Funny Car driver Paul Lee said a chance encounter with drag racing legend “Jungle Jim” Liberman as a teenager set him on a lifelong path to drive nitro Funny Cars. Lee said Liberman’s showmanship and fearlessness made a lasting impression.
“I grew up in southern New Jersey, and Jungle Jim was the local hero,” Lee said. “The first time I went to a match race, I was 13 years old at Atco Dragway. I had never seen a nitro funny car before.”
Lee recalled Liberman performing a long burnout before backing up quickly and launching down the track. “Flames are over the roof. He goes off into the grass, never lifted … and beats the guy in the other lane,” Lee said. “I remember just the crowd going absolutely bananas. I said to myself, ‘That’s what I want to do.’
“That hooked me to nitro Funny Cars forever. There hasn’t been a day gone by since that race that I haven’t thought about driving a nitro Funny Car,” he said.
Lee, however, started in alcohol Funny Cars because it was all he could afford.
“To me that was my learning experience. The best way to learn how to drive one of these cars is an alcohol Funny Car,” he said.
Even though a dragster was fielded under the “Jungle Jim” moniker with Ron Attebury as the driver, Lee said there was never an interest in the long, skinny cars.
“Never. Never one instance,” he said.
