Awesome video! For those of you going through the comments, here is a story you'll enjoy. Don Garlits was dealing with an injured finger during that race. The weekend before, I believe at Irwindale, he cut his finger really bad working on the car before a match race with Shirley Muldowney and couldn't run their match race. They rushed him to the hospital to have it stitched up. The next day at Fremont, Garlits and Shirley had another match race. I was there that day and watched them pull into the pit area. Garlits' finger looked like a little mummy, there was so much gauze on it. I watched his crew chief take a utility knife and cut a slit in the finger of his driving glove to accommodate the bandage. Garlits tried it on very slow to make sure it would be ok. As others came over to his trailer to check on him, I overheard Garlits saying that it didn't hurt at the hospital, but it hurt like hell that night at the motel. Garlits still beat Shirley 2 out or 3 at Fremont that day. Back in the 2000s, I emailed Don Garlits and asked him what his fondest memory was of Fremont. To my surprise it wasn't the AHRA races he dominated back in the 70's or some of the great performances he had there under NHRA. It was that match race with Shirley and beating her, cut finger and all.
Those days were awesome...
I had zero clue that Graham Light drove top fuel. That's cool, and probably helps during his announcer duties now.
Awesome video! For those of you going through the comments, here is a story you'll enjoy. Don Garlits was dealing with an injured finger during that race. The weekend before, I believe at Irwindale, he cut his finger really bad working on the car before a match race with Shirley Muldowney and couldn't run their match race. They rushed him to the hospital to have it stitched up. The next day at Fremont, Garlits and Shirley had another match race. I was there that day and watched them pull into the pit area. Garlits' finger looked like a little mummy, there was so much gauze on it. I watched his crew chief take a utility knife and cut a slit in the finger of his driving glove to accommodate the bandage. Garlits tried it on very slow to make sure it would be ok. As others came over to his trailer to check on him, I overheard Garlits saying that it didn't hurt at the hospital, but it hurt like hell that night at the motel. Garlits still beat Shirley 2 out or 3 at Fremont that day.
Back in the 2000s, I emailed Don Garlits and asked him what his fondest memory was of Fremont. To my surprise it wasn't the AHRA races he dominated back in the 70's or some of the great performances he had there under NHRA. It was that match race with Shirley and beating her, cut finger and all.
Very interesting story, Thanks a lot!
R.I.P., ken squire
Bob doesn't lose. Ever.
Ken Squier doing NHRA is weird. Not sure why, but it is