Dyno Don ― The Cars and Career of Dyno Don Nicholson

For many fans of drag racing, the most interesting era is considered to be from the 1950s through the 1970s, the years when the sport really took off. So much changed from a speed and technology standpoint over that span that people often refer to this time as the golden age of drag racing. As mildly modified door slammers from Junior Stock turned into Super Stock, Funny Cars, and Pro Stock, fans followed their favorite drivers and their favorite brands through the ranks.

Drivers, through sponsorship, factory team rides, or sometimes purely their own preference, often became associated with a particular manufacturer, such as Chevy, Ford, or Chrysler. The more successful ones were household names in the drag racing community. Chevy had Grumpy Jenkins, Pontiac had Arnie the Farmer Beswick, Mopar had Sox & Martin and Dandy Dick Landy, and Ford's most successful driver of the era was the legendary Dyno Don Nicholson.

Nicholson's first wins on a national level actually came in the early 1960s in Chevrolet products. He became very successful on the match race circuit, and he switched over to Mercury in 1964 with the new Comet after General Motors enacted a factory ban on racing activities. After winning 90 percent of his match races that year, he stuck with, and won with, Ford and Mercury products all throughout the 1960s and 1970s, even after Ford also pulled the plug on factory team sponsorship. All in all, he made it to the final rounds in nearly 50 national events during that time period, as well as winning championships, awards, and match races along the way.

“Innovator, hard worker, pioneer, hard racer, tough competitor, a true gentleman and a man you couldn't dislike . . . ” These are all terms shared by his colleagues and competitors over the course of his Hall of Fame career. If you are a fan of a certain era of racing, a Ford fan, or certainly a "Dyno Don" fan, this book will be a welcome addition to your library.