Chi Town Hustler - 69 Charger

Chi-Town Hustler's most recognized Paint Scheme

Intro:

While there have been many subsequent "Chi-Town Hustler" Funny Cars campaigned by the team of Farkonas, Coil, and Minick; their first car was this 69 Dodge Charger. It is most likely the most famous Funny Car ever. The Charger was one of the first cars to do half-track smoky burnouts, which it needed to lay rubber down for traction.

Car

It is claimed that the chassis of this Charger, the team's first (Farkonas previously had a 67 Barracuda with Chi-Town Hustler on it's rear fenders) Funny Car, was designed by gluing tooth picks together, twisting to see where the week areas were -- and then making adjustments. The fiberglass body was a smaller scale version of the 69 Charger 500, with its flush mounted rear window and grill. The chassis is unique by having the driver sit to the left of center, and balancing by having the engine to the right of center. This allowed the driver to sit lower without drive-shaft interference. Very few Funny Cars did this, and this Charger was the last to do so.

Engine

could use a little help here

Transmission

could use a little help here

Rear End

Dana 60

Chassis

could use a little help here

Team

John Farkonas, Austin Coil (formerly John Force's tuner) and Pat Minick were all drag racers prior to teaming up to campaign the Chi-Town Hustler. Coil did the tuning and Minick did the driving.

Race History

The car was originally running in the 7.30 range, but Minick was secretly lifting between shifts because the transmission couldn't handle the power. Even when lifting, the Charger was setting new records almost every time out. When the transmission problems were resolved -- the car ran 7.1s. The West Coast racers were screaming that the East Coast Clocks lied -- so the Chi-Town Hustler went out to the West Coast and set new records there too. The team claimed the car had a 90% win rate.

However by 1971, the car was obsolete and a Chi-Town Hustler - 71 Charger was built to replace it.

Current Owners

Minick and is son got nostalgic and started looking for the car in the 1990s, finding it in Canada. They bought the Charger and sent to a chassis shop for safety upgrades, and there it sat there for years. Greg and Katy Mosley run a private museum in Coal Valley, IL -- with a nice collection of race cars and Mopars. They bought the car from the Minicks and restored it back to its original glory. Actually, it is over-restored and never looked so good when racing.

They also had an exact duplicate made of the car, which they intend to show and race in Nostalgia Funny Car.

References

• Mopar Action (April 2010)