Tribute To Lions Drag Strip Week (1 Viewer)

The Friday night edition of the Tribute To Lions Drag Strip Week.

Lions Drag Strip without a doubt sets the pace for the entirety of drag racing. The whole nation cast it's eyes anxiously for the results from this magnificent strip. And keeping with out 12 year trend of presenting a complete evening of racing those awesome Altereds, gregarious gas dragsters, antagonizing A gassers, jubilant Junior Fuelers and power lade Competition eliminators machines were proudly placed on tonight"s enormous program!

Dave Adler, August of 1967.



TopFuel@Lions
 
1st Annual Drag News All Pro Championships at Lions.

Top Fuel 32-Car Field $3000-to-win*$1000 R/U*$400*$300*$200*$100* (Low ET-$200*Top Speed $200)

Top Gas 8-Car Field $750-to-win*$350 R/U*$150*$100*$50*

Junior Fuel 8-Car Field $750-to-win* $350 R/U*$150*$100*$50*

Fuel Altered's 4-Car Field $400-to-win*$200 R/U*$100*$50*

Competition Eliminator 4-Car Field $400-to-win*$200 R/U*$100*$50*

AA/GS 4-Car Field $400-to-win*$200 R/U*$100*$50*

Plus bracket eliminations

Gates Open@1:30pm.
Qualifying@3:00-4:30-5:30pm.
First Round at 7:00pm.
Admission:$3.00

This race went down in the fall of 67 at the greatest weekly drag strip of all time...Lions!!!!!!!!!!!



TopFuel@Lions
 
Mark:

This is a real neat thread. Thanks for posting.

Can you list some of the detailed results of a few of the event promo's that you have posted?

Also, I would like to see some of your event promo's from the 1970-72 era, if you could come up with some.
 
The Drag News nationals were held a couple of times. I saw one around 1970??? Seem to remember KFWB radio (big AM rock station in LA area) Bomp race, but not sure about details. If you wanted to listen to rock, all the big stations were AM. KFWB, KRLA, KDAY, KHJ..... KRLA sponsored a T/F car once.
 
Ok, here ya go Jon and all the other folks who adored this strip.

First off, this race was a rousing success on the track and at the ticket booth. 15,279 fans jammed Lions for this monster event, two of them were dad and myself.

TopFuel
41 cars entered this event vying for the 32 spots open. 41 AA/FD's for this 1-day event, impressive.
The Top Fuel field was dominated by the awesome and legendary Beebe & Mulligan digger shoed aptly by John "The Zookeeper" Mulligan. Mulligan qualified number 1 with a world Top Fuel record of 6.70 at a booming 230mph blast in the afternoon. The air was flippin' right in the afternoon at Lions, as usual!

Round 1-Mulligan ran a 6.84 to beat the ride of Trotter & Sutherland.
Round 2-The Zookeeper ran a 6.80 to beat Gary Read in the Groundshakers rail.
Round 3-Mulligan ran another .80 as he trashed Leland Kolb with a 6.89.
Round 4- Mulligan slowed to a winning 7.16 in taking out James Warren in the W-C-M ride.

The final would pit the Beebe & Mulligan ride vs. the Keith Black powered Hawaiin driven by Mike Snively, Keith Black was in attendance and did the tuning all day and night. Starting technician Chick Grist (remember him Cliff?) engaged the Sure Fire roller starters and the final was on. Mulligan put a gate job on Snively and smoked him with a 6.99 at 220 to work over the Leong ride's 7.40.

Top Gas Eliminator
19 cars entered the race for the 8 open spots, this was the first ever, repeat first ever all 7 second field. The final came down to Billy "The Kid" Scott vs. Monty Montgomery. Scott ran a great 7.51 at 198 to take out Montgomery's very decent 7.78 at 185.

Junior Fuel Eliminator
21 cars signed in for this very tough to make 8-car eliminator. This hard fought bracket would boil down to the awesome-fast ride of Rea & Evans vs. the northwest ride of Cross & Mann. John Evans would just flat smoke his competition with a 8.25 beating a shut off 9.91 of Cross & Mann. The Rea & Evans ride was just bad a$$.

Competition Eliminator
11 car signed up for the 4-car eliminator. Larry Dixon in the ultra-cool Fireside Inn car dominated both rounds for the trophy and check. Dixon destroyed Les Liggit in the final with a nice 7.51 at 196 over Liggit's outclassed 9.72 at only 104.

Fuel Altereds
13 AA/FA's tried out for the 4-car field. Sush Matsabura dominated the day during qualifying but got beat in the final by Leon Fitzgerald in the rat engine Pure Heaven.

AA/Gas Supercharged
9 Gassers tried out for the 4-car eliminator. The money round came down to Ron Bizio vs. Junior Thompson in "Big" John Mazmanian's number 2 ride. Thompson ran a 8.81 over Bizio's 9.00 attempt.

Funny Cars
This was a booked in 4-car round robin match race featuring Butch Leal, Doug Thorley, Jack Christman, and Gas Rhonda.
Leal won all three rounds and was the winner.

Without any bracket cars, you add up the car count for the "hot" cars, there were 118 of them.

Lions Drag Strip-"The Giant Of The West" delivered yet again.



TopFuel@Lions
 
Ok, here ya go Jon and all the other folks who adored this strip.

First off, this race was a rousing success on the track and at the ticket booth. 15,279 fans jammed Lions for this monster event, two of them were dad and myself.

TopFuel
41 cars entered this event vying for the 32 spots open. 41 AA/FD's for this 1-day event, impressive.
The Top Fuel field was dominated by the awesome and legendary Beebe & Mulligan digger shoed aptly by John "The Zookeeper" Mulligan. Mulligan qualified number 1 with a world Top Fuel record of 6.70 at a booming 230mph blast in the afternoon. The air was flippin' right in the afternoon at Lions, as usual!

Round 1-Mulligan ran a 6.84 to beat the ride of Trotter & Sutherland.
Round 2-The Zookeeper ran a 6.80 to beat Gary Read in the Groundshakers rail.
Round 3-Mulligan ran another .80 as he trashed Leland Kolb with a 6.89.
Round 4- Mulligan slowed to a winning 7.16 in taking out James Warren in the W-C-M ride.

The final would pit the Beebe & Mulligan ride vs. the Keith Black powered Hawaiin driven by Mike Snively, Keith Black was in attendance and did the tuning all day and night. Starting technician Chick Grist (remember him Cliff?) engaged the Sure Fire roller starters and the final was on. Mulligan put a gate job on Snively and smoked him with a 6.99 at 220 to work over the Leong ride's 7.40.

Top Gas Eliminator
19 cars entered the race for the 8 open spots, this was the first ever, repeat first ever all 7 second field. The final came down to Billy "The Kid" Scott vs. Monty Montgomery. Scott ran a great 7.51 at 198 to take out Montgomery's very decent 7.78 at 185.

Junior Fuel Eliminator
21 cars signed in for this very tough to make 8-car eliminator. This hard fought bracket would boil down to the awesome-fast ride of Rea & Evans vs. the northwest ride of Cross & Mann. John Evans would just flat smoke his competition with a 8.25 beating a shut off 9.91 of Cross & Mann. The Rea & Evans ride was just bad a$$.

Competition Eliminator
11 car signed up for the 4-car eliminator. Larry Dixon in the ultra-cool Fireside Inn car dominated both rounds for the trophy and check. Dixon destroyed Les Liggit in the final with a nice 7.51 at 196 over Liggit's outclassed 9.72 at only 104.

Fuel Altereds
13 AA/FA's tried out for the 4-car field. Sush Matsabura dominated the day during qualifying but got beat in the final by Leon Fitzgerald in the rat engine Pure Heaven.

AA/Gas Supercharged
9 Gassers tried out for the 4-car eliminator. The money round came down to Ron Bizio vs. Junior Thompson in "Big" John Mazmanian's number 2 ride. Thompson ran a 8.81 over Bizio's 9.00 attempt.

Funny Cars
This was a booked in 4-car round robin match race featuring Butch Leal, Doug Thorley, Jack Christman, and Gas Rhonda.
Leal won all three rounds and was the winner.

Without any bracket cars, you add up the car count for the "hot" cars, there were 118 of them.

Lions Drag Strip-"The Giant Of The West" delivered yet again.



TopFuel@Lions

And the CROWD go's wild. All in 5 and 1/2 hours.
LOL
Larry Sutton---Lions Starter
 
I remember Chick ( but not his last name). Man I wish I could have seen this race!!!! 15,000 people at lions - wow.... I wonder how many were at the Last Race? They said so many came in w/o paying; came thru the fields & what have you.
 
Final race preview on this last day of the tribute to Lion Drag Strip week.

This was a condensed version of the add.
When: Saturday June 27, 1970
What: Fuel Funny Car Open
*8-Car Open*
*$1000-to-win*$750 R/U*$400*$200*
Pre-Entered: Mako Shark-Holy Toledo-"Big" John Mazmanian-Jack Christman-Mert Littlefield-Gene Conway-L.A. Hooker-Beaver Bros.-Pete's Chevron-King Rat-Bob McFarland-Beebe Bros.-Steve Bovan.

*Plus 7 Brackets, Lane 4 & 5 $50.00 extra-to-win!*

Admission-$3.00 Pit Pass-$1.00
Qualifying from 1:30pm. Eliminations @ 7:00pm.

Side note, Roger Wohlford driving the Mako Shark spun out in the lights and barrell rolled multiple times past the traps, he was ok.



TopFuel@Lions
 

The story behind this one is that I was in school, & my buddies knew I was into the drags. So they said, did you see the show on KTTV last nite? It was live from Lions! Arghhhhh Missed it. So, after all these years I finally got to see some of it on the Lions DVD series. Thought, man I wish I was at that race. Lots of heavy hitters of the day were there.
 
Lefty Mudersbach
Born: March 21, 1931
Died: February 11, 1966
Buried: Rose Hills Memorial Park, Whittier, California
Age: 34
Full Name: Allen Mudersbach
Nickname: "Lefty"
Drag Strip: Irwindale Raceway, Irwindale, California
Event: AHRA Winternationals
Accident Date: February 11, 1966
Car: "Lefty's Speed Shop" AA/FD
Biographical: He suffered fatal injuries when his dragster blew a tire traveling at about 180 MPH and overturned several times. It happened when he was making a single pass during a qualifying run. He was apparently dazed when he was hit in the head by the disintegrating tire and failed to deploy the chute or apply the brakes. The driver's compartment was wrenched loose from the frame by the impact of the car flipping over and hurtled 300 feet. He was transported to Santa Teresita Hospital in Duarte where he was dead on arrival. A resident of Pico Rivera, California, he was survived by his wife, Bobbie, and three children, Sharryl, Dennis, and Brian. He operated a speed shop in Whittier. He was NHRA national champion in 1957, running out of Phoenix with an Olds-powered A/GD. He was the winner of the first AHRA championship in 1960. He had been a drag racer for twenty years. He had the first gas dragster to record a sub-10 second e.t., accomplished in July 1957 at Lions Drag Strip with a 9.93 run. He moved to California in 1959, teaming up with Chet Herbert. They ran twin Chevy engines on gas, setting a world mark of 195 MPH with an 8.53 e.t. They won Bakersfield in 1961. Mudersbach and Herbert split up their partnership in 1963-64. The car he was driving at the time of his fatal crash was owned by Dick Goss.
Sources
 
I had the fortune of "wasting" much of my lost youth at Lions on a Saturday night, primarily during funny car shows. I also had the fortune or mis-fortune of renting the downstairs portion of drag racing writer and historian Chris Martin's house as he was approaching death. On of the treasures in his garage, among boxes of pornos, old blues Sun Records 78's, Drag News and so many others, were ten years of the handwritten run sheets from Lions. There is a display I put together at the Price Automobilia Tribute to Lions exhibit, currently closed for the virus "epidemic"and county health regulations. Here are a few examples. I found 10 years worth of these sheets among the rat shit and treasures and will be donating the collection to the new Lions Museum at Price Transfer when it re-opens. As my mother used to tell me as I left for Lions in my '56 Chevy 2-door wagon... "Honey, make sure you call me before 10:00 pm, so I can go to sleep and know you aren't in jail."
 

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Hi Darr. Nice to see you on the Mater. :) Really interesting to read above post. The names, the ET's & speeds.... wow
 
Last edited:
Hi Darr. Nice to see you on the Mater. :) Really interesting to read above post. The names, the ET's & speeds.... wow
the sheets on Darrs post were a few from the books I gave Chris Martin an all of the years of recording were listings by my late wife Pam working in Lions tower, Darr but together a very nice case at the museum with the pages included and a note about Pam. Thanks again Darr.
Larry Sutton----lions starter
 
I remember Pam working in the tower at Lions. She saw & recorded so much history! Was she there for the Last race?
 
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