NHRA Museum 11 2009

This picture of Wild Willey Borsch is typical of him driving his fuel altered just about anywhere he went. These cars never went down the track straight and for good reason, they had such a short wheelbase with a huge amount of horsepower.

The car was called "The Winged Express" and would have to be my all time favorite AA/FA of all time. Willey also drove it with one hand because he said it was easier for him that way. With one hand on the wheel and the other holding the side of the T-bucket, he said that gave him more control when it got out of shape....which was pretty much every run.

Fuel Altereds were a crowd favorite because they were all over the track, which is why they were banned from California back in the 80's. The reason...they were to dangerous and for insurance reasons as well. I loved watching these cars run when they came out to Irwindale Raceway and Orange County International Raceway (OCIR) back in the 70's and early 80's.

You want a wild car with big horsepower, then here you go. This is 'TV' Tommy Ivo's car that has four 454 cubic inch engines and it's four wheel drive too (note the slicks front and rear). It puts out about 1720 horsepower and weighs in at 3,555 pounds. It was built by Tommy back in 1961 and ran 9.14 at over 170 mph.

The reason they called him 'TV' Tommy was because he's stared in a few movies and TV shows before he started racing.

Here is the view from the drivers seat. And what a nightmare of gages to keep up with. I can hear it now "let's see, what's the oil pressure on engine number three and the water temp on number two and four"? Yikes!!

There was even some plastic models of Tommy's cars on display.

These goggles of Tommy Ivo's were broken when his funny cars body broke apart and the windshield hit him in the face at Englishtown 1977. Now you can see why drivers wear full coverage helmets today.

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