I can remember racing one of these in the UK back in the 60s and looking back sitting there with all your most important parts that close to large pieces of metal spinning at a high speed was insane
I remember seeing Don Garlits out on tour, standing on crutches after his right foot was injured. He kept his tour dates and had "Starvin' Marvin" Swartz filling in on the driving chores.
I remember Garlits talking about the twitchy steering and I think it was Art Malone that said, "Well Gar, just slow it down". Also, sometimes the rearend housing would break loose a reek havoc. I believe both Art Christman and Mike Sorkin (Surfer's dragster) encountered this malfunction.
The actual design of the slingshot gets a bad wrap due to product technology not keeping pace with the the hard sometimes abusiveness of what was demanded of them. The main culprit of this was as stated purposeful slipping of clutches that were nothing more than heavy duty over the counter automotive/truck pieces with aluminum bellhousing and light weight flywheels to save weight. It was catastrophic clutch failures that caused horrendous crashes and fires such as the one claimed John Mulligan, Mike Sorokin, and probably the most famous one caught on tape was Jim Nicole's incident in the AA/FD final at Indy against Prudhomme. A valid argument can be made that was what save Nicole's live was being positioned between the two rear tires that acted as a cushioning effect as he bounced over the guard rail after the explosion cut the car in half. Numerous drivers were killed such as Marvin Schwartz in the rear engine design as no protection was offered to a driver in a side impact type scenario in a crash. Drivers in the 80's thru the modern era have also suffered death or severe life altering crashes as well. With clutch technology today and other advancements a lot of those crashes or incidents with the slingshot design would never have happened as well as when dragsters smoked the quarter mile and the tires took the abuse and load off the drivetrain. When was the last time a funny car experienced a clutch failure? Nostalgic top fuel is another example of purpose built race only items such as the clutch having eliminated clutch explosions. Racing is dangerous no doubt but the slingshot fell to the wayside mostly because of the increased performance of the rear engine design
Even regular SFI certification at all levels made everything song much safer. If you wanna leave at 9200 in your gasser, you don't have to worry about cutting your leg off. That said, a 500hp aluminum LS made to look retro would probably still run high 8s in one of these. lol
Old man here. By God I love F.E. Dragsters. Had my own Logghe chassis car back in the day. Stupid dangerous for sure….but we were young and indestructible ……sigh
I think the front engine dragsters are the coolest looking racecar. Especially with the blown hemi.
And the spooky mask they wore
I can remember racing one of these in the UK back in the 60s and looking back sitting there with all your most important parts that close to large pieces of metal spinning at a
high speed was insane
I remember seeing Don Garlits out on tour, standing on crutches after his right foot was injured. He kept his tour dates and had "Starvin' Marvin" Swartz filling in on the driving chores.
Racing was NUTS back then.
I remember Garlits talking about the twitchy steering and I think it was Art Malone that said, "Well Gar, just slow it down". Also, sometimes the rearend housing would break loose a reek havoc. I believe both Art Christman and Mike Sorkin (Surfer's dragster) encountered this malfunction.
When I was young I ran a FED. A 350 running on gas, about 425HP. That was so much fun, some of the best times of my life.
The actual design of the slingshot gets a bad wrap due to product technology not keeping pace with the the hard sometimes abusiveness of what was demanded of them. The main culprit of this was as stated purposeful slipping of clutches that were nothing more than heavy duty over the counter automotive/truck pieces with aluminum bellhousing and light weight flywheels to save weight. It was catastrophic clutch failures that caused horrendous crashes and fires such as the one claimed John Mulligan, Mike Sorokin, and probably the most famous one caught on tape was Jim Nicole's incident in the AA/FD final at Indy against Prudhomme. A valid argument can be made that was what save Nicole's live was being positioned between the two rear tires that acted as a cushioning effect as he bounced over the guard rail after the explosion cut the car in half. Numerous drivers were killed such as Marvin Schwartz in the rear engine design as no protection was offered to a driver in a side impact type scenario in a crash. Drivers in the 80's thru the modern era have also suffered death or severe life altering crashes as well. With clutch technology today and other advancements a lot of those crashes or incidents with the slingshot design would never have happened as well as when dragsters smoked the quarter mile and the tires took the abuse and load off the drivetrain. When was the last time a funny car experienced a clutch failure? Nostalgic top fuel is another example of purpose built race only items such as the clutch having eliminated clutch explosions. Racing is dangerous no doubt but the slingshot fell to the wayside mostly because of the increased performance of the rear engine design
Even regular SFI certification at all levels made everything song much safer. If you wanna leave at 9200 in your gasser, you don't have to worry about cutting your leg off.
That said, a 500hp aluminum LS made to look retro would probably still run high 8s in one of these. lol
Old man here. By God I love F.E. Dragsters. Had my own Logghe chassis car back in the day. Stupid dangerous for sure….but we were young and indestructible ……sigh
Don garlits got some toes blown off when the flywheel blew up .
Funny cars never changed.
The Dunn Reath team experimented with a rear engine funny car, but they never caught on.
I thought Don Garlits did when the clutch destruction injured his foot.
Rear engine cars suck!
"promo sm"