Team owner Santo Rapisarda was impressed with his driver, to say the least.

With Cory McClenathan having previous obligations and being unable to make the trip Down Under for the FUCHS ANDRA Winternationals at Willowbank Raceway, Rapisarda turned to a driver with a legend of wheeling nitro powered vehicles to fill the cockpit on an interim basis.

It didn't matter Allan Dobson had been out of nitro racing for 14 months, when Rapisardo called on the veteran driver he delivered.

Dobson was second quickest in Saturday qualifying with a 4.686 elapsed time.

Dobson was having the time of his life in his Rapisarda Racing debut.

“It feels great to be out here driving again,” said Dobson. “I’ve just had my time out of the seat letting the younger drivers have their chance. It just so happens the younger drivers were unavailable and I was all too willing to jump back in and drive again.”

Dobson is the kind of driver where to see where he has been in his career, driving a 300-mph Top Fuel dragster is on the calmer side of his racing endeavors. His early years were consumed with manhandling a monster of a bike dubbed as the Crazy Horse which was built with the intentions of gunning for a land speed record.

However, it was his second two-wheeler, built along the likes of a late EJ Potter bike, which built his reputation of living on the outer edge of the edge.

“It was the Widowmaker, a bike with a 327-inch Chevy engine, with no gearbox or clutch, and I used to wheel it out on the starting line and hook it up to a starter motor,” said Dobson. “You’d see the back wheel rotating it as it caught fire. Once it was started you brought it up to 7,000 rpms and let it go. You’d lean to the left as it used to gyro to the right and have one foot on the right. You’d just keep feeding it [throttle] all the way to the finish line.”

There were riders and then there were suicide jockeys. Dobson epitomized both roles.

“It was just like the old front-engine dragsters of the 1960s,” Dobson beamed with pride. “You know … the cars that would smoke the tires from start to finish. This bike was like that and that’s why I loved it.”

Yes, you read correctly, he loved it.

“I was only 17 with limited money of my own,” he continued. “I would smoke it off of the line until me hands come off of the bars. Then I’d crack the throttle a little and find the bars again. I’d pull myself up on the bike and do a hell-heap of tank slappers into the bush because there were no Armco guardrails at the time. I could miss the trees and bushes, and they’d find me in the bush some 500 km away.

“They said I was on a suicide mission back then but I was just young and a little crazy. It was just one way for me to race with the slingshot drivers.”

A master showman on two wheels, he transferred the excitement to a four wheeler and once raced a nitro flopper against a Formula 1 car, albeit on a straightaway.

As he has gotten older, Dobbs admits he’s calmed a large measure from the adventurous spirit he used to be.

“At least that’s what me mum says,” Dobbs said with a laugh. “She said I’ve come a long way over what I used to be.”

Dobbs believes the volatile spirit of his earlier years enabled him to develop into the seasoned driver he is today.

“I found those early experiences helped me to be more relaxed once I moved into fuel Funny Car racing,” admitted Dobbs. “I raced the Top Alcohol Cars before moving into the fuel Funny Car. It was really good for me nervous conditioning.”

Dobbs might have driven by the seat of his pants as a fuel Funny Car driver but to his credit he could describe every twitch his bum felt.

“I could always tell the story of how it felt and what the car did,” Dobbs said. “When the MSD ignitions came out with the retards and what-nots, trying to find the combination was easier for me to find it on one combination. When I needed to pedal it, I would set the ignition on where I needed to pedal it. That was the way I used to attack it. That was before computers really came into play.”

While youth is often viewed as a point of advantage against the older driver, for Dobbs age and experience works to his advantage.

“I’m the old fox,” said Dobbs. “They might have a couple of hundredths on us, but I might have to bump it in an extra 25 to 30 mils to make up for the reaction time so I have to adjust my staging. It really ticks the younger drivers off when I match them on reaction time.”

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