BRITISH DRAG RACING HALL OF FAME ANNOUNCES 2014 INDUCTEES

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1 in association with Beech Underwriting Embargo until midnight Friday July 11 th 2014 BST 7.00pm Friday July 11 th 2014 EST BRITISH DRAG RACING HALL OF FAME ANNOUNCES 2014 INDUCTEES Eligibility for induction into The British Drag Racing Hall Of Fame (BDRHoF) is extended to any person who has driven, piloted, owned, designed, built, maintained, prepared, promoted, officiated, supported or taken part in any capacity connected with British Drag Racing. An inductee must have been retired for a least three years or must have been or be engaged at the top level of his/her area of British Drag Racing for at least twenty years, or made a recognisable and significant contribution to the sport. Inductees are characterized by their desire to win, mastery of their own particular field and the courage to innovate. At midnight on July 11 th 2014 BSM and 7.00pm EST 2014 in the USA, the British Drag Racing Hall of Fame (BDRHoF) announced its new inductees. These are the names and brief details in alphabetical order. GERRY BELTON The name Gerry Belton will be familiar to anyone who went along to the original DragFests of 64 and 65. Gerry s was one of the voices heard commentating at the meetings and the one on the DragFest LP subsequently released. He really was in the thick of the action from the beginning, being the Allard Motor Company PRO. At the outset Sydney Allard handed Gerry the job of organising the 1963 International Drag Racing Challenge that featured Dante Duce in Mooneyes and Mickey Thompson in his Harvey Aluminum Special. This series of events was instrumental in anchoring the sport of drag racing in the UK. 1

2 He then went on to organise the British International Drag Racing Festivals in 1964 and 1965, acting as Secretary to the British Drag Racing Association as well as General Manager of the events. This was no small task given the American entries arriving and the complications raised by setting up six meetings in 1964 to be held at different airfields with different organising bodies over three back-to-back weekends. Given the perfect weather throughout, not credited to Gerry, some 120,000 spectators enjoyed the meetings, still said by some as never to be forgotten. Gerry was also involved in organising World Record meetings in the UK and Europe. His off track activities were matched by some personal success on track, as he has the distinction of winning Top Eliminator at the first ever British Hot Rod Association Big Go meeting. He was at the wheel of a Ford powered Allard Dragon dragster designed by the company to be sold as kits to expand participation in the then fledgling sport. He was also part of the consortium that purchased Bob Keith s 1964 Dos Palmas dragster which he drove in He drove his own 65 Cobra 289 at Santa Pod in the late 60s. In fact he set the CC/SP Class Quarter Mile Record at secs and mph pretty small beer by today s standards but very quick back in the day. It is for his work with Sydney Allard organising these European motor sport ground changing events during 1963, 1964 and 1965 that Gerry is being inducted into the British Drag Racing Hall of Fame. RUSS CARPENTER Russ Carpenter s first drag racing experience was helping Tony Anderson in 1969 with his Ford V6 engined dragster named Trouble. But it was the Daimler V8 Hemi engine that was to be the main focus of Russ s quarter mile mechanical skills. To check out the Daimler V8 s suitability for drag racing Russ first contacted British Leyland who told him that after 200hp it became very unreliable and they didn t feel it was a very practical engine for racing. However Russ went on to create a version eventually outputting well over 1000hp. The blown Daimler V8 rear engined dragster called More Trouble initially hit the track in March Developing a British engined car for drag racing meant making your own parts or adapting others. Russ fabricated a slider clutch because it was not possible to buy one that would fit the car. A few years later he adapted a racing B&J transmission for the car, making new parts as no spares were available, and up rating the hydraulics on it to make it activate more quickly. 2

3 Russ took over the driving from Tony in 1975 and won many championships and events. In 1977 he took the dragster to Mantorp Park in Sweden where he entered the handicapped Competition Eliminator. Swedish competitors protested he was allocated to the wrong class, disputing the weight on the entry form regarding Russ s own, not insubstantial, weight. Put into a less advantageous class, Russ proceeded to beat all Swedish competitors, only being shut down in the final by rival Brit John Whitmore who was in a lower class with a handicap advantage. With backing from AE Autoparts (Hepolite Glacier) in 1979, the car was renamed the Glacier Grenade and in July 1980 broke two World Records becoming the first car anywhere in the world under 5 litres to make a quarter mile pass in less than 8 seconds. At Le Mans in 1983 Russ was again protested, this time by Swedish Top Fuel racers when he was included in that class to make the numbers up. Russ won the Euro Series Championship twice in the 1980s and had a rivalry with the Daimler V8 engined dragster of Robin Read until, in 1989, small nitro fuelled cars were outlawed for the Euro Series. He nevertheless kept the car and has exhibited it regularly for over twenty years. It is for his racing development of the Daimler V8 engine and influencing others to go the same route for which Russ is being inducted into the BDRHoF. DON GARLITS By most measures, Don Big Daddy Garlits is the greatest and most successful drag racer ever. But as well as being the result of his worldwide leading role as the sport s most innovative drag racing technician, his influence on British drag racing has been more specific as part of the wildly successful American team to visit Britain for the 1964 DragFests and subsequently racing at Santa Pod in 1976 and Born in Florida, Don started racing in 1950, building the first of thirty seven Swamp Rat dragsters in He became the first racer over 170mph in 1957 and over 180mph in By 1964, he had put down the first backed-up 200mph speed. In September and October of 1964 the First British International Drag Festival took place organised by Sidney Allard and the NHRA s Wally Parks. Don matchraced Tommy Ivo and won The People Challenge Trophy for the best aggregate performance by any car, running a string of low eights at over 190mph in front of huge crowds at Blackbushe and RAF airfields across the UK. In 1976 he visited Santa Pod for its tenth anniversary, driving Swamp Rat 21, and inspired Peter Crane to run the first five second pass outside North America. He returned the following year and won at the July Internationals before returning his car to the USA for eventual display at his Museum of Drag Racing 3

4 in Ocala, Florida that opened in 1984 being inspired by a visit Don made to the National Motor Museum, Beaulieu in After his visits to Santa Pod, Don s fellow American racers could more readily be enticed to race in the UK, furthering the boom in the sport in Britain during the late 1970s has been a year very mixed emotions for Don. He lost Pat, his wife of over 60 years and a constant companion at the track during his racing career. But he has succeeded in running over 180mph in his electric powered dragster Swamp Rat 37. Developed with his grandson Rodney this is another Garlits Benchmark project. In victories Don s success can be measured in 144 National Event wins and 17 Championships. However, it is the constant innovation he has brought to drag racing all over the world that is the prime reason for his legendary status. The British Drag Racing Hall of Fame is proud to be able to induct him this year as a tribute to his influence on British drag racing during the last fifty years. DENNIS NORMAN One of the true characters of drag bike racing, Dennis Norman s riding skills were put to good use towards the end of WW2 as a despatch rider instructor. His teaching methods and communication skills must have been interesting, to say the least. After the war he settled in Hemel Hempstead and opened a motor cycle shop. He toyed with Speedway in the late fifties. But his interest turned to sprinting in the early 1960s with an Ariel Square Four, later moving on to the then new sport of Drag Racing with the opening of Santa Pod Raceway in As well as racing Dennis was one of the regular Friday volunteers helping the Santa Pod management set-up the track for the weekend s racing. He was one of the top runners in the late 60s, and into the early seventies, on his twin-engined Triumph, which was one of the early 9 second bikes. One of the first visitors to Sweden and Holland, the smoky passes from the 1300cc 'Norman's Conquest' were always a crowd favourite. His off-track, often mischievous, sense of humour was legendary in the pits. He served time as a British Drag Racing and Hot Rod Association committee member, but his proudest achievement was being one of the first two bike racers to travel over to America and compete in 1970; a trip backed by Bob Phelps of Santa Pod. He qualified on his first pass for what was the first ever Top Fuel Bike eliminator at the premier NHRA Nationals event at Indy; impressing the American racers with a run of under 10 seconds. Learning some new tricks while there, he performed the first bike burnout on his return to Santa Pod. Others soon followed. A blown double-engined Norton was built as a replacement bike in

5 Years later, Dennis rebuilt his double Triumph and performed demonstration runs at various venues. He was even to be seen in his mid-eighties riding the bike at a Santa Pod RWYB in His grandson Matthew has kept that spirit of 60s drag bike racing alive by bringing the bike out on to the track for Dragstalgia; although the super sticky track of today is not so easy for the wheel spinners of old! It is for his dedication to drag bike racing in the early years that Dennis Norman is being inducted into the British Drag Racing Hall of Fame. JOHN WHITMORE John Whitmore was born in Leicester. On a visit to Santa Pod in 1967 he saw American Bud Barnes run a full track length smoker in his blown Chrysler Hemi slingshot dragster. He was hooked. However, it was seeing Harold Bull s Stripduster that inspired him to build a front engine dragster using a British engine. In 1968, his first front-engined dragster was powered by a four cylinders BMC A series engine. Named Drag-n -fly in 1970, many parts were homemade including a fuel injection system using an oil pump from the ubiquitous BMC A series engine converted into a fuel pump. The original gearbox was based on an overdrive from an Austin A35. A three-speed Borg Warner 35 auto gear box was obtained, modified and shortened and a manual three position control valve was used to change the gears. This replaced the A35 gear box. A 7½ friction clutch replaced the torque converter. A visit to BMC Special Tuning at Abingdon resulted in more race-ready parts being acquired that could withstand nitro loads of up to 65%. Times fell and speeds increased. In 1973 he ran over 150mph for the first time and dominated his class with low nine second passes. The constant quest for quarter mile performances from the venerable A series engine that would have astounded its original designers led John to build a rear engine chassis for 1974 and he again converted a Borg Warner automatic transmission (this time a larger one) to a three speed clutch operated racing gearbox. This helped take the car deep into the eights with many wins in 1975 and 1976; class times that will probably never be beaten. John raced at Mantorp Park and Malmo in Sweden during 1976 to 1978, winning or coming runner up in these events. He later visited Zandvoort in Holland. By this time he had sponsorship from British Leyland. In 1980 John took a different path with a new Daimler powered dragster. He had support from Jaguar spares dealer G H Nolan who supplied him with the mechanical parts for the car. John used all his mechanical ingenuity on the new dragster that went well from the start and in 1981 recorded his first seven second time. In a racing career spanning almost twenty years and many wins, 5

6 John never red lit. But it is for his mechanical skills in developing cars using British parts where possible, and achieving outstanding performances, that John is inducted into the British Drag Racing Hall of Fame. These inductees will be presented with their awards at the BDRHoF Annual Gala Awards Dinner to be held at the Savill Court Hotel, Windsor Great Park on November 22 nd Details can be found on the latest news menu tab at The event is proving to be very popular and it will be a sell-out function. END Further Press Information from Robin Jackson RJProMod@aol.com Tel The British Drag Racing Hall of Fame is sponsored by many businesses and associations. Without this support it could not exist. They are Beech Underwriting; U S Automotive; Power Race Graphics; Santa Pod Racers Club; Pennine Drag Racing Club; Eurodragster.com; Avon Park International Racing Association, Shakespeare County Raceway; Santa Pod Raceway; York Raceway; Flint Insurance and Lucas Oil. 6