Gas Ronda.pdf - NHRA.com

The dapper former dance instructor put Ford on the racing map during
the days of heads-up Super Stock racing and the early Funny Cars
by John Jodauga
During the 1970s and 1980s, Bob
Glidden was the favorite of Ford
drag racing fans with his near-total
domination of Pro Stock, and John
Force has shined in a similar role in
Funny Car in the last two decades, but
throughout the 1960s, the man who
gave Ford fans the most reasons to
cheer was Gas Ronda, the Super Stock
standout who went on to play a major
pioneering role in the early days of
Funny Car racing.
Ronda won the NHRA Top Stock
championship in 1964, the year the
class was introduced, and that played a
major role in Ford winning NHRA’s
first Manufacturers Cup. Later in the
decade, he emerged as one of the
strongest West Coast Funny Car
campaigners. But in 1970, the same
year the Pro Stock class was introduced,
Rhonda’s driving career was
ended prematurely after he suffered
major burns from an engine fire. Many
drag racing observers felt that Ronda’s
skills with the four-speed transmission
would have made him a superstar in
Pro Stock.
Another aspect that made Ronda
stand out from other racers was being
one of the sharpest-dressed racers of
his era. Much of that came from his
days as a dance instructor when he
lived in the San Francisco area in the
1950s. After he began to rise up in the
drag racing ranks, Ronda continued to
wear more stylish clothing than the T-
shirts and Levi’s that were common
during the era, and he insisted that
his crewmembers do the same.
His drag racing career began in the
early 1950s as a outlet to relieve
him of the many hours spent in his
dance classes. He initially campaigned
a Hudson Hornet because he wanted
to race something different and had
also heard about how successful
Marshall Teague was with that type of
vehicle in stock car racing.
In 1953, Rhonda opened a dance
school franchise in Hayward, Calif.,
next to a Buick dealership that was
owned by former Indy winner Bob
Sweikert and Chet Richards. They
eventually coaxed Ronda into switching
to a new Buick Century in 1954. By
the late 1950s, Ronda was running a
Chevrolet Corvette, but, he said, “I
didn’t like the fact that everyone had a
Chevrolet. To me, there was no sense
of accomplishment in beating one
Chevy with another Chevy.”
So, in 1960, Ronda began racing his
first Ford, equipped with the then-new
352-cid, 360-horsepower V-8. It was with
this car that Ronda began his longtime
association with Les Ritchey, who ran
the highly successful Performance
Associates shop in Covina, Calif. By
late 1962, Ritchey had talked Ronda,
who was now out of dance instruction
completely, into
moving to Southern
California, where he
first campaigned
for sponsor
Downtown Ford in
Los Angeles.
Though Fords
were underdogs to
the more powerful
Chevy 409s that
were driven by
most of the other Super Stock racers,
such as Don Nicholson, Hayden
Proffitt, Dave Strickler, the Sox &
Martin team, Butch Leal, and others,
Ronda proved to be very competitive
once he started running engines that
were built and tuned by Ritchey.
Ronda’s loyalty to the Ford brand
paid off in 1964 when he was given an
original factory Ford Thunderbolt, one
of the potent midsize Fairlanes that
were powered by the 427-cid, high-riser
wedge engines.
During the middle of that season,
Ronda left Downtown Ford to begin
working out of the Russ Davis Ford dealership
in Covina, where he could be
closer to Ritchey’s shop. When he wasn’t
racing, Ronda was a salesman on the
dealership floor, and he sold many Ford
Mustangs and Fairlanes with the potent
289-cid, 271-horsepower Cobra Jet engine
and offered his customers price-saving
deals on having their engines
blueprinted by Ritchey.
Said Ronda, “During my first year
at Russ Davis’ dealership, the sales for
high-performance parts went up by
over 1,000 percent.”
Ronda became so synonymous with
the Ford factory racing program that
he resisted the temptation to convert
his NHRA-legal A/FE Ford Mustang
into a Funny Car during 1965, when
the switch to the “run whatcha brung”
entries was in full swing. In 1966,
Ford provided Ronda with a truly
competitive Funny Car, and his
stretched-wheelbase Mustang was one
of the first of its breed to run eightsecond
times on a regular basis.
But tragedy struck early in 1966,
when Ritchey was involved in a fatal
accident while racing in Fontana, Calif.
Said Ronda, “Not only did I lose my
engine builder but also my best friend.
It took me a long time to get over
that. When I began racing after that, I
to page 38
One of the early Fords that Gas Ronda campaigned was a 406-cid, 405-
horsepower ’62 Galaxie. The Ford racing program was still relatively new at
the time, and Ronda was one of the few Ford racers who was able to keep
up with the favored 409-cid Chevrolets that were campaigned by the likes
of Hayden Proffitt, far lane.
36 ✦ National DRAGSTER

● Gas Rhonda
from page 36
did so very conservatively and tuned
the car to just run in the nines for
quite some time.”
But by 1967, Ronda had regained his
bravado and ran a new Mustang with a
tilt front end that originally ran with
fuel injection but later was equipped
with a supercharger that gave him sevensecond
elapsed time potential.
For 1969, Ronda had a new Mach 1
Mustang built by Logghe Bros.
that was easily the fastest and bestlooking
ride of his
career, but after scoring
his prestigious win at
that year’s Orange
County Int’l Raceway
Manufacturers
Championships, Ronda
suffered severe burns in
his early 1970 accident
while racing in Phoenix,
and his driving career
was brought to an abrupt
halt. Said Ronda, “Ford
tried to get me to run in
Pro Stock later that year,
but with my left leg
burned so badly, I
couldn’t operate the
clutch properly.”
Ronda then went into
the nightclub business,
where he enjoyed great success. He
retired in 1993.
Still very active at age 82, Ronda
lives with his wife in Palm Desert,
Calif., where he plays golf regularly
and enjoys driving his 2005 Mustang
GT, which has been performance
enhanced by Randy Ritchey, who has
resurrected the Performance
Associates business founded by his
father, Les.
Said Ronda, “Looking back on my
career, I wouldn’t change a thing. Even
though I suffered a setback with the
engine fire, I knew the risks that were
involved when I got into racing, and
the good far outweighs the bad. We
even learned from our losses, and
that helped us win more races,
which, of course, was something
that I always enjoyed.” ND
Greg Sharp collection
(Above) Ronda’s 1963 ride was this 12-second Ford Galaxie
fastback. Despite the addition of fiberglass fenders,
lightweight bucket seats, aluminum vendors, and other
weight-saving devices, it still was heavier than other
brands, especially the midsize Dodge and Plymouth entries,
a handicap that was challenging to overcome. (Left) Ford
finally put together a very competitive racing package in
1964 with the famed Ford Thunderbolts that combined the
power of the 427-cid, 425-horsepower high-riser wedge
with the lightweight Ford Fairlane body. Note the “four-leaf
clover” style bulge in the hood for the cold-air induction
system that was later seen in the more popular teardrop
design. (Below) After scoring SS/S class honors at the
season-opening Winternationals, Ronda made a midseason
switch to Russ Davis Ford in Covina, Calif., where he could
be closer to his engine builder and tuner Les Ritchey. Ronda
had his car repainted in the popular Mustang poppy red and
went on to win the inaugural Hot Rod Magazine
Championships in Riverside, Calif.,
and the NHRA Top Stock
points championship.
(Left) Ronda really enjoyed driving this four-speedequipped,
10-second A/FX Ford Mustang that was
powered with Ford’s new high-winding 427-cid SOHC
Hemi engine. Although many of his fellow competitors
jumped to “outlaw” altered-wheelbase, nitro-burning
Funny Cars to run on the lucrative match race circuit
that year, Ronda complied with Ford’s wishes for him
to stick with the NHRA-legal program for the balance
of the season.
38 ✦ National DRAGSTER
(Left) In an ironic twist that Ronda and the Ford officials
thoroughly enjoyed, Ronda won this Plymouth Barracuda
from Hurst Performance with his triumph at the Hot Rod
Magazine Championships. Ronda had the car on display
at the Ford dealership, and he won another Barracuda
when he clinched the NHRA Top Stock title. (Right)
Ritchey, a longtime Ford campaigner and owner of
Performance Associates, played a major role in Ronda’s
success as Ronda’s engine builder, tuner, business
advisor, and close friend.

(Left) Ford provided Ronda with his first Funny Car in 1966, a stretched-wheelbase, injected
entry that recorded then-record eight-second clockings to win the Bakersfield, Calif., March
Meet. (Below) Now 82 years old, Ronda still has his zest for high performance. His daily ride
is an ’05 Mustang, which has been tuned and modified
for extra power by Randy Ritchey, son of Ronda’s
longtime engine builder and best friend, Les.
Ronda stepped up with an even
more potent entry in 1967 with this
Mustang that was originally
campaigned with fuel injection but
was upgraded with a supercharger
later in the season. Following
Ritchey’s fatal accident in 1966,
Ronda now relied on the enginebuilding
services of Ed Pink.
At the 1968 Winternationals, Ronda took a trip back in
time by returning to his original four-speed roots to help
Ford debut its Cobra Jet SS/EA Mustangs.
Ronda’s Funny Car career hit its peak in 1969,
when he began driving this sharp-looking ’69
Mustang that featured a state-of-the-art Logghe
Bros. chassis. His biggest victory came at the
1969 Orange County Int’l Raceway
Manufacturers Cup Funny Car Championships,
where he defeated the heavily favored Chi-Town
Hustler of Farkonas Coil & Minnick in the final.
At the recent NHRA California Hot Rod Reunion, Ronda was the
subject of the Justice Bros. Spotlight Award. Ronda signed
autographs throughout the weekend for fans, who also got a chance
to check out his supercharged ’68 Mustang Funny Car that was
restored by vintage car collector Brent Hjak.
November 14, 2008 ✦ 39