Wild Bill Stands Up Through the Windshield

The L.A. Dart Already Had Plenty to Do

By the late 1960s, a wheelstander could not simply lift the nose and expect to own the afternoon. The Little Red Wagon and other exhibition machines had already taught dragstrip crowds what two-tire travel looked like.

Shrewsberry understood the next problem. Once everybody has seen the impossible several times, the impossible starts needing improvements.

The L.A. Dart had plenty.

Bill could spin the car around at the starting line and go directly into a wheelstand. He could richen the fuel system until flames came out of the headers, throw sparks behind the car and carry the front wheels well beyond the quarter-mile.

Each addition gave the crowd another reason to watch. It also gave Shrewsberry another reason to wonder what else could be done with a car already operating on half its tires.

That is usually the point where somebody responsible starts looking for the ignition key.

Being a Passenger Gave Bill an Idea

Shrewsberry had already ridden standing through the windshield area as a passenger in another wheelstander. That was enough to establish that the location offered an excellent view and very little shelter.

Being a passenger was one thing.

Bill wanted to drive from there.

The distinction was important because the L.A. Dart still required somebody to operate the throttle, control direction and eventually arrange for the front tires to return to the racetrack pointing approximately where the car was headed.

Standing through the windshield did not relieve him of any of those responsibilities.

It merely made reaching everything more interesting.

Fremont Got the Full Version

At Fremont Raceway, Shrewsberry brought the L.A. Dart back toward the starting line after one of his runs and prepared for another performance. The crowd already knew the car. They knew what happened when Bill hit the throttle.

This time he added a small procedural change.

He climbed upward through the open windshield area until the upper half of his body was outside the Dart.

Then he launched it.

The front end rose, the rear tires stayed planted and Wild Bill Shrewsberry went charging down the dragstrip while standing through the windshield of a car that was itself standing on its rear wheels.

A normal wheelstand had just acquired a second floor.

He Still Had to Drive the Thing

This was not Bill posing while the Dart coasted beneath him. Shrewsberry later explained the arrangement, and there was still quite a bit of actual driving required.

His right hand braced against the windshield frame while his left remained on the steering wheel. The wheel was nearly useless for immediate directional control while the front tires were airborne, but those tires eventually had to come back down. Having them pointed somewhere near the same county as the racetrack remained desirable.

During the wheelstand, independent rear brakes handled the useful steering. A correction on one rear wheel could move the car one direction; the other could bring it back.

His feet still had work too.

One of them controlled the throttle.

The L.A. Dart could approach 120 mph during the stunt, so this was not a fellow standing through a windshield while idling through a parade.

One hand kept Bill attached to the car. One hand kept the steering wheel ready for the eventual return of the front tires. Two rear wheels controlled direction while the Hemi kept the whole arrangement moving.

At nearly 120 mph.

There are easier ways to improve forward visibility.

The Crowd Understood Immediately

People were already accustomed to seeing the L.A. Dart on two wheels. Shrewsberry had spent enough time perfecting that act that another long wheelstand was part of what spectators expected when Wild Bill appeared.

They were not expecting the driver to emerge through the windshield while doing it.

The reaction was immediate. Spectators stood, photographers went looking for the shot and Shrewsberry had accomplished exactly what a successful exhibition racer needed to accomplish.

He took a stunt the audience already knew and made it look unreasonable again.

The crowd wanted another one.

NHRA was considerably less enthusiastic.

Jack Hart Had Seen Enough

Shrewsberry only performed the standing wheelstand three or four times before NHRA Event Director Jack Hart called him into the office.

Hart understood the attraction. He also understood that a professional racing organization might eventually be asked to explain why one of its exhibition drivers was traveling around 120 mph while standing halfway out of a moving car.

The official instruction was uncomplicated.

Stop doing that.

Shrewsberry later remembered another part of the conversation. Hart told him that when he went back outside, he should tell everybody he had received a serious chewing-out.

Even the disciplinary meeting managed to pick up a little showmanship on the way out.

Bill obeyed the useful portion of the instructions. The standing-through-the-windshield wheelstands were finished.

Three or Four Runs Were Plenty

The short life of the stunt probably helped preserve it. There were no seasons of watching Shrewsberry repeat the trick until spectators began treating it like another scheduled part of the program.

He tried it a handful of times.

The crowd went wild. Photographers got the pictures. NHRA noticed before repetition could turn the stunt into routine.

Then it disappeared.

That is a fine career arc for racing foolishness.

The Trick Worked Because the Rest Was Real

Standing through the windshield would have been little more than posing if the car itself were not doing something difficult underneath him. The L.A. Dart was still in a serious wheelstand, still moving at substantial speed and still requiring constant control.

That is what made the stunt more than decoration.

Shrewsberry did not climb out because the driving job had stopped. He climbed out and continued doing it from a worse location.

The rear brakes still had to keep the car straight. The throttle still controlled the wheelstand. The steering wheel still had to be ready when the front tires returned.

Bill merely rearranged himself so everybody in the grandstands could see how little interest he had in making any of that convenient.

There Was Always One More Trick

Wild Bill Shrewsberry spent decades proving that a wheelstander did not have to be a one-trick machine. Once simply carrying the front tires became familiar, he added spins, flames, sparks and longer wheelstands.

Every improvement followed the same exhibition-racing rule: if the crowd has started expecting something, give them something they were not expecting.

Eventually that left Shrewsberry with an L.A. Dart already traveling down the strip on two tires and a driver still sitting in the conventional location.

One of those conditions was easier to change than the other.

So Bill stood up.

The front wheels were already several feet above the pavement. The driver joined them.

He only got away with it three or four times.

That was enough.

They did not call him Wild Bill because he stayed in the seat.