It's interesting for me to see the Jade grenade here on moparts. Last month while I was on vacation in Florida I had lunch with a few of the guys from Delaware Chassis Works down in Stuart Florida. I ended up sitting next to an old guy who walked with a cane and struck up a conversation with him. Turns out that the guy is Ted Thomas, original driver and co-owner of the original Jade grenade back in the day.
He was a modest man, but I pryed. He told me about some of the records that they set. I asked what was the trick to making it so fast. He said lots and lots of nitro! We talked about what it was like to drive a nitro front engine dragster, what it was like to drive through fiery engine explosions, stuff like that. I brought up the story by The Surfers who said they used a very conservative fuel mixture to avoid engine explosions and make more rounds, and asked for his commentary on the difference in their philosophies. He asked "why do you think we called it the Jade grenade!?"


Sometimes you're just in the right place at the right time.