In 1979, Ben Donhoff rescued a wrecked, ex-Don Carlton ’72 Duster Pro Stock car from a south-Florida warehouse.
“A lot of people just assume it’s a clone car, but this is the real deal,” Donhoff stressed. “This is the same car that Chrysler built as the first one with computers and measuring equipment for things like wheel speed and the one that Car Craft wrote about in 1973.”
In 1979, Ben Donhoff rescued a wrecked, ex-Don Carlton ’72 Duster Pro Stock car from a south-Florida warehouse.
“A lot of people just assume it’s a clone car, but this is the real deal,” Donhoff stressed. “This is the same car that Chrysler built as the first one with computers and measuring equipment for things like wheel speed and the one that Car Craft wrote about in 1973.”
After a year-long restoration Donhoff raced the car for nearly 10 years, then arranged in 1989 for it to reside in Don Garlits’ Museum of Drag Racing in Ocala, Florida.
“I originally promised it for at least five years and that turned into 18 before I decided to return it to competition,” the Melbourne, FL-based racer said. “People say I’m crazy to be racing a piece of history like this, but if it gets wrecked again, I’ll just fix it again. I did it once; I can do it again.”
Donhoff’s friend Larry Mayes was driving the Duster this weekend in the Super Pro bracket class that’s part of Orlando Speed World Dragway’s Night of Fire, being run in conjunction with the World Street Nationals. Unfortunately, after qualifying third with a 7.793-seconds pass at 175.78 mph in round one on Friday, the 540-ci motor damaged a valve guide and the car had to be withdrawn from the event.
“It’s too bad it broke like that, but fixing it would require pulling the head and welding it up and we’re just not ready to do all that at the track, at least not right now,” Donhoff said. “We’ll have it running again in a few days, though. No problem.”
