An Alliance Forged Out of Necessity : Drag racing: Shirley Muldowney had a car but no sponsor. Larry Minor had a sponsor but no time. So, the two have combined the positives going into the Winternationals.

Shirley Muldowney had a new dragster on order from Al Swindahl, but no sponsor to pay the bills as the 1990 National Hot Rod Assn. season approached. It appeared that her season might end with the Winternationals, the opening event this weekend at Pomona Fairplex.

Larry Minor had a new dragster on order from Al Swindahl and a sponsor on hold, but his hopes of coming out of retirement to drive a top fuel dragster were frustrated by the pressure of running his multimillion-dollar farming and ranching business.

The solution: Minor bought Muldowney’s dragster, put the name of his new sponsor on its sides and hired the three-time world champion to drive.

“I’d known Shirley since I started racing in 1978, but only as a competitor,” Minor said. “We were never close friends or anything like that. I’d always admired the way she drove, but that was about it.”

The first move toward a union occurred last summer during the U. S. Nationals at Indianapolis, where Muldowney failed to qualify.

Rahn Tobler, her husband and crew chief, confided to Minor that Muldowney’s sponsorship deal with Performance Automotive Wholesale was ending after four seasons, and said if he ever needed a driver, she was available.

“At that time, running another car was the farthest thought from my mind,” Minor said. He already had one top fuel driver, Dick LaHaie, the 1987 Winston champion, and a funny car driver, Ed (Ace) McCulloch.

Toward the end of the 1989 season, however, Minor got the urge to return to racing after a year’s absence, so he ordered a new dragster.

“I thought I might be able to make the Winston Final (last race of the NHRA season) last year and maybe the first couple this year,” Minor said. “You’ve got to order a car nearly a year ahead if you expect to have it ready for Pomona. I started getting a crew together, but shortly before the (Final) I realized I couldn’t take the time off, so I hired Frank Hawley to drive it in that one race.

“That left me with a second car for 1990 and no one to drive it. I had just about worked out a sponsorship deal with Paul Pope (owner of Otter-Pops, an Arcadia-based fast-freeze product) when Rahn and Shirley called from Palm Springs and said they’d like to stop by on their way home. It was early in December, and we talked for several hours. The longer we talked, the better it seemed for me to have Shirley drive my car.”

Muldowney had made a comeback after the U. S. Nationals. She won the Fallnationals in Chandler, Ariz., for her first national victory since a 1984 racing accident that shattered both legs.

“I called Paul to find his reaction to sponsoring Shirley, and he said, ‘Great idea,’ so that’s how it all came together.”

Minor, 49, had raced his own top fuel dragster from 1983 through the first race of 1988, the Winternationals. He was fast qualifier at Pomona in his last outing, recording a career-best of 5.180 seconds elapsed time for the quarter-mile.

He won two NHRA national events, the 1983 Cajon Nationals and the 1986 Mile-High Nationals. He also was the first driver to break the 5.25-second barrier with a 5.247 run at the 1987 Gatornationals in Gainesville, Fla.

“I really enjoyed racing, but when my dad got sick in December 1987, the business required more and more time from my brother, Wayne, and myself. When Dad was active, I could take off and go racing, but not any more. The business is just too demanding.”

Minor’s Agri-Empire, Inc. is located in San Jacinto, a community of 15,000 and the oldest incorporated city in Riverside County. But the empire is far-flung.

He oversees 15,000 acres planted in potatoes within 75 miles of the downtown packing shed where 10,000 hundred-weight sacks are processed every day. Agri-Empire is the largest grower, shipper and broker of potatoes in the country.

“One of my best customers is Alex Foods, which shows that racers stick together. They take 100,000 pounds of potatoes every day, five days a week, 52 weeks a year, for their salads. Every day, they bring all the leftovers back here, where we mix it with potato culls for feed.”

The Morales family, which sponsored Alex Foods racing cars, has been a fixture in sprint car and Indy car racing for more than 40 years.

Their leftovers help feed Minor’s 40,000 head of cattle. He owns 65,000 acres in Utah, 35,000 in Oregon and 25,000 in Montana, where the cattle are fattened for market. He also keeps about 2,200 head in Moreno Valley.

“We used to be mostly into potatoes, but I’d say we’re pretty evenly divided these days between potatoes, cattle and land,” he said.

“We’ve been in these parts since my grandfather came to Moreno Valley from Texas, when my dad was 12. When my dad was old enough, he started growing sweet potatoes and then he switched to potatoes, just reds and whites. I remember when I was a little boy, my dad was out farming all day. We had no employees, no equipment.

“He’d make a little money and turn it right over into more acreage. That’s how he built up the business, scraping every penny he could for more land. He worked hard every day of his life.”

The elder Minor died last April.

Off-road racing seemed to be a way of life for teen-agers growing up in the Hemet-San Jacinto area, so it was no surprise when Larry Minor joined Rod Hall, Walker Evans, Jim Fricker and Jim Venable in desert racing. Minor was named driver of the year by Four Wheeler Magazine in 1968 after he won his class driving a Ford Bronco for Bill Stroppe and actor James Garner in the Mint 400, the Stardust/7 Eleven race and the Baja 1,000.

“This is a great place for growing up. There’s so much room to roam,” he said. “I gave up off-road racing to go into drags in 1984, but my boys are into it now. Chris, who is 24, and Larry Gene, who is 22, are both racing trucks.”

Chris Minor won the pickup class and finished fifth overall in last Saturday’s SCORE Parker 400, driving a Chevy truck with Dick Simpson.

Larry Minor switched his interest from off-roading to dragsters after watching the World Finals at Ontario in 1977 with Jack Bayer, who built the engines for his off-road trucks.

“As soon as I saw the top fuelers, I wanted in,” Minor said. “I bought a dragster from Sherm Gunn, but I couldn’t get a license in time for the first race. I was so gung-ho to get started that I got Larry Bowers to drive it for me. The first run was at night, down at Orange County Raceway, and all my family was there ready to find out all about drag racing.

“Larry made a pass, smoked the tires, hit the guard rail, got upside down, broke both his arms and destroyed the car. I thought, ‘What did I get myself into?’ and my family totally opposed my driving after seeing the crash.”

Minor bought another car from Gunn, put Larry Dixon in it and campaigned for two years before he decided he was ready for a top driver.

“Someone said, ‘Why don’t you talk to Gary Beck?’ and he wound up driving for me for six years, and for a couple of years there we were just about unbeatable.

“Beck moved out to Hemet, and he and (crew chief) Bernie Fedderly built the strongest engines in drag racing.”

In 1983, when Minor decided to campaign a second dragster himself, the blue Larry Minor Motorsports dragsters dominated their class. When the season ended, Beck had won his third U. S. Nationals, set the national record of 5.39 seconds at the Golden State Nationals and had posted the 17 fastest times ever recorded. Minor had the 18th fastest and Beck had Nos. 19 through 21.

The pair qualified at every race in which they appeared, and met in the final round of the Cajun Nationals, where Minor “upset” his No. 1 driver in a curious race that saw Minor do everything he could to lose, so that Beck would get more points toward winning the championship.

Beck blew the blower belt coming off the starting line, and Minor, when he realized something was wrong, hit the brakes to let Beck coast across the winner. But he had too much momentum and finished first in the painfully slow time of 8.78 seconds to 8.95 for Beck.

“The saddest look I’ve ever seen on a winner was when Larry won at the Cajuns,” Beck said. “After we launched, he looked around and couldn’t see me, so he slowed down. In the victory circle, he looked more like the loser because we’d been pointing our major effort toward my car, and he had just beat me out of 200 points. But it really wouldn’t have made any difference, because even if I’d been racing someone else, I would have lost them anyway.”

The win came in only the fourth race of Minor’s drag racing career.

“Beck taught me the professional side of drag racing,” Minor said. “He and Bernie (Fedderly) were years ahead with their engine development.”

Fedderly is still with Minor, now doing the engine work for McCulloch’s Oldsmobile funny car.

“People are always asking me why I have a funny car when I’ve been a top fuel man from the start,” Minor said. “Well, I was walking through the pits one night at Orange County in 1984 when a couple of guys introduced themselves to me. They said they were from Oldsmobile, liked my operation and asked if I would be interested in running a funny car. When they told me the (financial) numbers, I said ‘sure.’

“I got Ace (McCulloch) to come out of retirement, and we’ve all been together ever since.”

McCulloch, in his 21st year of funny car racing, clocked the fastest time ever in the division, 5.13 seconds, last year at Dallas.

When Minor and Beck split toward the end of the 1986 season, Minor needed a new driver to fulfill his sponsorship contract with Miller High Life, so he tabbed LaHaie, an independent from Lansing, Mich., who had his daughter, Kim, as his crew chief.

“LaHaie wasn’t real well known then, but I’d liked the way he worked, so I hired him,” said Minor. “It didn’t take him long to prove me right.” LaHaie won the top fuel championship in his first season.

“The only thing I don’t like about having LaHaie is that he keeps his operation in Michigan,” said Minor. “I like a hands-on operation, which is the way I run all my businesses. That’s why I have Shirley’s car in my shop out here.

“You know, a lot of people have thanked me for keeping Shirley in the game, but the truth is I didn’t just do it for her. I did it as much for myself as I did it for Shirley.”

When Muldowney brings her new dragster to the starting line this weekend, her fans will be in for a surprise.

For the first time in her career, she will not be in a pink car. It will be dark blue, as are all of Minor’s vehicles.

“There’ll still be a little pink,” she said from her home in Northridge. “I’ll wear a pink helmet, and my driving suit will still be pink. I don’t care what color the car is if it wins.”

Muldowney gave the car its first trial run last weekend at Famoso, near Bakersfield, but engine problems prevented her from making a full pass.

“The motor sounded great, and we found our problem and expect to have it cured by the time we get to the track Thursday (first day of qualifying for Sunday’s Winternationals). The car is quite a bit different from last year’s model, but all the changes should be for the better.”

The Swindahl-built creation has been stretched eight inches to the maximum 300. The motor has been set back eight inches and the driver’s seat has been moved back 16 inches--all changes designed to get more horsepower to the huge rear wheels.

“It’s a lot of car,” Muldowney said. “It should get a lot more traction to the race track. I’m excited about the new year. I like the idea of driving for Larry Minor, and, if we win some races, it will be the best program I’ve ever had.”