The Dodge Challenger Message Board

i found this pic of my self and the legend him self"BIG DADDY" Don Garlits,this was a few years ago, at mopars at thunder mountain,just thought i would share this , as to date this is the most famous person i have ever met in my life! well pretty much the only famous person i have ever met

Cool. What was he like? And are you tall or is he short?

Cool Drew! He is a legend! I also think it's funny how he credits his wife Pat with giving him the idea to take his Gen I Hemi out of his towtruck and install it in his rail. He set the record after that and was a 'marked' man in Nitro Fuel thereafter because he was the one to beat!

Before nostalgia racing became all the rage about 10 years ago, there was a local Nostalgia Drags at an old 1950s-1970s dragstrip/road course called Mid America Raceway near me. (MAR wasone of many big time racetracks in the St Louis area in the 50s-70s.) Big was the Grand Marshall one year and he brought his old Ford (re-Hemified), Swamp Rat I and Swamp Rat III. It was really cool to watch him run. He and his whole crew (including his wife) were very personable.

dave-r wrote:Cool. What was he like? And are you tall or is he short?

he is really nice , but he was hard of hearing, he said it was from not wearing ear protection in his days as a racer, im about 6 ft, tall so i guess he about 5.9 or 5 .10 ft tall, he also is missing half his foot from a famous crash that spawned the first rear wheel dragster, that he created!the mid engined car he had , the clutch exploded and severed half his foot, i think he was racing again in 6 or 8 months i cant remember , but he was back at it again real soon , yea he is a pretty cool guy for the legend he is!

He is a legend. But he didn't invent the rear engined Dragster and he wasn't the first to win a major event with one either.
Old men like to stretch the truth a little.

dave-r wrote:He is a legend. But he didn't invent the rear engined Dragster and he wasn't the first to win a major event with one either.
Old men like to stretch the truth a little.

yea i do recall he said he was one of the first, i should clarify that, but hey he did set alot of records, and looks like he had a good time doing with half a foot and all,like jack dempsy of nfl legends he had half a foot and still owns the longest field goal in nfl hid=story, but thats another forum, i digress,big daddy, like petty and a whole slew of others will have there legacy as american drivers but there are plenty of guys that you dave know more about than me,that did some really cutting edge stuff before , they didnt have the money backing them up so they end up in a storeage place and never to be seen again, i guess what im tryng to say is i have read certain interviews about big daddy, and i know that he wasnt the first or the only one to do what he did , but he did make history with it!