Riggle gave Leno a ride in this 2,500hp Barracuda at Irwindale Speedway to knock a check off of Leno’s bucket list. Unfortunately, they were at the circle track instead of the drag strip. After doing a killer wheelstand for Jay, he couldn’t get it stopped in time before the bank. He turned to avoid going towards the wall and the car simply couldn’t handle it. The car tipped and rolled a few times. Thankfully, both of these American icons are safe, but the legendary Hemi Under Glass is not looking so good. Check out the video below to watch the carnage unfold.
“This is only the second crash I’ve had in the 50 years of running this car.” – Bob Riggle
I went to the Mopar Nationals in Vegas probably 15 years ago, and Bob was billing it as Hemi under Glass' last showing.
The oddities I noticed were the rear axle is reversed, so the pinion faces the rear. A gear box attaches to the pinion due to the engine being partly above the axle. The floorpan is a plastic sheet so when he is doing a pass he can see in front of the car.
When he got to the line to do a 1/4 mile pass he did a little show, probably to test the car. Crowd pleasing lift and maybe a 100 yard burnout. I believe the whole place was watching this "last pass" of HUG. Then, in what seemed like slow motion, he stood the car on the wheelie bars, it looked like he lifted the throttle, then he mashed the go pedal and the dang thing wheelied the whole 1/4 mile. What amazed me the most was that he had done the pass in under 11 seconds, I believe.
Luckily before the pass when I was looking over the car, I saw Bob was selling and autographing Mattel HUG toys, and I bought one.
Cool car and driver
Back up to our arriving at Las vegas motor speedway:
Dad went with me to the track and when we approached the drag strip he heard lots of popping sounds of the Vipers that were running the track, and dad asked why they had such poor tuning. They were still running the vipers when we got to the wall next to the track, and I explained that the popping was the drivers hitting the Rev limiters and not shifting fast enough to reduce the time the engine was running with not all cylinders firing. He used to drag race street cars back in the late 50's, so he had no idea what a rev limiter was.
The oddities I noticed were the rear axle is reversed, so the pinion faces the rear. A gear box attaches to the pinion due to the engine being partly above the axle.
The oddities I noticed were the rear axle is reversed, so the pinion faces the rear. A gear box attaches to the pinion due to the engine being partly above the axle.
Allen
Gearbox out of Vdrive drag boat.
Good point
I had a 1960 Sanger V drive with a Mondello built 392 hemi with about the same casting V drive gear box now that you mention it.
Sold it and some other toys to buy my 70-440 Cuda.
I remember all of those old wheelie machines from back then. The Little Red Wagon, The Paddy Wagon, The Back Up Pick Up, Hurst Hemi Under Glass,..
If you want to recall those old days and how casual everybody was about everything, check out this video and watch Bob Riggle take a ride in the bed of the Back Up Pick Up. No seat, no harness, no belt,..no nothing. Just an old open face motorcycle helmet on and he jumps in the bed of the turned around wheelie machine and goes for a ride.
There's no way anybody would be allowed to do something like that today.
