Drag Racing Action Online

Images Phil Hutchison

Drag racing legend Don Garlits was the guest of honor at the Spirit of Competition Award ceremony at the Simeone museum in Philadelphia Pa September 12. The museum, known for their collection of historical sports cars, has a “It’s A Drag Too” exhibition mid-October with numerous local cars such as Bruce Larson’s famous USA 1 among other local cars   but the centerpiece was awarding “Big Daddy” the 2024 Spirit Of Competition award.

Garlits joins Roger Penske, Craig Breedlove and Mario Andretti among other racing greats in receiving the prestigious award.

To even the casual observer, the name “Big Daddy” Don Garlits brings a nod of recognition as his career, starting in the mid 50’s has taken a life of its own as the best known drag racer in auto racing history.

After a VIP breakfast and a Q&A, it was time for Garlits 101. Don entertained the crowd with an A-to-Z capsule of his life. Starting as a baby living in the Depression and his parents scrambling to keep a roof over their heads to meeting his future wife Pat who had never been to a drag race until on a whim, went to a race on a date after they got married.

“I was working in an office job and making good money when my stepfather told me he could see that I was not happy in that life,” Garlits said. “I quit and started working at a local muffler shop and got my racing career started.”

“When we had the quickest car in Florida, the press said we had fast clocks, so we went up to Cordova Illinois for a big race and beat the Cook & Bedwell dragster out of California which at that time was one of the best cars in the country After I beat him, they made me come back and run him again. And I beat him again.”

It was around this time that the “Swamp Rat” moniker started with his Florida roots setting the stage for one of the most successful careers in Top Fuel racing.

Garlits continued his story with the transmission explosion at Lions in 1970 and the design and building of the first rear engine car that actually won. And win is what Garlits did. During his career Garlits won 17 World Championship titles including 10 AHRA titles, 4 IHRA, and three NHRA titles during his 144 trips to the winner’s circle.

When it came to speed, which is what at the beginning of drag racing was the barometer of who was hot, Garlits was the first driver to top 170, 180, 200, 240, 250, 260 and 270 miles per hour from a standing start in the quarter mile.

One of the highlights of Garlits’ talk was revisiting his first NHRA World Championship. “In ’75 the NHRA World Championship was based on points instead of who won the World Finals. Late in the season I was leading the points in all three sanctioning bodies. The NHRA scheduled a race in Washington against the IHRA event that I had to attend. Gary Beck won that race taking the points lead.”

“This put it down to the finals in Ontario. To win the championship I needed to set both ends of the record and win the race. I built a special motor just for the event.”

During Saturday qualifying, Garlits’ Swamp Rat 22 ran a stunning 5.637-second pass at 250.69 mph, the first 250-mph pass in class history. Garlits backed up his 5.63 run with a 5.65 to make it an official NHRA national record, which was mind-boggling because it was more than a tenth and a half quicker than his own NHRA Top Fuel record of 5.784 seconds, set two years earlier at the same event. The record would stand of over six years.

As it worked out, Beck lost in the semis to Herm Peterson who in turn, lost to Garlits giving Garlits his first NHRA title.

When it came to the Don Garlits Museum of Drag Racing Don said, “We had a set amount in mind to spend so that we could relocate the museum from Tampa to somewhere more visible.” After a long fruitless search for a location off I75 Garlits adds, “Pat and I went back to our hotel and prayed. The next day, she saw a patch of land off the Belleview exit near Ocala. I walked the property and found a sign with a phone number. We went to the pay phone and called. Some woman named Shirley (no not that one) answered and told me her price which is exactly what we had budgeted.”

After the museum opened in 1984, NHRA Top Fuel is in the middle of a doldrum with low car count at national events. Drag racing pundits were predicting the end of Top Fuel. Enter Art Malone, longtime partner and friend who told Don to get back into racing. Malone told Garlits he had enough cars in the museum to pick one out and go racing. Garlits says, “Malone paid for a new motor, clutch, and parts so we could go to Indy. We won the race and later towed out west for the NHRA World Finals. The next year we got Super Shops, Dodge, and Kendall to sponsor the car, and we went racing.”

Garlits became the first driver to win back-to-back NHRA Top Fuel World Championships in 1985 and 86.

After Garlits’ famous crash at Englishtown in 1986 and a later crash in Spokane, Garlits’ Top Fuel career looked like it was over but stints as crew chief for his one time nemesis Shirley Muldowney and later as tuner and owner of the Bruce Larson piloted Swamp Rat 32 car kept Garlits in the mix. In 2004, at the age of 72, he took Swamp Rat 34 out of his museum a final time and drove it to a career best 323.04 mph.

Lately in addition to running the museum, Garlits, 92 years young, is on a quest to build the quickest and fastest electric dragster. What started as a Darrell Gwynn- Garlits match race evolved into Garlits, as usual in his career, shooting for the moon.

Once Garlits was done speaking to the crowd, the Simeone museum had a group of classic sports car running in the lot behind the main building.  One car that caught Garlits attention was a hemi powered Cunningham Roadster. Garlits was intrigued by the fact that such a small car could have such a big motor under the hood.