The story of why this Cadillac was used a pusher and spare parts carrier, and it's a bummer. It's the summation of a dream of a kid from Maine to go drag racing in California

Joe "The Jet" Jackson loaded his entire AA/Fuel Dragster operation into his Caddy hearse and headed from Jefferson, Maine to Fontana, California's inaugural "200 MPH Invitational" meet in early November of 1965.

Jackson lived in the hearse the entire way to California, in hopes of rationing his meager budget. He arrived at Drag City's Invitational exhausted and hungry, but he arrived.

Then Jackson failed to qualify for a Top Fuel field consisting largely of "little guys" like himself. The only entry requirements were a 200 MPH time slip and a set of Mickey Thompson rods in the block, but Jackson had neither.

He jangled around the Los Angeles drag scene for a few weeks, hoping for a lucky break. What Jackson got instead was killed at Lions while test-driving an unproven dragster for a total stranger. Joe Jackson died penniless, 3,000 miles from home.

https://laist.com/2008/07/26/laistory_lions_drag_strip.php
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10216306826956216&set=gm.1977198415743084&type=3&permPage=1&ifg=1
http://scottygossonexposed.blogspot.com/2015_09_20_archive.html


Joe “The Jet” Jackson from Jefferson, ME fell in love with fuel dragsters when he saw Garlits and Postoian perform at Sanford. He saved up by buying used parts here and there, and eventually fielded a fueler himself.


As owner of the only such machine in Maine, Jackson picked up a few match races and was nominally successful running in the 180′s at Sanford. In 1965, in the dead of winter there would be no racing in Maine for months to come.

 Jackson pushed his antiquated slingshot in his trailer and towed it to California behind an aged hearse he painted red to match his dragster. The hearse served as both a bedroom and workshop. He entered Mickey Thompson’s big Fontana meet, but failed to make the cut.

He scuffled around local tracks for several months, aiming mainly to pick up twenty-five dollars, the then the customary compensation for the first-round losers. Open competition in California was much tougher than Jackson ever imagined. And he had to run his tired equipment much too hard.

Eventually he found himself flat broke, with no funds even to get back to Maine. But he was a likeable young man, and he had some friends. One February afternoon at Lions Dragway he agreed to make a check out pass in a dragster from Huntington Beach, which was giving the regular driver trouble.

He smoked strongly coming off the line in the left lane, and then at mid-track veered right, crossed the lane and the grass beyond, rolled over, and crashed into a chain-link fence, striking his face on one of the poles. He died three and a half hours later at a local hospital, three thousand miles from home and without a dollar in his pocket.

https://www.fosters.com/article/20090827/GJSPORTS03/708279923