Pete Garramone's
Vintage Drags
Scrapbook.
 
 Pete Garramone saw some of his pics amongst the ones lifted from Don Ewalds nitroparts site, and dropped me a line to say he'd got more, and would I like them? You bet! 
Here's Pete's e-mail if you fancy dropping him a line!
Pete Garramone
Got some cool pics you'd like to share? 
mail me. 
 
 
At the 1960 AHRA Nationals in Kansas City, this is the Greek's Chizler fueler.

Tommy Ivo's twin Buick in May of 1960.

August 1964. Jere Wilson in his Olds powered fueler getting under way at 
Rocky Mountain Dragway in Denver.

Oh, I couldn't leave this one out. This is the Heth & Thompson fueler taken in 1960.
The dragsters were much shorter back then.

Here's a very crude version of a dragster in 1956. It was built for a very 
big driver. I'm not sure it ever made a trip down the drag strip.

Sometimes they were a bit crude, but ever racer had his own ideas on how to go fast.
This was taken at Continental Divide Raceways in Castle Rock, Colorado 
sometime around 1960.

This is the way we used to run back in 1959. This is Warren Steffan's 348 
Chevy in a Chassis Research chassis. Note the safety gear Steffan is wearing. 
This car ran on 95% Nitro.

This Continental airplane engine four banger from 
Wichita Kansas was owned by Nickelson Machine. This was taken at 
Continental Divide Raceways near Denver, Colorado in 1959. This car was 
re-built the next year. (See pics below).
Here's the next generation of the Nickelson dragster. An absolute masterpiece 
in 1960. These were taken at the 1960 AHRA Nationals at Kansas City. At that 
time NHRA had banned fuel, so there were a lot of fuel cars at this race. 
This car had a stainless chassis. It had a blown Continental airplane engine in it.

This isn't the best shot, but I was pretty young when I took it. The date was 
1955 at Lowry Field in Denver, Colorado. The NHRA Drag Safari came to Denver 
and this shows what a dragster looked like in 1955. Kenz & Leslie owned 
several Land Speed records on the Bonneville Salt Flats. They always ran Ford 
engines. This car ran single and double flatheads and was used primarily to 
test the engines that would be used in their Bonneville Streamliner.

This is a shot of a later K&L car. This is a Woody Gilmore chassis that Kenz &
 Leslie fitted with the Ford Cammer engine. 
Ron Leslie (son of Roy Leslie) is currently building a duplicate of this car.

Oh, I forgot this one. Here's Ronnie Leslie driving the Kenz & Leslie Ford 
digger in August of 1964.

Here's The first Funny Car that K&L ran. This was in 1966. It's a '66 Comet 
and ran very well. Of course, it's Ford powered.

Here's Ron Leslie getting under way at Rocky Mountain Dragway in Denver.

This is the K&L Cougar.


Side shot of the K&L Cougar taken in 1969.

This is the Guzman & Ward Corvair funny car. They ran a big block Chevrolet 
and were very competitive. This was taken before the car was lettered. The 
car was called Assassination. Taken at Mountain Vu Dragway near Denver in 
1969.

Another shot of the Guzman/Ward car at the other end of the quarter mile.

This is one of the earlier Assassination cars of Guzman & Ward. Their 
equipment was always first class and they never had a sponsor.

This was taken in 1970, I think. As you can see, Roger Guzman's cars were 
always first class cars. Art Ward always drove and the two racers were very 
good friends. Art died a few years ago.

Jack Chrisman - "Howard Cam Twin Bear" - Denver, 1959

Pete, What can I say? These are some of the best pics I've seen in a long time. 
Thanks a million for sending them over...Mart.
 
All contents property of Martin Holden, Solihull, England.
All pictures on this page are copyright Pete Garramone.