Forum Activity for @jack-thomas

SwampRat -vs- The Green Monster

In the early 60's I was taking my girlfriend on our first out of town date to the Montgomery Airport Drag Strip in upstate NY near that now infamous town of Woodstock. We were there to see Don Garlits and the, I believe Chrysler powered "SwampRat" take on Art Arfrons and his legendary "Green Monster." Big daddy had a conventional front engine slingshot dragster and Arfrons had a rear engine machine powered by an Allison Air Plane Engine. I also believe that Hall of Famer Wally Bell raced that day in the Super Stock Class along with Sox & Martin in A Gas and some of the great East Coast drivers of that time. It was not the girlfriend that stuck in my mind that day but the Match Race and the announcers comments after the race. Crowd control being what it was in the late 50's and early 60's we were standing about 35-45 feet along side the finish line for the big event! When the flag was dropped all I could see was a huge cloud of smoke and the two match race competitors catapulting out of the cloud in my direction. They went by me at an announced 170MPH+, what a rush! The ET was given as around 7 sec. Big Daddy won as he did most of the time in that era! I looked down the track and saw two strips of rubber left by Garlits for the full 1/4 mile strip. When the cars went by the ground shook like it was the epicenter of a San Francisco earthquake. The announcement that followed amazes me to this day. Over the PA, for all to hear, the announcer said that he had an engineer in the booth with him and he just calculated on a slide rule that we probably just witnessed the fastest 1/4 mile that was to ever be. The engineer said with his calculations a vehicle would never go any faster in the 1/4 mile! Well, if this engineer has not gone on to his great reward by now the top fuelers and funny cars of today would surely put him in a nursing home mumbling over his damn slide rule. At that time in Drag Racing history, little did we know..............JIM REIF Sr.