Headline: Big Names Who Tried Drag Racing

“Getting eliminated first round is tough, but at the same time, the way that we evolved, the way that we advanced through this weekend, to feel more comfortable as a crew, as a driver, it was a fantastic, gratifying experience. We just came up short,” Busch said. “It’s three-hundredths of a second, and in this game of drag racing, that’s enough to put you back on the trailer. This was a weekend that I’ll never forget.”

Busch said he was amazed at the adrenaline rush in the short time on the track.

“But,” he said, “it’s almost like walking the plank each time you go. You’re sitting there, looking at the water down below, going, ‘Am I going to be able to get back on the boat or am I going to have to jump?’”

Decades before that, stock car racing’s “King” Richard Petty competed in NHRA for much of the 1965 season while honoring the Chrysler boycott of NASCAR. Petty dropped a Hemi in his new compact Barracuda and ran with the word “OUTLAWED” spread across the door. His time on the drag strip was not without tragedy, though.

He crashed his car Feb. 28, 1965, at Georgia’s Southeastern Dragway, killing an 8-year-old boy and injuring seven others. After settling lawsuits against himself, his father and Chrysler, Petty had a second Hemi Barracuda built. This version featured an altered wheelbase, Hilborn fuel injection and “43 JR” for livery.

Petty won in his class at the Bristol Spring Nationals and match raced against Ronnie Sox and “Dyno Don” Nicholson. Eventually, NASCAR brought back the Hemi, and Petty returned to circle-track racing.

Fellow NASCAR Hall of Fame inductee Jack Roush actually beat Petty to the drag-racing punch.

“I started in drag racing and drag raced really, really hard for the first 15 years of my adult life,” Roush said. And he kicked it up a notch in the mid-1960s when he and a group of 10 Ford Motor Co. engineers put together a racing program with a Ford Galaxy and a Mustang that competed across the country, starting in 1966.

Each put in a whopping $45 a month to support the endeavor, and they called themselves The Fastbacks. Roush said, “I followed that from the Stock to Super Stock ranks, ultimately to the Pro Stock ranks and helped other people with Pro Comp cars and other cars.”

He said, “In 1972, I went to the U.S. Nationals for the first time with a Super Stock car and with two Pro Stock cars. We didn’t win in Pro Stock, but I won with my Super Stock car, which I built out of parts I had left over from 10 years of racing. First time I’d raced it, 24 cars in my class, and won. Sold the car and bought another Pro Stock car. Wayne Gapp was my partner with the Pro Stock cars from 1971-1976. I built and sold Bob Glidden his first Pro Stock car.”

OTHER SPORTS

Drag racing attracted more than just participants from other forms of motorsports. After 13 years as an NFL quarterback, Dan Pastorini got the chance to live out his dream of owning and driving an NHRA Top Fuel.

Pastorini had been running the car for about six months with former racer Bobby Rowe tuning, when they invited drag-racing veteran Donnie Couch to join them and work on the clutch. Before long, it was the Pastorini and Couch show — and they didn’t have it easy.

“When Pastorini came into the sport, he had no money. It was a real struggle,” Couch said. “I would go down the road by myself and just pick up help for the races, just different people here and there (for a crew). When we were on the West Coast, I’d have my friends and my brother-in-law help me. And when we were on the East Coast, I had a friend in Florida who knew how to work on cars.

“As Dan went along and met people and proved himself — it didn’t take long to prove himself because his athletic ability made him a great driver right off the bat. We got together and we won Atlanta (1986). It was a big thing, because we had no money. I took some tires out of the trash can that the Blue Max (team) threw away and put them on the car.”