Don Garlit’s Museum of Drag Racing

Don ‘Big Daddy’ Garlits is considered to be the ‘Father’ of drag racing & is an inductee in the International Drag Racing Hall of Fame. Not only was he the first drag racer to officially pass 170, 180, 200, 240, 250, 260, & 270 mph (terminal speed at the end of the 1/4 mile), but he was also the first racer to top 200 mph 1/8 mile. Also, thanks to racing accidents and near misses, he pioneered numerous safety improvements. These included the rear engine top fuel dragster after Garlits lost part of his foot when his transmission exploded. He moved the engine behind the driver so that the driver was no longer sitting on the transmission & if the engine catastrophically failed, the driver was no longer engulfed in the ensuing fire. He retired from racing in 1992 due to a separated retina (caused by the 4g deceleration forces generated when stopping Top Fuel dragsters).

The museum is located on the grounds of Don Garlits’ Ocala home (which you can see from the highway). Although Big Daddy is often at the museum we had probably passed him on the way down since he was attending the Musclecar Reunion at Gateway Raceway across the river from St Louis in Illinois!

The museum is split into two, with the main building containing about 100 racecars & Garlits’ engine collection (including the late Smokey Yunick’s engine dynamometer – very cool). The second building contains a number of vintage and musclecars, motoring memorabilia and antiques. The museum is somewhere I have wanted to visit since the first time I visited Florida back in the early 1990s & I had a great time looking at all the race cars (including a number that I had seen in US magazines as a child), and although I don’t think that it was Cheryl’s & Beth’s idea of fun, I think that they found it interesting to see some of the crazy machines that people strapped themselves into to go as fast as possible in a 1/4 mile!

Florida here we come (part 2)

The hotel breakfast was almost the best that we have had (except for the chef cooked personal hot breakfast in Las Vegas) & after filling up on sausages, sausage gravy & biscuits (savoury scones), waffles with fresh cream & strawberries & cherries, melon, toast, muffins, pastries, cereal, fruit juice, & coffee, we were ready for the off.

In less than 2 hours we had made it to Florida & stopped at the first Florida Welcome Center we came to. Here we were able to browse through & take copies of promotional literature for hundreds of Florida attractions (all sorted by region), were served with complementary freshly squeezed Florida Orange juice, & took the obligatory photos under the ‘Welcome to Florida’ sign. Next stop – Ocala.

Florida here we come!

According to Google Maps, it would take us approximately 16 hours to drive from St Louis to Orlando. Cheryl & I decided to share the driving, with Cheryl opting to go first. Our route took us west through Missouri & Illinois to Mount Vernon & then south (past Metropolis) to Nashville, Tennessee. This took about 5 hours & the sight of the Nashville skyline combined with our new navigator ‘Tom’ (our GPS) showing multiple roads converging on the highway was enough for Cheryl to decide that she was now out of her ‘comfort zone’. This wasn’t actually a bad thing as we needed petrol & it seemed like a good time to stop for lunch. One quick Big Mac & fuel stop & we were back on the road with me at the wheel.

We continued heading south-ish through Tennessee & Kentucky (through Chattanooga & the Smoky Mountains) towards Atlanta, Georgia. This is where we hit our first traffic hold-up, arriving in the city just in time to hit the Friday afternoon rush-hour. It took about an hour to make it through the city but we decided to continue driving as we really wanted to make it to Florida. Some of Cheryl’s work colleagues suggested purchasing a book which lists all the available facilities (hotels, restaurants, petrol stations, etc) at each highway exit so we decided to stop in Cordele (about 100 miles north of the Georgia/Florida border) as it seemed that there were lots of things to do. Also, as it was getting late & we hadn’t eaten, we didn’t really want to be wandering around a strange area late at night. We ate at a local Italian American restaurant & stayed at a Best Western hotel (which was excellent value at less than $60 per night). The staff were really friendly & mentioned that there was a really good complimentary breakfast served from 6:00am, so now we knew what time we would have to get up to continue our road trip – very early!