Donn Hosford, Funny Car Anti-Hero

By David Hapgood

You've never heard of Donn Hosford. He has never won a national event, not even a Divisional. Instead he is a longtime match racer -- the highest compliment in my estimation.

Six years ago at Woodburn Dragstrip, sixteen high end TAFCs filled the pit area for the season opener. All was well and good, but not quite enough to spark my imagination. Then, at the end of pit row I found an older FC with the conspicuous body lines of an ex-Prudhomme Skoal Bandit firebird. The car was unlettered, except for the intriguing name 'Donn' on the side windows. I was new to the Division 6 alky scene, but after twenty five years at dragstrips across the country I knew that I had stumbled across a gem.

The car made a pair of clean runs that afternoon but was never really in contention for the title. Then again, up against a cast of marquee performers, nobody expected it to be.

Two weeks later at Madras Dragstrip, I was delighted to once again find this mysterious firebird in the pit area. As at Woodburn, the car performed well, and at the end of the day went into the trailer without an iota of fanfare. I left Madras not knowing the first thing about this racer's thirty year history on the margins of the sport -- I still didn't even know his last name.

The following year, after watching the car take a wild, bouncing ride over the potholes of Madras Dragstrip's shutdown area, I stopped by the team's pit to ask the driver about the experience. I found him to be approachable but hard edged -- a man of compact sentences and few words. He looked as if he was put on this earth to drive funny cars and reminded me of drivers like Tommy Grove, Larry Fullerton and Frank Oglesby: the AAFC workhorses of my childhood. I explained that I was taking photographs on the starting line and that I would be glad to mail him a print or two. He jotted his name and address on a scrap of paper: Donn Hosford. I was a little surprised to note that he campaigned out of my hometown of Portland, OR: a left-leaning enclave of micro-breweries and coffee houses. It just did not seem to fit his image. I wouldn't learn until years later that he is actually a native Idahoan. The pieces of the puzzle would eventually fit together, seamlessly.

In a nutshell, Hosford's racing story went something like this: as a youngster in 1969 he borrowed a car and won a trophy in his first event, at Walla Walla Dragstrip. He also discovered that he preferred street racing. The bad boys of Lewiston, Idaho had their own track on a public highway outside of town, a quarter mile of asphalt known as 'Duthie's Dragstrip,' in honor of a nearby gravel pit. Here Hosford ran a '58 two door Ford 390 tri-power and regularly beat cars such as 428 Shaker Mustangs and 350 El Caminos. The home-grown scene at Duthie's endured for years but eventually Hosford gravitated to sanctioned tracks, branching out across the Northwest driving his own race cars as well as those of Washington racer and individualist, Jack Frost. In the end, he was hooked on alky funny cars and AA/altereds and had earned his rank as a veteran at the windblown dragstrips of the high desert interior.

May 2000 at Madras Dragstrip's Funny Car Classic where Hosford beat track record holder Matt Goss twice, reset the record at 4.21/173, and won the event. Photo by Hapgood

Fast forward to the present decade: Hosford and team were slugging away at lower tier events for modest appearance fees. Obscurity has always been the hallmark of alcohol funny cars, and this team certainly met Webster's definition of the word: "unknown to fame". The expense/glory ratio in TAFC is perhaps the worst in drag racing. The reality is that in thirty years the class has produced no more than a tiny handful of bona fide legends. The rest have always been a dime a dozen, expending small fortunes on achievements that slip unnoticed into the dustbin of racing history.

No matter, Hosford was now being cheered on by an informal fan club -- me and my friends. One night in the dead of winter, armed with his address on that scrap of paper, we set off across town, looking for his shop. We were nothing more than a car load of race car fanatics (led by yours truly) in search of an off-season fix. As it turned out, none of us was familiar with the neighborhood: we ended up going in circles and never found his place. Still, it was enough to know that we had been in close proximity to a funny car. The venture rekindled old memories of the days when my teenage pal John Crosby (now with the NHRA) and I used to stalk the motels at Sanair and New England Dragway looking for our heroes.

As the years passed, I watched Hosford and crew from the margins at tracks across the Northwest. They were making a go of it with an outdated combination: an older-style KB 526 lit by a pair of tiny 4 amp mags and aspirated with a 14-71 roots-type blower. They raced against obscure acts and established champions alike, and they did a respectable job. Pairings against low buck FCs typically ended in Hosford's favor.

Exhibit A: a round victory over fellow low bucker, Todd Ashwell -- Woodburn Dragstrip, May 2000. Photo by Hapgood

The car was limited to the low to mid six second range at this stage -- light years off the national record. Yet Hosford typically reached the finish line under power, regardless of track conditions. He never celebrated a giant pay day and was almost entirely overlooked by the media. When his name found its way into print it was inevitably misspelled.

Now and then I would visit his pit area or call him on the phone. He never boasted when things went well and never complained when they went wrong. Not once. This would be especially notable, given that plenty of things were about to go very wrong.

The 2003 season was a time of high hopes for this driver: after years of campaigning legendary old funny cars such as the ex-Prudhomme firebird and Gordie Bonin's ex- 'Bubble Up' firebird, he was finally in a position to buy a 'new' flopper -- a former Bucky Austin/Randy Parker Swindahl-built Dodge Avenger, in immaculate condition. It was without question the finest race car of his career. Accordingly, he stepped up to a high helix blower and stronger mags. As TAFCs go it was hardly the fanciest combination in the world, but for the first time in his life Hosford could set his sights on the five second zone.

2003 paint job on the Avenger. Photo by Hapgood

If it had only gone according to plan. But, of course, the sport of drag racing is a notorious dream crusher, and for Hosford the 2003 season turned out to be a year he would probably rather forget: the milestones went down in the following order.

May

Woodburn opener. Fire. On his very first pass in the new car it lifts the blower, shearing the fuel pump and pulling the fuel line from the tank. The car burns in the shutdown area. The Avenger body is extensively damaged. The motor fares even worse.

June - August

Considerable time and money is spent rebuilding the machine.

September

Year end comeback effort at Woodburn Season Finale ends dismally when the car suffers additional breakage and the team goes home early. The highly-anticipated 2003 season concludes almost before it began.

November

Nightmare: a ring of Thieves operating in the Portland area break into Hosford's shop and make off with his blower, his heads, his transmission, his spare block and most of his tools. It is a catastrophic setback.

January 2004

Police identify the culprits and unearth a cache of stolen race car parts, but Hosford's equipment has already moved on. In the end he recovers just a handful of tools. As winter turns to summer he spends all of his spare time (as well as vacations) visiting swap meets and making phone calls. Eventually the leads dry up and reality sets in.

July 2004

If all of this wasn't enough, Hosford tears muscles and ligaments in his shoulder while landscaping his front yard. It is a serious injury. Surgery and physical therapy follow.

And so, there it was. Without belaboring the point, this racer was clearly in the midst of a bad luck streak. The car sat idle in his shop, minus half of its powerplant, and the situation was looking grim to say the least.

Just when I'd begun to wonder if Hosford might actually be finished I heard through the grapevine that the car had just been repainted. This could only mean one thing: a comeback! He confirmed the good news over the telephone and I stopped by his shop to take photos. Never mind that his powerplant was still less than a short block -- the replacement parts were finally on order. Furthermore, the new paintjob was beautiful, a symbolic first step in his rise from the abyss.

Fresh paint on the Hosford Avenger, September 2004. Photo by Hapgood

I was deeply impressed. The truth is that I've never quite been able to fathom what compels a person to devote his life to a money-devouring race car. Hosford was a prime example of a guy who would not quit. He never allowed a wife and kids or even hobbies to compete with his main interest. He kept everything simple: drag racing. More than any other driver I've ever known, he was a purist, a life pared down to his race car. I don't think there was ever a question in his mind that he was going to stage a comeback.

By springtime 2005 the machine was finally ready, albeit it was not exactly the same TAFC as before. For the first time Hosford had given one of his race cars a name, "The Survivor." More importantly, in its latest incarnation his late model 526 KB was equipped with a PSI screw blower, large BAE 5 heads, a 44 amp mag and a computer. Division 6 tuning guru Norm Christensen supplied the tune-up.

The next step would be to take the car down the track at Woodburn Dragstrip's '05 season opener. I wouldn't have missed it for the world.

May 2005. Photo by Hapgood.

In the staging lanes, Hosford in the hot seat and crewchief Bob Caldwell at right. Photo by Hapgood.

The team's primary objective for the weekend was to make a few launches, acquire data from the computer and get back into a routine. The first couple of passes were nothing special, as the crew worked the bugs out of the combination. But by Sunday afternoon they had it together enough to lay down a three quarter track pass of 6.407 -- not quite a career best ET but good enough to qualify ahead of 3 other TAFCs in the field. And though he had not been booked in at the event, the track cut him a check for his efforts. Hosford was back from the dead.

"The Survivor" Avenger at Woodburn. Photo by Nolan Hibbard.

The lettering on the trailer speaks volumes of this team's work ethic. Photo by Hapgood.

From the first outing of 2005, the car's performance improved, rapidly. In June Hosford ran a 6.15 part-track pass at Woodburn and then in July mounted his Fiat altered body on the chassis and ran a 6.05 which, according to the DRL files, ranks him as one of the top ten quickest AA/A drivers in the history of the sport. In August the team hit the road for Spokane to compete in the AHRA World Finals where Donn qualified the altered 3rd in TAFC with a 6.27 before a clutch malfunction spun the tires in the first round.

The Hosford Fiat, at speed in Spokane. Photo by Herman Marchetti.

For all of the brighter moments, Hosford's 2005 season did not have a storybook ending: instead of running his first 'five,' the team began to encounter the sorts of little problems that tend to crop up all at once. Still, he finished the year with career best passes and without any major breakage. The team will be back for the 2006 season guided by longtime crewchief Bob Caldwell, who Donn credits with keeping the enterprise going forward. "He is the hardest working guy I've ever found. He's like a pit bull. Thank god he doesn't bite."

I have a shortlist of favorite racers and each of their careers tend to be on life support more often than not. The truth is that these unknown stars have sustained my interest in the sport. Let's hope that a sponsor has the good sense to step up and keep Mr. Hosford around for years to come.

Thanks for sticking with it, Donn (and Bob!).

David Hapgood
hapgood_d@hotmail.com

Donn Hosford. Photo by Hapgood.