By the early Seventies, drag racing in America had really changed from what most consider its Golden Age in the Sixties. The beautiful FED (Front-Engine Dragster) had been replaced by fuelers with the motor behind the driver. Tire technology had improved to the point that tire-smokers weren’t smoking tires anymore, but were hooking hard on launch and sticking to every inch of the improved track surfaces. The wooly Fuel Altered class had been largely replaced by the Funny Car – basically, a stretched fiberglass homage to a currently offered pre-smog muscle car strapped over a lengthened wheelbase Altered. Hair grew long, shorts got short and bras got burned.
And it was in those years that a mystery girl named Barbara Roufs hit the scene as a trophy girl for events put on at tracks in Southern California by new sanctioning bodies like Doug Kruse’s Professional Dragster Association. Barbara embodied everything that the early Seventies drag racing world put into the world: that ironing board-straightened hair, the Sixties-vestige go-go boots, easy-breezy freedom tank and a tan to kill mere East Coasters.
We don’t know what happened to Barbara after those too-few years of photos, but our next call is to photo guy, Tom West. We have a feeling he’ll tell us. In the meantime, enjoy…
So did you get more shots of Barbara from Tom West? She sure was a knockout!