#Hang glider photos how to
#Hang glider photos driver

“Tommy says, ‘Just jump in and hang on the roll cage here's a helmet.’ We take off down the track, and I’m holding onto the roll cage for dear life, and it was quite a ride.

#Hang glider photos how to

Maras already had his next great wheelstander, the police-car-replica Smokey Plymouth Duster ready, so he sold the coach to Jones and took him to nearby Norwalk Raceway Park to teach him how to drive it, starting with a scary ridealong.

Maras came out to California and brought the coach body for his new wheelstander. He got the idea of pulling a mold off on an old stagecoach and making fiberglass replica coach bodies for the studios, as it was much cheaper than building a stagecoach out of wood. Tex Collins, who owned the aftermarket business Cal Automotive, which specialized in fiberglass bodies, was also a Western-movie stuntman. Maras had built the chassis himself in his Ashland, Ohio, garage, but the body was pure Hollywood. I cashed in Wendy’s profit-sharing, cashed in my life insurance policy, borrowed some money from my dad, and we borrowed a pickup from Wendy's dad, and we went back there with everything we owned in our pocket, and we bought this old crazy car from Tommy.” I got on the phone and the next thing I know we were back East spending a weekend with Tommy, and we made a deal for me to buy it. 'I went home and looked in the National Dragster and saw an ad from Tommy Maras about wheelstanders. We don't care what: a Funny Car or a fuel altered or a wheelstander just go buy something.’ Finally, a bunch of friends of mine, said, ‘Jonesy, you're driving us nuts. “I said, ‘You know what? I need to find another to make a living running a race car,’ so I parked the car for two years, and I was driving everybody crazy. Jones, born and raised in Malad City, Idaho, didn’t set out to be an exhibition driver, but after years of running his ‘68 Camaro in brackets in Las Vegas and Salt Lake City yielded pennies after even big wins, he knew that if he wanted to stay in racing, there had to be a better plan for him and his young bride Wendy. This is the car that became Jones’ first wheelstander and the car he continues to run today and for which he is certainly best known and loved. One wheelstander that proved unique was the Last Stage West of Tommy Maras, which was modeled after an Old West stagecoach.

That was true with Funny Cars (like the wild Jeeps and other entries) as it was with wheelstanders, which have resembled everything from Army tanks to school buses and all manner of trucks and vans. While promoters could draw from a seemingly endless variety of sideshow acts - rocket-powered cars, hang glider-equipped motorcycle jumpers like Bob Correll’s Kite Cycle, guys towed behind motorcycles (Lee “Iron Man” Irons) or dragged behind cars (Jim “Bullet” Bailey), car-jumping go-karts (“Leaping Larry” McMenamy), and “Benny the Bomb” - cars were the main attraction and are why a lot of people came, and, of course, there were a lot of them, so standing out and being unique was important.

In the match-race heydays of the 1960s and ’70s, it was important to stand out as unique, so that promoters like the legendary Bill Doner would book your act.

#Hang glider photos driver

In the pantheon of drag racing exhibition vehicles, no class has been officially accepted by the NHRA longer than the wheelstander, and no driver has more experience or longevity than Ed 'the Outlaw” Jones, who first started scraping bumpers in 1976 and continues to this day, more than 45 years later.Īlthough jet dragsters had been around since the early 1960s, and ran as “outlaws” at other tracks, they weren’t officially accepted by NHRA until 1974, and wheelstanders like the Hemi Under Glass began running at NHRA events in the mid-1960s after the famed “Little Red Wagon’s” serendipitous transformation from race car to wheelstander in 1964.