In ‘69 I was stationed at an Army base in Alabama, the last closed post in the US at that time.
Being in the MP Company had its advantages among which was our weekend fun nights where we closed off a stretch of road on the “backside” of the base and had drag races.
A lot of the guys had muscle cars. Especially the returning Viet Vets who had saved their combat pay. There were GTXs, Mach 1s, Roadrunners, Z28s, you name it.
But the guy who came out on top (or pretty close to it) week after week ran a Dart 340 Six-Pack with an automatic.
I’m not saying he never lost a race, but his defeats were few and far between.
(I think that a big part of it was the fact that he could actually control his car. In some cases there was more car than driver, if you know what I mean.)
That Chrysler Torqeflite automatic was the toughest automatic of its day and was even used on the 440 cuin engines as well as the 426 Hemi. Modified it was used for Super Stock drag racing and was a huge winner. Even used in A Alterd with a manual clutch used for leaving the line and then pushing the push buttons to shift.
To this day it is still used for all kinds of drag racing.