Run at Lions, Long Beach

Posted: March 1, 2009 
Filed under: 1965
Tagged: Hugh Tucker, Lions Dragstrip
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Description

At the 1964 Indy Nationals while I was driving for Mazmanian, I had Dick Gazan in the seat of the roadster and he won AA/SR. After I got bumped out of my Willys ride I got back in the roadster and we changed the roadster configuration which included removing the moon fuel tank which was mounted out in front and put a bigger tank in the rear for better weight distribution.

I also changed to a the full roll bar that is in the car today and had removable headrests that held some lead slugs that weighed about 36 pounds per headrest. The top foot of the roll bar was also filled with lead for a higher center of gravity and is still that way today.

That’s when the severe wheel stand problems started to happen, especially when the starting lines and tires started getting better. The speed fell off for no apparent reason and I tried going back to a front mounted gas tank a couple of times to see if there was a problem associated with fuel line length. That’s the test tank you see in the photo.