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From racing the family Oldsmobile in 1960 to winning the Winternationals in 1964, read about the meteoric rise of drag racing’s greatest owner and tuner in the first-ever book about "The Hawaiian" Roland Leong. As the son of a Harvard graduate, it could have been difficult for Roland Leong to live up to his family’s expectations. However, that wasn’t the case. “The Hawaiian” knew at a young age that drag racing was his career path. His supportive mother, Teddy, saw potential in Roland and bought him a new 1962 Corvette for "educational" purposes, such as wrenching and tuning. From there, it didn’t take long for the world to discover Oahu’s best-kept secret in drag racing. In 1964, less than two years after reaching the mainland, Roland was in victory lane at the Winternationals in Top Gas Eliminator. The following year, with Don Prudhomme behind the wheel, “The Hawaiian” immortalized his place in drag racing forever with wins in NHRA’s Top Fuel Eliminator at Pomona (Winternationals) and Indy (US Nationals). Leong became the first ever to capture those iconic crowns in a single season. For good measure, Roland repeated the achievement in 1966 with Mike Snively, showing the world that a Harvard education isn’t required to achieve greatness. "The Hawaiian" Roland Leong: Drag Racing’s Iconic Owner & Tuner is a tale of family, friends, and forging a path that no other Chinese-Hawaiian before him had carved. Re-live his biggest wins and lasting friendships in this first-ever publication on drag racing's first builder and tuner superstar, Roland Leong!
Don "The Snake" Prudhomme reveals for the first time ever his incredible life and career on and off of the drag strip.

Imagine spending a year with Don "The Snake" Prudhomme, having coffee together and talking about his life, his racing, his friends, and his family. He’d tell you about how he rose from being a high school drop-out who was painting cars to a respected Top Fuel dragster driver and successful businessman. You’d hear how he toured the country with Tommy Ivo and "The Hawaiian" Roland Leong, racing all the legends from "Big Daddy" Don Garlits to "The Golden Greek" [Chris] Karamesines. He'd say how he met Tom McEwen and recall how they became the Snake and the Mongoose, leading to a career in Funny Cars that netted him four championships in a row. He'd talk about the thrill of first wins and owning his own teams but also the struggles of bad seasons, crashes and fires, broken parts, and broken contracts. Along the way, he’d speak about the people in his life, such as engine-builder Keith Black and NHRA president Wally Parks, and those who were killed in the wild and unpredictable sport of nitro racing. It wouldn’t be only racing, though. Prudhomme would share lessons he learned about business and life from such varied sources as a neighbor in Granada Hills to Ford GT40 driver Dan Gurney. He also would talk about the importance of family: how his wife, Lynn, and daughter, Donna, changed his world and how finding out about his African-American roots opened his eyes to a culture and inheritance he’d always wanted. This is the experience you’ll get in Don "The Snake" Prudhomme: My Life Beyond the 1320.

Since the early 1960s, dealer-sponsored Super Stockers battled for supremacy on the quarter-mile and in the dealer showrooms. Evolving into the Factory Experimental class, these wild steel bodied, altered–wheelbase monsters were stuffed with massive fuel injected and supercharged engines that attracted crowds to the dragstrip! Legendary pioneers “Dyno” Don Nicholson, Jack Chrisman, Bill Shrewsberry, Butch Leal, Dick Landy, Arnie Beswick, Phil Bonner, Gas Ronda, Don Gay, Sox & Martin, Richard Petty, and many other A/FX stars were instrumental in the development of the funny car as it morphed from a heavy production car into seven-second 250mph aerodynamic fiberglass, tubular chassis missile. The popularity of funny cars led “Jungle Jim” Lieberman, Bill Lawton, Lew Arrington, Bill Flynn, Norm Kraus, and “Big” John Mazmanian to become household names. Tom ”Mongoose” McEwen, Don “Snake” Prudhomme, Tom Hoover, Kenny Safford, Terry Capp, John Force, Kenny Bernstein, Jake Johnston, Larry Reyes, Richard Tharp, Roland Leong, Randy Walls, Jess Tyree, Rich Siroonian and others who achieved success racing funny cars are all featured in over 300 incredible color and black and white photos.
Blast through the evolving early years of Funny Car drag racing when doorslammers morphed into flip-top rail monsters. The era features historic mounts from Arnie "the Farmer" Beswick, Al “the Flying Dutchman” Vanderwoude, "Jungle" Jim Liberman, Don “the Snake” Prudhomme, and many more! The metamorphosis from doorslammers to fiberglass flip-top dragsters wasn’t ever a cut and dry plan. As drag racers pushed the envelope for more speed, a series of innovations quickly evolved and refined the genre. Funny Cars cut their teeth in the A/Factory Experimental (A/FX) and Experimental Stock (X/S) classes in 1964 with the 2-percent Mopars that looked funny with their axles moved forward. However, it was Jack Chrisman’s supercharged, nitro-fueled 427 Supercharged Factory Experimental (S/FX) Comet Caliente that trailblazed the class on which the NHRA turned its back and the AHRA fully accepted. Showmanship became the draw in the dawn of Funny Car with half-track burnouts and flame-throwing headers that packed fans five deep at the fence. By 1969, the NHRA had no choice but to create a class for these nitro-breathing, flip-top-sporting rail bruisers, indoctrinating the Funny Car (F/C) class at the Winternationals with 40 cars vying for 16 places in the field. The rest, as they say, is history!
Southern California was the birthplace of organized drag racing, with the first organized race held at the Santa Ana airport in 1949 and the subsequent founding of the National Hot Rod Association in 1950. Over the next decade and a half, the dragster became the king of the quarter mile on Southern California drag strips. In 1964, veteran dragster owner/driver Jack Chrisman had an idea for something different to grace Southern California's drag strips. It was not a dragster but a stock-bodied race car using nitromethane for fuel in a supercharged engine. With the help of Gene Mooneyham, Mercury's Fran Hernandez, and sponsor Helen Sachs, Chrisman put together the world's first nitro-burning "funny car." It was a steel stock-bodied Mercury Cyclone with a supercharged 427 Ford engine running on pure nitromethane. Chrisman started the evolution that soon turned stock steel-bodied cars into fiberglass-bodied tube chassis funny cars. Southern California drag racers began to lead the way for racers all over the United States in the new funny car class.
"Quarter-Mile Chaos" looks at the treacherous side of drag racing's golden age. Almost 200 rare and stunning photographs from the late 1960s and early to mid 1970s capture terrifying fires, explosions, and crashes, all by-products of the quest to go faster. "Quarter-Mile Chaos" is full of up close and personal documentation of the perilous task of reaching the 1,320-foot mark first. Armed with just a couple cameras and some film, veteran drag racing photographer Steve Reyes shot some of the most dramatic and eye-catching pictures of these quarter-mile warriors. Reyes roamed the nation's hazardous strips in search of the perfect action photo. The result is some of the most breathtaking drag racing imagery ever recorded depicting out-of-control demolition and devastation during drag racing's most entertaining era.
Relive the golden age of drag racing through this exhaustive volume covering the best drag racing model kits of the era. Model expert Tim Boyd, author of Collecting Muscle Car Model Kits, turned his attention to the fantastic drag racing model kits available from the late 1950s through today. Some racing model kits were actually 3-in-1 kits, where the builder assembled the drag-race version of the car in lieu of the street or custom version. Boyd starts by covering the options, collectability, variety, availability, and value of these wonderful kits, and then concentrates on the highly detailed drag racing-only kits that became available starting in the mid-1960s through today. He also shows the differences between original kits, older reproduction kits, and new reproduction kits that many enthusiasts find at swap meets and online sources today. Many of these great kits were from the 1960s, an era when building model kits was a widely popular, serious hobby, similar to video games today. Not only was it fun to build the kits but it was also a great way to learn about all the different race classes and categories because there wasn’t regular TV or online coverage during that era. The artwork on those kits was fantastic, and many collectors today seek original kits largely because of it. The classes of racing covered are Gassers, Rail Dragsters, Stocks and Super Stocks, Funny Cars, Pro Stocks, Exhibition Racers, and more. Drag racing cars designed by model companies that never actually existed are also covered. Nostalgia drags are some of the most popular events around the country today. People can’t get enough of these old race cars that were built in an era when variety, innovation and home building ruled the day. This book is great for modelers in general, model-kit collectors, and drag-racing fans young and old alike.