Don Long
Don Long first became involved in the sport as a racer, teaming up on a Flat altered with Dave Vermilya. His early efforts in building race cars initially revolved around Altered Coupes & Sedans, Gas Coupes & Sedans, and, later on, Funny Car. While hr built many successful cars in these classes, Don gained his fame and recognition for his superbly designed and fabricated dragsters. In the late 1960s and ’70s, his Southern California shop turned out cars for some of the top names of that day in the sport. Among some of Long’s early customers were Joe Winter, Jess Sturgeon, Jim and Allison Lee, Doug Walton, Tony Nancy, and most notably Ed Pink, whose Old Master was one of the strongest West Coast Top Fuelers in the mid- 1960s. Along with the East Coast Top Fuel of Dave Vermilya and Nick Marshall, the success enjoyed by the Old Master was what led to establishing Long’s Delong Mfg. shop as a leader in the chassis-building battle at that time.
Ultimately, Don delivered nearly 130 dragsters, the total of which was divided nearly equally between front-motor slingshot cars and rear-engine ones. One of the things that spoke so strongly for the quality of Don’s cars was the number of teams who ordered several new cars from the shop, with some teams ordering 5 or more cars over the years. In addition to the teams listed above, several of the Hall of Fame Inductees campaigned Don Long cars, including Don Prudhomme, Gene Adams, Tommy Ivo, Candies and Hughes, Gary Ormsby, John Wiebe and Lou Baney. The list of winners goes on and on. Don was also selected to the Car Craft Magazine All-Star Racing Team in the Top Fuel/Funny Car Chassis Builder category.
Although Don scaled back his operations at the end of the 1970s and built only six Top Fuel cars after 1983, Pat Dakin campaigned his cars until the mid 1990s. Also, the car built for Frank Taylor in 1983 is the car Eddie Hill first broke into the four second e.t. bracket with in 1988. Many of the innovative featured in the Top Fuel category came from Don’s shop, including some of the really trick throttle and clutch linkage along with all sorts of brackets and fixtures. With today’s popularity for restoring many of the top, front-engine slingshot cars of the ’60s and ’70s, many of Don’s creations are beginning to appear in museums.