Ed the ace mcculloch biography of william
•
TRIBUTE: THERE WAS ONLY ONE BILL DONER
There&#x;s never been a drag racing promoter quite like Bill Doner.
Odds are there&#x;ll never be another.
The flamboyant track owner/operator, who died late gods week, was fearless and wildly creative in his ideas. He was a stand-up guy in his dealings with racers, which earned their respect and loyalty. His races drew fans in droves &#; and drove said fans wild with shows that met or exceeded the extensive pre-race hype.
The guy was phenomenal, said Ed The Ace McCulloch, whose income from Doner&#x;s races helped keep his grupp going from one årstid to the next.
He would have the crowd hyped so high, they&#x;d komma out of the grandstands onto the track. They&#x;d be ansträngande to crawl in the window of the fordon. You&#x;d whap the throttle and they&#x;d throw their hands up and bail out over the guardrail. An insuran
•
In the s, ‘70s, and even the ‘80s, at the beginning of each racing season, the Labor Day weekend at the NHRA-sanctioned U.S. Nationals (aka “The Big Go&#;) was circled on the calendar as a must “be there” occasion. The Thursday – Monday event always had packed classes because racers, even if they did not race another event during the year, saved their best parts for the prestigious race held at Indianapolis Raceway Park in Brownsburg, Indiana.
Above: Ed &#;the Ace&#; McCulloch won his first NHRA national event at the U.S. Nationals. McCulloch, his brother Dan, Art Whipple, and &#;Mr. Ed&#; Wills had the Plymouth Cuda-bodied Funny Car dialed on kill for the entire event. While &#;71 was his first U.S. Nationals championship, it was not his last. (Photographer Unknown)
While the U.S. Nationals traces its origins back to drag strips in the s, it has been held in Indiana since It quickly became an event held in high reverence by the racers because of its size and purs
•
NHRA - National Hot Rod Association
The first time I ever saw Bill Doner was in a photo that was circulating among the National Dragster staff in , my first year at the magazine.
Now, that might sound like a pretty crazy admission by someone who attended pretty much every match race that Bill Doner promoted at Irwindale Raceway or Orange County Int’l Raceway in the s, but then again you could have gone to Disneyland and never seen Walt Disney, visited Graceland and never caught a glimpse of Elvis, been invited to the Playboy Mansion but never lay an eye on Hugh Hefner or, more appropriate to my analogy, you could have gone to a million circuses and never see P.T. Barnum.
The photo in question showed Doner laying on a bed in Mexico, where he’d moved to start a sport-fishing business after finally giving up on OCIR in And he was covered in what I have to assume were $ bills.
The image fit perfectly my s fan’s perspective of Doner. He was the creator of the Fox Hunt events wher