Fuel and Guts: The Birth of Top Fuel Drag Racing

This is the story of how Top Fuel drag racing started, told by those who lived it. An insider from the beginning, author Tom Madigan draws on interviews with builders and racers like Mickey Thompson, Tony Nancy, Tommy Ivo, and Tom McEwen, to name just a few. Their words, and those of others such as engine builder Ed Pink and chassis builder Kent Fuller, give readers a real sense of a lost, and truly thrilling, world.

This is Top Fuel drag racing of California in the 50s and 60s, and these are the racers who made its name. Fuel and Guts recreates a time of passion and pure adrenaline--a time before accountants and corporations saw a winner in drag racing. In sidebars, drivers like Don Garlits and Shirley Muldowney tell what it was like to leave home and try to make it on the Californians home turf. You werent really a winner until you beat the guys who started it all. And in this book, readers meet these winners and feel once more an excitement now gone forever.

Tom Madigan has been part of California car culture since the 1950s. He not only competed against drag racing's pioneers, he has been writing about them since the 1960s as a contributor for Popular Hot Rodding, Car Craft, Road & Track and Vintage Motorsport. He also was the long time editor of Off –Road. In 2005 Madigan won the prestigious Dean Batchelor Award for his book Edelbrock: Made in USA. He has also authored Boss: The Bill Stroppe Story, and The Loner: the Story of a Drag Racer. Tom and his wife, Darlene, reside in Sonora, California.Tom Madigan has been part of California car culture since the 1950s. He not only competed against drag racing's pioneers, he has been writing about them since the 1960s as a contributor for Popular Hot Rodding, Car Craft, Road & Track and Vintage Motorsport. He also was the long time editor of Off --Road. In 2005 Madigan won the prestigious Dean Batchelor Award for his book Edelbrock: Made in USA. He has also authored Boss: The Bill Stroppe Story, and The Loner: the Story of a Drag Racer. Tom and his wife, Darlene, reside in Sonora, California.