Dick Rosberg
Dick started his career as a street racer, moving on to the drag strip very quickly and in 1964 started racing the local track and a Chevy powered gas dragster. In 1970, Dick was driving Mike Kuhl’s blown Chrysler AA/Fuel dragster when he was offered the job of driving the Mr. Ed top fuel hydroplane owned by Ed Willis. Understanding the logistics of trying to compete in both categories, Dick chose to compete on land in Kuhl’s AA/Fuel dragster and later piloted various other fuel dragsters as circumstances permitted. In 1971 Dick teamed up with Tim Beebe to drive Tim’s “Fighting Irish” nitro burning funny car. Tim retired at the end of the 1973 season and Dick inherited the famous Fighting Irish name and in 1977 he partnered with Don Novak and Bill McDaniel to form Fighting Irish Racing Enterprises under which they campaigned a AA/Fuel funny car are until the cost of running this class made them decide to sell the car at the end of the 1981 season moving their efforts over to the jet car wars.
The team made their first appearance at the track with a jet powered funny car 1982 still under the Fighting Irish racing banner but with sponsorship from Stroh’s beer. The jet car proved to be so successful that they built another jet powered funny car 1984 and with McDaniel driving it and Dick the original car, they match raced each other at hundreds of tracks across the US. In 1989 Dick became the sole owner of the team and continue running the Fighting Irish car until 1991 when he sold the car to Pat Davidson. This didn’t mean Dick would give up driving Chet cars and for the next five years he drove Bob Van Sciver’s jet car.
Dick decided in 1997 to change from jet powered funny cars and dragsters to another unique form of vehicles, this time climbing behind the wheel of a jet powered pickup truck he and new partner, Noel Smith built. By the end of 2001 Dick decided it was time to start winding his career down a bit and sold his share of the team. Dick’s idea of “winding down” was to go back to just driving, this time for Al Hanna in the Eastern Rider jet powered funny car. For the 2003 season, Dick and his son Terry took control of Van Sciver’s “Warrior” jet funny car and toured it through 2004. Van Sciver talked Dick into driving his newest jet funny car through the end of the 2005 season at which time he talked to Dick into driving an all-new jet powered dragster which he did until the end of the 2010 season. Even after he discovered he had cancer he continued driving and putting on a great show but it all came to an end in May 2011 when the cancer won. In addition to his driving accomplishments, Dick was the IHRA’s Jet Inspector for many years and was inducted into the North Carolina Drag Racing Hall of Fame in 2009.