Jerry Toliver needed just one look over his shoulder to invoke a lot of memories.

Just outside of the nitro pit area at Firebird Raceway in Phoenix, Az., lays Firebird Lake, a 1.1-mile drag boat strip. The calm waters serve as a reminder as to how the veteran Funny Car driver ended up in drag racing.

A violent crash at Puddingstone Lake in San Dimas, Ca., in October of 1995 ended his boating career. Two years later he was drag racing on asphalt behind the wheel of a nitro Funny Car.

Jerry Toliver needed just one look over his shoulder to invoke a lot of memories.

Just outside of the nitro pit area at Firebird Raceway in Phoenix, Az., lays Firebird Lake, a 1.1-mile drag boat strip. The calm waters serve as a reminder as to how the veteran Funny Car driver ended up in drag racing.

A violent crash at Puddingstone Lake in San Dimas, Ca., in October of 1995 ended his boating career. Two years later he was drag racing on asphalt behind the wheel of a nitro Funny Car.

Toliver qualified for and lost in the first round at the NHRA Lucas Slick Mist Nationals, but that was still a better day than the day he was knocked unconscious with a broken back and hand. His boat flipped upside down and broke the driver’s capsule off. When the International Hot Boat Association [IHBA] reached Toliver, the capsule was taking on water.

“I hit a roller going through the lights and flipped upside down at about 214 [mph],” Toliver said. “I was out of the hospital in a week but it took me a year to heal up right.”

Thoughts of that fateful day always seem to pop into mind every time the Canidae-sponsored driver looks over at that 120-acre lake.

“There’s not enough money in the world to get me in a drag boat again,” Toliver emphatically said when asked if he’d ever consider making another run in a drag boat.

“No way,” he continued. “I think to myself and I shiver because I can’t even believe that I ever drove those things because those things are so dangerous.”

He still keeps in touch with his former comrades and maintains a friendship with Don Ermshar, driving of the Lucas Oil Top Fuel Hydro.

“He’s been driving these things forever,” Toliver explained. “God bless him because he’s almost sixty and still racing one, the bottom line is he’s got bigger ones than I do because that stuff is just too damn dangerous.”

Then his attention switches to those friends who were injured and lost their lives. He knows that day in San Dimas could have made his life a memory as well.

“Lost a lot of friends and seen a lot of people get hurt,” Toliver said. “That stuff is just extremely intense and extremely dangerous. I mean I loved it, it was fun, and it’s sexy. It’s all the right things for the fan experience but for me, I’m really too old to drive Funny Cars much less Drag Boats.” 

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