The
Mondellos
The Living Legend Doesn't Get Everything Right
Mary
The Vineyard
Fun At The Races
Moving to Tennessee!!!!
Famed fuel altered and Funny Car driver Sush Matsubara dies
I met Sush Matsubara in 1963 when he was working at a Mobil station in West Los Angeles. He was running a 1941 Studebaker at Lions Drag Strip in Long Beach. His car really wasn’t all that fast so I built him a set of my racing cylinder heads….and the rest is history!
We raced that car for a year or two then Sush ordered a new car from Ed Weddle to run the gas altered class. This car ended up with the Fiat Topolino body that is still recognized in old photos today. I built a 327 engine for it in 1965 and we ran Hilborne injectors with my heads that year. Before we retired that car we were running it on methanol with 20% nitro; man could it fly! In ’65 and ’66 we won two IHRA events with this set-up and a driver that never lifted!!
Next Sush ordered a car from Roy Fejested and we started running a big block 472 Chevy on gas with a 671 supercharger. About then Chet Husted came on board to be our crew chief. We were the first team to run in the 8’s and then the first in the 7’s!
In 1968 we went from blown gas to blown methanol and then started adding nitro to the mix. Needless to say, we won many races and became very popular with the fans!
Sush started working for me at Mondello Porting Service at this time as my general manager in WLA & worked there until the early 70’s.
In early 1969 Sush ordered another car; this one from Exhibition Engineering and we started running blown fuel. Everybody from coast to coast was crazy about that Mondello Matsubara Blown Fuel Altered! Not only were we the fastest in the world but we had the best no lift driver out there!
We set the national record for AA Fuel Altered at 7.24 ET and 213 MPH at the U.S. Nationals in Indianapolis in 1969 and won runner-up in Competition Eliminator. This record was still standing when NHRA dropped our class from their program.
We stopped racing that car after the 1969 Nationals and Sush started racing with Joe Pisano’s team in 1970. I have great memories of those years and lost a long time friend in Sush’s passing on July 27, 2006.
Joe Mondello
|
Joe Mondello
Mondello Tech Center
2470 Pomona Road
Crossville TN 38571
931-459-2760
888-MONDELLO
(888-666-3355)
|
All rights reserved.
Mondello® and all contents of this website
are copyrighted and owned by Joe Mondello.
|
|
|