All Time Top Drag Racer Don Garlits at York This Weekend
Longevity doesn't guarantee success, but success over a long period of time can elevate a person to the top of his or her profession. In drag racing, that person is Donald Glenn Garlits, also known as "Big Daddy".
Garlits won the first organized drag race he entered with the first race car he built. It was 1955, and the NHRA Safety Safari had come to Lake City, Florida. A short three years later, the garage and body shop owner was racing professionally with the first of 34 racecars he would tag Swamp Rat. He didn't stop until 1992, when eye trouble, the result of deceleration G forces, forced him from the seat at age 60. In the four-decade interim Garlits took on all comers on any racetrack in the country and sometimes abroad. Driving chassis' that he fabricated that were powered by engines he built. Garlits won 144 major open events and 17 national championships in the sport's three major hot rod associations.
In 1957, he was the first to exceed 170 mph; the next year, he was the first over 180 mph. By the time he built Swamp Rat II, he had won the AHRA Nationals and the Team State Championship and, with Art Malone driving while he recovered from near fatal burns suffered in a match race in Chester, S.C., the Riverside Invitational. With another gas-powered dragster, he won the first NHRA Winter Nationals in Daytona, Florida in 1960.
Garlits achieved the first of his three greatest accomplishments in the sport in 1964. With nitromethane now legal at all NHRA events, he, in August at Great Meadows, New Jersey became the first to record an official backed-up 200 mph speed. The next month he drove Swamp Rat VI to his first of eight U.S. Nationals titles, defeating Jack Williams in the final with a 7.67 E.T. at 198 mph. Three years later, with a dragster he built in 72 hours after failing to qualify at the Winternationals and Springnationals, he became the first two time winner of the most prestigious drag race in the world and the next year the first to win two straight U.S. Nationals titles.
Garlits will appear at the Fifth Annual York US 30 Musclecar Madness show at the York Fairgrounds, York Expo Center this Friday, July 7th and Saturday, July 8th for his first visit to York since York US 30 Dragway ceased operations in 1979.
Show hours are Friday 1 p.m. to 9 p.m. and Saturday 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. "Big Daddy" will be available for autographs on Friday from 2 p.m. until 4 p.m. and 6 p.m. until 9 p.m. His Saturday schedule is 11 a.m. until 3 p.m. and 6 p.m. until 9 p.m.
Admission to the show is only $12.00 per day, $20.00 for a special discount two day ticket, children under 12 are free, and parking is always free.
For Information: Darwin Doll 717.755.5849, e-mail info@yorkus30.com or website www.yorkus30.com
