"There's been drag racing since cars were invented," Hart told National Dragster magazine in 2001.
"But I guess they say I invented drag racing because I was the first one to have a commercial strip.... I saw a need to get people to stop racing on the streets; that was dangerous."
Hart and two partners helped popularize the sport by running the first commercial drag race on June 19, 1950, on a runway at the Orange County Airport in California.
They set the quarter-mile distance and made a deal with airport operators to rent out space on Sundays.
Drivers paid $1, spectators paid 50 cents. If you wanted to watch the mechanics work, that was an extra 25 cents.
Races continued to be held at the airport - now John Wayne International Airport - until 1959.
Hart's wife, Peggy, who died in 1980, competed regularly at the track, and was one of the country's greatest drivers.
Pappy Hart was inducted into the International Drag Racing Hall of Fame in 1991, and the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America in 1999.
During his salad days, he routinely drove his motor home from track to track around the country at speeds in excess of 90 m.p.h.
Though his eyesight was failing and he had been unable to drive in recent years, he was still fond of high speeds into his 80s.
He was ticketed for going 86 m.p.h. in a 55 m.p.h. zone at age 87.
He died of a stroke on June 25 at the home of one of his sons.
Funeral services were held last week in Santa Ana, California, near his original track.
Participants fired up a loud dragster at the burial.
"They called it an eight-cylinder salute," said Hart's son, Gerald.
Article comments