Having shown that the rear-engine design works,
Big Daddy is now taking the next logical step beyond.
Don Garlits lives in a long, low, modern home nestled almost inconspicuously
among acres of well-tended lawn studded with palmettos, shrubs and trees. At
the end of the hundred-yard driveway leading to the house is a narrow, two-lane
country road that takes the traveler through Seffner, Mango and other almost
nonexistent little towns to nearby Tampa.
From the road, an unwary passerby would never see the large cinder-block
building not 20 paces from Garlits' home. Like the main house, it's concealed
by vegetation. The esthetic unpleasantness so often associated with cinder-block
buildings is effectively hidden, as is the size of the place. Inside there is
about as much room as in six or seven large gas station bays. The few people
that work in the building call it the Seffner Scientific Research Lab. They're
kidding, of course, but they're not far off the mark.
On just about any Monday of the year, a visitor to the Lab can watch
T.C. Lemmons, Garlits' infinitely capable and witty lieutenant, tearing down
the current campaign car. "Nobody, and I mean nobody, but me gets to look up
here," T.C. says while flat on his back under the digger's motor, unbolting
the rod caps. "Unless, of course," he adds with a laugh, "they want to get
down here on their backs and get as dirty as I am." But he's only half kidding.
Any outsider who dared to crawl under and try to look for Big Daddy's secrets
would probably be reminded of his place by a tap across the shins with a breaker
bar.
A few feet from where T.C. is applying his gentle ministrations is a
chassis jig. The long steel I-beam is almost walled off from the rest of the
shop by a lathe, a mill, a drill press and the assorted accoutrements of the
chassis-building craft. Within this steel ring is the domain of Connie Swingle.
An Oklahoman, the flashing-eyed, black-haired Swingle does not belie his Indian
ancestry. His approach to his work is methodical, artful and he strives for
perfection. Swingle's style accounts for beautiful race cars and more than a
few anxieties for Garlits. When the "old man" wants something, the demand is
for immediate results. Swingle won't let it go till he thinks it's right. Some
interesting combat is often the result.
In another part of the shop, Garlits' newest car is perched on saw horses
like a big, black creature from some long-gone era. Confined as it is within
narrow walls that are hung with supplies and tubing, it looks enormous.... even
fat. It's the fruition of a 15-year-old dream that Robert Johnson (henceforth
to be known by his more recognizable name, Jocko) has nourished.
Jocko has been around drag racing since the early Fifties. He's also
been porting heads about that long and, at one time, was very well known throughout
the sport. But in 1967, Jocko counted himself out. He discovered that exquisite
sculptures could be produced with the very same tools he used to port heads,
and he withdrew to the desert to pursue his newly discovered art. He still
whittled away at cast iron for Keith Black, but it was strictly business.
But in 1971, after Don Garlits did as much damage to long-cherished
ideas in drag racing as the earthquake did in Southern California (that happened
the day after Garlits won Pomona with his first back-motored car), Jocko got
the urge to get back into the fray. In 1959 he made as much of an impression
on drag racing as Garlits did in 1971. With a streamlined car that Jocko built
and designed, the legendary Jazzy Nelson turned an 8.35 while the rest of the
pack was running 8.70's. The engine was behind the driver in a short-wheelbase
chassis, and the entire package was enclosed in an aerodynamically efficient
fiberglass envelope.
Jocko's 1959 car was never to have the impact on drag racing that Garlits'
1971 car has had, however. Within weeks after running that famous 8.35, the
car was destroyed in an accident, Jocko started on a new car almost immediately,
but it was to take four years to finish. Other racers, never convinced by Jocko's
theories on streamlining even in the face of his 1959 success, went their own
way developing longer and stronger slingshots. Jocko's second car finally ran
in 1964, but it had changed greatly from his original concept. It started out
to be Chrysler powered, but wound up with a V-12 Allison and was very heavy.
He worked on it to the point of boredom, lost interest and abandoned it. Emery
Cook ran it for a couple of years as a tour attraction, and the car easily
turned 190 on gasoline, but it didn't change any minds.
Jocko's belief in the efficiacy of streamlining never wavered, however.
Even though he was no longer actively involved in racing, he would still expound
his theories to anyone who would listen. Basically, Jocko believes that with
an aerodynamically efficient design, a car can go faster, and quicker, with
the same horsepower than a car that is aerodynamically "dirty." Not a radical
thesis. But Jocko also believes that to take full advantage of the air, a
completely different, integrated design is needed. To simply enclose an ordinary
dragster won't get the job done.
The car must be shorter than those currently running (Garlits' 'liner
has a 136-inch wheelbase). The reason for this is to equalize, as near as possible,
the center of gravity and the center of pressure. The center of gravity is the
point where a car is statically balanced. If you were to hang a dragster from
a string, for instance, the CG would be the point where you would tie the string
to keep the car hanging exactly parallel to the ground. In a standard rear-engined
dragster this would probably be somewhere near the back of the motor. On a
wedge-shaped, streamlined body, the center of pressure is the point from which
the body would hang on a string exactly parallel to the ground, as the air rushed
over it. The longer the body, and the more gradual the incline of the wedge,
the farther forward the CG will be. If the two points are not on the same axis,
as in a long-wheelbase car, a basic instability occurs.
Jocko also feels that everything must be enclosed. "There are statistics
to prove that even small wheels cause a lot of drag. Like the wheels on an
airplane; they fold them up and gain 30 mph, even on the slowest planes." And,
Jocko thinks that the engine should be behind the driver.
After Garlits won Pomona in 1971, he went on to win the Bakersfield
meet. In a Drag News interview afterwards, he said that he would build
and sell chassis like his own in order to "help other guys share a safer and
better ride." Sitting in front of the motor gave Garlits new life. He was about
to retire, the slingshots having taken a terrible toll of his body. The new
design affected him like red corpuscles affect an anemic.
It also affected Jocko. One part of his design criteria, driver before
engine, was proven. He called Garlits and said, "You want to share your ride?
Well I've got something I want to share too." Jocko and Gar were old friends,
and Jocko filled the old man's newly opened mind with his ideas. Phone calls
flowed across the country, models were built, and an agreement was reached.
"If you build the body," Garlits said, "I'll put a frame and motor under it
and run it." That's how it started. Eventually, a formal agreement was written,
laying out the terms under which the car would be built. Garlits, having proven
the rear-engine theory, was looking for the next step. This seemed to be it.
Jocko began in November of 1971. At his studio in Laguna Beach, California,
he carved a full-size model of the body from a huge block of styrofoam. This
"plug" was given a coat of fiberglass and became the male mold for the 'liner.
A two-piece female mold was taken off the plug, strapped to a trailer and trucked
down to the lab in Seffner. By then it was already January 1972.
About a year earlier, Garlits had bought a farm next to his property.
It's about 50 acres and is populated by a herd of cows that wander about, unknowingly
fattening themselves up for the Garlits' table. A large Spanish-style house
nestles in a grove of trees in the middle of the farm. It was built in the
Twenties when workmanship was a source of pride, and it has the large, solid
feel of a mansion. Jocko, his son Benny and his two helpers, Steve Polak and
Bob "Crow" Ballestry, moved into the White House, as it's called locally, for
an extended stay.
After considerable difficulty in getting the proper quality aircraft
fiberglass, Jocko and his troops fell to work on the body and finished it in
April. Within the huge shell (240-inches long, 76-inches wide and 44-inches
high) is a matrix of fiberglass bulkheads that stiffen and support it when it's
mounted on the chassis, which Swingle had already started working on. There's
nothing trick about the chassis. It's as if you took a standard Garlits chassis
and chopped 79 inches off the front. It looks strange and stubby, but it's
essentially basic.
Then a decision was made that would delay the project, but add immeasurably
to the research data needed for the 'liner to work. It was felt by Garlits and
Jocko that a 2-speed transmission was essential. The streamliner is expected
to run nearly 280 mph. With a direct drive (engine coupled smack against the
rear) and existing tires, the motor would not be capable of turning the rpm
necessary to run that fast.
Rather than test so many concepts at one time in the streamliner (things
like the short wheelbase, the body, a 2-speed and some other untried ideas).
Garlits decided to build an "interim" car. By the time you read this it will
have been run. It is a standard Garlits dragster with two exceptions. The
wheelbase is 175 inches (as opposed to 215 on the car that ran 243 at Gainesville)
and it has a 2-speed transmission (which moves the engine forward about 10
inches). This car will have a standard dragster nose, but it will be considerably
shorter. If testing of the interim car is successful, the entire driveline,
500-inch engine, trans and rearend assembly, will be removed and plugged into
the 'liner frame.
The streamliner is essentially an inverted airfoil (just like a section
of an upside-down wing) with bumps for the front tires and the driver. Its
dimensions are dictated by the rear tires. The slicks, in their fully expanded
diameter at speed, are quite large and the seeming bulk of the 'liner is necessary
to enclose them. Weight of the body is roughly 250 pounds. However, Jocko feels
that the next one (the current car is basically a research vehicle) will weigh
around 150. In final trim, after testing, a competition version of the streamliner
should weigh around 1400 pounds.
Skeptics, and there are battalions of them in drag racing, don't think
the car will work. Their main objections are that the car is too short and won't
handle, that streamlining is not really necessary, and that the whole project
is absurd anyway. The rebuttals to these objections are: the wheelbase doesn't
make any difference (just look at the Funny Cars) and the aerodynamic shape
will aid stability immeasurably while exerting needed downforce on the rear
wheels (that's what those little wings are all about on ordinary dragsters,
and they work). Streamlining will allow the car to go faster and quicker because
valuable power will not be used to push air. That power can then be used to
propel the vehicle forward.
And as for the last objection, Don Garlits doesn't do anything absurd.
History has shown that the Swamp Rat usually has the last laugh.
