Darkhorse

June 22, 1990
By Todd Veney
National Dragster

Bob Elliott is the kind of horse you’d want to bet on. His odds would be long – but only because nobody’s heard of him.

Casual drag racing fans might have assumed that the fastest Alcohol Funny Car driver going into the ‘90s was 27-time National event champion Pat Austin, three-time and defending Winston Champion Brad Anderson, or National E.T. Record holder Bob Newberry.

They’d have been wrong.

That honor, at least officially, belongs to a driver from outside the United States: Canadian Bob Elliott, who took John Rossitter’s easily unnoticed, black Firenza to a Record-bashing 233.40-mph at the last NHRA event of the ‘80s, the Snowbird Nationals.

But in spite of that semi-legend-making feat, Elliott and Rossitter have labored in relative obscurity in the Great White North so far in 1990, just as they did before the Record run. As Elliott likes to say, Bob Elliott isn’t exactly the first name that comes to mind when a match-race promoter decides to put on a show – no matter how quick or fast he may have gone in one of his infrequent outings.

That the unheralded Canadians’ heroics came at a small Florida strip a couple months after the season had wound down for most of the more celebrated rivals won’t do anything to propel them to overnight stardom, either; that’s not lost on Elliott, who admits that “most fans probably don’t know who we are.”

He and Rossitter don’t need to be told that it’s all part of the game. Like most part-time racers, they’re not in it for the glory, anyway. They do what they can, with what they can, when they can.

This year, that hasn’t been very often; once, to be specific. “We can only go to so many races,” Elliott says, “because we can race only when John’s (hard-core race parts) business allows. “We didn’t pick the Mid-South Nationals for any reason other than that John happened to have money right then. We would have liked to have been at Columbus and Gainesville – at all of them – but we can’t.”

Rossitter is forced by the current sluggish Canadian economy to be as conservative run to run as he is from race to race. “Every run is important to us, money-wise. We try to skip one qualifying session at every National event we go to, “ Elliott explained. “That way, even with the few big races we go to, it adds up to enough runs to get to one extra race at the end of the year.”

At the Mid-South Nationals, Elliott qualified with a career-best 6.001, 236.22. The E.T. was within thousandths of Low E.T. of the Meet, and the mph reading was much more than Top Speed: it was just behind Austin’s 237.52 National Record, and the fastest non-Austin speed of all time.

After spending the icy Canadian winter contemplating their Record-breaking final outing of the ‘80s, and on the heels of their recent 236-mph outburst at Memphis, Elliott and Rossitter are thinking big. In one of the more obvious gauntlet-throwings since the Isky-Engle cam wars of the ‘60s, Elliott said: “We will out-mph the Austin’s this year.”

That prediction might come off as a bit optimistic to some, especially considering Austin’s 27-0 edge over Elliott in career National event victories, and his status as the fastest driver in the country this year by any standard: by average (his 233.40 average is just hundredths of a single mph slower than Elliott’s old Record); and by speed, officially (237.52 National Record) and unofficially (his incredible, too-fast-to-be-backed-up 239.74).

But Elliott’s claim should be taken as anything but the bleating of some glory hunter; he’s just making a prediction based on what he’s seen in a short time from Rossitter.

“John is a real wizard, an individual thinker,” says Elliott, stating the obvious with obvious pride. “He took a look at a lot of things over the winter. And the way he figures it, Alcohol Funny Cars could run a lot quicker than they have been – all of us. He thinks the top guys should be able to run fives consistently on National event-type tracks, and that we’re all underestimating the power these things can make.”

Rossitter is anything but an average (read: follow-the-leader) tuner. He continually bucks conventional wisdom, including his scrapping of a proven fuel system handed to him from one of the winningest drivers ever (Newberry) in favor of a home-brewed setup.

He’s thrown out the proverbial book and implemented some inventive ideas other deep thinkers probably would find unworkable. “John made about five changes to the car that I would call radical,” Elliott said. “I won’t get into what they are, but you’d think some of the things he did to the car would slow it down.”

Elliott is just as unconventional in his role as driver. After all, not many of them take to backwoods strips in a fire-spewing jet Funny Car to kill time on the many off-weekends between National events.

So if you’re looking for a team to pull for during the Northeastern leg of the National event tour, some fresh faces with a very realistic chance to win, keep your eye on Rossitter and Elliott. Don’t be surprised if they set Top Speed of the Meet again. And don’t be surprised if they win.