Hooker, the Barry Setzer Vega, Mickey Thompson, Braskett & Burgin, the “Trojan Horse,” and more that will ignite your memories. Into the ‘70s, we get the almost-uncontrollable rear-engined cars, “Big Jim” Dunn, Lil’ John Lombardo, the L.A. Reyes offers a Funny Car history lesson and draws strong lines between the forerunners of what we know as Funny Cars like the Mooneyham & Sharp 554 nitro coupe, Bob Davis’ "Jolly Green Giant" Impala, the A/FXers of Dick Landy and others, and, of course, Jack Chrisman’s Comet.įrom there, all of your SoCal favorites are here: Not just “the Snake” (what a brilliant cover photo!) and “the Mongoose,” but tons of others, from early pioneers like Roland Leong’s "Hawaiian,” “Fearless Fred” Goeske, “Big John” Mazmanian, Doug Thorley, the Pisano Bros., and Randy Walls, to the wild and wacky, like Junior Brogdon’s stretched-out "Phony Pony" Mustang, Sheldon Konblett’s wild "Snoopy" Jaguar, Warren Gunter’s "Durachrome Bug,” the topless (and ill-fated) Corvettes and Jeeps. The topic of Reyes’ new book shifts to Southern California and covers the early Funny Car action at fabled tracks such as Lions Dragstrip, Irwindale Raceway, Orange County International Raceway, Pomona Raceway, Riverside Raceway, and more. His first book, also published by the historical photo publishers at Arcadia Publishing, was Northern California Drag Racing, which covered places like Fremont Dragstrip, Bakersfield Raceway, Half Moon Bay, Sacramento, the Salinas Airfield, and more, and that I reviewed in this column. Before moving to Florida, Reyes crisscrossed the country, chronicling the great races of the 1970s, but his home was California. Steve Reyes’ newest drag racing history book arrived on my desk, and it’s one that I’ve been eagerly awaiting as the subject matter, Southern California Funny Cars, is near and dear to my heart. A lot has happened since my last column three weeks ago, so here we go. The Western Swing is history, and my bags are unpacked for a couple of weeks, allowing me to play a little catchup.
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