Chrisman Brothers' Dragster

It could be safely argued that drag racing served as the rite of passage for many early-day hot rodders; it allowed them to experience both the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat on a race track. Due to the relatively short distance--most early tracks measured between a quarter and a third of a mile--speeds remained safe and attainable for many of the young competitors. Also, because a majority of the early strips were laid out on local airport taxiways, it was easy for the hot rodders to drive their stripped-down and souped-up cars to the track. Indeed, most of the early drag races amounted to little more than organized street races anyway, with many of the competitors showing up with their daily-driven hot rods.

Prior to the days of the drags, the only systematic racing within the hot rod community occurred at oval dirt tracks or on the Southern California dry lakes. Oval racing was considered risky; it was more for roughnecks who had a sense for danger, so understandably only a small number of hot rodders seriously attempted this form of competition with their cars. The dry lakes racing was another matter. Comparatively speaking it was considered safer, but the lakebeds' remoteness meant that most hot rodders had to drive about 125 miles before they even turned a wheel on the track. Furthermore, as it is now, the racing was conducted on a long, straight-line course across the lakebed where only top speed mattered. And to do that some racers stretched the limit of their cars' engines, the result being a mass of shattered and splattered pieces strewn across the alkaline track. This point further helped separate the chaff from the wheat, in a manner of speaking, among the racers and the wannabes.

So, in the early '50s when drag racing entrenched itself at such tracks as the Santa Ana Drags, Paradise Mesa in San Diego, and Saugus Raceway just north of Los Angeles, the Southern California hot rod community found itself with an alternative, one that was gladly welcomed. The new form of racing posed fewer risks to car and driver, and most tracks were within spitting distance of the local car crowd. Practically from the very beginning spectator crowds numbering in the thousands lined the dragstrips to watch as hundreds of hot rodders raced their cars. A new form of motorsport competition was born, and with it came a new breed of race car.

Perhaps a car that personifies this transition of the sport--from dry lakes to dragstrip--is the Art Chrisman No. 25 dragster. This car started out as a lakester, only to become one of the top dragsters in the country during the early 1950s. And if you think that this single-seater has nothing at all to do with the street, think again. One of its owners even equipped it with lights and mufflers so that he could drive it on the streets when he wasn't racing it.

But let's start at the beginning. The car originally was built in the mid-'30s by a racer named Harry Lewis. Despite the car's close resemblance to a Depression-era Sprint Car, Lewis built the single-seater for dry lakes racing. A Ford rearend was hung beneath a transverse leaf spring, and the tube front axle was snatched off a '23 Franklin. Front suspension included a pair of longitudinal semi-elliptic leaf springs, common on sprinters during those years.

Lewis selected a Model T engine for power. In the spirit of early-day hot rodding, he beefed up the old flivver four with a Rajo cylinder head. The car raced with modest success, but that was to change when it passed hands into the ownership of the Harvey brothers.

Notable dry lakes racer Jack Harvey acquired it first, and he replaced the aging Model T motor with a newer Model A four that was bolstered with a Cragar head conversion. Jack was a member of the SCTA Road Runners, and he competed with the car at the dry lakes during a bulk of the 1938 and '39 seasons. Before the '39 season ended he sold the car to his brother, George.

George Harvey campaigned the car with another dry lakes legend, Ernie McAfee. In their quest for more speed, George and Ernie shoehorned a Ford V-8 within the framerails. Like Jack, they competed under the Road Runners club banner.

Shortly before America entered World War II, Jack Lehman acquired the racer. Jack was a member of the Albata Car Club, also an SCTA affiliate. Among the more predominant changes to the car was a bright red paint job, as reported in a 1942 issue of the SCTA Racing News. The car competed as the Lehman-Schwartzrock entry, ultimately clocking 123.96 mph at the June 14, 1942, Harper Dry Lake Meet.

The car returned to the lakes as a Road Runners entry when Doug Caruthers gained access to it. Caruthers had a rather lengthy and colorful history in racing, starting out on the dry lakes but eventually forming one of the top midget car race teams in the country. His tenure with the by-now Lewis/Harvey/McAfee/Lehman car included giving it another paint job, this time deep black. Caruthers posted a top speed of 130.81 mph during the 1946 season, using a stroked Mercury V-8 for power. The car raced several times after that as the Johnny Johnson-Doug Caruthers entry, competing in the B-Modified class after World War II. Also, it was Caruthers who gave the car its street livery, and it was on the streets where the current owner, Art Chrisman, first crossed paths with it.

"That's when I first saw it," recalls Chrisman today, "on the streets of Compton." Little did Chrisman know at the time that he would one day own that very car!

But before Chrisman took his turn behind the wheel, another local boy owned it. LeRoy Neumayer, who also happened to be a friend of Chrisman's, traded a motorcycle for the car. It turned out that Chrisman had a Ford V-8 engine that showed promise on the dry lakes, so Neumayer asked him to join his team. First thing they did was blow up Chrisman's engine at their dry lakes debut. "Actually," adds Chrisman with a chuckle, "we blew it up a few times."

At about the time that this aspiring dynamic duo got it right, Neumayer was called to serve in the Army. The Korean War was getting under way, and able-bodied men were at a premium. While his partner was away in the service, Chrisman spent his spare time fixing up the aging racer. "That's about the time I painted it," says Chrisman, a man who detests sloppy equipment. In fact, Chrisman, who now owns and operates CARS with his son Mike, doesn't like anything that isn't neat and presentable. "I don't live in a pig pen, I don't work in a pig pen, and," he concluded, "I don't like my race cars to look sloppy." And so he painted the car a metallic bronze color similar to what is on the restored racer today.

Then Neumayer returned from the service. He announced to Chrisman that he wanted to go circle track racing instead of competing at the dry lakes, so he sold his interest in the racer. Chrisman now owned all of the little one-seater, and he set his sights on the Santa Ana Drags.

Initially, Chrisman drag raced the car with its original 89-inch wheelbase. "But it was too squirrelly, so I lengthened it a few inches," he tells us today. The "few inches" turned out to about be the length of the hood. He then simply moved the body rearward on the stretched framerails so that the unique square gas tank on the back now rested over the rear axle rather than in front of it.

Chrisman displayed his exceptional talents when he modified the little racer's body to its current state. He gave it a full-length belly pan, and he formed the spoiler-like front pan beneath the chromed grille shell, more for aesthetic appeal than performance. Eventually the car ran a 304-cubic-inch Ford flathead motor that was equipped with Sharp heads and four Stromberg 97 carbs. The bore and stroke measured 4-1/8 by 3-3/4 inches, and pure nitro found its way into the ported and relieved combustion chambers.

"We ran it (nitro fuel) straight," said Chrisman. "That's how we'd go fast with a flathead--with 100 percent nitro."

Indeed, Chrisman, with the help of his brother Lloyd, got it right enough to be the first car to exceed 140 mph at the Santa Ana Drags in 1953. It was about that same time that the Chrisman brothers built their landmark mid-engine coupe for Bonneville, and Art eventually set a land speed record in excess of 200 mph. Later he and five others were listed as the first SCTA members to be included in the now-famous 200 Mile Per Hour Club.

But before Chrisman achieved any of his hot rod fame and glory--which includes exceeding 200 mph on the salt, winning the first Smoker's March Meet at Bakersfield in 1959, representing Ford Autolite as a field technician at race tracks across America for 10 years, building with his son the 1994 AMBR winner for Joe MacPherson, and many other career achievements--he made a name for himself as a drag racer in car number 25 during a time when the sport was still young.

"We raced at all the tracks: Santa Ana, Paradise Mesa, Saugus, Colton, Taft, one up in Madera, Fremont, Great Bend," recalls Chrisman.

Great Bend happened to be the site of the first NHRA Nationals in 1955, and Chrisman showed up with a Chrysler Hemi in the diminutive dragster's engine bay. This event marked the first time that fuel dragsters met from all over the country, and it ranks as one of the most historical events in drag racing history. As for Chrisman, the Chrysler motor in his car was powerful enough to make him competitive with the rest of the field. In fact, the abundance of horsepower proved to be the car's undoing in the elimination rounds. "We kept breaking transmissions," Chrisman says. "Turns out the spindly '39 Ford boxes were never intended to harness the power of a mighty overhead valve Hemi."

Chrisman relays another incident about Great Bend. By the end of the first round the skies dumped enough rain on the track to postpone the meet. Among the survivors of the first round was Calvin Rice who, like Chrisman, had a Hemi engine in his rail dragster. He also had a '39 box that, fortunately for him, didn't break during his first round. By the time the racing resumed at Phoenix later that year, Rice had taken a step backwards in order to go forward, reverting to his trusty flathead for power. Consequently, Rice went on become the NHRA's first Top Eliminator.

All was not lost for Chrisman, though. In fact, the inaugural NHRA Nationals proved to be the springboard for his future in professional drag racing. It was apparent that the sport was here to stay, so Chrisman went home after Phoenix with plans to compete even more in what would become the Top Fuel ranks. His first course of action was to lengthen his car's frame again, figuring that 180 inches would do the trick. But the more he thought about the modification, the more he realized that the car had finally outlived its usefulness as a racer. Instead, he set out to build a brand new rail job that would use a Chrysler Hemi for power. The car, known as the Hustler, was a brilliant success, and eventually earned Chrisman the title of Top Eliminator at the inaugural U.S. Fuel and Gas Championships--aka, the March Meet--at Bakersfield in 1959.

Indeed, the Hustler helped change the face of drag racing forever. The car was powered by a supercharged Hemi that propelled Chrisman to a top speed of 181.81 mph at a Riverside meet in 1959. Among the entry list for Bakersfield was a young driver from Florida named Don Garlits. By that time he had gained a reputation among East Coast racers for his speed, posting a best top speed/e.t. combination of 180 mph/8.90 seconds during a run at Brooksville in December 1958.

Garlits was competitive at Bakersfield, too, but his engine used eight Stromberg 97 carburetors for intake, while most of the West Coast racers--Chrisman among them--relied on superchargers for power gain. Chrisman's Hustler proved to have the most power, and he won the final elimination round against a testy Tony Waters. Garlits, of course, switched to supercharging, and the rest, as they say, is history.

But above all else it was No. 25 that helped set the course that drag race history was to follow, mixing a high level of design and preparation with a proficiency for speed. As with most obsolete racers during the '50s, No. 25 eventually was pushed to the back of the Chrisman shop, where it remained neglected for many years until it was restored so that it could make a commemorative pass at the 25th NHRA Nationals at Indianapolis. No. 25 was later invited to make a ceremonial pass at Great Bend to celebrate the fortieth anniversary of professional drag racing, and it's been a mainstay at more than one NHRA California Hot Rod Reunion at Famosa Raceway in Bakersfield during the past decade.

That, of course, brings up another interesting point about the car. Today the words "Wally Parks' Official Pit Car" are inscribed across the cowl. The lettering was done as sort of a joke and a tribute to perhaps the most influential man in drag racing history. "When Wally was young he used to help take care of the car," explained Chrisman (possibly when the Harveys owned and raced it). So when the first Hot Rod Reunion was planned, and No. 25 was selected as an honoree car, Chrisman had the words painted on. "I just have never bothered to remove them," he said. Let's hope that he never does. After all, those words are a part of the car's history, too.

A few other points of interest are worth noting. Von Dutch applied the original stripes back in the '50s, but the most recent artwork is the creation of striper Dennis Ricklefs. Tony Nancy stitched the new interior, and Chrisman himself gave the body its new coat of metallic bronze paint.

Above all else, though, No. 25 should go down in hot rod history as a car that helped introduce a new form of motorsport to the world. And, like the sport of drag racing, No. 25 has its roots on the dry lakebeds of Southern California. Perhaps Chrisman's words position the car best when he said of No. 25, "It's probably the drag race car with the oldest history that still runs." And when you consider all the great hot rods, lakesters, and dragsters that have survived through the years, that says a lot about Art Chrisman's legendary little racer.