Don Garlits

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Summary

Donald Glenn Garlits (born January 14, 1932, Tampa, Florida) is considered the father of drag racing. He is known as "Big Daddy" to drag racing fans around the world. A pioneer, with the help of TC Lemmons, and after he lost a portion of his foot in a drag racing accident, he perfected the design rear-engine "top fuel" dragster (notable because it put the most explosive parts of the dragster behind the driver) and was an early endorser of a full-body, fire-resistant suit. In 1964, he became the first drag racer to officially surpass 200 miles per hour; he has broken a number of other speed records, surpassing 270 miles per hour in 1986.

Drag Racing was a California based sport. Don Garlits being from Florida was the outsider who came in and beat them at their own game. He was sometimes referred to as the Floridian, such was his uniqueness.

Garlits was the first driver to win three National Hot Rod Association national titles and three world championships, the last coming at the age of 54.

Garlits won the first NHRA Drag race he entered with the first racecar he built. It was 1955, and the NHRA Safety Safari had come to Lake City, Fla. A short three years later, the garage and body shop owner was racing professionally with the first of 34 racecars he would later tag Swamp Rat. He didn't stop until 1992, when eye trouble, the result of deceleration G forces of nearly 7 G’s, forced him from the seat at age 60. In the four-decade interim, Garlits took on all comers on any racetrack in the country and sometimes abroad. Driving chassis he fabricated that were powered by engines he built, Garlits won 144 major open events and 17 national championships in the sport's three major hot rod associations

Personal Data

• Full Name:Donald Glenn Garlits
• Nickname: Big Daddy
• DOB: 1-14-32
• Place of Birth: Tampa, Florida
• DOD:
• Place Interned:
• Spouse: His high school sweetheart...Patricia Bieger
• Children:2 Daughters....Gay Lyn & Donna.

Important Accomplishments

      Following his first win in 1955 with his crude and highly modified 12.1-second, 108-mph, flathead-powered '27-T roadster-cum-slingshot, Garlits built his first Swamp Rat. Built on '30 Chevy frame rails, he raced that car for five years all over the country and in many incarnations. He earned his first appearance money and won his first big events with that car. When he won the Florida State Championships in 1956, it turned 10.9s at 135 mph. By 1961 and with the retirement of Swamp Rat I, the six Stromberg carburetors had been replaced by a supercharger, the gasoline by nitromethane, and the e.t.s were in the low eights, (8.36). In 1957, he was the first to exceed 170 mph, (176.40); the next year, he was the first over 180, (180.00) mph. By the time he built Swamp Rat III, he had won the AHRA Nationals, the Texas State Championship in 1958, Then in 1959, he won the Northern California championship, the Arizona State championship. Then with Art Malone driving while he recovered from near-fatal burns suffered in a match race in Chester, S.C., they won The Riverside Invitational in California. In 1960, Don returned to driving, in Swamp Rat II, a gas-powered dragster, he won the first NHRA Winter Nationals in Daytona, Fla. 

Garlits was the first to exceed 250 mph, at the 1975 World Finals, with an e.t. of 5.63. The record times helped him to score a come-from-behind NHRA World Championship over Gary Beck, his first of three. The 250.69-mph speed wasn't topped for seven years. The longest Top Speed Record in NHRA history.