The “Terrifying Toronado” embodied everything that was unique about drag racing; It was an untamed vicious beast, someone’s warped idea of how to beat the system. The car was this big overweight Olds with nitro-burning blown and injected Olds engines (I think) in a configuration much like Lloyd Scott’s historic “Bustle Bomb” dragster … one engine in the back seat and one under the hood and god! Destination? Drag Racing Photo Greats at the bare minimum.

It’s career ended at the 1967 Winternationals after an abbreviated stay that was littered with staggering, non-qualifying attempts and a few stabs at trying to kill Smyser.

Ahhh … that career. The first time I saw this car was at the 1966 AHRA Winternationals in Irwindale. Sometime during the latter half of eliminations, Irwindale management stopped the show and brought out a vehicle under a huge car cover. They parked it just past the starting line A-board and announcer Mel Reck (another “I think” -- after all I’m going on memory of a 43-year-old event) gave it this big play up.

“Fans you are about to see a brand new kind of race car that almost defies description.” And then, I don’t know, more hyperbole  … that the car would cure cancer, go 250 mph, change the face of drag racing … whatever.

The car cover was pulled off to reveal Smyser’s gold monster and I admit that as a young 19-year-old the car definitely looked way wild to me. A twin-motored Funny Car … surely thou jesteth.

Much to my disappointment they did not run the car at the event, but put it off to the following week. I had seen twin-motored cars before such as John Peters’ fabulous “Freight Train” Top Gasser, but a Funny Car?  That was a first and I immediately made plans to return to Irwindale to see this brawler in action.

I wasn’t disappointed. In one of the half-dozen most spectacular debuts I’ve ever seen, this vicious pig made an impression like the American Nazi party at a Holocaust museum.

On its lone run, Smyser staged it, the light went green, and the monster lumbered a little past the A-board and then lurched right. The four-slicked thing then dug in and bolted left toward the center line with Smyser fighting the wheel and jerking it back right, whereupon the enraged car hooked left and charged the guard rail and the fans along the chain length fence (not to the mention those in the lower seats of the wooden grandstand) scattering the crowd, which gave forth with yelps and cries. “Oh my god, we’re going to die,” to “Jesus save me.” Screaming like passengers on Captain Sully’s U.S. Airways jet as it belly-slid along the Hudson.

At one point across from this wounded rhino, there was a little hot dog kiosk between two bleachers and it eyed them wildly and launched in their direction.  Fortunately the Irwindale guardrail stopped the Toronado. On impact, its front end bolted skyward by three or four feet, gave out an elephant-sized belch and stopped short of a massive body count.

Now that was cool I thought.

That event must’ve wounded Smyser’s enthusiasm, because I don’t remember the car running again until late that year.  In November, Smyser’s repaired warrior took on Doug Nash’s cute little all-aluminum “Bronco Buster” Ford Bronco truck at Lions. Nash’s piece was nearly as weird as Smyser’s. It had a forged aluminum roll cage, spoked wheels in front, and an injected 289-cid on nitro in front.

With these two on the line, I thought that we might make page one of the L.A. Times … but no. Nash’s little sprinter was way too quick for Smyser’s still lumbering drunk and took two straight. At least “the Terrifying Toronado” didn’t go blind and attack the fans. It farted, twisted and turned and lost power at about 100 feet on both runs with only the photographers experiencing dangerous heart rates.

Ironically, as things developed, Nash’s ride didn’t last all that long. Later that following year, he put a blower on the “the Bronco Buster” and it ate itself in an explosion, fire and crash in the Midwest.