Chi-town Hustler comes home to Byron Dragway
Fast Fuel Coupes and Dangerous Door Cars Featured at Spring Nationals
Words by Jeff Burk - Photos by Don Eckert
Nearly 5,000 drag fans starved for some fast doorslammers and nitro-burning AA/Funny Cars were treated to a double dose at the seventh annual Spring Nationals at historic Byron Dragway near Rockford, Ill. The one-day festival of fast funny cars and wheel-standing door cars saw the Byron management book on four of the Midwest’s best AA/Funny Cars as well as the always entertaining and bad-fast Chicago Wise Guys circuit and the Outlaw Super Stock circuit. The Nationals lived up to expectations when both of the Byron Dragway track records for AA/FC and Pro Modified were broken.
The Telstar Arrow might have looked like just this in the summer of ’79 at Byron Dragway and the same guys would have been driving and tuning it.
The team of driver Doc Halladay and tuner Jerry Newman set the new track record for
AA/FC at 6.081/233.33 in the “Telstar” Plymouth Arrow. Their performance was
almost eclipsed by Mike Recchia, who drove his ’69 Camaro SS Pro Mod
to a new track record of 6.082/230. The alky burning Pro Mod was
just a thousandth of a second slower than the
nitro burning AA/FC.
