You often hear people talk about the blockbuster movie “American Graffiti,” almost as if they were there. Well, Larry “Butch” Leal was one of those who actually lived the part.

Butch was born May 10, 1944, 80 miles south of Modesto, CA, in the agricultural town of Tulare, where Butch’s father Frank owned a company called “Frank Leal Trucking.” Quite typically, Butch became involved in the family business at an early age, but was more into sports and hanging out with his friends than he was into working.

Leal also loved cars. As far back as grade school, Butch was drawing pictures of hot rods on his school papers. Fortunately, his parents noticed his interest in cars, and they encouraged him to pursue his dream. His first set of wheels (age 14) was a Mustang motorcycle, which he traded for a ’46 Ford coupe that he eventually traded for a Ford Model A. “I raced that Model A everywhere I could. It wasn’t a big deal or anything, but the car made enough horsepower to chirp the tires in second gear, and it topped out at almost 70 mph. That was pretty fast for a “stock” Model A in those days!” After the Model A, Leal ordered a Royal Blue 1960 El Camino, and became the scourge of the San Joquin Valley. “I ran the thing in the local Super Stock classes, and it would run 13.80s at 104 mph. In a year and a half, I won over 284 trophies with that thing!”

After a couple more cars, the late Mickey Thompson gave Butch one of the 1963 ½ “R-Code” 427 Galaxies to prepare for Indy. At the 1964 NHRA Winternationals, Leal ran 125 mph on Sunday, and was runner-up in the Super Stock Eliminator finale against Gas Ronda. It was about that time that drag strip promoters and booking agents began calling Leal the “California Flash,” a nickname given to him by the Gold Agency’s Ben Crist.

“After Indy, I went to the NHRA banquet where I sat down with Ford. I said, ‘You know, my wife just had a baby, and I would like to have a little money for doing this.’ They said, ‘We don’t have the budget for it, Butch.’ Well, my heart just kind of sank into my shoes.” That fateful conversation was overheard by Chrysler Corporation’s Bob Cahill, and the rest is history. “Cahill told me, ‘We’re putting a program together for 1965 based around the 426 Hemi, and we’re going to build a fleet of eight altered wheelbase Chryslers. We’re going to have Strickler-Jenkins, and Buddy Martin and Ronnie Sox on the east coast, and we would like to have you, and Dick Landy on the west coast.’” Butch was on board.

It was a struggle just running the altered wheelbase car. Chrysler really thought the NHRA would allow these cars to compete in A/FX, but when Leal and legendary mechanic H.L. Shahan showed up at the 1965 NHRA Winternationals, NHRA officials took one look at the car and said, “Butch, this car looks funny.”

“Since we had no class to run in, we extensively match-raced these cars instead. My car became the quickest and fastest gasoline burning altered wheelbase Mopar in the nation at 9.69 at 144.92 mph at Fremont, CA. That year, I remember winning five straight events in five straight weeks with that car.” However, many racers were starting to get seriously burned driving funny cars, or worse, and in 1968, Leal decided to step back and take a breather.

Leal came back later to drive for Mickey Thompson again and went on to pilot a number of very fast cars for a variety of teams across multiple classes into the early ’90s. Today, Butch is big into fishing and plays a lot of golf. When he’s not on the links, he can be found at select Mopar nostalgia meets across the country or on his website at butchleal.com.

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