Photography by Lisa Crigar
The Goodwood Festival of Speed, held on the famed Goodwood Estate in West Sussex, England, has become an annual rite of passage for racers and motor racing fans. The event, a hill climb that’s more of a parade of historic racing vehicles than it is a competition, brings together some of the finest machinery in the world, from modern Formula 1 cars to vintage road racing ringers and even straight-liners. And it’s hard to have a conversation about historic drag racing machines without including Don Garlits’ legendary Swamp Rats.
Well this year, “Big Daddy” himself, along with new wife, Lisa Crigar, made the long trek across the Atlantic to partake in the Goodwood Festival — an event where his iconic Swamp Rat 1B (actually a replica of it intended for exhibition) is certainly right at home — to give the European crowd a taste of American drag racing.
Like other drag racers before him who have participated at Goodwood, Garlits lit the Goodwood hill climb course up with some smoky burnouts from the front engine dragster replicating the one he and friend Art Malone drove to a series of national and track records in 1959.
And, in typical Garlits fashion, the man who has been there and worked on it all found a way to salvage his trip abroad.
During one of his burnout exhibitions and laps around the Goodwood course, Garlits broke a valve spring and dropped a valve into the cylinder. And thousands of miles from his stockpile of parts and tools in Florida, announced in interview (shown below) with Charles Gordon-Lennox, the Earl of March, owner of the Goodwood Estate and founder of the Festival, that he would unfortunately be unable to continue on. But the following day, “Big” tore the engine apart, and reportedly using a Sprite can and some Fixodent adhesive provided by a fan, was able to repair the wounded Chrysler well enough to make the grand finale lap of the course in front of the estimated 150,000 spectators on hand.
httpv://youtu.be/Z_52Ax8Frmc
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