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Gary Burgin may be best known for “cheating” Don “The Snake” Prudhomme out of an undefeated season by beating him in the finals at the 1976 NHRA Indy Nationals, but Gary was a winning drag racer for a decade before that. Gary and partner Dave Braskett built an AA/GS ’41 Willys gasser in the mid-late ‘60’s and successfully campaigned that car in class races and match races around the West Coast.
In the late ‘60’s, the top gasser teams like Stone Woods & Cook, “Ohio George” Montgomery and “Big John” Mazmanian saw that the end was near for the Gas Coupe classes and started the transition to Funny Cars. So it was with the Braskett & Burgin team. In the early ‘70’s, Lil’ John Buttera built a Funny Car chassis for the team. They mounted a Chevy Camaro body and a hemi Chrysler engine and joined the ranks of Funny Car competitors. When the new and smaller fiberglass Chevy Vega bodies became available, they switched from the bigger, heavier Camaro to the Vega. Over the years Gary would switch from Vega to Ford Pinto, to a Chevy Monza, then to a Mustang, and ultimately a Pontiac Firebird. After leaving active competition, Gary established a successful business shipping drag racing components to racers all over the world.
1320, Inc.’s version of this car is the ’72 Vega as campaigned by Dave and Gary in the early ‘70’s. Don Kirby painted the Buttera/Kirby body in a beautiful metalflake/ pearlescent yellow with red and blue panels (This was a natural, since Dave Braskett was an automotive paint salesman.). The interior aluminum sheetmetal is painted a metallic red. The second-generation 426” Mopar Hemi is equipped with a Don Hampton 6-71 blower, Enderle injector, Schiefer mag, Engle cam, and Doug Thorley headers. The model’s engine has all of the wiring and plumbing you’d expect and then some with plug wires from the single mag, fuel lines coming from the tank to the fuel pump and injector and return line going back to the tank, plumbed front-mounted dual oil filters and breathers venting to the headers. The detail on the throttle linkage on the injector is just exceptional! And to get this beauty stopped, this model even has the brake lines going to the rear discs and the pull cable running back to the drag chute. In the rear, the car rides on semi-pneumatic copies of Goodyear slicks.
This is a beautiful rendition of this car and shows a great deal of attention to detail. It is #12 in 1320’s series of “Floppers” and would make a nice addition to the collection of any drag racing or automobile fan.
(12/01/2004)
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