Cruz Pedregon

Dave Grubnic Interview

Dick LaHaie Interview

Clearing up Converter Confusion

Project Muscle Part 6

Bruce Litton's Inspirational Story

Jerry Toliver

IHRA Texas Nationals – San Antonio, Texas

IHRA – San Antonio Photo Gallery

The Real McCoy

The Day Glidden almost ended up in an Olds

Clutch University Part 2

Fuel Delivery 101 – Electrical

On the Chip – Hypertech Tech Article

Pete Millar – The Legend of the Cartoon Man – Part 2

When the Lions Roared

NHRA Nationals – Las Vegas – Same Day Coverage

NHRA Las Vegas – Photo Gallery

NHRA Gatornationals – Same Day Coverage

NHRA Gatornationals – Photo Gallery

NHRA AMS Pro Modified Challenge – Gainesville

NSCA No Problem Coverage

NSCA No Problem Gallery

Goodguys March Meet – Photo Gallery

FFW – Orlando Coverage

Spring Open Coverage

Spring Open Photo Gallery

At the request of Competition Plus, Dave Wallace has updated a story that appeared in Hot Rod Nostalgia’s print “magalog” just prior to Pete Millar’s death on February 28, 2003. To order this magalog (Volume Five) online, visit www.hotrodnostalgia.com. To view a controversial ‹ and fully animated ‹ Pete Millar cartoon addressing NHRA’s attempts to slow down Top Fuel cars back in 1997, go to Hot Rod Nostalgia. The series continues with part 2. - Editor

During the 1998 Dragfest memorabilia show, Pete posed with a 1967 Drag Cartoons cover featuring both his Chicken Coupe and his young mug.

“I got a mortgage on the house and I told [wife] Orah Mae, "Well, I’m gonna do a book.’ That was the beginning of Drag Cartoons. Lou Kimzey set me up with Kabel News, a major distributor. He said they’d give me an editorial advance and pay for all the shipping, plus a portion of the printing bill; all I’d have to worry about was editorial costs. Lou set me up with a printer. First issue, I get a call from the printer, saying, "I think you better come down and get your books. They’re all done ‹ and some federal agency is coming to close up Lou’s “T-and-A” books.’ So I rented a U-Haul trailer and I loaded 100,000 of those magazines, myself. I also got the mailing labels that Kabel had sent for the boxes, postage prepaid. I spent that night reading the instructions about how many to send where. Then I had to find another printer, in Texas.

“I was finally up and running when Ed Roth comes to me and says that Petersen wants to do a Roth comic book, with backing from Revell. Revell was gonna buy advertising and put a subscription form in every one of the models that went out; millions of them! So we met with the Revell people, who were sure that other Roth licensees, like Testor Paint, would also buy ads. So I produced the issue. No ads came in. Revell backed out. I went into four issues of Roth before I learned that the first one had died. As you know, in the publishing business, you’re into the fourth edition before you start getting the returns in for the first issue. It died in the Bible Belt. People would look at this and say, ”Big Daddy Roth”? Who’s he?’ So I ate up all those issues.

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Pete’s best-known race car was the steel-bodied Chicken Coupe, which competed heads-up in Top Gas and Competition Eliminator. Its 260-inch engine (originally plucked from a Fairlane) had previously powered the Drag Cartoons C/Gas Dragster, which was seen in the movie Outa Sight, was among the first small-block Fords to be supercharged.

“At the same time, I also did Wonder Wart-Hog: two issues, as a cartoon book. That also got bad distribution, and died. Drag Cartoons was the only thing making money.”

That Drag Cartoons succeeded is not surprising, considering the lack of credible competition on the nation’s newsstands. Readers under 50 might find it hard to imagine the media world as it existed in the 1950s and ‘60s.

There was virtually no drag-racing coverage (unlesssomeone died) in daily
newspapers, nor on the radio, nor on black-and-white TV. Instead, racers and fans waited to receive their drag news from a handful of tabloid “drag rags” (principally Drag News and NHRA’s National Dragster, in that order) and, months late, from slick magazines produced by Petersen Publishing Company ‹ which employed moonlighting NHRA president Wally Parks as its all-powerful editorial director until 1963.

Back when everyone who attended the SEMA Show knew everyone else, Millar was called upon to produce a poster depicting industry bigshots.

“This was when NHRA was just beginning to get its roots,” recalled Millar. “Drag racing in those days had a bad connotation: It was the street racing, the squirrelly guys. Wally was always trying to upgrade the image of hot rodders, and he had final approval over everything that we did [inCAR’toons], cartoonwise. We’d have to take the complete book in there andWally would go through it; not for humor content, primarily, but for subject matter and the attire of the hot rodders.

“Well, having been a hot rodder with dirty Levis and T-shirts too short for me, my belly button always showing and the crack of my butt always exposed when I bent over for something, I never thought about it. I wanted my cartoons to be like I was. Well, it’s difficult to show dirt in a cartoon, but flies are attracted by dirt, so I’d always have these flies buzzing around these pants. And Wally didn’t like that, so I would erase a couple
of flies. Then, when Wally was gone, I’d put the flies right back in. Barbara later told me that whenever she or Wally would swat a real fly, they’d say, "There goes another Pete Millar!’”

In next month's issue, Pete Millar goes broke and sells the rights to
Drag Cartoons. Tune back in for Part Three! --EDITOR

At the 1997 Muroc Reunion, Wally Parks stopped by Hot Rod Nostalgia’s display to reminisce with these former print adversaries. NHRA was a frequent target of Drag Cartoons, published by Millar (right) in the mid-Sixties, and Drag News, edited by Dave Wallace in the mid-Seventies. (Guess who got the last laugh?)