Blast from the Past stirs memories

BY SPENCER CAMPBELL
BRISTOL HERALD COURIER

BRISTOL, Tenn. – Don Garlits was as spellbound as anyone watching the motorcade crawl through Bristol Dragway on Friday night.

A 1932 burnt orange Ford Hiboy, its round front fenders chopped off; a gun metal gray ’64 Chevy Nova with a shimmery, $10,000 paint job; cherry red Camaro SuperSports glistening in the sun, Dodge Chargers, Chevelles, Barracudas – a parade of thunderous chunks of metal, taking onlookers and participants alike back four decades.

“I was here [Friday] when they had that cruise-in,” Garlits said. “Gosh, there were some nice cars out here. It was unbelievable.”

Unbelievable, but true.

Saturday kicked off the Dragway’s second annual Blast from the Past presented by Ferguson Enterprises, which featured bracket racing between front-engine dragsters and vintage muscle cars. And even Garlits, the nine-time Car Craft Magazine Top Fuel Driver of the Year known as “Big Daddy,” couldn’t help but feel the tug of nostalgia when looking at the replica of Don Schumaker’s Wonder Wagon funny car, Greg Jacobsmeyer’s famous funny car named “All-Star,” and even one of Garlit’s own infamous “Swamp Rat” top fuel dragsters, all of which were displayed at the event.

“Drag racing in the beginning, back in ’65, wasn’t expensive to run. Anyone who wanted to run a top fuel car just built one and came out and raced,” Garlits said. “Get a couple of guys, enough money, and come race. I remember at the ’65 U.S. Fuel and Gear Championships in California there were 123 fuel cars entered for a 64-car field.

“I’m not so sure that [modern drag racing] is better. I’m getting old, maybe I’m just senile, but it seems to me like 125 cars racing for 64 spots in six rounds is a lot more entertaining than 16 cars running and only two don’t make the show.”

Like its NASCAR cousin, Garlits says that drag racing’s shrinking numbers can be traced to financial issues. In 1978, when top fuel had streamlined its running from amateur, backyard mechanics into a professional, legitimate business, Garlit’s entire racing budget hung at $125,000.

Today, dragster speeds top out at more than 300 mph, but, Garlits says, top fuel teams spend nearly $3 million annually to get there.

“And I made money,” Garlits said. “I mean, nobody makes money running a dragster anymore. They’re just hoping to God they get enough money to pay the bills.”

But there are those still carrying the torch: The homegrown mechanics that the Dragway’s Blast from the Past drew out of the hills.

They spend their free time “chroming out” their engines and replacing upholstery, looking for every opportunity to show off their eye-blistering paint schemes and watch strangers drool over their hobbies.

“You had to have grown up in the ’60s to understand,” said Gary Hood, a Fall Branch, Tenn., resident and owner of the ‘32 Ford Hiboy. “It’s that old adage: They don’t make them like they used to. The new ones are plastic, and they don’t have that sound.”

Hood was one of many exhibitors displaying refurbished muscle cars during Saturday’s Blast from the Past vintage car show. Hood poured nearly $50,000 into his ’32 Ford, but estimated that many at this weekend’s event went even higher.

Hood’s cousin, Troy Hood, is of a similar mind. Although he did not present a car during Saturday’s contest, the Kingsport firefighter couldn’t help ogling the gun metal gray Nova.

“I was raised in the muscle-car era,” Troy Hood said. “They just have more style – not too many cars out right now appeal to people who really know about cars. Horsepower, they just don’t have any horsepower.”

Although, there is also something simple, unrefined about these cars. Something primitive. Their engines pierce the ears, the engines chug gasoline, the exhaust chokes the sky, the tires disintegrate into plumes of acrid stench.

And that’s exactly what Ken Patterson – whose ’68 Plymouth Barracuda was there to race, not preen, on Saturday – loves about the muscle car era.

“I was a kid when I started racing back in ’69. I bought a Roadrunner and that was a good start,” Patterson, now 62, said. “I can’t work on these new cars. I can’t. They’ve gotten too technical.”

So, while Garlits’ drag racing has gone the way of multi-million dollar sponsorships, making it a vague imposter of the motorsport he dominated in the ’60s, a slim vestige of it remains in Bristol’s Blast from the Past. A quick reminder, however brief, to a time when Detroit and homespun mechanics ruled the automotive world.

“I’ve been coming to Bristol since 1965 when they built this place,” Garlits said. “I’ve seen a lot of history at this place.”

History that’s not quite ready to retire.

scampbell@bristolnews.com|(276) 645-2543