock is the most prominently shown version of the class, the other sanctions and some match race action are sprinkled about. There’s a well written forward by Bob Frey and the book is laid out in the expected chronological order of class progression.
It is very clear to see how revolutionary Grumpy Jenkins Vega was. You can literally draw a “before and after” line in Pro Stock history underneath that car. To give an example of the detail in Hart’s captions, we didn’t know that the original version of the car had a motor in it that used the block from on of Jenkins’ old transporters! Also, the car debuted in 1972, a year before Dyno Don showed up with a Lenco, so the transmission was a highly worked steel case T-10.
If you love Pro Stock and drag racing history, you need to spend the $20 bucks and score this book. Hell, if you order it today from Amazon.com they’ll get it to you before Santa shows up!
If we could, we’d give this one THREE BangShift thumbs up.
