Captain Jack McClure is famous in drag-racing circles for driving a go-kart powered by a rocket. That's pretty obvious from the title of the documentary about him, "Captain Jack and His Rocket Powered Go-Kart." You can likely also surmise that the Captain was a gutsy fellow, but just to affirm that, there's a scene midway through the film where McClure (96 years old at the time of filming, nearly 100 now) explains that he had a problem with sliding down in the seat of his 200-mph kart, but it was easily fixed, and he now feels perfectly safe. He then turns and showcases two red strips of Velcro on the back of his fireproof suit. Problem solved, and personality laid bare.
It only takes a few minutes of watching Captain Jack to see why filmmakers Krystal Alexandria and Daniel Hagler chose to share his story. McClure is a showman, a flirt, a pioneer, and a prankster and when Hagler met McClure at a dragstrip while filming for another project, he was taken by his story and personality. The film leans into that personality, letting McClure wander off on tangents, and occasionally just wander off. "Oh, are we still filming?" he asks after a 10-minute side conversation with a friend in the garage. "We never stopped filming," the bemused videographer says from off-screen.
"Captain Jack" covers McClure's unusual career choices, including Southern bootlegger, stock car racer, stunt driver for the famed Joie Chitwood Thrill Show, and go-kart distributor. It's this last gig that set him on the dragstrip, running speeds beyond what even the top classes of dragsters could achieve, all inches from the ground in a kart barely big enough to fit his folded frame, with a rocket strapped to the back. Or two rockets strapped to the back.
McClure's first rocket kart used a pair of Turbonique turbine engines. Turbonique is a story deserving its own documentary, but all you need to know for now is "mail-order bolt-on rocket engines." Most racers who braved the Turbonique drag axles found themselves playing Wile E. Coyote, but McClure was successful in making exhibition passes in both the Turbonique go-kart and a 1965 Chevelle called "The Sizzler." He was also a good marketer.
In a famous photo of the kart against racer Tommy Ivo's fuel dragster, the rocket man seems to be ahead, but in reality, the kart was broken, and the photo was staged to look like the tire-smoking dragster was playing catch-up. Ivo tells the story with irritation to this day.
A crash in the Sizzler sent McClure away from the dragstrip, but not from automotive mayhem. He worked for six years with the Joie Chitwood Thrill Show, and even entered the 1967 24 Hours of Daytona with Chitwood, driving a Camaro. Car and Driver's own Brock Yates was running a Dodge Dart in the same event. By the end of the '60s, McClure was missing the thrill (and maybe the paychecks) of running a rocket down the dragstrip.
This was a time when there were a ton of straight-line tracks all over the country, and races drew huge crowds. Names like Tommy Ivo, Jungle Jim, the Snake and Mongoose, and Shirley Muldowney were pulling in decent money with showy Funny Cars and flashy smokeshows. McClure saw an opportunity to build a new go-kart and run his own thrill show.
By now Turbonique was no more, but McClure had a connection to get a hydrogen peroxide rocket, and with 1500 pounds of thrust, a 450-pound curb weight, and stock go-kart tires, the Captain piloted his new machine to 220 mph and low six-second elapsed times, quicker and faster than any of the top fuel dragsters or Funny Cars at the time.
In 1973, McClure sold the kart and went back to running a fishing charter service—the source of his Captain's title. That was it until 2011, when McClure found his old kart and decided to run it one last time.
Alexandria and Hagler's film covers a lot of history but focuses most on McClure's efforts to restore and run one more rocket-powered pass. It's a look at a time in motorsports when showmanship was as important as performance, as well as an exploration of aging and friendships. Along with McClure's "Rocket Boys" buddies, there are appearances from drag race pioneer "Big Daddy" Don Garlits and current NHRA announcer and racing historian Brian Lohnes. The combination is informative, but also surprisingly tender and patient for such an explosive subject.
Like many of the documentaries I get to preview, Krystal Clear Media is still in discussions about streaming options and wider distribution, but interested rocket fans can follow "Captain Jack and His Rocket Powered Go Kart" on social media to find out about local theater showings, or order the DVD from Krystal Clear Media's website.
Like a sleeper agent activated late in the game, Elana Scherr didn’t know her calling at a young age. Like many girls, she planned to be a vet-astronaut-artist, and came closest to that last one by attending UCLA art school. She painted images of cars, but did not own one. Elana reluctantly got a driver’s license at age 21 and discovered that she not only loved cars and wanted to drive them, but that other people loved cars and wanted to read about them, which meant somebody had to write about them. Since receiving activation codes, Elana has written for numerous car magazines and websites, covering classics, car culture, technology, motorsports, and new-car reviews. In 2020, she received a Best Feature award from the Motor Press Guild for the C/D story "A Drive through Classic Americana in a Polestar 2." In 2023, her Car and Driver feature story "In Washington, D.C.'s Secret Carpool Cabal, It's a Daily Slug Fest" was awarded 1st place in the 16th Annual National Arts & Entertainment Journalism Awards by the Los Angeles Press Club.
Extracted and lightly reformatted for readability. · Source: pt