Fast fun in the West

Interesting artical


We all know that NHRA has been in some pretty highfalutin places lately, such as Sports Illustrated, Men’s Fitness, Good Morning America, The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, etc., but did you know that an NHRA dragster once made the pages of super-fab Vogue magazine? 'Tis true.


Now, I’m not a Vogue reader — my tastes run more to Maxim and Stuff — but I understand that it’s one of the leading fashion and lifestyle magazines out there. It was founded in 1892, which means they’ve put out around 1,400 monthly issues (Ha! DRAGSTER is on number 2,271!), but the only one I care about is the August 1970 issue.


It was the Look Young issue, and the cover featured scintillating blurbs such as “Terrific New Clothes Starting at $15” (this was 1970, remember), “The Beautiful Throat: Unique Exercise Routine” and “Good Skin: How To Have It … How To Fake It,” along with a fair-haired maiden who was the subject of the issue’s fashion shoot, which was done at then-new Ontario Motor Speedway, home to be of the inaugural NHRA Supernationals later that year.


The front-engine Top Fueler – a California Chassis Engineering-built machine with a Tom Hanna body, paint by Bill Carter, and 392 Chrysler power courtesy of Ed Pink – was owned by former ND Editor (and regular column tidbit contributor) Bill Holland and partner and driver John Guedel. The car, Art Linkletter's All-American, was a prop for the shoot, which also incorporated Guedel (“a proponent of the one-piece ‘silverized’ driving suits,” noted Holland) posed in his driving gear. Guedel’s father was the producer of Linkletter’s popular television show and others, including Groucho Marx's, hence the "sponsorship."


A male model also was used in the shoot: a then unknown Michael Douglas, who two years later would burst onto the small screen as Inspector Steve Keller opposite Karl Malden on the TV show The Streets of San Francisco.


“Back then, we were actively trying to promote the sport of drag racing to the mainstream media and had reasonable success,” remembered Holland. “They were looking for a nice car that was L.A.-based. As John and I were always trying to get extra exposure for our car and drag racing, we volunteered for the gig. Me working for NHRA may have given us an inside track. We also did a national TV spot for Certs breath mints with the car, which was shot at OCIR.”
 
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