Swamp Rat 28: was built by me as a conventional Top Fuel Car, except it was a "High Gear Only", several years ahead of its time. The problem was; we didn't have big enough fuel pumps to run a high gear car at the time, nor did we have 5 disk clutches. I had very bad tire shake at West Palm Beach International Raceway during the winter meet and hurt the back half of the chassis. As I was repairing the car Craig Arfons approached me to make the little light weight car into a fuel turbine car and I accepted. Craig assured me we could easily get 2200 HP from the helicopter engine and the car would only weigh 800 pounds! With a power to weight ratio like this, I would be very competitive in Top Fuel and the AHRA agreed to allow the engine in Top Fuel as the fuel cars were losing their appeal to the public However, we were never able to extract more than about 1,400 HP from the turbine, so the times were very disappointing, and there was no loud noise from the turbine exhaust. The people didn't like the car, even with a :flame thrower: in the tailpipe. I ran the car at several events and them pulled the plug on the project. The car is in the museum, totally original as it last ran in Norwalk, Ohio.
