Dick Landy, 69, Innovative Drag Racer

Richard Landy, who died January 11 at 69, was a near-legendary West Coast drag racer who is often credited with having built the first “funny car,” as highly modified racers came to be called.Long identified with Chrysler and its parts division, Mopar, the cigar-chomping Landy showcased his engine-building abilities in races sanctioned by the National Hot Rod Association starting in the early 1960s. He later turned to match-race competition when national sanctioning bodies such as the NHRA changed their rules in response to his extreme modifications, including moving the wheelbase forward by a foot or more to put more weight on the rear wheels in an effort to increase traction.The transferring of all the weight to the rear of the car led to the signature “wheelstand,” in which Landy’s 1965 Dodge Coronet would “rear back on its bumper with its front wheels pawing at the air like a horse trying to throw its rides,” as the Los Angeles Times put it. The rearmounted gas tank was protected by casters.Theatrics aside, Landy’s modifications to the Chrysler Hemi engine brought huge increases in speed during the 1960s, achieving a quarter-mile run in just more than eight seconds at a top speed of more than 180 mph. Among the changes he helped introduce to drag racing were fuel injection and the use of nitromethane instead of gasoline.As one of the early “factory drivers” directly sponsored by an automobile company, Landy gave workshops at dealerships around the nation on how to soup up Chrysler cars.Landy came from the rural California car culture, where farm boys in modified pickups raced on deserted airstrips on weekends. As a freshman in high school, he drove a 1932 Flathead Ford at San Fernando Raceway. After high school, he studied mechanical engineering in junior college, and then designed boats for waterskiers.A local Ford dealer hired Landy to help build and then race with high-performance engines, and Landy opened his own shop. It was the dealer who bestowed upon Landy his trademark cigar, which he never lighted. “I actually feel naked without one,” Landy told the NHRA Web site. Fans came to call him “Dandy Dick,” although friends always called him Richard.Despite the exhaust pipes that shot out nitro flames and his cars’ rickety fiberglass and aluminum front ends, Landy explained to the Hayward (Calif.) Daily Review in 1963 that he stuck to drag racing because of safety issues.“There’s more danger involved when you’re racing around at 150 miles per hour with other guys just inches away and you do not know what they’re going to do,” he said.Landy continued to race until 1980, when he retired to run Dick Landy Industries in Northridge, Calif., where he created custom muscle cars and continued to research high-end automotive modifications.

Dick Landy, 69, Innovative Drag Racer

Dick Landy, 69, Innovative Drag Racer

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