This is the single greatest honor in the motor vehicle industry, intended to honor a career and/or lifetime achievement. To become a "Hall of Famer" the nominee must be either retired or deceased. Recipients must have significantly impacted the development of the automobile or the motor vehicle industry. Typically, four to eight individuals are inducted each year.
The Mickey Thompson story is as inspiring as it is tragic. In an era of specialization in motorsports, where racers pick one venue and stick to it, Mickey Thompson did it all: hot rodding, drag racing, sports car racing, off-road and desert racing, the Indy 500, stadium racing and chasing speed records. But as impressive as his legacy is, the world was cheated out of knowing the full potential of Mickey Thompson’s genius and endless energy the day he and his wife were murdered at their home on March 16, 1988.
Born in 1928 in California, Mickey Thompson inherited a high degree of toughness from his father, a stern, Irish cop. That toughness was transformed into an attitude where nothing was impossible if enough time and effort were put forth. It was an attitude that consumed his life. He was impatient, always in a hurry, with multiple projects going full speed at the same time -- and there was no time to waste. Sleep, which he didn’t require much of, was simply an interruption to his work.
At the age of 14, Thompson bought his first car, a 1927 Chevy, for $7.50. Even before he was old enough to legally drive on the street, he was racing his home-built cars on the dry lakes of California, where he quickly earned a reputation for going fast. Mickey Thompson simply wanted to get from point A, to point B, faster than anyone else.
In 1955, he designed and introduced the slingshot dragster to the sport, which put the driver not only behind the engine, but behind the rear axle.
That same year he talked his way into managing the brand new Lions Club Associated Drag Strip in Long Beach, California. He was a hands-on manager, doing everything from selling tickets, running concessions, directing crowds, and, of course, making the rules and officiating the races. He gave hot rodders what they wanted by experimenting with innovations like night races, grudge racing, and was the first to create the “Christmas tree” starting system, soon to replace the human flagman at drag strips across the country.
Thompson managed the Lions Drag Strip until 1964, while also running his muffler shop in El Monte, California, and holding down a job as a color pressman on the graveyard shift of the Los Angeles Times, all the while building his race car projects.
He soon gave up newspaper work to devote more time to Challenger I, his first land speed record project, and to the speed parts manufacturing business he had just started, the Mickey Thompson Equipment Co.
His company made valve covers, exhaust headers, mufflers, aluminum intake manifolds and other performance equipment. The Mickey Thompson brand of high performance parts and tires remains popular to this day.
In 1960, Thompson took his Challenger 1 to the Bonneville Salt Flats. On his first pass, Thompson clocked 406.60 mph to become the first American to exceed 400 mph. A mechanical failure on the return trip kept the record from becoming official, as it requires the average speed of two runs, but nevertheless, Mickey Thompson was hailed in the press as the “Fastest Man on Wheels.”
Thompson’s mind was always working, always trying to make things better, so cars would go faster. In 1962 he built America’s first mid-engined Indy car. In 1963 he introduced the first wide-profile, low-aspect-ratio tires at the Indianapolis 500.
In 1969 he raced at Baja for the first time. Soon, the name Mickey Thompson would become synonymous with off-road and desert racing. In 1978, coinciding with the increasing number of indoor, domed stadiums, he established Mickey Thompson Entertainment Group, the sanctioning body for indoor stadium off-road racing. In 1986, he used his genius to the benefit of all drivers, when he invented and patented the Hydro-barricade, a water-filled highway safety barrier that has since saved countless lives on and off the track.
Despite all his track and business successes, Mickey Thompson considered himself a hot rodder at heart. If you would have called him the greatest hot rodder who ever lived, you would have paid him the highest compliment.
When the lives of Mickey Thompson and his wife Trudy were taken on that early March morning of 1988, the world of motorsports truly lost one of its greatest heroes. Even though Mickey Thompson was no longer himself chasing records, there is no doubt that his ingenuity would have continued for many years to come in order to make others go faster. His motto, “stand on the gas,” lives on.
