Sammy Miller
The legendary rocket drag racer Sammy Miller raced Fuel Dragsters and Funny Cars before switching to rockets in 1974. Tony Fox, the owner of Pollution Packer asked Sammy to test in the winter of 1974-75. On only his second pass he hit 348 mph which officials refused to announce. After driving others’ rockets in 1975 he built the Spirit of ’76 Mustang, which was the first Rocket Funny Car and which ran quickly enough to cause consternation to the NHRA establishment following previous fatalities. At that time rocket cars were given strict elapsed time and speed limits, which the drivers routinely ignored. Track announcers would always announce the allowed times and speeds, not the actual times on the scoreboard. By the late 1970s Sammy was looking for other places to run.
Sammy’s second Rocket FC was the first Vanishing Point, a Vega-bodied car. It was with this car that he made his UK début in 1978 where he quickly made his mark running 4.40/290. Sammy recorded the first ever three-second pass in Florida in 1979, a 3.94, and his first 300 mph plus run in Europe was at Santa Pod in July 1979 at 307.6 mph. Europe became the beneficiary of the NHRA clampdown on rocket-propelled vehicles and Santa Pod in particular took him to their collective heart.
Following an incident at the 1979 Fireworks meet resulting in Vanishing Pointflipping in the dark at 234 mph, Sammy rebuilt it to run in 1980. In 1981 the Oxygen Rocket Dragster made its début and Sammy arranged the first ever rocket races, which were against Al Eierdam and which were also contested at Santa Pod. Sammy’s quickest time was in 1984 when he recorded a pass of 3.58 at Santa Pod Raceway which still stands as the absolute drag strip …
The Page Family
The Page Brothers Clive, David and Gary began their drag racing career as crew members on Wild Bill Weichelt’s DosPalmos / Asmodeus dragster in the late 1960s. Having decided shortly afterwards to buy their own car they were narrowly beaten in a bid to purchase Freddie Whittles first Shutdown altered. Instead they ended up with the ex-Mark Stratton Hustler BSA pickup (for £250) which they re-christened Panic after the famous Stateside Fuel Altered. It ran a best of 11.78/120. Although Clive, Dave and Gary formed the nucleus of the team it was very much a family affair with mother Iris and sisters Janice and Carol all playing an active part, Iris also helping in the administration of the National Drag Racing Club.
In early 1972 they decided to build a completely new car. The new Panicaltered featured a Roland Pratt chassis with a JWR 427 ci Rat motor and Fibreglass Applications Topolino body. Dave won several Senior Altered titles and took the car to its first nine-second clocking in October 1973. After switching to a Model T Body Dave won the first event in the new Pro Comp class in 1975 and after a switch to injectors that year the car ran a new Senior Comp record of 9.17.
Clive drove in a few meetings in 1975 and younger brother Gary started racing in 1976 having instant success by winning the Senior Comp title on both days’ eliminations at the legendary 10th Anniversary Spring Nationals. In 1978 a blower was fitted and the wins became regular. The first seven-second run came in August 1978 and by Spring 1979 the altered was running 7.1s. Panic was now officially the quickest ever British Pro Comp car and the quickest British Altered; it was also only three tenths of a second off …
The Read Family
Team Readspeed started in 1972 with Jim Read’s first foray into the world of drag racing, in a slingshot dragster called Auto Frog. Jim used to live on Frog Island, hence the name of the car. It wasn’t really an island, but the site of the family sawmill, Jim being a tree surgeon. Many of the visiting racers from Scandinavia used to stay or leave their trailers there between meetings and spend time chilling out with Jim and his family.
Glen Read’s Production class Volvo from 1972 became a 1780cc Volvo powered slingshot dragster The Graduate in the next year. But in 1975 the team stepped up into the new Pro Comp class by acquiring the former Priddle-Riswick-Gane-Stanford slingshot and renaming it Le Patron, reflecting his funding of the team. He broke into the sevens in Easter 1976 and raced at Mantorp Parkfor the first time in May 1977. Meanwhile son Steve Read had got a taste for driving and made his debut in Le Patron at the Silver Jubilee 1977 Big Go event, winning the event. A new rear-engined car built by Dennis Priddle made its first unpainted appearance at the 1978 Spring Bank Holiday Big Go and got into the sevens at its début meeting, raced at Mantorp Park the following May and won the 1979 Big Go and October Winternationals as well as making racing appearances at Snetterton and York.
The start of 1980 saw the Le Patron car run into the 7.1s and at the Firework meeting ran its first six, a 6.86/202. In 1981 Steve Read had another chance to race at the Easter Meeting – and lost in the first round to Jim. Later that season the team travelled to the Circuit Paul Ricard in France and in 1982 made a return …
Brian Johnson
Brian Johnson started competing in 1978 when he and wife Ann bought a 750 cc single cam Honda. They painted it, tuned it, fitted 40DCOE Weber Carbs, and chromed this and that. Then a friend, Jon Morton, said “Why don’t you try it at Blackbushe to see how fast it really is?”. Brian came third in Street Bike and was hooked.
From there Brian moved on to riding a Pro Stock bike. He ran a MTC Kawasaki in Pro Street in the late 1970s with wins at the Whitsun Big Go in 1979 and also at the 1980 August Bank Holiday Supernationals with a series of 9.2s, the quickest ET for a Pro Stock motorcycle in Europe at that stage. With that bike (the first Imperial Wizard) Brian made the first eight-second Pro Stock Bike pass in Europe – 8.98/150.3 – at Easter 1981. Brian went on to win three Championships in Pro Stock before moving on to Top Fuel.
With his first Top Fuel machine Brian set records and won races all over Europe. He then took that bike to the USA. Working with Motorcycles Unlimited he won his first US race. He then went to work with constructors Race Visions based in Buffalo NY and with their support he won the 1984 number one plate. After coming back to the UK he modified the bike by turning the head around and making things to suit the Yamaha 16v head. The chassis, by then, was in need of replacement, and Race Visions built a replacement in 1989/90.
The début of Brian’s new Imperial Wizard Yamaha in 1990 saw the tuning of the nitro burner being aided by Chris McGhee who helped Brian develop the fuel system on the bike with huge gains in performance over a short period. …
Alan Wigmore
To talk about Alan Wigmore is to talk about the National Drag Racing Club.
In the late 1960s, a year or two after the formation of the British Drag Racing and Hot Rod Association, the original club at Santa Pod, a group of racers and marshals began to worry about the direction which the club seemed to be taking at the time. The sort of thing desired was not radical – better marshalling facilities, more transparency about club finances, a shorter period of office for officials and better PR for the sport. They formed a club within the BDR&HRA called the Drag Control & Timing Association. Following a series of meetings of the fifty-strong group at unusual locations such as the Jones Paper Mill in St Neots the group had made a tentative approach to the RAC to ask to gain racing recognition. While this was being granted, the group tried to air their grievances at the 1969 BDR & HRA Annual General Meeting but failed to elicit change and on 24 October 1969 the NDRC was formed with Alan Wigmore as Chairman. It became an independent organisation after the hundred members braved heavy snows and a flu epidemic to attend a meeting at the Matrix works in Coventry.
The first big challenge to the NDRC came when the RAC as governing body of British motorsport announced they were no longer allowing the word National in club titles. This came just as the NDRC had taken delivery of its letterhead and signage at a cost of £200. Although the Club appealed and won a dispensation to call itself National it had to commit itself to be a truly national club and run meetings at as many venues around the country as possible. After a couple of meetings at Santa Pod …