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Garlits? Who? Oh, you're talking about Big Daddy

The Tampa-born hot rod legend is famous for revolutionizing the sport and inspiring that famous nickname.

By BRUCE LOWITT

© St. Petersburg Times, published March 15, 2001

OCALA -- As the lights went from yellow to green, Don Garlits stomped on the accelerator and popped the clutch. The transmission, nestled between his feet, exploded. A cloud of oil, fiery and sooty, enveloped him.

"The first thing I noticed was that everything went black, but I wasn't unconscious," Garlits said. "The next thing, the cage was tumbling and tumbling; I was afraid I was down the track and was going to hit the stands.

"Then the crew showed up. It didn't make sense to me. How could they get to me that quick? I realized I hadn't gone anywhere. I was still at the starting line.

"Then I noticed half my right foot was sliced off."

It was March 8, 1970, 5:30 p.m. PST, a championship drag race at Long Beach, Calif. Big Daddy Don Garlits -- his nickname spread his fame more than any record he set -- was 38, racing against drivers not much more than half his age.

He survived the explosion. If he was going to quit, this was the time to do it.

"I thought surely that was it," said the former Patricia Bieger, who married Garlits in 1953 and helps run the Museum of Drag Racing he opened in Ocala in 1984. "It was a trauma for the family to go through every time he had an accident and wound up in the hospital."

But that wasn't it. Instead, Garlits spent his time in the hospital designing and refining one of the most significant changes in the National Hot Rod Association's 50 years, the rear-engine dragster.

"I'd seen rear-engine cars at Indianapolis doing real good," he said. "They negotiated through traffic. If they could do that, why couldn't we go in a straight line? It didn't make any sense."

Rear-engine dragsters had been around for years, but with little success and lots of crashes. When Garlits got out of the hospital, he got back in the driver's seat.

"He had worked so hard trying to perfect a rear-engine car," Patricia said. "And there was a purpose behind it. Guys were getting hurt, burned by oil in their faces. Some of them were killed in those front-engine race cars. It couldn't go on like that. ... I accepted the fact that he wasn't going to give it up. I thought, 'If he's going to work this hard and it could save lives, it's so worth it.' And it was."

His success was instrumental in pushing drag racing into the national consciousness. The NHRA, the sport's biggest and most influential sanctioning body, is celebrating its golden anniversary. The 32nd annual Gatornationals in Gainesville, the year's first and biggest drag racing event on the East Coast, begins today.

Dry lake beds

Drag racing was born in California in the 1930s, on dry lake beds where drivers in their souped-up street cars challenged each other.

Wally Parks was an Oklahoma teenager in the 1920s when the family moved west. As he passed into his 20s, he attended a dry-lake run. Parks was hooked. In 1937 he helped found the Rod Runners Club; 10 years later he helped organize the Southern California Timing Association. Within a few years, drivers were running against the clock instead of each other, quicker acceleration becoming more important than simply going faster.

The first drag strip was at Muroc Army Air Field in California; the first race the Santa Ana Drags in 1950. By then, Parks was editor of Hot Rod, a monthly magazine. It became his forum for the founding in 1951 of the NHRA. He was its first president.

Its first official race was run in April 1953 in a portion of the parking lot at the Los Angeles County Fairgrounds in Pomona, Calif. It evolved into the Pomona Raceway, site of the NHRA's first and last races of the season, the Winternationals and the NHRA Finals.

Roads to nowhere

"I never thought the sport would reach any type of plateau where it would be recognized the way it has been," said Garlits, seated in his office at the museum, a huge collection of cars, trucks and memorabilia in cavernous buildings at Exit 67 on Interstate 75.

"It was just a deal about young fellows souping up their cars and driving them back and forth to work and then taking them to the drag races on Sunday, steppin' on (the accelerator) as hard as they wanted, squealing the tires and nobody giving you a ticket."

Garlits was born in Tampa and raised in Seffner. Despite graduating in 1950 from Hillsborough High with a degree in accounting, all he ever wanted to do was work on cars.

"My dream was that we'd have our own shop," he said. "That was common back then: one mechanic and the kids or an assistant helping, the wife answering phones and writing out invoices and keeping track of the bills."

He was 17 when he got his first car, a 1940 Ford two-door sedan. He drove it to Hillsborough High and back. The next year he traded it in for another 1940 Ford, this one a convertible. It was for more than just transportation. He smeared a No. 1 on the sides with shoe polish and, on the sly, raced it in Zephyrhills.

"One day I noticed he had this number on his car door," said Big Daddy's mother, Helen, 90, who moved to Ocala from Tampa when her husband, Frank, died about three years ago. "I said, 'What is that?' and he just looked at me and smiled and I said, 'You're racing,' and he said, 'Well ... ' and I said, 'Get that number off that car and no more racing.'

"He took it off, but he kept racing."

He was 21 when he got his first real race car, a 1936 Ford coupe.

"The lady next door bumped a tree and her daughter told her she couldn't see good enough to drive anymore," Garlits said. "She came right straight over and asked me if I wanted to buy the car. I gave her $50 for it." He removed the fenders, hood and grille, gutted the inside to reduce the weight, and put in a hot rod motor.

Florida's land boom that began and ended in the 1920s indirectly helped increase drag racing's popularity a generation later.

In St. Petersburg and Tampa, drivers ran on roads that went nowhere, built during the boom to reach housing developments that never got built. Forty-ninth Street was one. It was one way out of St. Petersburg. Eventually the houses ended, but 49th kept on going until it ended in a field. Hillsborough Avenue in Tampa was another road to nowhere. So was Bearss Avenue.

"What we'd do," Garlits said, "was we'd bring a car back and we'd race. And the police would come and help us; they'd put a blinking light up to warn people. And then some idiot crashed his car and got hurt and that was the end of it."

In 1956, Garlits opened Don's Garage in rented space on Nebraska Avenue. A few years later, with the winnings from a series of California races, they bought their own place at 12200 Nebraska. By the '60s he was racing every week and getting paid well for it.

His fame was growing, but a throwaway line by a track announcer spread Don Garlits' name beyond the confines of the quarter-mile.

His wife and daughters Gay Lyn and Donna were with him at the 1962 U.S. Nationals in Indianapolis. "I was 30 and the other guys, they were calling me 'Daddy Garlits.' They were laughing, saying, 'He's over the hill.' Then I made a really good run, 181 mph, set a certified world record. The announcer had been talking about Daddy Garlits, and he blurts out, 'Well, I guess we're going to have to call him Big Daddy now.'

"Best thing ever happened to me. There's a lot of people who know Big Daddy and never heard of Don Garlits."

32nd annual Gatornationals

WHAT: Second event of the NHRA season.

WHEN/WHERE: Today-Sunday; Gainesville Raceway, 11211 N County Road 225.

INFORMATION: 1-800-884-6472.

Don Garlits Museum of Drag Racing

WHERE: 13700 SW 16th Ave., Ocala. Take Exit 67 (CR 484) on I-75.

HOURS: 9 a.m.-5 p.m. (closed Christmas).

TICKETS: Adults $12, seniors (55 and over) and students (13-18) $10, children (5-12) $3.

INFORMATION: (352) 245-8661 or www.garlits.com.

Drag racing's top 10 drivers

1. JOHN FORCE: Winningest drag racer of all time with 93 victories; won every Funny Car championship in the 1990s except for '92; 10-time champion and going for his 11th; in 1996 became the only drag racer named Driver of the Year (including NASCAR, Indy car, Formula One, etc.).

2. "BIG DADDY" DON GARLITS: Revolutionized the sport when he designed the first rear-engine drag racer; won 35 national events and three Top Fuel championships.

3. DON "SNAKE" PRUDHOMME: Four Funny Car championships in the 1970s, responsible for innovative sponsoring and marketing programs (Hot Wheels) that expanded drag racing's popularity.

4. SHIRLEY MULDOWNEY: The first female licensed in Top Fuel, and first female Top Fuel champion; won three Top Fuel titles. Her nickname is "Cha-Cha," and she hates it.

5. KENNY BERNSTEIN: Four Funny Car championships and one Top Fuel championship; only driver to win titles in both categories.

6. JOE AMATO: Winningest Top Fuel driver with 52 victories; most Top Fuel championships with five; only driver to win three consecutive Top Fuel championships, 1990-92.

7. BOB GLIDDEN: Winningest Pro Stock driver with 10 championships; second-winningest driver with 85 victories.

8. RAYMOND BEADLE: Three Funny Car championships; brought showmanship to the sport.

9. EDDIE HILL: The first to be clocked in under 5 seconds; won the 1993 Top Fuel championship; won Gatornationals in 1988, '92, '93.

10 (TIE). WARREN JOHNSON: Five-time Pro Stock champion, third on all-time NHRA winning list with 83 victories.

LEE SHEPHERD: A leading Pro Stock driver with four consecutive championships (1981-84) before he was killed in testing before the 1985 season.

-- BRUCE LOWITT

Comparing the hot rods

The NHRA sanctions competition in five main classifications:

TOP FUEL: The premier class. Evolved from modern-era gas-powered dragsters whose bodies were removed and insides gutted to reduce weight. Now they look like needle-shaped cars with bicycle wheels on the front (they're not really) and enormous rear wheels. Wheelbase: 180-300 inches. Power: A 500-cubic inch V8 (hemi) engine. Fuel: A mixture of nitro-methane. Horsepower: 6,000 and higher. Quarter-mile records: 4.48 seconds; 326.91 mph.

FUNNY CAR: So called because their carbon-fiber bodies are funny-looking replicas of street cars. Basically a short-wheelbased Top Fuel car with the same engines and fuel as Top Fuel. The short wheelbase (maximum 125 inches) and less downforce make it a lot tougher to drive the Funny Car in a straight line. Records: 4.78 seconds; 324.05 mph.

PRO STOCK: Designed to look like a showroom version of a Pontiac Grand Am, Chevrolet Cavalier, Dodge Neon or Ford Mustang. Has functional doors and a huge scoop on the hood. The body must be an approved late model not older than five years. Engine: 500cc V8 with sheet-metal manifold and four-barrel carburetors. Horsepower: 1,250. Record: 6.809 seconds; 202.36 mph.

PRO STOCK MOTORCYCLE: Showroom models in looks and gas-burning engines. Open to bikes from 1993 or later. Wheelbase: 70 inches. Horsepower: 300. Record: 7.138 seconds; 191.48.

PRO STOCK TRUCK: Fiberglass and carbon-fiber body that looks like showroom version of a midsize pickup: Chevy S10, Dodge Dakota, Ford Ranger, GMC Sonoma. Gas-powered 358cc V8 with sheet-metal manifold and four-barrel carburetors. Horsepower: 900. Record: 7.428 seconds; 180.69 mph.

NOTES: Time and speed records are not necessarily set simultaneously. Acceleration at the start often determines the winner. Which vehicle crosses the finish line first is more important than which is going faster when it gets there. Initially there was only one category, Top Eliminator. It encompassed every type of car. In 1963-64, Top Eliminator evolved into Top Fuel. The Pro Stock (first Top Stock, then Super Stock) was created in 1969-70. The Funny Car, basically a combination Top Eliminator and radical Super Stock, emerged in 1967-68. -- Source: NHRA

Winston Cup

WHAT: Carolina Dodge Dealers 400.

WHEN/WHERE/TV: Saturday, qualifying (10:30 a.m., Fox Sports Net); Sunday, race (1 p.m., Ch. 13); Darlington, S.C.

2000 WINNER: Ward Burton.

FAST FACTS: Dale Earnhardt set the race record of 139.958 mph in 1993. Earnhardt won nine of his 76 Winston Cup races at Darlington. David Pearson, with 10, is the only driver with more Darlington trophies. ... Bill Elliott, driving a Dodge this season, leads active drivers with five poles at Darlington. ... The race has been won from the pole 19 times, the most of any starting position. ... Only 10 of the 95 Winston Cup races at Darlington have been won from a starting position outside the top 10.

POINTS STANDINGS: 1. Jeff Gordon, 613; 2. Dale Jarrett, 576; 3. Johnny Benson, 540; 4. Sterling Marlin, 531; 5. Michael Waltrip, 509; 6. Elliott, 495; 7. Jerry Nadeau, 478; 8. Rusty Wallace, 472; 9. Ricky Rudd, 467; 10. Ken Schrader, 461.

Busch Grand National

WHAT: Suncom 200.

WHEN/WHERE/TV: Friday, qualifying (FX, 1 p.m.); Saturday, race (1 p.m., FX); Darlington, S.C.

2000 WINNER: Mark Martin.

FAST FACTS: Martin, who retired from the series after last season, leads drivers with seven wins at the track. ... Greg Biffle has led at least one lap in all four races this season.

POINTS STANDINGS: 1. Jeff Green, 627; 2. Biffle, 622; 3. Kevin Harvick, 609; 4. Jason Keller, 596; 5. Todd Bodine, 579; 6. Jimmie Johnson, 543; 7. Mike McLaughlin, 539; 8. Jeff Purvis, 506; 9. Kenny Wallace, 499; 10. Chad Little, 489.

Craftsman Trucks

WHAT: Chevy Silverado 150.

WHEN/WHERE/TV: Friday, qualifying, 6 p.m.; Saturday, race (8 p.m., ESPN); Bakersfield, Calif.

2000 WINNER: Joe Ruttman.

FAST FACT: Ruttman won the season-opening Florida Dodge Dealers 250 in Daytona.

POINTS STANDINGS: 1. Scott Riggs, 335; 2. Ricky Hendrick, 330; 3. Ruttman, 328; 4. Randy Tolsma, 310; 5. Jack Sprague, 302; 6. Terry Cook, 289; 7. Ted Musgrave, 287; 8. Rick Crawford, 286; 9. Lance Norick, 284; 10. Coy Gibbs, 276.

Formula One

WHAT: Malaysian Grand Prix.

WHEN/WHERE/TV: Friday, qualifying, (midnight, Speedvision); Sunday, race, (1:30 a.m., Speedvision); Kuala Lumpur.

2000 WINNER: Michael Schumacher.

FAST FACTS: With Schumacher's win in Australia, he tied the modern-era record of five straight victories held by Nigel Mansel. ... The race was the final event last year. ... Schumacher needs six victories to match Alain Prost's record of 51.

POINTS STANDINGS: 1. Schumacher, 10; 2. David Coulthard, 6; 3. Rubens Barrichello, 4; 4. Olivier Panis, 3; 5. Nick Heidfeld, 2; 6. Heinz-Harald Frentzen, 1.

Indy Racing League

WHAT: Pennzoil Copper World 200.

WHEN/WHERE/TV: Saturday, qualifying, 3 p.m. (4:30 p.m., ESPN2, taped); Sunday, race (4 p.m., Ch. 28); Avondale, Ariz.

2000 WINNER: Buddy Lazier.

FAST FACTS: This is the first race of the season. ... This is the sixth year the IRL has raced at Phoenix. There has not been a repeat winner. ... Lazier won the season title last year by 18 points over Scott Goodyear. ... No driver has repeated as series champion. ... Davey Hamilton is the only driver to compete in every IRL race.

Cart

UP NEXT: Toyota Grand Prix, April 8, Long Beach, Calif.

POINTS STANDINGS: 1. Cristiano da Matta, 21; 2. Gil de Ferran, 16; 3. Paul Tracy, 14; 4. Michael Andretti, 12; 5. Kenny Brack, 11; 6. Jimmy Vasser, 8; 7. Tony Kanaan, 6; 8. Helio Castroneves, 5; 9. Dario Franchitti, 4; 10. Tora Takagi, 3.

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