Chickenman is Dead

One of the best things about drag racing is that it hasn't got its head up its ****. To put it bluntly, it's not stuck up, and everyone is out to simply have a good time, except for those who are out to fulfil some secret destiny or meet some deep inner animal drive, but that lot are never any fun. This sort of fun approach has produced some uniquely colourful characters, and some uniquely . . . er, . . bizarre activities.

One of these original "characters" was a young Brisbane racer by the name of Rick Stapleton. Stapleton began racing a T-bucket with a 272 Ford Y-block for power in December 1968, under the name "Quarter Horse". It wasn't a startling performer, battling to get out of the 14s, though enjoying early success with a Gas Eliminator win in February 1969 at his home track of Surfers Paradise.

After struggling his way to a best of 13.96 at 95 mph [153 kmh] Stapleton decided it was time to up the act, so he switched from the trusty but lethargic old Ford to a 409 Chev in March 1970. The change didn't achieve immediate results, and in fact for the next six months the car fought its way down track, coughing and banging, until the 1970 Nationals, when a Sydney racer who was in town and who'd watched the car go down the track wandered over and took a look at the car, then informed Stapleton that it would go much quicker if he removed the plug leads from their Ford order and set them up in the Chevy firing order.

Anyway, in January 1972 Stapleton debuted the engine in a Triumph Herald for A/Gas racing, but even though mid-12s were not out of the ballpark for such a class at the time the car failed to garner Stapleton the attention he craved, quite apart from the fact that the car handled like a pig and was, according to a report at the time, "incredibly ugly".

One day he dropped into Michael's Motors, one of the hangouts for the performance car crowd in Brisbane at the time. They had the first chassis dyno in Brisbane and tuned all the big hangers of the day. There he got into a conversation with racers Mike Simmonds and Dennis Syrmis, who worked at Michael's.

Simmonds suggested, "Why don't you do something outrageous if you want to get people's attention?" "Like what?" Stapleton asked. "Oh, I don't know," said Simmonds flippantly throwing away a glib answer: "Why don't you stick feathers all over your car or something."

Everyone had a bit of a giggle, and two out of three of the group forgot it. The next day Stapleton was back: "I've done it," he said with pride. "Done what?" he was asked. "Stuck feathers on my car," chimed in Stapleton, to the disbelief of his audience.

And true to his word, Stapleton appeared the following race meeting, in March 1972, with his Triumph sporting many thousands of feathers. He'd purchased a 44-gallon drum full of chicken pluckings, sprayed on a coat of clear lacquer and then dumped all the feathers over the car while it was still wet, gluing them to the car.

According to a report at the time the car was "something akin to a pregnant duck in appearance", and with a plucked rooster mascot on the roof proceeded, with driver Kerry Stapleton, Rick's brother, at the wheel to qualify third for Gas Eliminator on six of its eight cylinders before losing in round two after roosting too long on the start line.

He instantly became known as "Chickenman", and began a rapid process of pissing off all the other racers, who got sick of dealing with the layer of feathers that were all over the track after each pass. Traction wasn't a big issue in 1972, but it still - and they did - got up your nose after a while.

The track management were wet blankets, too, when they refused to permit Chickenman to do a feather burnout, because they didn't want the job of cleaning up the mess.

But then, even the feathers began to wear thin, so Sta . . . er, "Chickenman" went to the next logical step, of equipping his steed with an egg. He covered a football with silver foil, and as his car left the line he pulled a cable release, causing the boot to open and out would pop the "egg".

It was certainly a "unique" act, in fact it was, as Monty Burns would say, "eggselent". So much so, in fact, that the SPID management used footage of the chickencar in their television ads for some time.

There comes a time in all young men's lives when they realise they've pushed the envelope or some endeavour as far as it will go, and from there you can't come back. After achieving a best of 12.50 at 106 mph [171] Stapleton pulled the pin and quit after his final appearance, in July 1972.

When the car was being sold, it was with "a year's supply of free feathers". Chickenman is dead, long live the legend.