Tag Archives: Wayne Gapp

Racing

The 427 Cammer powered SuperCat Cougar

Of all the vehicles that my Dad had the SuperCat Cougar is right near the top of my favorite list.

Why? Well…it’s a Cougar. That body style was pretty unique for the time period.

See below. This image is probably from one of the ‘Autorama’ shows that is held at Cobo every year.

WayneGappSUPERCATCougar681-vi.png

The vehicle was powered by a Ford 427 Cammer. Now, I happen to have a soft spot for the Cammer engine for a variety of reasons.

Racing

1974 IHRA Southern Nationals – ad and overview

So the IHRA sanctioning body put together a meeting at the Charlotte Motor Speedway. WG won the Pro Stock side of the tilt.

There are a couple of things strange about the race. The track was apparently pit road and the track was 1/8 of a mile in length.

Here’s a radio ad for the event:

1974_IHRA_SouthNats_Radio_Ad.mp3

I love some of those old radio ads.

Below is a link to a fairly recent article about the race. Unfortunately, one of the rocket cars got loose, killed two crewman of another vehicle and the driver.

Link to the article.

From the article:

Less than a year earlier, Anderson had become the first to break the five second mark on a quarter-mile track, at 4.99 seconds, and a top speed at the finish line of 322 mph.

1) Those speeds and times are equivalent to Top Fuel and Funny Cars times of today.

2) Rocket cars didn’t have stop switches for the fuel? Wow.