The image of Austin Coil as a cool and calculating puppet-master is debunked in this episode of Legends: The Series, Season Three in which the man who won a record 17 NHRA Championships as Funny Car crew chief to Frank Hawley and John Force owns up to what was happening beneath that seemingly calm exterior.
“I was a nervous wreck,” Coil says. “I had stomach problems. I ate Rolaids like they were candy. I was upset most of the time. I just felt like it was unprofessional to stand on the starting line and scream like a raving maniac (but) some of the old guys I worked with nicknamed me ‘The Tyrant.’ I don’t think it’s because I was so mild mannered.”
With a shout out to the late “Jungle Jim” Liberman, with whom he shared a special bond, Coil relives the era of Funny Car match racing in which the Chi-Town Hustler he campaigned with John Farkonas and Pat Minick made as many as 96 different appearances in a single season, sometimes racing five straight days at five different race tracks. Nevertheless, it wasn’t until he hooked up with Force in 1985 that Coil’s true genius was exposed.
“After two world championships we were on the verge of having to quit,” he remembered, “because our team did not have the ability to talk people out of their money. Force had the ability to get some sponsor money and not much ability to win races. It seemed like it could work (but) it was three years before we won a single race.” The rest, as they say, is history. - Dave Densmore
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