DON GARLITS
Years after his Hall of Fame career ended, drag
racing’s “Big Daddy” remains interesting,
intriguing, and ever-motivated
T
he name “Big Daddy” Don Garlits has long been synonymous with But there’s much more to Garlits than a champion drag racer. He has
drag racing, and the Florida legend’s name is one of but a few done television for multiple shows, including NBC’s coverage of NHRA
instantly recognizable to even the remotest of motorsports fans and Drag Racing back in the early 1990s. He created both a popular and
even to a large portion of the general public. His career résumé from fabulously stocked museum of drag racing in his Ocala, Fla., hometown
decades in the sport is unparalleled, and he has had just about every honor and established his own Hall of Fame ceremonies. Well-versed and
under the sun bestowed upon him, including the No. 1 racer on NHRA’s Top articulate, the multifaceted Garlits also ran for public office back in the
50 list in 2001. An innovator, master mechanic, talented wheelman, canny 1990s and does not hide his passion for politics, economics, and even
promoter, and shrewd businessman, Garlits’ place in the sport’s lore and his UFOs. He certainly qualifies in the top half of our field of most
role in its development cannot be overstated. intriguing people.
You’re widely recognized, by everyone, as the and he timed it. He said to my mom, “If he starts
“
greatest drag racer ever. How does that sit I’ve always been working when I leave for work in the morning
with you?
It’s very, very humbling. I always just thought of
the guy that when and does it until I come home at night, he can do
it in seven days.” My mother went ballistic: “He’s
myself as one of the guys out there. I won some
races and had a good time and worked hard, but I
someone told me I just a baby; he can’t do it. You’re being cruel.”
And the whole time I was thinking, “I’m not a
never thought it would amount to what it did. couldn’t do it, that’s baby; I’m a grown boy. I can do this. Please Dad,
when I wanted to win this argument.”
”
What drives Don Garlits, now and then? I moved those bricks in five days. I wore that
I always have to have goals. There was never a do it. wagon completely out. The rear wheel wore
point where I was ready to put my feet up on the completely off. I tied a stick up under it to level
railing, sit back, and say, “This is all I really front of my house, about 200 feet from where my it, like I’d seen my dad do when they brought a
wanted to do.” I always have projects. And I’ve dad was going to build a fireplace. They were Model T home off the highway. They put a two by
always been the guy that when someone told me I supposed to put the bricks right by the house, but four under it to keep it level, so I did the same
couldn’t do it, that’s when I wanted to do it. it had been raining, and the ground was a little thing with the wagon. I had to change the stick a
My dad told me when I was real little that I soft. My dad was fit to be tied, and he got the few times because it kept wearing it out, but I got
could do anything I put my mind to. He said all bright idea that the boy could move the bricks. I it done. They’d put a parent in jail for that now.
you have to do is say to yourself, “I can do this,” had this little red wagon, and he said that I could
and you’ll be able to do it. If you say, “I can’t do use that to move them. He put five or six bricks Where did your love of cars and mechanical
it,” you won’t be able to do it. in the wagon and pulled it over to where he things come from?
I remember when I was really young, they wanted them to go, and then he stacked them up I was taking metal shop in my senior year in high
dropped a big dump-truck load of bricks out in like he wanted them, then he put the wagon back, school as a lark because I’d taken ROTC and had
28 National DRAGSTER
We got to use the strip up at Zephyr Hills in
the late 1950s, and that was so much fun because
you could race and not get into troubl