"Mickey" Thompson

[TimD]

The following is posted here as a response to Peter's enquiry in the "Technical Forum".

In a word, who was Mickey Thompson?

Marion Lee "Mickey" Thompson, born 1928, started constructing hot-rod type vehicles while still at school. His flair for automotive construction, and a knack for thinking laterally, found him in the mid 1950s as a prominent force in the drag racing and dry lake record breaking fraternity.

A lot of his early technical thinking culminated in the machine we now know as a "slingshot" dragster, with driver and powerplant at the very tail of a long rail chassis. When his dragsters seemed to have reached the pinnacle of development, he went on to a new challenge - the Land Speed Record.

The Challenger 1, his LSR machine, followed hotrod principles, the driver was positioned in the tail, as with a dragster, but up front there were four linked Pontiac eights. The car achieved a best of 406mph in 1960 at Bonneville.

From there, Thompson turned his hand to Indy Roadsters, and his Harvey Aluminum Specials were noted in the early sixties for their unorthodox design. These cars were driven by Graham Hill, Dan Gurney and Duane Carter amongst others, but were confronted with Jim Clark and the Lotus in 1963, which immediately revealed the development limitations of the front engined Indy car. When Dave MacDonald was killed in a Thompson car in 1964, it seemed to confirm the governing body's fears that innovation was taking precedence over commonsense.

Somewhat disheartened with oval racing, Mickey Thompson went on to a front-engine, FWD dragster, another LSR attempt, named the Autolite Special, which could only muster 425mph, and then took up racing in the Baja 1000 off road endurance races.

Mickey Thompson was the promoter of that uniquely American motor sporting activity, the stadium off-road event, using lightened pickup trucks and VW Beetles over a motocross course of jumps and berms.

And it was this activity which found him in his office/workshop in California in 1988, when a gunman entered the premises and ended his life.

[Peter Mallett]

Funnily enough, I read an article recently about two brothers who are following in Mickey Thompson's footsteps. Its a bit vague but I think I read that they were running a driven wheel LSR with four engines. What always amazes me with these things is the technical expertise require to synchronise four power plants and then move the power throught the drive train.

Sad that somebody as clever and innovative as this man should lose his life like that.

[Franklin]

Mickey Thompson was the hot rodder who demonstrated that hot rodders could push the performance envelope on a world class level. Besides being the man who in 1962 introduced wide low profile tires to open wheel racing, Mickey Thompson was the first man to clock speeds of over 300 mph and 400 mph with automotive engines. He was also the first American driver to clock speeds of over 300 mph and 400 mph, only the second driver period to clock over 400 mph, and the first driver to clock over 300 mph with normally aspirated engines. Thompson also did much to advance offroad racing, including founding SCORE.

[Peter Mallett]

Welcome to the forum Franklin.

A hot rod vehicle is a little strange in Europe so what is it and how did it differ from the other types of vehicle available. Were they used on circuits or just for speed events?

With your knowledge of the man, how about expanding on Tim's post? He was obviously clever but don't you find it tragic that someone as important to world motorsport should have his life ended like that?

Also. What exactly is SCORE?

[Franklin]

Mickey Thompson's efforts at Indy were with rear engine cars. Initially, the cars were fully enclosed streamliners but USAC officials decided they would rather see some form of open wheeler.

[Peter Mallett]

Tim,

Franklin's reply doesn't quite stack up with your info. Did Thompsion really concentrate on front engined roadsters?

Franklin,

What exactly is hot rodding?

[Franklin]

Mickey Thompson's efforts at Indy did not involve front-engine roadsters.

Hot rodding is essentially substituting money with ingenuity. For example, the engines in Thompson's 406 mph Challenger I were Pontiacs with stock heads and blocks and coupled to pre-WWII Lasalle transmissions.

[TimD]

Well, I shall bow to Franklin's expert knowledge and familiarity with this branch of history.

Being 35 years and 4000 miles from the events in question, my recollection and library are a little sketchy on this, and when looking for primary sources to back me up yesterday, I found that I had the sketchiest of reports of the '62, '63 and '64 Indy 500s. I would also add that the video I gleaned most of my Mickey Thompson bio knowledge from has been loaned to a friend for a couple of years now.

Reminds me to ask for it back - it has a great interview with Mickey Thompson's son, as well as a terrific one with Smokey Yunick.

[TimD]

It just struck me that the career of Mickey Thompson seems to have followed a very similar path to that of Britain's very own Mr SH Allard. Ingenious homebuilt cars, sprinting, drag racing and international racing events, culminating in his own line of cars and speed accessories.

Which leads me to wondering if his exploits and achievements have translated well across the pond...

[Peter Mallett]

To put it simply. Allard took a home built british chassis and made it into a racing car by the simple means of slipping a massive american V8 into it. I always thought they were pretty ugly but very effective.

Ever seen one Franklin?