Big Daddy’s Epiphany

“I want to be ahead of the engine...” It took the loss of half of his foot, but “Big Daddy” Don Garlits’ moment of clarity redefined the dragster and undoubtedly saved many lives.

Laid up in Long Beach, Calif., with half his foot blown off and his once limitless future suddenly uncertain, the greatest drag racer of all time designed the car that would change the sport forever, “Swamp Rat XIV,” from his hospital bed.

Spindly and spare in design, with no rear wing and initially no body forward of the driver’s compartment, “Big Daddy” Don Garlits’ first rear-engine dragster revolutionized Top Fuel racing overnight. But it wasn’t, as many people think, the first of its kind. Rear-engine dragsters had been around in various forms since drag racing’s infancy in the 1950s. Several designs not dissimilar to Garlits’ existed before his, including cars driven by Art Malone, Bernie Schacker, and Dwane Ong, who won a major AHRA title in 1970 at New York National Speedway on Long Island.

But none got anywhere in NHRA national event competition until Garlits’ ground-breaking machine won the 1971 Winternationals in Pomona, Calif.

The rear-engine configuration that added 20 years to Garlits’ career and saved the lives of countless drivers in the future was a product of drag racing’s most dangerous era, a time when many of the best and most beloved Top Fuel drivers were being killed at an alarming rate. Robinson, Mike Sorokin and John “the Zookeeper” Mulligan, who each ranked right up there with Garlits and Don “the Snake” Prudhomme among the stars of the sport, died in violent accidents.

In September 1970, on the biggest possible stage – the final round of the NHRA Nationals at Indianapolis – “Superman” Jim Nicoll’s car sawed itself in half just ahead of his feet as he crossed the finish line at 225mph. Prudhomme, horrified to see the front half of Nicoll’s car slide past him in the shutdown and sure that his friend was dead, quit racing on the spot. (He later recanted after much deliberation and upon learning that Nicoll had, miraculously, survived with only a minor foot injury.)

Garlits saw the whole thing – he’d just red-lighted against Nicoll in the semi-final and was watching from the grandstands – and was more convinced than ever that he never wanted to go down the track again without the engine behind him. It had been six months almost to the day since perhaps the most famous drag racing accident of all, Garlits’ explosion and crash on March 8, 1970 at Lions Drag Strip on the outskirts of Long Beach.

“Big Daddy’s” car was cut in two just like Nicoll’s was (from an exploding transmission, not an exploding clutch like Nicoll’s), but even though it happened not far from the start, before he’d built up much speed, he did not escape unscathed. When he opened his eyes after finally tumbling to a stop, it wasn’t just the front half of his car that was gone – half of his right foot was, too.

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