Bruce Larsen
An early touring Match Racer with his popular series of red, white and blue Super/Stock and Factory Experimental (FX) “USA-1” Chevrolets, Bruce Larson of Camp Hill, Pennsylvania, went on to eventually become the 1989 National Hot Rod Association Funny Car Champion and the driver of fellow EMPA Hall of Fame member “Big Daddy” Don Garlits’ “Swamp Rat 32” Top Fuel Dragster.
Larson was a 16-year-old hot-rodder in 1954 when raced his classic 3”-chopped and fenderless, flathead V-8-powered blue 1932 Ford coupe at the East’s first sanctioned drag races in Linden, New Jersey. But it was in 1965 when he gained considerable national attention while driving Jim Costilo’s 1963 Ford Cobra.
Equipped with a Weber-carbureted 289-cubic-inch engine, a four-speed transmission, Cobra Sunburst rear wheels with slicks, wire front wheels and a removable hardtop, Larson and this metallic-magenta AA/Sports Car won the NHRA’s Winternationals at Pomona, California, Springnationals at Bristol, Tennessee, and U.S. Nationals in Indianapolis, Indiana.
Interestingly enough, the Ford-driving Larson was working at Sutliff Chevrolet in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, at that time and in 1966 he and his boss Greg Sutliff formed a Chevrolet-based Funny Car team.
Larson’s 1966 Chevelle SS was really tricked-out to keep up with the major Super Stock and FX meets being held all across the United States. The hand-built, first all-fiberglass Funny Car – which had Larson sitting in the left-side of the cockpit – had a fuel-injected 454-cubic-inch Chevy engine with a B&M Turbo Hydra-Matic transmission. It also had a shortened wheelbase as the rear and front axles were moved ahead a total of 12 inches to provide better weight transfer. It was additionally lightened in the front with a brakeless tube axle.
Larson toured the county and won numerous Match Races and set several national elapsed-time records with this seven-second Chevelle. Then, in 1967, he brought out a 500-cubic-inch 600-horsepower Camaro that was much different than its predecessor.
Now Larson sat more rearward and centered in the cockpit of his Camaro’s custom-built tube chassis as Funny Cars were becoming more “flip-top” and “racier” in their construction. And in 1968 he set a new NHRA elapsed-time record of 7.41 seconds and triumphed in 1969 at the Super Stock Nationals on the old York (Pa.) U.S. 30 Drag-O-Way.
After a Funny Car fire in 1972 destroyed his machine, Larson began to do some Pro Stock racing and his familiar red, white and blue “USA-1” livery was first seen on a 1970 Camaro and later on a 1972 Chevrolet Vega. He then returned to the Funny Car ranks in 1975 with a Chevrolet Monza and later a Corvette.
His biggest achievement in “the floppers” came in 1989 when – with Central Pennsylvania Sprint Car racer Maynard Yingst as his crew chief – he won the NHRA Funny Car World Championship in his red and white Sentry Performance Tachs & Gauges Oldsmobile.
Named the EMPA’s Al Holbert Memorial Driver of the Year for that accomplishment, Larson competed in a then-record 11 final rounds, won six races and twice set new e.t. records. He also led the 1989 NHRA World Championship race from start to finish and his best quarter-mile performance that year was a 5.229-second run at 278.89 miles per hour.
If all of that weren’t enough, his championship-winning Funny Car was donated to The Smithsonian National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C.
Bruce Larson ended his racing career in “Big Daddy’s” Top Fueler from 1992 to 1995. And his retirement gave him plenty of time to completely restore his original 1932 Ford coupe.
Larson was a 16-year-old hot-rodder in 1954 when raced his classic 3”-chopped and fenderless, flathead V-8-powered blue 1932 Ford coupe at the East’s first sanctioned drag races in Linden, New Jersey. But it was in 1965 when he gained considerable national attention while driving Jim Costilo’s 1963 Ford Cobra.
Equipped with a Weber-carbureted 289-cubic-inch engine, a four-speed transmission, Cobra Sunburst rear wheels with slicks, wire front wheels and a removable hardtop, Larson and this metallic-magenta AA/Sports Car won the NHRA’s Winternationals at Pomona, California, Springnationals at Bristol, Tennessee, and U.S. Nationals in Indianapolis, Indiana.
Interestingly enough, the Ford-driving Larson was working at Sutliff Chevrolet in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, at that time and in 1966 he and his boss Greg Sutliff formed a Chevrolet-based Funny Car team.
Larson’s 1966 Chevelle SS was really tricked-out to keep up with the major Super Stock and FX meets being held all across the United States. The hand-built, first all-fiberglass Funny Car – which had Larson sitting in the left-side of the cockpit – had a fuel-injected 454-cubic-inch Chevy engine with a B&M Turbo Hydra-Matic transmission. It also had a shortened wheelbase as the rear and front axles were moved ahead a total of 12 inches to provide better weight transfer. It was additionally lightened in the front with a brakeless tube axle.
Larson toured the county and won numerous Match Races and set several national elapsed-time records with this seven-second Chevelle. Then, in 1967, he brought out a 500-cubic-inch 600-horsepower Camaro that was much different than its predecessor.
Now Larson sat more rearward and centered in the cockpit of his Camaro’s custom-built tube chassis as Funny Cars were becoming more “flip-top” and “racier” in their construction. And in 1968 he set a new NHRA elapsed-time record of 7.41 seconds and triumphed in 1969 at the Super Stock Nationals on the old York (Pa.) U.S. 30 Drag-O-Way.
After a Funny Car fire in 1972 destroyed his machine, Larson began to do some Pro Stock racing and his familiar red, white and blue “USA-1” livery was first seen on a 1970 Camaro and later on a 1972 Chevrolet Vega. He then returned to the Funny Car ranks in 1975 with a Chevrolet Monza and later a Corvette.
His biggest achievement in “the floppers” came in 1989 when – with Central Pennsylvania Sprint Car racer Maynard Yingst as his crew chief – he won the NHRA Funny Car World Championship in his red and white Sentry Performance Tachs & Gauges Oldsmobile.
Named the EMPA’s Al Holbert Memorial Driver of the Year for that accomplishment, Larson competed in a then-record 11 final rounds, won six races and twice set new e.t. records. He also led the 1989 NHRA World Championship race from start to finish and his best quarter-mile performance that year was a 5.229-second run at 278.89 miles per hour.
If all of that weren’t enough, his championship-winning Funny Car was donated to The Smithsonian National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C.
Bruce Larson ended his racing career in “Big Daddy’s” Top Fueler from 1992 to 1995. And his retirement gave him plenty of time to completely restore his original 1932 Ford coupe.