Mickey Thompson’s Dragster Slingshot
This rail may not seem plentiful by today’s Hot Rodding standards, but in 1954, Mickey revolutionized drag racing forever by building the first dragster. Mickey Thompson’s interest in drag racing (and racing in general) began when he attended the first legal drag races in 1950, when Mickey saw his opening pass, he was hooked! He started working on his own cars and noticed ways to get more power out of the engines, at the time he didn’t have a lot of money, so Mickey decided to try doing it all himself! He would weld his own cylinder heads inside the combustion chamber to spread compression and even grind his own camshafts. He would use these abilities in the early 1950s to make his cars faster.
However, by 1954, a growing problem in drag racing was the need for traction. The hot rodders were getting more horsepower and torque from the engines, but the cars lacked traction to put this power in the background. Mickey, being the good thinker and innovator that he was, spent his countless sleepless nights (apparently he didn’t get much sleep and worked a night shift for the LA Times) coming up with ways to get extra traction and daytime. the garage of him building a hot rod that would soon become known as the slingshot dragster.
Mickey had this to say about his thinking: “Throughout my usual waking nights, I pondered this and what could be done about it. Little by little, the idea took shape. The big hurdle was keeping the driving force between the engine and the rear axle”. This necessitated a driveshaft of a certain length, which pushed the engine forward by that amount. Now if you were to put the drive behind the rear axle you could engage the engine drive assembly and you would have the main weight. of the vehicle directed to the driving wheels”.
What Mickey did was move the drivetrain behind the rear axle and extended the wheelbase, so the load would be transferred higher up to the rear wheels. Mickey’s next problem was trying to put extra rubber on the bottom to get more traction. He realized that the current tires weren’t big enough to grab that much power. So he went to A1 Tire Company and convinced them to make new, wider tires, also known as early drag slicks (Mickey also invented primary drag slicks).
Because the sling was nearing completion, Mickey says the name went like this: “As it gradually took shape, the results of these ideas made me the butt of jokes in Southern California. The funny problem, however, It just worked and one day a Santa Anna hot rodder Leroy Neumeyer said to me, “Do you understand what that beast strikes a chord with my memory, Mick? a sling. You realize, the way the driver sits there like a rock during a sling.” That was the name that stuck and so the setup turned out to be successful, therefore unbeatable, that in a few few years it became the quality of the sport.”
His innovative new design proved successful and before long Mickey had his slingshot rebuilt and another racer named Calvin Rice had the first ever slingshot racing run at the inaugural 1954 NHRA Nationals showing the world what slingshots could do. and forever changed the face of endurance racing.