Going Faster In 1954
According to most hot rod historians, nitro’s first competition use in America was by Vic Edelbrock Sr. and his associates. In the late 1940s, Midget racer Ed Haddad came into Vic’s shop with a gallon can of nitromethane he’d been given by one of the Dooling brothers, who manufactured slot cars (the tethered miniature cars that ran on a circle track popular in the 1940s and 1950s). Ed didn’t want any part of the new fuel because he had heard “it will blow up in your face.”
