AN ODYSSEY IN DRAG RACING T-SHIRTS

By David Hapgood

Although I never collected drag racing T-shirts, somehow, over the years, they have accumulated. Many of the stories behind them are as interesting as the shirts themselves.

Back in the olden days, when teams sold T-shirts from their trailers, the latest “Frantic Ford” shirt caught my eye. The graphics were bold, in plain black and white. It was the first racing T-shirt I ever wanted to own. But they cost $6, and twelve-year-old-me had to find a way to make the money to pay for it. Unlike a lot of kids, I didn’t get a regular allowance. So I asked my dad if there was anything I could do around the house to earn the six bucks. “Sure,” he said, “paint the north side of the barn.”

I gathered the paint, brush, and extension ladder, and everything seemed to be on track until I rounded the corner and noticed that a colony of yellow jackets had made their home in a gap in the barn wall. I watched as they streamed continuously in and out of the opening. Now I knew why my dad hadn’t painted this side of the barn yet. I spent the day giving the wall a fresh coat and the wasps a wide berth. After the sun went down, I returned with a flashlight and finished painting the wall around the nest opening. Then I collected my six dollars and was all set: at the next race, the “Frantic Ford” T-shirt would be mine!

I showed up in their pit area only to discover that they were sold out of T-shirts, and all they had left were halter tops.

Flash forward thirty years, and I related this story to funny car owner Bill Dee. Lo and behold, what turned up in the mail the next week? A nicely aged and extremely rare “Frantic Ford” shirt. To say I was delighted would be an understatement.

The shirt came with a story. Apparently, it once belonged to Dodger Glenn, and if you look closely at the lettering, you will see that Fox & Frey have been crossed out with a Sharpie. As the story goes, Dodger himself did this when he took over sole ownership of the “Frantic Ford” operation.

Dee sent a second shirt as well; this one is even more rare. The gist of it was that Dodger Glenn kept bringing his car to Joe Siti’s shop for fiberglass repair, so Siti issued an extremely limited run of these mock Earl Scheib body shop T-shirts. Check the details.

In the mid-1970s, after failing to acquire a “Frantic Ford” shirt, it would be another year before I scored my first drag racing T-shirt, courtesy of Tommy Ivo. He traded it to me for an “Ivo is #1 “banner I’d brought to the track. This is the shirt that appears at the top of this article, and for me was the all-time best drag racing T-shirt. The graphic design looks good to this day, but back in the mid-’70s, these Ivo shirts were a cut above any others (though Prudhomme, McEwen, and Garlits had strong ones). The version I got was a size small that fit me for about a year before I grew out of it.

The next year, Ivo’s Arrow shirt was a similar design to his Dart shirt but a bit weaker. I think this was partly because the Arrow body proportions are inaccurate. Still, it was a happy moment when Ivo gave me one of these. It was a size medium, and this shirt fit me for a couple of years before going into storage with the Dart shirt. And when Ivo ran a jet, he gave me one of those shirts, too. It was a large size that fit me forever. Unfortunately, it eventually wore out.

I was never a collector of racing T-shirts; otherwise, I would have kept all of them brand new in their bags. My shirts were meant to be loved to death. Others were given to me in that era bit the dust long ago — Al Hanna, Tim Kushi, Chuck Etchells, John Speelman, and maybe a few more I am forgetting.

By the mid-1980s, the regional fuel scenes had essentially died, and my visits to the drag strips had become infrequent. At national events, the teams were not allowed to sell shirts from their trailers. And in any case, the shirt designs had become a bit tame. The car graphics
were moved to the back of the shirt, while the fronts were plain, with maybe a small logo. To me, this was drag racing apparel’s version of a mullet haircut — business up front, party in the back.

In the 1990s, the graphics had migrated back to the front of many racing T-shirts and had become less tasteful and more dynamic, which appealed to me. The main difference now was that I had lost contact with all my old fuel car friends and had to pay for my shirts!
Occasionally they traveled with me to places that drag racing T-shirts never go. I was drag racing’s ambassador to the Third World.

An Eddie Hill shirt drying on the clothesline. The 4.77 partially visible in this photo refers to one of his national records.

At the time, the motorsports pundits were predicting that drag racing was the next NASCAR, and things definitely were looking more mainstream. For the first time, I was seeing drag racing T-shirts in public. One of them was a Boninfante/Raybestos FC shirt worn by a guy standing ahead of me in line at a grocery store. What surprised me was that this was on the west coast. Another was a Joe Amato shirt on a customer in a different grocery store. Then there was the time I saw a Mike Dunn/Gwynn La Victoria TF shirt on a guy in a bar. But best of all was the time I saw a skid row bum wearing a Warren Johnson shirt that looked brand new. I wondered how he’d acquired it. That was almost twenty-five years ago, and I haven’t seen a drag racing T-shirt in public since.

In the early 2000s, I started working as a drag racing photographer again, and a whole new round of T-shirts was given to me. At one point, I think half the T-shirts I owned were racing-related. I appreciated these gifts. In addition to photographing big events, I was the honorary track photographer out at tiny Madras Dragstrip when John and Jan Preuss were running the place. John booked in ambitious programs of alcohol funny cars, altereds, pro mods, and the rare transformer fuel altered (Don Lane). It was always fun to shoot photos at their track. During my tenure, I had three different Madras Dragstrip shirts with different designs. One of them is shown below.

Another treasured T-shirt (it has never been worn) is this Gary Omlin TF shirt from 2004. Gary had an unorthodox approach to top fuel that he was allowed to unleash at the old AHRA Spokane Raceway Park. His car was fearsome, even at idle, and tops the list as my favorite top fuel car of all time. The art on this shirt was derived from one of my photographs.

A great example of a shirt subjected to abuse (!) is this Draglist Super Crew shirt taken on a camping trip and hung out to dry out after a rainstorm. The shirt was a gift from webmaster Bill Pratt. Thanks, Bill!

1970s-80s Funny car owner Jim Wemett sent me this unusual commemorative T-shirt in which his car is half Corvette, half Arrow (he owned both). I love the rendering of the green Wombat giving a thumbs-up.

When funny car owner Bill Dee gave me this shirt, I became an honorary member of his “Nor’Easter” crew. This shirt has nice embroidery done by Maura Zona.

I was never a collector of T-shirts, but for once, I made an exception. Decades had passed, and I had never forgotten the excellent T-shirts that RC Sherman was selling from his trailer in 1980. It was appropriate for the shirt to have a killer design since he was sponsored by a T-shirt company. But the only time I saw the car run, I  didn’t have the extra money for a shirt. It had been a minor regret for thirty-plus years until the day one of these shirts appeared on E-Bay, and I snapped it up.

The saga of my life in drag racing T-shirts would be woefully incomplete if I didn’t mention the person who has supplied me with more free T-shirts than anyone else — my friend Richard Hernandez. Rich runs a little dragster and an altered out of his tiny garage in Utah. This retro Hawaiian shirt is just one example of many shirts that he has supplied me with over the years. Wearing them is a reminder of our friendship. In fact, I’m wearing this Hawaiian shirt as I type this story.

Thanks to Rich and everyone else for your generosity!     —  David Hapgood