Hi Bob ! About five or six years ago, not sure which, Tony
Nancy was our honored guest at the annual Charlestown ( RI ) Dragway
reunion, back when it was still held in Warren, RI, along with the
beautifully restored "29 jr" bright red drag roadster with the blown
flathead ..... the very car that brought him much fame as a great
builder and driver before he went on to his dragsters. I was very
fortunate to get a chance to talk at length with him about his cars
and drag racing on both coasts, as I had been in SoCal from '56 to
'58.
Tony and all his drag cars always impressed me as Class Acts that
stood out from the crowd, as did those of the Chrisman boys, Art & Lloyd,
and uncle Jack, too. I think Tony went to England, as did Garlits and TV
Tommy Ivo,and Dante Deuce, back in the early or mid 60s to spread the
word about organized dragging "done the right way". Tony was really one
of drag racing's all-time innovators and stars, and a hero of mine from way
back then ........
You mentioned "Nasty" at York Dragway in PA. We went to York a
few times in the 60s to race my friend Steve's AA / Altered, Willy
Strickland's then"B" class dragster, and Duaine( yes, with an i in it
)Perkins' flathead C/ Roadster that took its class at the Detroit
Nationals in 1960. I also got a number of good pics of Nasty, a great
looking rear engined blown Chrysler fueler with a streamlined body, as
you mentioned. I was just foolish enough to take a picture of it as
it thundered off the line, from about 20 feet directly behind it, and
the nitro exhaust and burnt rubber really taught me a lesson about
being so close in to those type cars, as it was possible to do at many
strips in those days ! I had no idea that Tony Nancy had anything at
all to do with the Nasty fueler .... I know he did build and drive the
famous "Wedge" Plymouth powered digger .... a quite memorable car .I
do not know if the Coleman Brothers, from Maryland I believe, had
anything to do with Nasty or its' construction ..... I think possibly
JoiseyDevil John Burk would know something about that. We were New
Englanders, out of our regular racing area when at Atco, Vineland,
Westhampton,L I, Great Meadows,NJ or York, where the super stocks
sometimes ran four at a time !
We match raced the blown Chrysler hemi roadster at all these strips.
Another great digger from that area, and that era ..... do you remember
Dick Belfatti in The Shadow fuel rail ? Rubber on the strip, after the smoke
had cleared, looked like it went clear into the timing lights !!!
What an era of Dragging ! ..... and that whole southern Jersey and Long
Island scene was a real hotbed of hard charging cars in all classes !
Thanks for bringing up a few of many memories of those bygone days .....
Old Guy Bruce reminiscing again
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