For such a slick shape, how come so many Corvette funny cars ended in disaster?

Dateline: 7-8-17 – No, this isn’t a whoo-whoo story that you might hear on Coast to Coast AM. A very interesting story popped up on HotRod.com, titled, “The Funny Car Corvette Curse“. Through the ’60s and ’70s funny car days, cars wearing a Corvette body shape, had unfortunate luck. There’s no metaphysical “curse”, it’s just aerodynamics. There are many variables.

But an honest look back clearly shows that the problem was with the front of the Corvette body. We were all looking at the curvaceous fender humps that looked a lot like Sophia Loren! How could it NOT be aerodynamic?

**Photo Credit: Twitter – David Burge, https://twitter.com/iowahawkblog**

In the zeal to produce fiberglass Corvette funny car bodies, builders made the body as “stock” as possible, stretching the car from the A-pillar forward. The front end, from the leading edge of the front wheel wells looks VERY stock, and there in lies the problem.

**Photo Credit: http://nitromater.com/threads/funny-car-bodies-id-like-to-see.30393/**

Builders inadvertently copied the very same issue the roar racer Corvettes had – front end lift. Road racers were hitting the 150-mph range on a few tracks. Funny Cars were into the 200-mph range. It was the air getting under the front leading edge that built up force the faster the car went. It made for a very squirrelly race car at the top end. It wouldn’t be until the late 1980s when Bruce Larson won the Funny Car Championships with his “USA-1” Corvette bodied Fuel Funny Car. But look at the nose of the Larson Corvette. They figured it out!

This is a really cool story! http://www.hotrod.com/articles/funny-car-corvette-curse/ – Scott

Here’s Bruce Larson in 2012 at the York US 30 Reunion…

Even though the car that you will see below almost completely flips over, and is a C7 body with the nose scraping on the track, the car still almost flipped over! Had the front of the body not broken off, the crash would have been worse.

What is ASTONISHING is that drag cars racing in this very fast class don’t seem to require wheelie bars. THAT WOULD HELP! – Scott