Racing Legend Wins Over A New Legion Of Fans

“Big Daddy” Don Garlits cackles one of his “Swamp Rat” dragsters at Eddyville Raceway Park Saturday Night (photo by Denis Currier/Oskaloosa News)

Oskaloosa, Iowa – The Earth shakes and rumbles, and people turn to see what the commotion is all about. At the corner of 1st Avenue West and South Market was one reason why all earth quakes are not such a bad thing, after all.

“Big Daddy” Don Garlits is one of those personalities that is quickly and easily identifiable with a sport. So, when the legendary drag racer made his appearance this weekend at Eddyville Raceway Park, the visitors were in for a treat.

Garlits, who has been attending to his wife during her illness, doesn’t travel like he use to. “I wanted so badly to come up here because I’d never been here before.” So with encouragement from his wife, Garlits and his crew made their way to Oskaloosa by Friday, and was in Eddyville all day Saturday, signing autographs.

The sport has a wide range of spectators, from old to young, inexperienced to seasoned veteran, and Garlits hopes that the sport will continue on for years to come. “I’m so proud of it [drag racing]. It’s been such a community service. You have no idea how many lives drag racing has saved. The kids that would run these cars on the streets. We did it,” Garlits added. “Every community should support these strips.”

Garlits started racing in June of 1950, when they scraped off the weeds that had overgrown Zephyr Hills Army Air Corp Training Base, and lined up to race. They painted two lines “and we raced all day. There was 18 of us. No trophies, no clocks. We had a great time.”

Garlits remembers that first time racing, “we just loved it. It was all legal. Nobody was going to get into trouble. We were there when it was daylight in the morning and we raced until dark.”

“You know back in those days, drag racers were black leather jacketed hoodlums.” And Garlits remembers a sheriff that watched the racers most all of that day, just in case there was trouble. “The sheriff finally says, ‘boys, I gotta go home, my dinners gonna get cold.'”

Garlits wrapped up his stay in the Oskaloosa area by sharing many of those same types of stories with fans, who soaked up every bit of nostalgia. The impression he left on the racing fans in Oskaloosa and Eddyville will last another lifetime.

If you want to know more about Don Garlits, you can visit his website at www.garlits.com.