In Part 1, I discussed the history of the Top Fuel car that put the Northwest on the map in the sport of drag racing.

In the 50s and 60s, hot-rodding was at a fever pitch in the Northwest. Hot rod shows and rallies were very popular, with events taking place nearly every weekend in the Portland-Vancouver area. Drag strips, mainly just airstrips, ran events every weekend in places like McMinnville, Aurora, Madras, Eugene, Woodburn, Scappoose, and Delta Park.

Those tracks were just in Oregon. In Washington there were tracks in Puyallup, Shelton, Kent, Bremerton, Deer Park, and Arlington. “Gearheads” could attend or compete in several events every weekend during the spring, summer and fall months. Madras, Oregon, would start up the season in February, well before the tracks on the wetter side of the state.

 

 

In Part 1, I discussed the history of the Top Fuel car that put the Northwest on the map in the sport of drag racing.

In the 50s and 60s, hot-rodding was at a fever pitch in the Northwest. Hot rod shows and rallies were very popular, with events taking place nearly every weekend in the Portland-Vancouver area. Drag strips, mainly just airstrips, ran events every weekend in places like McMinnville, Aurora, Madras, Eugene, Woodburn, Scappoose, and Delta Park.

Those tracks were just in Oregon. In Washington there were tracks in Puyallup, Shelton, Kent, Bremerton, Deer Park, and Arlington. “Gearheads” could attend or compete in several events every weekend during the spring, summer and fall months. Madras, Oregon, would start up the season in February, well before the tracks on the wetter side of the state.

In those days, car clubs were at the core of the hot rod movement. If you weren’t in a car club and you weren’t into cars, well, you were really “square.” In North Portland there where three clubs within a few blocks of each other; that’s how popular it was. Gustin’s, a service station on Union Avenue, housed the Pharaohs. Across the street from Gustin’s were the Headers of Portland, and on the other side of the railroad tracks was yet another club hidden underneath a bridge. I was a member of the Headers right out of high school in the early 60s.

---

a d v e r t i s e m e n t

Click to visit our sponsor's website

---

 

During those early years friends were made and bonds were formed that continue to this day. They were built on the many struggles involved with building a race car, traveling to events throughout the region and never having enough money to keep up with the passion of the sport. We borrowed and swapped parts and equipment just to be able to keep up with the other racers in the area.
It was the feverish pace which created these life-long friendships. These same friendships motivated the Northwind project.

Jack Coonrod, a Camas, Washington, native was passionate about hot cars. He met Jim Albrich in a north Portland garage while Jim was installing a Chrysler motor in an old Ford. At the time, Jack had a ’27 Model –T Ford touring car with a flathead motor, and he was interested in a Chrysler power plant. With Jack’s “T” and Albrich’s tuned Chrysler, the pair set a new NHRA national record of 135 mph in 1961.

After that huge success, it was on to bigger and better things for the two friends as they entered into the fuel dragster wars with the first Northwind in 1962. It was a short-wheel-based, Scotty Fenn fuel dragster, driven by Earl Floyd. Earl drove just about anything with four wheels in those days, from gassers to Top Fuel Dragsters. The whole operation got off to a tough start when during the first fire-up the throttle stuck and the car rolled over into a ditch on an abandoned road. What a way to get this operation off the ground. Those are the struggles that cement the bonds of friendship over the years, however.

Albrich had borrowed $1,500 from Household Finance in order to buy a motor and kick off his drag racing career. After a summer of running the first Northwind, however, the bank account was empty. As a result, Jim moved on in one direction and Jack went the other. Albrich hooked up Mike Grimm, Max Bowman, Dean Rowley and Bill Jwayad with different fuel dragsters. As was usual back then, the money ran out with each partnership. Jim shelved all his motors and parts until a guy named Ed McCulloch walked in the door.

Coonrod headed in the direction of gassers, the Funny Cars of the era, along with Wayne Harry, a local machinist. Wayne had a’33 Willys pickup and it was soon fitted with Jack’s Chrysler powerplant. From there on it was supercharged gassers through the rest of the 60s.

Later, the truck was replaced by a ’33 Willys coupe with a Chuck Finders’ setup as Jack readied the car to go on a tour of the East Coast. There were two to three events a week during the summers of 1967 and ‘68, from New England to Florida and all points in between. The friendship bonds created through many struggles during that time bring us forward to the winter of 2005.

The news of Ed McCulloch’s struggle with colon cancer shook us all here in the Northwest. One of our life-long friends was struggling with his health and was going through chemotherapy for this terrible disease. Our prayers were that everything would go well for him in his battle against his cancer, as well as the battle for the points chase in the Brut funny car. At the time we felt there had to be something we could do to encourage him in his struggle.

When the photos of the Northwind came out in a magazine last winter, it lit a fire in Jack Coonrod. His bond with Ed McCulloch was very tight and Jack felt that he could give Ed “one day in the sun” and divert his thoughts away from that terrible disease. The plan was to find the gold Northwind that launched Ed’s career by rebuilding it, take it to Pomona in November of 2006 and have Ed start it up.

After Pomona, the car will be displayed in Jack’s museum that is located at his home. This museum is dedicated to the world of gassers, and includes old mementos from Jack’s touring days in the 60s. The museum has an area set aside just for his special friend of forty years, Ed McCulloch. Ed has also contributed many items from the old days to Jack’s museum.

Jack then brought in his friend Earl Floyd and the two of them burned up the phone lines in search of the famous gold car. For almost 3 months the leads came in hot and heavy as Earl “the bloodhound” Floyd was relentless in the search. He tracked each lead until it was found to be fruitless. There was a car in Idaho and several in Oregon and lots of them that seemed to be the original, but one after another they were found to be the wrong car. At one point Jack considered fabricating a copy of the original car, but it just wouldn’t be right. It had to be the 1965 Drag News No.1 car in the nation - the famous gold Northwind - no copies for this deal!

When the search hit a dead end, a $250 finder’s fee was offered to Lon Russell, a local drag-racing enthusiast and computer-savvy guy. Soon racing web sites were all posting the story about the search for the original Northwind. All of a sudden all of the work paid off. The actual car was found in an old barn in British Columbia, Canada. Talk about long shots.

The car had been in Canada for over 30 years. The last time it had made any runs down a drag strip was as a gas dragster in the early 70s. The car had been lengthened twice and was 13” longer than when it ran in Top Fuel. The car had been a parts-car for other dragsters for a number of years, having been purchased from Swindahl Race Cars of Tacoma at one time. The late Bill “Madman” Phillips, who ran alcohol dragsters for many years, had the car and wanted it displayed in a museum. After his death, several of Bill’s friends were planning to display the car once a museum was built. The museum never came about, and Bill Bennett willingly sold the car to Jack Coonrod, knowing that it would be used to honor Ed McCulloch as well as honor the memory of Bill Phillips. This car now had two important reasons for getting rebuilt.

On January 20, 2006, the car headed back to the U.S. Now the hard part begins. There were many parts missing; the original front axle, the steering and spindles were all gone. But the most important part of all - the over-the-roll-cage tail section - was nowhere to be found. On the positive side, the cowl and side panels were in excellent shape because the earlier lengthening of the frame was in the motor area. As Jack headed for his shop in Vancouver, Washington, he had a smile on his face despite the fact that he knew that he had a huge project ahead of him. Finding the original replacement parts wasn’t going to be easy, but his strong determination kept him driving forward.

To keep the car original was paramount. This would require using old pictures of the car and starting from scratch on building new parts. Jack knew it would be time to reach out to many drag racing friends to find the old pieces and to get some support as he started putting the car together.

The question has to be asked “is there enough time and support to accomplish this huge undertaking and make it to Pomona in November of ’06? It doesn’t seem possible that there’s enough time left, but then again how was it possible that you could find an old dragster that hadn’t been run in thirty years? Don’t bet against Jack and Earl! They are reaching out to the drag racing community and together they will pull it all together.

Part 3: The progress of the Northwind as the original car comes back to life