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As drag racing fans with a keen interest in the history of our sport, we all know the histrionics of legends like Don Garlits and Darrell Gwynn. We raptly watched their driving careers ascend, peak, and then continued following their every move long after they left the cockpits of their dragsters.

Those of us who have been around long enough know some of the stories of their lives outside of drag racing, both before and after the last win light winked out, but in serendipitously synchronized fashion, Florida’s two most famous drag racers, guys with the same initials born 29 years apart in the Sunshine State, are sharing the behind-the-scenes stories of their lives in print.

Don Garlits, the Official Autobiography and Fortunate Son, The Darrell Gwynn Story were both available to fans at last weekend’s Cornwell Quality Tools NHRA U.S. Nationals, where “Big Daddy” and “the Kid” famously dueled in the Top Fuel wars of the late 1980s, and both quickly sold out of the limited stock on hand.

Both books are hefty enough to kill small household pests, each more than an inch thick and very hefty, with Garlits’ book at 450 pages and Gwynn’s at about 370. Garlits' book is a traditional vertical format, while Gwynn's is horizontally formatted.

Any similarities aside, they’re two completely different books. Garlits’ book, his latest following King of the Dragsters, Tales From the Dragstrip and Don Garlits and His Cars (and several more), is more than 137,000 words and 100 photos telling his life story from infancy to current, while Gwynn’s book, his second on the heels of 2003’s autobiographical Full Throttle with Erik Arneson, is largely a photo album with more than 400 photos with captions.

“My first two books were just about the cars and the drag racing,” Garlits told me. “This is my whole life, all about me. We've got the racing in there, of course, but it's got all about my thoughts on the precious metals, the aliens, my girlfriends, my baby days, everything.

“Did you know I almost burned to death in a cabin in 1932 at two months of age? My daddy went through solid flames to retrieve me. I figure about 30 seconds more, and he wouldn't have got out himself, let alone with me.”

Garlits dug deep into family genealogy; back to his five-time great grandfather, who came from Garlitz, Germany, which his family established hundreds of years ago. “He was run out of town because he won a duel with the Duke, even though his town was named after him, and he came to Baltimore in 1772 when he came to America,” Garlits shared.

Everyone knows Garlits’ legendary on-track battles with Shirley Muldowney, but the one that’s sure to fascinate people is his love-hate relationship with NHRA founder Wally Parks.

“Of course, the different arguments that I had with Wally and how we tried to resolve all of them are in there, and I talk about NHRA and all that they did, the tremendous job they did in turning black leather jacket hoodlums into respectable people. When I was wrong, I was wrong; I told it all, the mistakes I made. It's all in there.”

Anyone who’s ever had a chat with Garlits or seen him on any kind of screen is well aware of Garlits’ flawless memory for dates, locations, e.t.s, speeds, and remembrances of very specific events and even individual races, and I figured everything would just flow easily onto the page, but even he was astonished at what he gained out of putting it all down.

“You'd be amazed what it did to my brain,” he said. “It has made me so sharp about remembering things. It's like a super brain exercise, like you would go to the gym and work on your muscles for a year. I could see the difference, and I worked on that brain for a year. I would wake up in the middle of the night, and thoughts would come back to me from 50, 60, 70 years ago, and actual conversations. It was incredible. It was one of the most incredible things I've ever done for myself, and I recommend that everybody write down at least five to 10 pages of their life when they were children and save it for the grandchildren and the great-grandchildren. The children won't care so much about it, but the great-grandchildren and the grandchildren will just cherish it.”

Garlits is always incredibly introspective, and it’s these kinds of thoughts that make him mesmerizing to talk to or, in this case, read about. Everyone is familiar with the 1970 Lions Drag Strip crash that maimed him and led to the creation of the first successful rear-engine Top Fueler, and, as pleased as he is with that gift he gave to the sport, he’s still missing half a foot. Would he like a do-over?

“Another wonderful thing came out of it,” he added. “You know, everybody thinks about things they did wrong, and if they could only go back and change it. You wouldn't dare do that because you could cause a lot of people to not even be alive, and one of the famous questions is, ‘If you could go back to Long Beach [Calif.]' — I know what happened to the transmission, and if I fixed that, it probably wouldn't explode — but I'd be afraid to make that change because what nice young driver would have been killed then a few weeks later in a slingshot? Maybe even me, because there were more things than transmissions to kill you back there."

The book has two forwards, one from clutch legend Carl Schiefer and the other from Garlits' longtime friend, Don “the Snake” Prudhomme.

“I'll tell you what: ‘the Snake’s’ will bring tears to your eyes,” he said. “I love that f**ker. As far as I'm concerned, he's the greatest drag racer in the world because he did it just like me. He came from nothing, just a car painter, like I was, and look what he did. We have become really serious friends."

You can buy Don Garlits, the Official Autobiography through the gift shop at his museum or on his website. There’s also an unrelated Garlits video documentary coming out soon in collaboration with Masters Entertainment, so keep your eyes open for that, too.

Gwynn officially unveiled his book at the NHRA U.S. Nationals during a Friday press conference that he had asked me to lead, which was very flattering, but meaningful, as we’ve known each other well for more than 40 years. When I joined NHRA in 1982, Gwynn was just getting started behind the wheel. I got to watch him grow to become a Top Alcohol Dragster world champion and then a feared Top Fuel driver before his Easter Sunday accident in England in 1990 that ended his driving career.

So monumental was that story that NHRA allowed me to fly to Miami to meet Gwynn at his first public press conference after his return. It was shocking to see him now in a wheelchair and missing half an arm, but he was a pillar of strength and determination. Chris Cunningham, now crew chief for Jordan Vandergriff, and his father, Mike, were with the Gwynns from the start, and Cunningham was part of the press conference, along with Gwynn’s parents, Jerry and Joan.

Even though it’s been more than 20 years since Full Throttle, so much that happened before and after is as much a part of the story, and Fortunate Son goes back to the beginning with a heavy dose of the Gwynn family in his infancy, with plenty of great look-how-cute-he-was photos of the fortunate son.

The title is Darrell celebrating his father’s career as much as his own, assured that had his father not been a racer and shown him the ropes, he’d certainly have ended up doing something entirely different, maybe even an airline mechanic like young Chris Cunningham wanted to be.

With the autobiography already done, and stacks of photos continuing to grow, a picture book seemed the right choice.

“I’ve been collecting photos all along, but it kind of came to a head, and I found a guy down the street who would scan them for me, and I’d put them in years,” Darrell told me before Indy. “And when I put them in years, it made it so easy to tell a story with them, and it was a story I’m kind of proud to show.

“Everybody knows a lot about the racing part, but growing up and going with my dad to the races every weekend are great memories. Everything I saw back then made me a better racer, a much better cautious racer, and let me know that you have to have your shit together before you go racing, you know.

“This book is more than just about what happened on the track; this is stuff you haven't seen, everything from destroying rental cars to women at the races. One of my favorite pictures is from inside the [push] truck, looking out the windshield, and it’s me looking through the windshield, watching my dad race. That was my view until I was old enough to be part of it. That one kind of caught me; that was my view for a long time. One of the very first pictures in the book is of me in my diapers, holding on to the front of my dad's Anglia. There are a lot of pictures of me as a baby being at the races, being at Masters Field and Miami Hollywood and Palm Beach [Fla.], and a lot of great memories. My dad was such a good match racer back in the day. We ran national events in between; that's how my dad made money.

“To have a dad who knew all about racing, how to do it, how to make it work, how to clean the car, how to maintain the car; he taught me. He taught Chris Cunningham. I remember when Chris was a young kid on my crew. He was 14. I took him on the road because I was dating his sister.  I remember us crossing the Canadian border — I was 19. His sister was 18, and he was like 14 — they thought we stole the damn truck. So many great memories are all in there. Tony Stewart looked at the book and gave me a great review and just told me he wished he had the photos to back up his career as I did.”

You can get Fortunate Son on his website. Do it; you’ll enjoy it.

So, there you have it, your late-summer reading assignments. Get to it, folks.

Phil Burgess can be reached at pburgess@nhra.com

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