AUTOS CARS CUSTOM

the car he raced was this rear engined Barracuda, one of only 2 rear engined funny cars racing in 1974



his ordinary job for 47 weeks a year was as a firefighter


the movie covers the drag strips in So Cal mostly, but also Oklahoma and Utah


and I've no idea why the races at El Mirage and Bonneville are in the movie, or even if they are from 1974




Carl and Veda Orr!



and no shit, they lit the back tire on fire to race bicycles with small chutes that were pulled in a parking lot race

Von Dutch pinstriping on the back?


In the credits it lists San Fernando as the dragstrip they filmed at

the movie plot is about the girl in the T Bird, far side of the track in the above photo

I can't recommend the movie, it's so over the top force feeding the anti street racing propaganda it's actually disgusting. 

Photos from http://402m.com.br/ which will need a translation program like Google Chrome it's worth the read though, unless you already know the story. 

 I got all these photos from trackside, without using any press pass to get on the track. That is how awesomely close you are to the action at LVMS

Thanks to Damian of http://capitaldiecastgarage.blogspot.com and http://onfourwheels.blogspot.com via http://www.redlinederby.com/community/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=676

is  the Houston International Raceway 1958 / Redline Derby Racing

 and here are a couple close ups
 And the same artist did the set work of Don Rickles' character's bar
 below photo has a couple cool dragsters on the wall behind the musician's stage
the above C&T Automotive slingshot has a word painted just above the parachute, "Britannia" but it only appears on the car half the time this dragster is on screen



 Tommy Ivo's famous "Showboat" , in the below video, which has the movie clip of it running down the track, Tommy explains how he engineered the 4 engines to work simultaneously


Don Rickles in the red jumpsuit, his character runs the dragstrip and owns the bar "Big Drag's Pit Stop" at the beginning of this post
 There were about 10 sligshot dragsters on the movie set, the Manta Ray, and the Show Boat
  Pontiac Tempest or Bonneville wagon for a team push car, way cool rims
And they even went so nuts as to include a guy in a chimp suit thoughout the entire movie, and even had it drive a Harley Davidson Topper scooter, http://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2009/06/how-did-harley-owners-ever-reinvent.html but with a sidecar... I've never seen a Topper with a sidecar... quite kooky