new poster child

im kinda new to this board, been watching a lot, posted once but did not introduce myself. my name is joel, im 44 years old. i was raised at the drag strip the first 24 years of my life. my dad is the culpret for making me insane for cars, all types. imports, nastalga, ford, chevy, mopar, old and new technology cars, i love them all. he was a gasser and top fuel funny car driver, then a alcohiol funny then a vega bracket. within a 2 block radious of our home lived my dads 3 friends, one had a fuel altered one had a a fuel altered and the other had a 62 gasser vette. it was a wagon train to the track every weekend. i had a duel purpose 80 z 28 i will post pics of when i find them, it ran 11.90's and had a road racing suspension for daily driving. and yes it was a daily driver for 13 years. i then moved up to a 225" S&W built super comp rear engine dragster, an 8.90 @ 165 bracket car, and now i am building a 1948 anglia my dad bought 28 years ago and let it sit in a field until i brought it back to indiana. ive got many many 60's and early 70's pics from my dads collection that i will share with this board from week to week. first i will post a few of my anglia project and my dragster, than a few of my dads personal owned sour grapes, and the al vanderwoude owned funny cars my dad drove for.

a few more

more pictures

last one for today, i will post a few others from the good old days every week,

Mooneye777, Welcome aboard.

I grew up in Danville, Illinois, on the western border of Indiana, and went to the Nationals from '62-'75. I could tell you were hard core by your Al VanDerwoude Charger III avatar. Not too many will remember this car. I still have a model of it!

You will like it here, as the club covers all parts of the hot rod hobby, including drag racing.

First Joel Welcome to CHR
Second : Man I love that Anglia
Third : I spent a few sundays and wensday nights at US 30 and the other strips around the Chi. area.
Good to have ya here
Charlie

PS: You won't bore anyone with pictures

Welcome to CHR, Joel. Some very nice cars.. I'm over in South Dakota, did your Dad ever do any match riacing over this way with the "Flying Dutchman" car??? My feeble memory almost remembers seeing it run....somewhere..... Maybe at the old North Star Dragstrip in Minneapolis?????

thanks for the welcome guys, i would say they could have stopped by in south dakota, i was like 11 at the time and still do not know north from south, but ive got pictures that were taken at pamona and the flying dutchman home base was in kansas city. in a lot of these pictures i have no clue of the location. as for the charger 3 that many never saw. it only ran at a few tracks. it had aerodynamics issues and the body was removed and the maverick body was attached to the chassis. oh ya and the model of the charger 3, as a teen with firecrackers running out of stuff to blow up, i think it had a firery crash in my back yard one day. you learn from your misstakes!

As I remember it, Al VanDerwoude had one the first "altered wheelbase" cars to ever grace a drag strip. I've heard that there are some who refer to him as the father of "funny cars". The first I saw was at Lions in late'64, early '65.

he was for sure one of the 1st. he had a huge impact on the way the funny cars took shape. and was always the first to try something new, an inovator and master fabricator to say the least, with a dare to be different approach to the sport. here is a picture of one of the 1st funnys that caught everyones attention, and following it is a picture of
Al Vanderwoude standing in front of the charger 3 grinning ear to ear. a moment of silence please! and please remember these are very personal pictures i am posting on this forum and only on this forum, and i ask that you please do not post them anywhere else, i am chosing to only post these exclusivly here thank you.

Great pictures, thanks. It's hard to tell, but could that first picture be at Lions?

What great pictures, and what a wonderful stash of memories you must have in your head. To be there and see some of these history making cars and be involved with them had to be just the very best. These were the glory days of racing IMO.

Loved seeing them, hope you post more.


Don

most of these i cant give a location from my prespective. i was between the age of 9 to 15 during all this. ive got a couple lions for sure but they were taken about 5 years later, so i cant tell for sure. ive confiscated all my dads pictures because he keeps moving and is losing a few more every time. so i am scanning pics and redoing all slides in digital format, so they will be forever. and yes the memories, i wake up thinking cars and go to bed thinking cars. it had a huge impact on me. everytime they test fired the car, my seat was always sitting on one of the front tires.

Very cool pics, Joel, and I'm digging the Anglia. Welcome from another newbie!

Hank

The Flying Dutchman huh? I thought that was familiar. Grew up about 2 miles north of KCIR on Noland Rd.

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Originally Posted by NTFDAY

Great pictures, thanks. It's hard to tell, but could that first picture be at Lions?

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Ken, while the proximity of the stands and the fence look similar to Lions, they're on the "wrong" side for the "long" set of bleachers relative to the starting line. Also there's a sign on the fence that says AHRA sanctioned, which I don't think is accurate for Lions either.

Bob, both the spectator and pit stands at Lions in the mid '60's were approximately the same length with the pit stands closer to the strip. Originally Lions was an Nhra sanctioned strip, but lost that sanctioning due to the close proximity of the stands in relation to the strip. To my knowledge from that time forward it was an AHRA sanctioned strip. I was pretty much a permanent fixture at Lions from late '64 to '70.

I (mis)spent most of my time at San Fernando, so I'll bow to your experience (and age:LOL: )

That's very kind of you, I think. :HMMM: :LOL: :LOL: