I sent in a reply to a post that Wally Bell made about my favorite Funny Car racer of all time, Al Hofmann, the "Man In Black" who retired some time ago and passed away a few years ago. I was glad to see that Wally never forgot "Atomic Al" and his legendary exploits in what is debatably the quarter-mile sport's most fearsome and volatile class: Nitro Funny Car. Jeff Gilder suggested to me that I do some writing, so here goes...
Nobody had Al's class and cool. He was all at once the toughest hombre ever to strap himself into a nitro-fueled hot rod, a brilliant driver with skills that defied logic and often bamboozled his opponents, a go-for-the-throat competitor and a man who was looked up to by everyone as the guy that did it his way, all the way.
You didn't have to wait for a candygram to find out if Al Hofmann didn't agree with you. You also didn't have to wonder if he had something nice to say about you, either. He did not carefully choose his words, he just said them and they were as straight-up politically incorrect as anything you ever heard. That's just how he was. Thing is, he made sense. I agreed with what Al said about other drivers, about the NHRA, about his sponsors, about the tracks he raced at, and about what he enjoyed doing in life. If folks didn't agree, cool. Go sell out. We're going by what I say here, not by what the sponsor wants me to say...
Al earned his stripes, coming up through the ranks. His first Funny Car was called "China Syndrome" that he bought from the Radici and Wise team by selling his construction company in the late 70s. He was known for several spectacular explosions and fires that he survived (but the cars didn't), also for his outstanding driving skills and performance benchmarks in his early fuel coupe career. He rolled with the China Syndrome car until the mid-80s, when he went to Australia, met his wife there, moved back to Florida, changed the name of his car and put the many meltdowns of the past behind him.
He ran a couple of seasons under different names for his cars before landing a sponsorship with Blower Drive Service (BDS) that lasted a while. It wasn't a lot of money but it helped keep him funded enough to make it to races. Much of what Al did, he did on his own with his own money. This was his chosen path. When Western Auto / Parts America, Slick 50, Pontiac Motorsports and Valvoline put their money behind Al's operation, he didn't blow the dough on fancy transporters and hospitality suites. He sunk that money into the race car and upgraded his old transporter. His trailer was not a fully-loaded, state-of-the-art command center...it was still a trailer. They did their tuning and analyzed their data in their pit. The money was for the car, and Al used every penny of it for exactly that purpose. It was a no-frills, bare-bones deal, and he said later that he saved a ton of those dollars a year doing it that way and yet still remained a serious contender for the title. He was consistently in the Top Five in championship points throughout his major sponsorship years.
On the drag strip, there was simply nobody better. He outfoxed and outdrove the other guy when the other guy had a million more dollars behind him and a theoretically faster and more capable car than he did. I recall an incident at Bristol that John Force talked about when Bruton Smith had the Funny Cars race against the Top Fuel dragsters for a couple of seasons. Cory Mac in the MBNA dragster had pulled up and staged next to Al. He had 8 seconds to pull in or he'd get timed out. Al was pre-staged, and he whacked the throttle for a split-second. The car did a dry-hop and landed deep-staged. The tree was instantly activated and off he went, with Cory Mac sitting there totally distracted. He won the round on a holeshot. Force said that it was the greatest starting-line sleight-of-hand that he'd ever seen.
It wasn't just Al Hofmann's prowess as a competitor on the drag strip that set him apart from his peers. His personality and his presence commanded respect and admiration. Some of the guys who were known for whining and threatening tried to imitate Big Al's style and it looked obvious and ridiculous. Al smirked at them. Nobody came close to projecting that certain vibe that he had. They all stood back...not out of fear (at least with most of them), but out of respect for this guy who had put it all on the line and did it all his way and nobody else's...and beat them.
I was sad to see him retire from drag racing in 2002, but Al had nothing to prove and he had a life that he wanted to enjoy. He spent his last years running a car and hot rod restoration business. His life ended too soon at the age of 60 when he had a heart attack at his RV park in 2008. It was a shame to lose him but he didn't go out slowly and painfully, he went out in just about the same time it took him to make a quarter-mile run. May he rest in peace. His legacy is secure.
A very nice tribute to Al's memory is posted on Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Hofmann
Before closing, I'd like to point out that I am by no means a noted Drag Racing historian. I'm an enthusiast with an empirical knowledge of the sport from its beginnings up to present-day mega-event status as one of the most popular forms of motorsports. What I am submitting here is an editorial and not a historical timeline. I have friends who are walking encyclopaedias of our sport and I acknowledge and greatly respect their work: Bill Pratt, Brett Kepner, Lynn Morton, Danny White, Larry Clayton and Thomas Warren (just to name a few) are an elite group of Drag Racing history experts and I have been fortunate to be a witness to their knowledge, experience and opinions.
I'm a rock 'n roll musician and a graphic artist. Drag Racing is my lifelong passion and pride; my dream. I'm old enough to have seen it develop from its beginnings to what it is today. I've been close enough to make friends and to be able to write an editorial such as this about one of my all-time heros, and I appreciate the opportunity to do so, but I also know my place and I feel truly blessed to have been selected as a member of the Racin' and Rockin' team and to have the privilege of being a part of this great endeavour that Jeff Gilder and Bill Pratt have created for us. I will continue to contribute these pieces as long as the space is available, and I'd like to let everybody know that your input and ideas for subject matter and content is always open. You can contact me any time at pctalent@sbcglobal.net
Thanks for reading! Hope to see you on the show! Long live the memory of the great Al Hofmann. There will never be another one like him. We were lucky to have him when we did.
JB
