The man, the myth, the legend. The Greek. 

that’s one hell of an experience to cherish. Thank you for sharing :)

It's amazing to see these videos and learn about the history!

You were one lucky guy.

So true.

Yes it was!

Yes Straight six or V12 don't throb like that :) Its unusual I was not expecting that.

I might be wrong! But I thought Don Garlets was the first to go 200 mph at Great meadows NJ.

@@richarddouglas1712 Chris was the first at a non NHRA sanctioned track DON was given the title of first by NHRA because it was at a track that was sanctioned NHRA facility

Thanks Mike! I thought that was probably the answer once I started to think about it.

@@richarddouglas1712 NUFF SAID

All of the music is listed in the video description.

Chris was born in Detroit, but has called Chicago home for most of his life

Are you related to Freddie Mercury?!

Yes I agree 100 %. You could have shown us the shop but you didn't.

1959 ADRA Champion

Chris was legend in the midwest and he and Don Garlits went around the circuit doing match race exhibitions. "The ChiZler" and "The Swamp Rat." As far as I know they began that whole rivalry thing that really blew up bigtime between Don "the Snake" Prudhomme and Tom "Mongoose" McKewen or Big John Mazmanian and Stone, Woods and Cook Willys "Gassers." When I was a teenager I used to ride my bike over to his Chicago speedshop (I think it was around 73rd and Western) in the summer and see all the famous cars that were coming through town to race at US 30, Great Lakes or Rockford. Chris let them work on their cars there. I saw so many of the legends and met some of them too. This was in the mid to late 60's. @Performanceracing There was a crew of regular guys that were part of Chris's sphere. Chris's tuner, John Kranenburg, top fuel driver, Jerry "Ringo" Caudle who had a beatle wig glued to his Helmet, AA/FA legend Gabby Bleeker and his nemesis, Ron "Snaggletooth" O'Donnel, driver of the Denison, Arlasky and Knox fuel altered. My greatest moment was when I got to go down the strip in the chase car after the most wild multiple wheelstand run at Rockford. Snag could not keep the front end on the ground but he kept going faster and faster anyway. He probably covered at least half of the 1320 with wheels all the way up and wheelie bar a pinned to the track".

​@@davidgardener5519did you know who painted his cars? Crazy from Crazy's Custom Emporium (Team Strange)?

@@rickczainski9856 I don't think so. There was this one guy who drove this beautiful plush custom hot rod with the most killer paint job ever but I can't remember his name, only his smile. I think I would have remembered if he went by the name. Crazy. When hobby shop slot car racing was a thing around 1965 a friend of mine's uncle owned a slot racing shop around 85th and Ashland and he added a slot drag strip. All these dragster drivers got into building and racing their slot dragsters there. They were my idols as a teen age drag racing enthusiast and it was so cool to hang out with them. They told a story about the Greek needing to have his ChiZler ready to race on a Sunday and he and his team were working on it late into the night on Saturday and to check it out they decided to pour a little nitro in it and take it out on Damen avenue and poke the throttle a few times and then sneak it back into the garage before the cops came. The story goes that it was a stupid idea and there was a crash. Chris unbelted and started climbing out of the car with his silver fire suit and full visor helmet on and the people in the other car freaked out and acted like they'd seen an alien or something and ran off leaving their car running in the street.

And jesus christ, show the stuff he's talking about as hes talking about it. I appreciate you having him in a video, but do him justice. Show the cool stuff he's explaining. Don't just treat it as some memorial of a concept.

He literally says, "so, you can see" and points as he's explain his valve grinding, and the camera doesn't move off his face. f***********