Dick Rosberg, a longtime nitro and jet Funny Car driver best known for his years behind the wheel of the Fighting Irish entries, died May 23, after a long battle 
with cancer. He was 69.
It was Rosberg – who cut his teeth at Lions Dragstrip in gas dragsters before moving to Michigan — whom Southern California-based Tim Beebe chose to pilot his new Fighting Irish Funny Car after the death of his partner, John Mulligan, in a Top Fuel crash and fire at the 1969 Nationals in Indianapolis. When Beebe returned to Top Fuel in 1973, Rosberg began driving Tim Arnold’s Hallucination Top Fueler, and later an entry calle dthe Northwind with new partners Don Novak and Bill McDaniel. Rosberg returned to Funny Car and the Fighting Irish name in 1977 with Novak and McDaniel and a car they ran through the 1981 season.
Dick Rosberg, a longtime nitro and jet Funny Car driver best known for his years behind the wheel of the Fighting Irish entries, died May 23, after a long battle with cancer. He was 69.
It was Rosberg – who cut his teeth at Lions Dragstrip in gas dragsters before moving to Michigan — whom Southern California-based Tim Beebe chose to pilot his new Fighting Irish Funny Car after the death of his partner, John Mulligan, in a Top Fuel crash and fire at the 1969 Nationals in Indianapolis. When Beebe returned to Top Fuel in 1973, Rosberg began driving Tim Arnold’s Hallucination Top Fueler, and later an entry calle dthe Northwind with new partners Don Novak and Bill McDaniel. Rosberg returned to Funny Car and the Fighting Irish name in 1977 with Novak and McDaniel and a car they ran through the 1981 season.
In 1983, the team enlisted Stroh’s brewery and campaigned a popular Trans Am-bodied jet Funny Car for a number of years and at one point fielded two cars, with McDaniel in a Fighting Irish jet car. In 1989, after the Stroh’s deal ended, Beebe struck out on his own in another Fighting Irish entry, and later drove for a number of owners in both jet-powered Funny Cars and dragsters and even a jet-powered pickup truck. He and son Terry later built their own cars, which Rosberg continued to drive through the end of 2010 with backing from Thriller Powerboats.
Rosberg is survived by his wife, Nancy; sons, Terry, Mark, and Brian, and daughter Kathy McNamara. Services are pending.
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