1968 NHRA US NATIONALS

drag racing and a strip of pavement [Music] simple savage sensational [Music] the scene where it's all happening the national championships at indianapolis groovy [Music] the nhra national drags are brought to you by pram corporation maker of the finest in oil air and fuel filters [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] labor day at indianapolis is a drag racers holiday 1500 of the top dragsters and drivers in the nation converge on the racing capital of the world for the nhra nationals the biggest most prestigious event in this frantic swinging sport nearly 200 of the fierce 230 mile an hour fuel burning dragsters are here along with dozens of gas-powered rails cars that are nearly as fast as the fuelers [Music] and the funny cars in this case a camaro with a thousand horsepower supercharged engine lurking beneath its fiberglass hood hundreds of altered roadsters and coops are also on hand all bulging with power [Music] and sometimes about all the driver can handle but the most popular classes of all are the stock machines like you may drive on the street that is if your car can run the quarter mile in 10 seconds at speeds of 130 miles an hour [Music] the quickest are called superstars because of the rather liberal modifications allowed to their engines and chassis and the acknowledged king of the super stock drivers is a cigar puffing tricial from pennsylvania named bill grumpy jenkins he calls the card grumpy's toys but at the rate he drives them they're far from play things [Music] jenkins is the defending super stock champion at indy and that plus brilliance both as a driver and engine tuner makes him a favorite to repeat [Music] you have an engineering background don't you well i went to cornell for uh about three years but it didn't finish to get a degree but it was in mechanical engineering at that time uh father died and i was broke and maybe not the best student there was uh maybe spent too much time fooling around with cars have you always been involved in stock car racing now as far as drag racing's concerned i've worked on [Music] all kinds of drag race equipment even fuel dragsters back in [Music] 1958-59 and gotten back into the stock car business because it seemed to fit this part of the country a little bit better and i built a business around working on stock cars and uh [Music] sort of used the drag racing at that point in the game as a semi hobby and a little bit of advertising bill where is the real satisfaction in your particular participation in drag racing and building and tuning the automobiles and actually winning the races well the biggest satisfaction is to get is to get the performance out of the automobiles uh winning the racing is sort of maybe like icing on the cake but uh being able to make the cars run is far more satisfying satisfying to me to win the nationals again grumpy must beat the best super stock drivers in the national hot rod association and among them is a burly californian named dick landing dandy dick landy as he's known to his fans who specifically are the men that you're worried about the biggest one is my own competitor or teammate uh his sox and martin group and then in the chevrolet team it's bill jenkins grumpy he's a hard one to beat ronnie sox is the driving partner the sox and martin team and he too knows where his competition lies i'd say some of the top drivers are bill jenkins um bill flynn and the yankee peddler uh ed hedrick which is another one of jenkins cars all these guys are real good and they're real competitive don grother and the plumber is uh running way below the record so it seems like it's gonna be anybody's race really a young engineer named ed hedrick is teaming with jenkins in the super stock ranks he'll drive a chevy 2 while the boss will handle a camaro backing up a champion is never easy work but hedrick looks on his chance to drive for grumpy as a real opportunity ed hedrick what is it like to drive for a man like bill jenkins well i guess first of all it's it's very tough because bill is very exacting and very demanding he's oh what i guess is called perfectionist uh bill has treated us very well uh he's been very lenient with a lot of my mistakes and driving and we're very happy to drive for him and i at least as far as i'm concerned i think it was a real big opportunity for me although he's one of the most famous drivers in the business grumpy and his camaro are nearly lost in the swirl of racing activity that spreads across the indianapolis raceway park pits drag racing is decidedly co-ed the gals helped the crews by polishing applying decals and well you know just being there the first three days of the long holiday weekend are devoted to practice and qualifying runs for the elimination prize money at indy totals over one hundred thousand dollars so there's a certain amount of incentive mixed in with all the fun nonetheless drag racers never take themselves too seriously and if all else fails a car might run on the sheer madness of its name alone he calls himself king rat and his rivals know him as tampa dan or simply big daddy he's don garlits the babe ruth isaac newton and pt barnum of drag racing all rolled into one intense muscular body big daddy is looking for his third nationals victory and his second in a row if any man rivals garlits it's don prudhomme a cool californian who won india in 1965. nicknamed the snake for dome is a major threat to garlit's title hopes last year brock as you know we we knew that the car would run faster than we were running it in the time trials and we were as a sport the saying in the sport goes sandbagging and we didn't want to make a real good run until it was absolutely necessary well this year there'd be no point in trying anything like that because the competition knows what the car is capable of so this year we just want to come in and run real strong and let the guys know just what the car will do and hoping the psychological effect of the of just a good running car in the other lane in other words you plan to just maintain as much pressure on the opposition as you possibly can but not really to change your tactics uh as you go on through the event no i'll drive i'll squeeze a tree just as tight as i always do and i'll have my little tricks in the eliminations lanes and what you'd say to the competition and everything and lane choices and these things will always you know nothing is really playing far ahead it's a just as we go along and the opportunity presents itself that's what i'll do have you ever faced a stronger field than this one no this is the toughest i think it's the toughest toughest feel they ever had in drag race i think all the cars by time they're qualified will be in the six second bracket is this racetrack a hard one to drive no not actually it's it's a pretty easy matter of fact because the traction is so good as you you know as you know that the ets are real low and they're uh most all the cars now in the sixes that are in the 32 car feel so it has to be a pretty good track when you get into eliminations do you change your driving style or your tactics uh based on whom you're going to compete against well somewhat somewhat actually i change it on uh on how the engine's running if the engine is uh is running real strong i can drive it fairly easy if it's running a little weak well you have to get with it harder but when i race someone it uh i go all out all the time i must say do you have do you ever worry about letting up with a uh say one of the lesser-known drivers no actually i try and go a little harder with those because they're out to beat you uh when i race garlits or mckeon or one of the name cars that uh it's usually a very fair race when you race a guy that's running a little bit slower or less of a name you find him out ahead of you sometimes garlits and produm are members of an elite troop of professional drag racers whose rivalry is as intense as any on earth and try as they might the record time at indy of 6.67 seconds at 231 miles an hour goes to arch competitor tom mcewen another touring professional bruce larson turns in impressive speeds with his fierce new funny car that becomes an immediate favorite with the crowd [Music] but a majority of the indy field is composed of amateur weekend racers people who run for fun unable to afford double a fuelers or funny cars they compete in one of the 90 different classes the nhra has created they do their own work [Music] some of it none too glamorous in order to keep their cars in competition the machines are temperamental beasts and in order to keep them running properly sometimes a bit of moral support is necessary or even a quick nap but nobody comes to indy to rest and time is running out for the hundreds of cars and drivers who are searching for that extra half second to make the field of 32 finalists in the seven eliminator categories [Music] the super stock staging lanes begin to look like a time square traffic jam as everyone including grumpy lines up for one more crack at the clocks in a moment the championship eliminations at indy race day at the nationals [Music] [Music] but he isn't racing bill grumpy jenkins is back home in berwin pennsylvania as he prepares for the next race his mind is on those few seconds of victory or defeat and his hands are on a very expensive automobile more than a champion driver he is one of the nation's top automotive engineers to a man of his reputation every mechanical detail must be best to work best he places high priority on clean engine oil for clean engine performance to answer his own rigid demands he uses fram oil filters he uses fram because they work on the strip and they work on the street they work on the strip they work on the street fram oil filters race day and while others drive jenkins pushes his car to the line cannily saving wear and tear on his engine he's made the final eliminations by winning a preliminary runoff the day earlier and now he's ready to defend his title he has this to say about driving tactics the most important skill that you really probably have to put into play is your control over uh your reactions as far as the starting procedure is concerned because most of the races uh between two cars which are equally competitive or one lost right on the line [Music] the rest of your action as far as the operation of the car down the track is concerned are pretty much conditioned reflexes i run every race just the same just as tight it's pretty difficult to get your timing straightened out to run just as tight as you can and if you tried to bury it i think that you'd be in more trouble you you can uh maybe have two different approaches to a given situation one where you there's uh you know you're going to win or you know that you're not going to have any trouble at least predictable trouble and you may back off completely and wait for the green light or the other approach is the completely uptight approach and you just do that every time just as a matter of staying in practice jenkins wins his first round but teammate hedrick and dick landy are upset victims however the best known of the women drag racers shirley shayhan wins easily and appears to be perfectly comfortable facing the toughest men in the business i don't really pay any attention to the competition i just watch the light i try to uh let nothing distract me from what's going on at the line and that way i'm ready is it hard how many races a year do you run well it's hard to say uh we have been on tour since may and we usually make about two meets a week uh oh gee over 100 races i'd say easy shirley drives well but is eliminated in a close third round contest other pretty girls just watch paying particular attention to a special nationals guest as he tries his hand at super stock racing tv star dick smothers a fine racing driver in his own right makes an exhibition run and rolls through the quarter mile like a veteran [Music] skillful driving is only a part of drag racing it is a game of horsepower and the driver who has the most is generally a winner bill jenkins had this to say about his power plant it's advertised original horsepower rating was about 375 and in its present state of tune it's about 540. uh what sort of modifications are you permitted to make on the engine in super stock in super stock category nhra you're allowed to change your intake manifold as long as it resembles the manifold which originally came on the engine and you can run any kind of uh camshaft you're also allowed to completely go through the engine and build it to uh certain specifications which may be somewhat more desirable in assembly line specifications well jenkins car is ready for its next run top fuel antagonists benny osborne and don garlits chat before their upcoming duel big daddy is already disposed of tom mcewen and with don perdome a surprise loser his chances look better by the minute steve carbone is knocking down his opponents like 10 pins now he moves into the staging lights for a round against leroy goldstein a promising newcomer from california two more double-a viewers when goldstein drops too hard on the throttle breaks traction and falls far behind [Applause] it's garlits facing reigning world champion benny osborne a man known as the wizard among the racing fraternity [Music] [Music] osborne tries hard to get a jump on garlands leaves too early and is disqualified big daddy takes an easy win [Music] [Applause] the super eliminator championship race features a pair of the wildest cars in the park paul stage in his double a competition rail faces dino don nicholson in his cougar funny car both machines are mad far out creations that run the quarter mile nearly as quickly as the fuel dragsters stage leads to an early lead and try as he might nicholson can't catch him he pops the chute and jonces to a stop through for the day [Music] it's grumpy's turn again he's reached the super stock semi-final round and his competition is arlen banking barracuda philippines defending national champion for super stock c machine [Music] [Music] grumpy sees the green light pops the clutch and roars off but suddenly he loses traction and chances for the championship disappear beneath his spinning wheels [Music] i stuck it up on a pretty good number on the tack on the static rpm and popped the clutch and uh bite was gone for some reason or other just sat there and that was it you could sit there in the line and say there's no tomorrow but there's always another one someday whether it's next week or next year and i've been in it now for long enough that you can take losses with the winds and not get so emotionally upset about it banky barely has time to savor his win over jenkins before he goes to the line for the championship facing him as camaro driver wally booth nhra rules give the smaller engine camaro a slight advantage and booth is permitted to leave a second early [Music] blankie plays ketchup barely overhauling booth at the finish line to win the super stock championship [Applause] the top gas eliminations with walt rhodes and the gas house gang squaring off against jack jones jones comes to the line as an incredible underdog having experienced a rash of blown engines in a serious highway crash during practice the engine in his car is composed of pickup bits and pieces and theoretically belongs in a junkyard not a championship dragster jones moves out fast then rhodes loses traction and dark horse jones gives a wave of victory at 197 miles an hour it's showdown time the race for top fuel eliminator the biggest prize in drag racing big daddy don garlits gets set to face steve carbone whose times in the opening four rounds have been quicker than garland's but past records are meaningless against the poise and judgment of the old master and the pressure on the challenger is nearly overwhelming and to make matters even more difficult for carbone garlits means business each race seems to be harder than the last one first i came in you know i thought well you know i've won it a couple of times now it doesn't really make that much difference but by the time i got it off the trailer you know the same old desire was right there and you know i want to win it just as bad as i had never won the race before big daddy times the life perfectly and leaves ahead of carbon seeing garlic breaking into the leaf carbon feeds his supercharged engine too much fuel and his hopes for victory go up in smoke garlits wins his second consecutive nationals title in the third of his long career something akin to climbing mount everest and winning the united states open in a single afternoon [Applause] his legions of fans shout and wave their appreciation big daddy's winning elapsed time is a blistering 6.87 seconds with a speed of 226 miles an hour [Applause] while garlits is being mobbed by the crowds bill jenkins is a deposed champion loads his cars in privacy such is the solitude of a loser but grumpy is a professional and he understands defeat as well as victory he is lost before and will doubtlessly lose again but as one of the sharpest competitors in the business the balance of his races will end in victory and as for the nationals well as every racer knows there'll always be another ending [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] the nhra national drags were brought to you by pram corporation you

Channel: supertubr

Views: 66,221

Keywords: US NATIONALS, drag racing, 1968, NHRA

Id: mtnzSY0pwAU

Length: 25min 56sec (1556 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 27 2022