Don Garlits
Pioneer of rear-engine Top Fuel dragsters and drag racing legend.
via Wikipedia: Don Garlits · see source
Donald Glenn Garlits, born January 14, 1932, in Tampa, Florida, is an American race car driver and automotive engineer. Known as "Big Daddy" to drag racing fans, he is considered the godfather of drag racing. A pioneer in the field, he perfected the rear-engine Top Fuel dragster after losing part of his foot in a 1970 accident. That design placed the driver ahead of nearly all mechanical components, making it notably safer and allowing the driver to activate safety equipment in a fire or catastrophic failure. Garlits was also an early promoter of the full-body, fire-resistant Nomex driving suit, complete with socks, gloves, and balaclava.
Quick Facts
- Full name
- Donald Glenn Garlits
- Born
- 14 January 1932
- Birthplace
- Tampa, Florida, U.S.
- Retired
- 2003
- Titles
- NHRA Top Fuel Champion
- Title years
- 1975, 1985, 1986
- Award years
- 1989
Facts from the source article.
Career
Garlits built his first drag race car in 1954 under an oak tree at his home in North Tampa, using an arc welder and a cutting torch to modify a 1927 Ford Model T Roadster. He added a 1948 Mercury engine block, a 1939 Ford floor shift transmission, and a 1948 Ford differential and axle. That early T-Bucket ran the quarter mile in 13.5 seconds at 93 mph. He then cut off the body panels, moved the engine back, and installed the seat behind the drive axle, creating the legendary slingshot dragster. With it, he won his first NHRA race, the Safety Safari in Lake City, Florida, with a 12.1-second, 108 mph run. Three years later, he became a professional drag racer. Originally from Florida, he was sometimes called the Floridian before permanently adopting the nickname "Swamp Rat," which also became the name for each new generation of his dragster designs. In 1959, he traveled to Bakersfield, California, for the US Fuel and Gas Championships (later the March Meet) to prove his times matched those of west coast racers; over 30,000 people attended, the largest drag race crowd to that point. In 1964, after winning the U.S. Nationals at Indianapolis, he went to England with TV Tommy Ivo, Tony Nancy, Dante Duce, and other racers for the first International Drag Festival, a six-event series that promoted drag racing in the UK. On March 8, 1970, at Lions Drag Strip, Garlits was driving Swamp Rat XIII when the two-speed transmission he was developing exploded, taking a piece out of his right foot and cutting the car in half. He said, "In 1970, the transmission exploded in my dragster on the final run, and it cut my foot off and cut the car in two. That's when I drew up plans for what I thought would be a championship rear-engine car." He returned in 1971 with Swamp Rat XIV, a mid-engined, front-cockpit rail. Though he lost his first outing with it, he won two of his next three Top Fuel Eliminator titles that year. Rear-engine dragsters have since become mainstream. Garlits was the first drag racer to officially surpass the 170, 180, 200, 240, 250, and 270 mph marks in the quarter mile, and the first to top 200 mph in the 1/8 mile. He won 144 national events and 17 championships: ten AHRA, four IHRA, and three NHRA. He was 54 when he won his last. On October 20, 1987, his dragster Swamp Rat XXX was enshrined in the National Museum of American History at the Smithsonian. After a blowover crash in 1987 at the AHRA World Finals, he temporarily retired and became a color commentator for NHRA telecasts on TNN and NBC from 1988 through 1991. He came out of retirement in December 1991 but retired again before the end of the 1992 season due to a detached retina from parachute deceleration. He resumed briefly in 1998 and again in 2003. His last qualifying race was in May 2003 at the NHRA Southern Nationals in Atlanta, where at age 71 he qualified 16th with a personal best 4.788 seconds at 319.98 mph. He had reached 323.04 mph earlier that year at the Gatornationals. He lost in the first round with a 0.064 reaction time, a personal best 4.737 elapsed time, and 307.44 mph. Garlits operates the Don Garlits Museum of Drag Racing on his home grounds in Ocala, Florida. In the wake of Scott Kalitta's fatal crash in June 2008, Garlits declared he was "100 percent in favor" of NHRA's decision to trim the race distance for Top Fuel and Funny Car from a quarter-mile to 1,000 feet. He also supported a ban on rev limiters and a return to a 70/30 nitromethane-to-methanol ratio to reduce dangerous conditions without eliminating 300 mph races.
Awards
Garlits has been inducted into several Halls of Fame and has won many awards during his career. His Swamp Rat XXX was enshrined in the National Museum of American History, a branch of the Smithsonian, on October 20, 1987.
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