KARAMESINES TAKES PART IN FIRST CACKLEFEST
Legendary Top Fuel racer and pioneer Chris "the Golden Greek" Karamasines of Chicago had a special experience at the recent NHRA/Wally Parks Museum Reunion at Beech Bend Raceway Park in Bowling Green, KY, when he debuted his recently-restored "Chizler" dragster to a capacity Cacklefest crowd.
His silver and black dragster was recently restored after 40 years, and Karamesines was the only racer, other than the great Don "Big Daddy" Garlits, allowed to crank up the car after a rolling start and put it on the Beech Bend starting line. Periodic rains prevented the two dozen or so other dragsters, altereds, Funny Cars and gas coupes from firing off and rolling to position on the track's quarter mile.
"This is great," the Greek, now 74, said to a standing-room ovation. His "Chizler" made drag racing history as the first car to break the 200-mph barrier, recording a 204-mph charge at a track in Alton, IL, back when the Greek was just a youngster. (Dale Wilson photo) [6-20-2006]
AREND WILL BE A MADMAN AT ST. LOUIS
Jeff Arend will be at the wheel of Worsham Racing's "Madman Murray" car at this weekend's O'Reilly Midwest Nationals at St. Louis. Del Worsham and Phil Burkart will drive their standard Checker, Schuck's, Kragen Monte Carlos at St. Louis.
"I've known Jeff for a lot of years, and he's turned himself into a very good Funny Car dive," Worsham said. "We were talking in Englishtown and formulated this entire idea in less than an hour, from Jeff driving the car, to who would work on it, and how we would set it up at the track.
"We have the equipment, we had a good driver at our disposal, and we have enough additional crew guys to do this for one race without a lot of extra effort," Worsham added. The Murray's Discount Auto-sponsored car will appear at both the Memphis and Indianapolis races with Burkart driving. (DRO file photo) [6-20-2006]
SHAKE-UP AT SFI TOP FUEL CHASSIS COMMITTEE; MORE DATA OBTAINED ABOUT TOP FUEL CHASSIS
In an effort to get more and better information to issue specs on Top Fuel and Funny Car chassis, the SFI Foundation has split the chassis committees so that there will be a group
for the nitro classes and a group for the non-nitro. According to a SFI spokesman, the new group for Top Fuel chassis are Murf McKinney, Brad Hadman, Chuck Let, Ty Baumgartner and a Swedish builder by the name of Ericksen. Dave Uyehara, Don Long and Bob Meyer were dropped from the committee.
According to Arnie Kuhns at SFI, despite what the rumor mills are grinding out, the sole reason for the change was to get the chassis builders that built the most cars per year on the committee and no other. Another SFI representative spoke to DRO about their ongoing efforts to change the specs for Top Fuel chassis as well as some recommendations for specs to alleviate some of the chassis stress issues. Check out News and Analysis for a more in-depth look at that issue tomorrow. [6-20-2006]
