Feature Team: Thompson Family Racing

Team Bio

Building this car was a long time dream of mine, I was lucky growing up in a drag racing family, from the time I could walk, I was at the track. Dad worked for Pontiac as a District Service Manager, so that’s what we raced. At one point we had two front engine dragsters and the Tempest, all Pontiac powered. It was the best time ever in racing. It was all heads up, you pushed the cars to start them and had very few limits.

Hot Wheels and model cars were the center of my childhood, playing race car in a real race car. Life was good. So when a 66 Tempest shell came up on eBay, it was childhood reborn and I bought it. I drove to San Antonio with my daughter to get it. The car was worse than it was advertised but still had some good parts. The plan to build the car was in motion but we needed a better car. A few weeks later we found one on Craig’s list in Garland, Texas. Now we had two!

The build was started in September 2010, the plan was to build the car as close to the original car as possible. I was working off pictures and what Dad could remember about the car. The frames we had were too rusted, so I brought in my gig and built my own frame from 2x3. We needed to get the body in the air to cut the floors out and patch panels, so the body gig was built from some plans I found on the internet. By December the frame was under the car, the tubs went in it on Christmas day. Straight axle and brakes were bought from Speedway as well as many other parts.

The roll cage was bought as a pre-bent kit, but was not fitting like I wanted it to. It had to fit the lines of the A post and the windows to look right. I made all the quarters from sheet metal as well as the floors from scratch. The rear axle was moved forward 15 inches, the engine 10 inches back and the front axle 1-1/2 inches forward. I used a 9 inch Ford rear end that I narrowed and a 3:90 center section that I had lying around in the shop. The rear suspension was set up with ladder bars and coil overs. We have American thrust D wheels and M&H drag slicks.

The original car had a fiberglass front end, doors and truck lid. I purchased a front clip from VFN Fiberglass, which I highly recommend, they make great, well fitting parts. I also molded in the factory tempest grills into the glass clip. I gutted the steel doors to lighten them and used the steel deck lid. The build took 7 months until it was rolling. The hood scoop was off an A/Fuel Dragster, the lexan windshield was put in this car for safety. The original had no glass in it at all. There were several changes we made to make the car safer to race. One was adding four wheel disc brakes, dad said all he had was drum brakes on the rear when he drove.

I had the car painted by my friend Josh, color Cadillac white. The lettering was all hand brushed by John Foster of Wichita, Kansas.

The first time we took it out was the Pontiac race in Tulsa 2011 in primer. All I had was a fairly stock 400 and 350 trans. We installed it and we ran 11.80’s. The weekend of June 9th was dad’s 80th birthday. We took both Fire Injun (80 Trans Am) and Fire Injun II Tempest to the Pontiac Southern Nationals in Dallas. Dad drove the 66 and went two rounds. It was a great day to get to run your father on his 80th birthday in time trials.

Over the winter I built an alcohol injected 455 with Edelbrock heads and installed a beefed up 350 turbo trans. The first race this year was going to be the Texas Thaw at North Star Dragway. On Tuesday night before the race we were tuning the engine and we hydrauliced a piston, splitting it. With no time to replace it I pulled the 505 IA out of Fire Injun I. By Thursday night it was running, we went to the race expecting to run a few time trials to see what the car would do, we ended up winning B gas as well as Top Eliminator that day. Our best that day was a 6.21 @ 119 mph.

The current engine is the .030 over 455, Ross pistons, Eagle rods and crank, Edelbrock 72 CC heads, Comp roller cam and topped off with a Ron’s Flying Toilet. The front timing cover is off a 60’s drag boat with cam drive pump. At the 2012 Pontiac race in Tulsa, the Tempest turned a best of 10.29 @ 128 mph. I have had more fun building and driving this car.

The original car, what I have heard is setting in a Museum east of Lincoln Nebraska.

Car Specifications

Hometown: Gainesville, Texas
Car Name: Fire Injun II
Car Make & Model: 1966 Pontiac Tempest
Built by Tommy Gun’s Speed Shop
Drivers: Brad and Bill Thompson
Crew: My daughters Kaylee and Shelby
Sponsors: Beat The Heat Inc and the
Hitchin' Post Restaurant Gainesville, Tx.
Special Thanks: To my wife that stands behind all my racing!
Rear End: Ford 9" 3:90 Gear Ratio
Engine: Alcohol Injected 455 Pontiac with Eeldbrock heads
Transmission: 350 Auto

From Bill Thompson

My name is Bill Thompson and I was a Service Rep for Pontiac Motor Division, I called on the Pontiac Dealership in Lincoln, Nebraska.

Being an old drag racer, running several Pontiac powered front engine dragsters, the owner of Vanice Pontiac Cadillac wanted to put his 66 Tempest A/FX car back on the track and ask me to campaign it.

It was a 421 SD with two 4’s, 4 speed trans, and 4:88 gears. No electrical system or starter, the car was push started. There were no front brakes, just rear drum.

This was in 1968 and was raced at numerous Drag strips including the old Cornhusker strip in Omaha, Ft Dodge Iowa, Sioux City Iowa, and Mo-Kan in Asbury, Mo.

Trying to improve the performance of the car I installed a Hilburn Injection for the Pontiac and later changed it to a Hilburn from an Olds. The Olds had bigger tubes and flowed more air. Changing out several cams the engine would never turn over 5500 rpm. This still produced ET’s of 10.30- 10.35 at 130mph. which won numerous trophies. I ran the car for 4 years till 1972.

My son Brad was 5 when I started racing the car and went racing with me every weekend. Brad and I have been racing ever since, and he always talked about building a car like it. About 1998 we found the original car in Nebraska. The car was in bad shape and the owner at that time wanted too much for it.

Then in 2010 Brad decided to build the car from scratch, from photos and what I could remember of the car. The car is more modern for safety reasons and better bracket racer. He renamed it "Fire Injun II".