FROM TWO TO FOUR AND MORE

“When last we left our hero he and his sidekick were about to embark on a great journey.” If this sounds like a comic book opening, you’d be right. In fact, it would be easy to draw parallels between such inked characters and racing icon Tommy Ivo. The charismatic Southern Californian was as fast as he was charming, as smart as he was talented and pages ahead of everyone else in drag racing when it came to self-promotion.

After dominating the California drag racing scene through much of the late ’50s, Tommy set his sights on the other 47 connected states. His twin-engine dragster had shown up on the cover of the most popular automotive magazines, as well as in many newsreels. As a trained showman, Ivo knew this was something to build upon. Early in the ’60, Ivo’s TV shooting schedules ended by early spring. He also declined any film roles that would run past May. This was part of a grand plan to do something no drag racer had ever conceived—much less attempted—a national tour.

A CADDY, A KID AND A CALENDAR

Ivo pulled together contacts for tracks from Nevada to Maine. The idea was to run on Friday, another date on Saturday and yet another on Sunday; go down the road and do it all over again for six weeks leading up to the Big Go; and then repeat the effort on the way back west, arriving home to resume his acting career.

This was a monumental goal for its day. But, Ivo took it to the next level by only booking tracks that were willing to pay him. Playing on the mass exposure he had received in magazines and as a TV and movie star, Ivo figured that properly promoted, he could pack the stands from coast to coast as he’d done throughout Southern California. His credibility was high and tracks quickly bought into the notion that the biggest name in racing, with the wildest and fastest car in the land, would indeed put fans in the stands. For $500, TV Tommy would run the best cars and drivers the area had to offer. Ivo quickly had 50 tracks under contract and was on his way to becoming the first true professional drag racer. All that was left to do was map and do the tour.

With success came complications, including logistics. “I had no idea what ‘logistics’ meant at that time, but I was about to get a crash course,” said Ivo. “Fortunately, I grew up in the most hectic world of all, showbiz. So, I knew how to plan things based on exposure.” Ivo scripted radio ads, offered photos and provided ways to get local media to hype his appearances. He supplied these to tracks in advance, so by the time he arrived, the buzz was at a fever pitch—very forward thinking.

Ivo was so good at promotion that he quickly became a victim of his own success. The original plan of June to October expanded into March to November. Ivo knew his aggressive schedule and the rigors of being on the road could not be done single-handedly. He had taken a liking to a smart, determined and confident Don Prudhomme. Ivo offered him a modest wage along with an opportunity of a lifetime to sign on for the tour. “He jumped at the deal. To Don, it was more than a job; it was an adventure, moreover, an adventure mixed with drag racing,” explained Ivo. Prudhomme recalls, “Hell yeah, I wanted to go. Months of racing with the best there was at the time. Seeing parts of the country I’d never seen before—it was great. Plus, it showed me how you could make a living racing.”

With Prudhomme and the necessary equipment in place, Ivo was set. The twin-engine dragster was loaded onto an open flatbed trailer and hitched to his new white Caddy. By the second week of March, the first paid national tour had begun. From L.A. through the heartland to New York City, Ivo and a young Prudhomme were treated like royalty: the king of drag racing, and unknown at the time, the boy who would soon become king.

One of the red-letter dates was the NASCAR Quarter-Mile Championship in Montgomery, New York. Yes, NASCAR was once into drag racing. Ivo won the event, earning him a mammoth trophy, cash and a new ’60 Chevrolet El Camino.

When the marathon tour was completed in early November, it was time for Ivo to get back to Burbank’s sound stages. Prudhomme returned to work in the family auto body and paint shop. But, the lessons of the summer of ’60 would linger. “That summer taught me much. Not the least of which was how to be professional and the value of how to take control of your future,” said Prudhomme.

With such a big “first” for the sport, Ivo needed to further his efforts but do so on a local level. He and Tony Nancy refitted the twin with a blown engine from Nancy’s rail. The result was the first 190-mph run on gas.

IF TWO WAS GOOD, FOUR WOULD BE EVEN BETTER

By now everyone around the sport knew Ivo was a big thinker. When he went from one engine to two, it was a big deal. Although he wasn’t the first to do so, it was the way in which he engineered the delivery of power that made news. Now he was thinking even bigger. “I told Ken Fuller that we made two engines work, so let’s try four,” recalled Ivo. The first big task was getting Fuller to consider such an outrageous idea. The next step was how to get four V-8 engines to work in harmony. The answer was four-wheel-drive. Two banks of engines—16 cylinders per bank—supplying power to all four wheels. By far, this was the most ambitious project to date, one that straddled the border between genius and insanity. Ivo couldn’t wait for each studio day to wrap so he could speed a few blocks home and continue work on his 32-cylinder project.

The four-engine dragster was far from being an overnight build. It took a great deal of trial and error to discover answers to questions never before asked. For Fuller, the primary problem was the massive weight of not only four Buick Nailhead engines, but also two custom-made drivelines, not to mention wheels and drag slicks. While the car was under construction, the two-engine car was sold to help fund the four-engine build. In addition, his even older single-engine chassis was given to Don Prudhomme. “I made a deal with Prudhomme. I gave him the use of the chassis for a thousand dollars on the terms of no money down and nothing per month. At first he put his own Buick engine in it, but soon hooked up with a buddy who had a blown Hemi. While I was busy with the four-engine dragster, they went racing. Boy, that deal would later come back to haunt me,” remembers Ivo.

Just prior to the completion of the four-engine dragster, Ivo received major news. ABC was preparing a new sitcom titled Margie starring Cynthia Pepper with Procter & Gamble as the sponsor. Producer Hal Goodman wanted the experienced and boyish Ivo to be cast as Haywood Botts, one of Margie’s suitors. This was a huge step in Ivo’s career, one too good to pass up. “They [Goodman and Larry Klein] knew I did some racing. But, they assumed it was far less than what I was really doing,” Ivo admitted. Filming began in July of ’61, a few days after the four-engine dragster’s debut at the San Fernando drag strip.

With the engines dialed in and slow speed tests completed, Ivo was ready to hammer the throttle and see what his Frankenstein could do. On the first run, the front lifted slightly, causing the tires to spin, which affected the rear weight transfer. The result was a spectacular four-wheel burnout unlike anyone had ever seen. “As you can imagine, the crowd went wild,” re-called Ivo. They weren’t the only ones that went nuts for the beast. It didn’t take long for news of Ivo’s machine to reach the ears of NHRA President Wally Parks. Instantly he and the rest of NHRA were concerned that the speed this dragster might achieve could pose a major safety issue. Because few tracks had proper guardrails, spectators and other racers could be in great risk if Ivo’s car couldn’t be controlled. What Parks and the NHRA didn’t know at that time (and neither did Ivo) was the full potential in terms of acceleration, top speed and stopping distance. Keep in mind this was a fuel-injected 32-cylinder power source that needed to propel in excess of 4,000 pounds. Nothing of this nature had ever been created, so the unknowns far outweighed the known factors.

NHRA officials were at San Gabriel during Ivo’s first full-throttle runs. After the three-run set, Ivo achieved yet another drag racing first: the first car to be banned from competition. This created a dilemma and an opportunity. The problem was that Ivo had already booked tracks throughout the area. He convinced NHRA to allow him to run on sanctioned tracks as an exhibition attraction. Then, in typical Ivo style, he used the ban to heighten the appeal of a dragster that was so scary and powerful it was barred from competition.

Hot Rod Magazine was on Ivo’s four-engine from its first appearance. The editor arranged for a cover shoot and suggested it be done on the Margie TV set. Prudhomme hauled the race car to the 20th Century Fox studios for the shoot. The episode in progress was titled, “The Jazz Band,” and called for Ivo to be out-fitted in a white suit with bowtie, striped jacket and a straw hat. When production broke for lunch, Ivo stepped from the sound-stage to an outside lot. Cynthia Pepper, the show’s star, followed, as did cast and crew plus an ABC network executive. Photos of Ivo, Pepper and the car were taken as well as Ivo with Prudhomme. According to Ivo, “The network knew I did some racing, but when they saw the four-engine car, doors from one end of the studio to the other started slamming.” It only took a matter of hours for Ivo to be faced with the situation he feared most, having to choose between racing and acting. “Racing was my passion but acting was my livelihood. So, it was either stop driving or be written off a network show. I knew what side of the bread was buttered, so I agreed to stop racing.”

That fateful day in September 1961 brought about significant changes that were completely unrealized at the time. Ivo was faced with a dilemma: The car was booked to run at a number of tracks but now had no driver. Staring Ivo in the face was the answer, a 20-year-old Don Prudhomme. “It seemed like a perfect solution. Don was someone I trusted and had quickly become a good driver. I paid him $25 a run. I guess you could say I gave him his first professional driving job,” said Ivo.

The December issue of Hot Rod hit the newsstands. On the cover were Ivo, Pepper and the four-engine dragster. A cover blurb announced “Tommy Ivo’s Roaring Showboat.” From that moment the car was forever tagged The Showboat, named not by Ivo, but by the editors of a magazine due to a TV wardrobe decision.

By the spring of 1962, Ivo booked The Showboat throughout the west with Prudhomme doing most of the driving.

Often, the best decisions are the ones made outside of your control. In April 1962, ABC cancelled Margie. Upon hearing the news, production halted and the cast and crew gathered to support each other, except for Ivo. In full Hayward Botts costume and makeup, he bolted for his dressing room, slamming the door behind him. Concerned crewmembers came to the locked door and heard a tremendous ruckus coming from inside. What they couldn’t see was that Tommy was not distressed, but elated. “I was doing cartwheels in my dressing room. This meant I was free. I could now go back to racing. When I left the set, I was done with acting and I never looked back.”

Although Ivo no longer considered himself a member of the acting community, he wasn’t about to let go of the Hollywood image. Instead, in true master showman style, he played it up. “The public wanted to see what they thought was a millionaire actor/race car driver. And I wasn’t one to let down my fans.” With The Showboat a major headliner at tracks and on the car show circuit, Ivo pushed the idea of touring to new levels. But when rumors surfaced that the NHRA was about to lift its nitro ban, Ivo knew being able to sustain a career on exhibition racing was coming to an end. It was time to take speed to the next level.

SPEED SPECIALTIES AND NITRO FEVER

As the nitro age was about to dawn, Ivo wanted no part of being left behind. More precisely, he wanted to lead the charge. He partnered with master engine builder Dave Zeuschel to build The Barnstormer dragster. Seeing beyond his personal needs, he created Tommy Ivo Speed Specialties and put Rod Peppmuller in charge of shop operations and fabrication. The shop turned out the Barnstormer’s 124-inch chassis in record time, less than a week. This lead to chassis orders from other teams across the nation.

Painted in the famous Ivo Orange, the Barnstormer created havoc from its first run. By this time, Prudhomme had hooked up with Tom Greer and Keith Black to create that formidable team. But, it was Ivo who grabbed headlines when he became the first driver to run 190 mph, and later the first to break the seven-second barrier. “Zeuschel and I were always experimenting with ideas. We learned that running a 10-inch clutch provided better tire control than the 11-inch clutch everyone else was using. It also taught us that horsepower alone was not the key to running faster,” Ivo said. Prudhomme ran his first sub-seven second E.T. a few weeks later when Keith Black used lighter clutch springs. Soon Tom McEwen found a combination that added him to the club. The Southern California trio were the darlings of the sport, assisted by the fact that the major publications were based in Los Angeles and covered their every accomplishment. One of these feats happened at San Gabriel when Ivo and Prudhomme hooked up in a special match race. The result was another drag racing first, the first side-by-side, seven-second run.

By this time Ivo’s Showboat was a mainstay in hobby shops in the form of Revell’s 1:25-scale model kit. Ivo hired a driver and put the beast on tour throughout the east. In a way, this put Ivo everywhere at one time.

America was not enough for Ivo. In 1964, Wally Parks wanted to take the NHRA global. To accomplish this, he arranged for Ivo, Garlits, Sox & Martin, Tony Nancy and other stars of the sport to tour England. “At the track in Blackbushe, 30,000 people showed up,” recalled Ivo. His blond California good looks and engaging personality made him the star of the tour. The future looked bright for Ivo and drag racing. It was going global and Ivo was the popular face of the sport. But as ahead of the curve as Ivo had always been, the sport was producing drivers and designs that would greatly challenge his position at the head of the class.

Drag racing still had a long way to go before being considered a major sport, and Ivo was set on finding a way to help make it mainstream. DR

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In Act III

• Touring Trophies
• Clear Showmanship
• The Big Crash
• Front Man Pitch Man
• Rockets and Funny Cars

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