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Talk of the bay

Broker is honored for his days of racing dragsters in Michigan

By MARK ALBRIGHT
Published December 12, 2005

Noah Canfield, a Clearwater broker who handled more than 390 Florida hotel transactions in a career spanning three decades, was recently inducted into the Michigan Motor Sports Hall of Fame.

Who knew that Canfield, 74, tore up drag strips in the 1960s? Once billed as the world's fastest roadster, he and partner Charles Johnson's Glass Chariot, powered by a 394-horsepower Olds engine, held their own against top-fuel dragsters that had 200-pound weight advantages.

"I never really talk much about my racing days unless people ask about it," said Canfield, executive vice president of Greene, Canfield DeGeorge Ltd., who sold his garage and quit racing at 29 in 1969 to seek his fortune in Florida real estate.

The team raced stock cars, then hit the drag strip to go faster. They set a national speed record of 183.67 mph that lasted a year, but felt constrained by gas-powered racing. Using nitro-methane, they were among the first members of the 200 mph club.

"Basically, you're trying to go a quarter mile as fast as you can before the engine blows up," recalled Canfield, who won several World Series of Drag Racing events and the Bakersfield Smoker's Meet, and was Top Eliminator runnerup to Ocala's "Big Daddy" Don Garlits in 1961.

Today, Canfield drives a 1953 Studebaker powered by a 32-valve Cadillac Northstar engine.

"I've never really put my foot to it, but it could go 200," he said.

[Last modified December 8, 2005, 19:52:02]