Thread: Garlits Back In Drag Racing

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garlits had a blowover here in spokane to !

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NFhqVPfd4QM

Yea.......Big Daddy was head over heals for drag racin'.

Forgot about that one, thanks Scooter. Car sure was junk!!!!!

He built one fors us in 71 or 72(probably late 71) It was a deal that Carl Schiefer put together while working at Edelbrock---I even went to Seftner Fla while car was being built----short version of long story---John and I had a difficult time in California becasuse we were from the Midwest ( Illinois) we were told that we would have a difficult time running out there and old smart mouth me replied---"We'll see who has a hard time!!!
We were well recieved by the racers and seperately by the different manufacturers, but behind our backs, different groups of people plotted against us as we were starting to get Sponser attention----when news of the Garlits deal spread, The early hemi group didn't like it as they thought we would go to elephants, Hays clutch people didn't like it as they thought we'd go to schieffer, Cirello mag didn't like it as they thought we'd switch to Hunt or Schieffer, etc, etc---some late model racers didn't want us getting into their sponsers areas

So-----we had to pull out of it---I think the car went to someone on the east coast, maybe Jimmy King---

Why Garlits is called the swamp rat:

Obviously I wasn't there, but over the years I read that when he started touring to the west coast....I think to race the "Bean Bandits"....a track announcer started calling him that, since he was from Florida, and it "stuck". Obviously he didn't mind, and started naming his cars that.