Walt Austin Racing... There's More to WAR than Winning
Story By David Marin

Conventional wisdom has it that “organized” drag racing began when the Southern California Timing Association (SCTA) rumbled onto the Bonneville Salt Flats in 1949, and held the first “Speed Week”. Running against a stop watch racers, for the first time, endeavored to achieve faster acceleration rather than just high top speeds.

The following year, 1950, the Santa Ana Drags were staged at an airfield in Southern California.

1951 saw Wally Parks, editor of Hot Rod Magazine, form and become president of the National Hot Rod Association (NHRA). Thus hot rods and drag racing were joined at the hip and while hot rods have evolved into street rods and drag racing has become “corporate and conglomerate”, the two remain more a lifestyle than a sport or hobby.

In the Northwest this lifestyle is most clearly defined by WAR… Read that W.A.R. as in Walt Austin Racing, arguably the most successful long-term drag racing entity ever in the Great Northwest, an entity which evolved right along with the Fabulous Fifties grass roots movement that took hot rods and outlaw racing from the streets to the strip.

No one was there with any more success than young Walt Austin, a hometown boy, born and raised in and around Tacoma, Washington, attending Port Townsend High then Clover Park High.

“The hot rod craze was just beginning,” Walt says. “I had a ’40 Chev Business Coupe, then a 1948 Ford two door sedan… both were hopped up with the speed equipment of the day and I remember the Ford had three carbs.”

In 1954 Walt attended his first drag race at Shelton Drag Strip, Shelton, Washington. He recalls, “I drove a friend’s (Bill Von Reichbauer’s) ’54 Olds four door sedan and won the race. I knew then I wanted to build a hot rod.”

In 1955 Walt returned to Shelton with a 303-inch Olds pow-ered 1937 Chev C/G coupe he and his Dad built.

“I don’t know how he came up with it, but my dad came up with the formula for the perfect hot rod; it ran a 303-inch Olds engine, LaSalle transmission and Pontiac rear end. We won with that car first time out,” he says. “We ran a 14.90 ET at 90MPH and that car was also my daily driver.”

Proceeding up the ladder, in 1956 Walt built and drove a 383-inch Olds powered Ford A/G coupe, which he raced at Shel-ton, Bremerton, Bayview, Arlington and Spokane, Washington as well as Scappoose and Aurora, Oregon.

“I held the record at most race tracks and won more than 90-percent of the races I attended,” he says, “My best time was 12:87 at 114MPH which was a Northwest record.”

In 1957 Walt lifted the engine from his ’36 Ford and installed it in a 95-inch wheel-base rear engine dragster that belonged to his friend and racing buddy Bruce Cole. Running in the A/GD, which was top gas eliminator, Walt won the Northwest Cham-pionship and set a Northwest Gas record with a 10.6ET at 128MPH.

Walt raced his A/G ’36 Ford with great success in 1958, again posting victory in more than 90-percent of his races. Still hearing the call for more speed, Walt sold the ’36 and started racing with his friends Gene Olson and Jerry Searels.

“We bought Mickey Brown’s blown Olds engine,” he says. “I was the Crew Chief and Richard Rogers was the driver; the car was an AM/R (A-modified-rail) and we set a 1320 record of 9:80 at 156MPH. Then we crashed the car and built a K-88 AA/GD.

From 1959 to 1962 the Austin & Rog-ers team of Walt as Crew Chief and Rich Rogers as driver won many Top Gas titles. In the winter of 1962 Walt teamed with Dave Jeffers and built his first Chrysler HEMI engine and new AA/Gas Dragster.

Walt never attended classes but did school himself and was definitely an honor graduate of the “University of Learn-By-Doing”. While he was building race win-ning engines and cars he stayed on the leading edge by studying books and peri-odicals and even advanced new concepts with innovative thinking.

“The HEMI powered AA/Gas Dragster was a state of the art car,” Walt continues. “We bent our own tubing and did all our own fabrication and machine work. We used small English Ford spindles on the front; today they are called P&S. We had to machine our own hubs and lace wheels because no one was offering them at that time. The car also had the first Morris cable throttle linkage.”

The Austin-Jeffers team started racing AA/GD in 1963 and for the first six months they were undefeated and established ET and MPH records at all the tracks they raced.

“We were the first Gas Dragster to run over 180MPH in the Northwest,” Walt recalls. “Then Dave decided to move to California and go to work for R.C.S. (Race Car Specialties) so I bought his share of the car and had Richard Rogers take over the driving.”

The winning ways continued into early 1966 with Austin as Crew Chief and Rog-ers as driver posting that magic 90-percent winning record while setting numerous NHRA records for ET, MPH as well as many track records.

The Austin & Rogers team raced a lot during the mid-Sixties, as often as three times a week, but they only raced NHRA occasionally, because, Walt says, “They thought we should race for trophies; We had an AA/G circuit here (in the North-west) and had about 28 cars at one time. We got paid to show up and race for good purses.”

Thus it was Austin & Rogers at Puyal-lup, WA on Saturdays with night elimina-tions.

“There would be a 16 car Top Fuel show and a 16 car combo eliminator AA/GD and Junior fuel cars,” Walt continues. “Because our gas car was very popular in this market the promoter, probably know-ing we would win combo and knowing we were faster than some of the fuel cars, would leave one spot in top fuel eliminator for the combo winner.”

You guessed it — Austin & Rogers won the combo race and they won the first two races in top fuel.

“That made for big paydays for us, around $4,000.00, a lot of money in 1966,” Walt adds, “The fuel guys went to the promoter (Clark Marshall) and said they would not come again if we were allowed to run in top fuel with a gas car, so that ended that!”

Oh, by the way, the Austin & Rog-ers car won 90-percent of their races that season.

The mid-Sixties were an era of change and Walt kept a close eye on those changes. Match races were becoming more popular so he ordered a new dragster from R.C.S., obtained a Barracuda body and mounted it on his 120-inch gas dragster.

“Now I had two cars, a match race car called Fuel-Cuda and an AA/GD,” Walt continues. “We never ran fuel, only alco-hol. At that time the Fuel-Cuda was very fast, running 180MPH with an 8:30ET. The crowds loved it. The car was in demand in the Northwest and was the Northwest’s first blown Funny Car. We raced Dale Armstrong’s Corvair in Calgary, Alberta, Canada in a match race that reportedly drew 20,000 people. We beat him three straight. And when the National match racers came up here we beat them too.”

But Walt’s real love was his Gas Drag-ster so before long he parked the Cuda and continued to race the R.C.S. gas car.

“That car was state of the art, very light,” Walt says. “When we went to the NHRA Northwest Championship race the director wouldn’t accept a notarized letter from SEMA’s head man, Bob Spar, and we had to put 100 pounds back into the car. Come to find out that the NHRA director’s son also ran AA/GD; get the picture? We won the race anyway.”

Walt’s winning ways continued through the mid-Sixties with notable show-ings at all the top races. In 1967 Austin’s dragster went up against John Peters widely known “Freight Train” at Arlington Drag Strip in Washington.

“I was told that we drew the largest crowd they ever had, between 12,000 and 14,000 people,” Walt says. “We won three straight.”

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