Bio Carl Olson        

        Carl was introduced to and hooked on racing at the early age of three as a spectator at a local midget dirt race. His early exposure to racing was mostly in the oval track arena but in 1957 he went to the old Long Beach Lions Drag Strip and was immediately intrigued by the dragsters. After hanging around the Modern Muffler shop in his hometown of San Pedro, California, where the Stecker, Golden and Cobb team housed their fuel dragster for a while, the team invited Carl to go to the races with them and he became even more hooked on the sport. While serving in the U.S. Coast Guard Carl was stationed in Alameda, California which was located a short hop from the Half Moon Bay and Fremont Dragstrips where Carl spent as much time as possible as a spectator. It was at Fremont that he met Nick Mura who was competing with a 426 Wedge Dodge powered AA/Fuel dragster and was able to work his way up to Mura’s crew chief.

When Mura decided to stop racing in 1965, Carl was able to buy his “rig” and was soon sitting in the driver’s seat. Upon receiving his discharge from the Coast Guard, Carl made his way back to Southern California and landed a job in the performance aftermarket arena and replaced the Dodge Wedge engine with a smaller Dodge hemi that allowed him to compete in the popular “junior fuel” class. During this time he also reconnected with Bill Stecker who was partnered with Jack Ewell in a blown 392 Chrysler powered Race Car Engineering Top Fuel dragster. Soon Carl was crewing on this car and when Ewell broke his leg racing mini-bikes, Carl moved into the driver’s seat as well. When the opportunity to become a partner in this operation was offered, Carl traded his junior fuel car to Stecker for his share of the team and became the team’s full time driver. In 1969 the team really stepped into the big time, purchasing a “Woody Gilmore” car and dropping one of the new Chrysler Elephant Hemi engines into the rails and promptly winning the prestigious “Grand Prix of Drag Racing” event at Irwindale Raceway and later setting top time at the 1970 NHRA Winternationals at Pomona, California.

When the 1970 season closed out, Carl wanted to devote more time and effort to the sport so he purchased the Black Plague AA/Fuel Dragster of Frank Rupert and Steve Peck, borrowed a couple of blown early 354 Hemi engines and spare parts from a friend, Don Bowman, and entered the top fuel wars as an independent owner/driver. A blown engine followed by a fire and a crash at Fremont destroyed the car and put Carl out of business before he really became settled into it.

After firing his latest driver, Mike Kuhl heard about Carl’s accident and offered him the driver’s job in his Top Fuel dragster which Carl immediately took. Their five year relationship started with them winning the first race they entered as a team and continuing to win more than their share of races. When time allowed him to, Carl drove several other cars including Jessie Perkins’ Cow Palace Shell fueler and T.B. Smawood’s AA/Fuel dragster but the Kuhl and Olson team car was his real delight. In 1971 they became partners in one of the first mid-engine cars to be built which they debuted that fall at the NHRA U.S. Nationals in Indianapolis, Indiana, They were able to win several rounds of eliminations but lost in the semi finals however, they did manage to walk away with the Best Appearing Car award from the event.     

At the end of that season, they installed one of the all new Donovan Engineering 417 aluminum hemi engines for power and promptly won the 1972 NHRA Winternationals with the new combination. As a result of this win and the potential it offered, the team of Kuhl and Olson joined the ranks of the professional racers living on the road and racing at every NHRA and IHRA national event plus as many match races as could be shoehorned into the schedule. At the end of the 1972 season they had won the IHRA World Championship and been recognized by the editors of Drag Racing Magazine as the Real World Champions. A crash at the IHRA Nationals in Dallas, Texas destroyed the car but Carl emerged uninjured and the team was able to compete in the NHRA World Finals two weeks later. They ended the 1972 season by winning the “Last Drag Race” that heralded the end of racing at Lions Drag Strip. In 1973 they were runner up to Gary Beck at the NHRA U.S. Nationals in Indianapolis and in 1974 won the Bakersfield March Meet and ran top time and low ET of the event, also gaining membership in the exclusive Cragar Five-Second Club. As difficult as the decision was for Carl, at the end of the 1974 season he decided to retire from racing. The team did campaign the car through 1976 with other drivers but elected to retire the entire operation at the end of the season.

While he was retired from active racing, Carl was still very active within the sport and the industry first as the General Manager of Waterman Racing Engines, Inc. then a stint with SEMA as its Technical & Legislative Director then a move to several positions over 25 years at the NHRA, and in 2001 he became Motorsports Manager at the SFI Foundation, Inc., a position in which he continues to serve.

In addition to his drag racing history, among Carl’s many accomplishments and honors are: Member of the Bonneville 200 MPH Club, several positions within SEMA including a seat on its Board of Directors, President of Federation International de L ‘Automobile Drag Racing Commission and consultant to several foreign race facilities.