Joe shares his closer side of racing with some 1:1 reference photos of his race car/team and also his modified street cars that he would race also.
Check out Joe in the jeans blue long sleeves 5th from the left



Another Gallery

If you have comments or questions please post them here.

Thanks again Joe!

Ah the old days, that was when I had health and youth. Yep that’s me in the red shirt over the blue sweat shirt. I used to work part-time with NHRA, and I traveled with them on exhibition tours once a month. Each year drivers would sign up to go out to tracks and make a few fun runs for the fans. I would always sign up for the Funny Cars, I did a few Top Fuel cars (dragsters) but my love was for the F/C’s.

There is a story that goes with this picture, true story. See the car in the right lane, it was driven by Garry Densham, and the driver of the Mad Magazine was Jerry Toliver. Well that afternoon was hot, the track was slick at the other end. Both driver staged and the light went green, VEEERROOOMMMM…gone and then a cloud of smoke. Densham in the NEC car wrecked, his parachute failed to open and the car left the track at top end. Most tracks have a sand trap, this one didn’t. it was a over grown field with deep ruts and it was muddy. Anyhow Gary’s car went deep, about 70 feet in off the track. The body was broke and the frame was in mud, put it like this…the oil pan was buried. Anyhow by the time we got there Gary was out and ok, he had just lit up a smoke when one of his crew guys asked if he was ok…Gary says hell no I just broke my toy. I know, I guess you had to be there. But over a few years I did get to meet, drink and smoke with some of the biggest names in NHRA and IHRA, John Force, Cruz Pedregon, Jim Head, Whit Bazemore, Dale Creasy and the first lady of Drag Racing Shirley Muldowney.

Anyhow that’s the story with this photo, and I have many more.

Joe

I have always loved dragracing. Unfortunately I have never seen it live. Not much dragracing in Denmark.
A friend of mine has a 1970 Dodge Challenger R/T conv. with a stroked 440 Magnum(Now 470) That V8 sounds incredible. The kind of sound you not only hear, but also feel in your chest. Even though it's a serious streetmachine, it probably still sounds like a sewing machine, compared to a dragracing machine

Love the Garry Densham story.

Thanks for sharing Joe.

"hell no I broke my toy"