Kansas John Wiebe RIP (5 Viewers)

[Nunz]

Saw that he passed a few days ago. I believe he was one of the last holdouts to run a slingshot in TF.

 

[Prestaged]

I was at Columbus in 1973 when John won Top Fuel. He beat Garlits in the final. Big's car seemed a little lazy off the line, and I said to my brother, "Do you think Garlits did that on purpose so John had a better chance of winning?" I know, it is almost sacrilegious to suggest that, but in any event, Weibe won that race and I remember it well.

There was also a picture that surfaced shortly after Indy 1971, where I also was in attendance with my brother (and frankly, I am surprised the picture has not survived the decades) of Weibe sitting on one of the front tires of Garlits car at that race. It had a cartoonish thought-cloud caption of John saying to himself something to the effect of "I don't understand how he can be going so quick." That was the year Big qualified with a 6.21 that was almost two tenths quicker than Steve Carbone's #2 effort of 6.39, which was itself very impressive at the time. No one knew it that weekend, but Garlits had offset the front wheels to provide a rollout advantage, thus lowering ET. That strategy was quickly adopted by everyone. Weibe's image sitting on Garlits front tires looking a little dejected was priceless.

Thanks for reading.

 

[sammi]

Godspeed John. That dude ran hard and helped usher in the aluminum block era.

 

[TSK]

The John Wiebe/Jeb Allen crash at the ‘73 Tulsa National Challenge was the first time I witnessed a two-car wreck. I still remember the sounds. It was awful. I got a couple of shots.
Late ‘mater member Ray Ghio, Jr. (R.I.P.) cleaned up one of the shots for me shortly before he went to Glory.