fluidfloyd
Active Member
A great story of how drag racing use to be.
http://bangshift.com/bangshift1320/...ty-trailer-an-adventure-for-the-ages-in-1978/
http://bangshift.com/bangshift1320/...ty-trailer-an-adventure-for-the-ages-in-1978/
A Drag Racing Story of a time long gone.
- Thread starter fluidfloyd
- Start date
Mike
Well-Known Member
Before the migration to the new software, we had some old racing war-story threads up, over at the Hot Rod Refuge.
Back in 1976, an old friend (who has since passed away) and I built an A/Econo Dragster in his one-car garage. As in we went out, bought a load of tubing and started cutting and grinding. We rolled a pair of 14X32 tires against the cabinet doors on the workbench and a set of 22/2.5X17 fronts against the closed garage door. That gave us our wheelbase dimension. We had previously raced a steel-bodied Corvair with a big Chevy and a 4-speed in B/A, so what did we know, aye?
But we did end up with a race car. Not much else, but we did have a car. We towed it in a 28', wooden-floored GM trailer that weighed a bazillion pounds. And our tow vehicle, for several years, was a 250", 3-speed C-10 pickup. It wasn't much, but we were racing Comp Eliminator.
I remember we set out, one night, for Bluegrass Dragway, down in Lexington, KY. There was a storm moving into the area and I was driving into a pretty stiff headwind. In 2nd gear. With my foot flat on the floor. At 35 MPH.
It was the two of us, my first wife and his son, who was maybe 10 or 11 at the time. That was our full-time race team. Every now and again, we would get some help at the local tracks, but when we were on the road, we couldn't take too many people. We built a deck in the bed of the truck and put a mattress on it. His son and my wife would ride back there. And whilst we didn't travel huge distances, the above picture was taken at Lancaster, NY, so we got out a bit.
When we built the car, we built a 468" motor and we had a T-400.
But we did have a 'secret weapon'. Unless you were a pretty serious race, you likely won't recognize the name, but that was Steve Griner, of Griner Transmissions, sitting on the rear frame rails. We all grew up together, here in town.
I look back at how we built that chassis and I just shake my head. We were so far out in left field...
We sure weren't the fastest A/ED around, but we did hold the IHRA National Records for A/ED and even for A/D, for 3 or 4 years. We even set the NHRA 1/8 mile records at one point.
We knew we had to build compression to make power, but who gave a second through to o-ringing blocks and using head studs? So about every half-dozen passes, the pig would blow a head gasket. Jeff took care of the right side of the motor and I took care of the left side. Any guesses on which side always pushed the gaskets?
That was taken at Indy, in 1980. We had just upgraded to a dualie, so we were in tall cotton. Except it was oh-dark-thirty, and whilst everyone else was in town partying, we were still at the track, changing a head gasket. And you'll notice there were no halogen lights down the side of the trailer. Oh no.
When we worked at night, we had one trouble light and one flashlight. Thankfully, my ex knew a header from a Crescent wrench, so she could at least chase parts and hold a light.
Heck, who am I kidding? Even if we hadn't been working on the car, we wouldn't have been in town, either. We didn't have two nickels and gas was cheaper than a motel room, so we were driving back and forth to Lafayette, each day. I kid you not, we raced that car on a shoestring that was broken in three places. Jeff was an electronics tech, over at Purdue. We really wanted a crank trigger and an MSD box, so we scrounged up a C/T bracket and put in a horseehoe LED/phototransister setup out of something or another. We built a thin wheel and notched it every 90°. For a long time, we used it to trigger an old Accel BEI box I had scrounged from someone. We ended up with a multi-fire ignition, but Jeff built it. We had a delay box in that car, years before anyone else had even imagined running one. People would see the box, with a dial on it, mounted to the shifter housing and ask what it was, so we would just play dumb. When we built the car, we ignorantly chose the T-400 trans, not knowing any better. At the time, Lamb was making an external brake for the T-400, but we had Griner on our side and were running an internal trans brake, 3 or 4 years before anyone else knew anything about them. We built a pretty nice 482" motor, but we spent everything on the heads and intake and couldn't afford a decent oil pan. We found an old Competition Engineering pan someone had windowed and copied it, in aluminum. We never could afford the good stuff, so we would always build our own junk. That was how the name for the race team came about - Kobble Racing. Jeff's last name started with a K, so we swapped it into the name as a joke and it stuck. Lord only knows, we cobbled a lot of junk together.
We always struggled with gear ratios and trying to get the car to hook. In '81, we back-halved the car, swapped the T-400 for a shorty 'Glide and we decided to try some new motor plates. I jacked the motor up almost 3"! If we ran a marginal track, we were toast, but if you could get the car on a well-prepared track, that heap would leave like Jack-the-bear. At a track like Indy, our 60' times sucked, because we would trip the 60' timers with the rear tires, as it would still be carrying the front end.
We broke our 482" motor at Indy, that year. BIG style. As in it broke, coming out of the water. She grabbed a rod bearing and slammed the piston into the head. Yes, I can say we did oil the starting line. In the good lane. On the last qualifying pass. <cough>
We bought a motor out of John Lingenfelter's A/ED, a 429" destroked combination. John had managed to get his blue, Ness car to run 7.69 (HEY, this was over 30 years ago, OK? ) at the World Finals. I was always pretty proud that we managed to get the car to go 7.70, at Indy, in the heat.
By the end of the 1983 season, we were up against it. We knew our car was outdated and there was no money for another one. We already had a motor that was making good power, but the car just was too tight to ever work right. When we got home from Indy, that year, we decided it was time to call it quits.
I spend some time trying to help a guy with a C/EA Opel GT, in 1984, but he was a clown and I knew naught about door cars. I went to work with Brian on the 6-cylinder car, in 1985. Suddenly, there was money to afford the good parts and I was in seventh heaven. To go from where I had been a couple years earlier to suddenly working on one of the fastest Comp cars in the country was like living a dream.
But, there was still something missing from the old days. I don't know what it was, but when we were racing on a dream and not much else, we sure were having a lot of fun. We would race over at Bunker Hill, every Saturday night. We knew the owners of the track very well, so at the end of the night, we would help them take down all the timing equipment and put it all away. Mary would close down the concession stand and throw all of her leftover popcorn in a big plastic bag, to bring over to our trailer. Jim would run down to the house (they lived near the 1/4-mile finish line) and grab some cold beers. We would haul a cooler full of beer out of the trailer and we would sit there drinking beer, eating popcorn and telling war stories until the sun came up on Sunday morning. I miss those days.
Back in 1976, an old friend (who has since passed away) and I built an A/Econo Dragster in his one-car garage. As in we went out, bought a load of tubing and started cutting and grinding. We rolled a pair of 14X32 tires against the cabinet doors on the workbench and a set of 22/2.5X17 fronts against the closed garage door. That gave us our wheelbase dimension. We had previously raced a steel-bodied Corvair with a big Chevy and a 4-speed in B/A, so what did we know, aye?
But we did end up with a race car. Not much else, but we did have a car. We towed it in a 28', wooden-floored GM trailer that weighed a bazillion pounds. And our tow vehicle, for several years, was a 250", 3-speed C-10 pickup. It wasn't much, but we were racing Comp Eliminator.
I remember we set out, one night, for Bluegrass Dragway, down in Lexington, KY. There was a storm moving into the area and I was driving into a pretty stiff headwind. In 2nd gear. With my foot flat on the floor. At 35 MPH.
It was the two of us, my first wife and his son, who was maybe 10 or 11 at the time. That was our full-time race team. Every now and again, we would get some help at the local tracks, but when we were on the road, we couldn't take too many people. We built a deck in the bed of the truck and put a mattress on it. His son and my wife would ride back there. And whilst we didn't travel huge distances, the above picture was taken at Lancaster, NY, so we got out a bit.
When we built the car, we built a 468" motor and we had a T-400.
But we did have a 'secret weapon'. Unless you were a pretty serious race, you likely won't recognize the name, but that was Steve Griner, of Griner Transmissions, sitting on the rear frame rails. We all grew up together, here in town.
I look back at how we built that chassis and I just shake my head. We were so far out in left field...
We sure weren't the fastest A/ED around, but we did hold the IHRA National Records for A/ED and even for A/D, for 3 or 4 years. We even set the NHRA 1/8 mile records at one point.
We knew we had to build compression to make power, but who gave a second through to o-ringing blocks and using head studs? So about every half-dozen passes, the pig would blow a head gasket. Jeff took care of the right side of the motor and I took care of the left side. Any guesses on which side always pushed the gaskets?
That was taken at Indy, in 1980. We had just upgraded to a dualie, so we were in tall cotton. Except it was oh-dark-thirty, and whilst everyone else was in town partying, we were still at the track, changing a head gasket. And you'll notice there were no halogen lights down the side of the trailer. Oh no.
When we worked at night, we had one trouble light and one flashlight. Thankfully, my ex knew a header from a Crescent wrench, so she could at least chase parts and hold a light.
Heck, who am I kidding? Even if we hadn't been working on the car, we wouldn't have been in town, either. We didn't have two nickels and gas was cheaper than a motel room, so we were driving back and forth to Lafayette, each day. I kid you not, we raced that car on a shoestring that was broken in three places. Jeff was an electronics tech, over at Purdue. We really wanted a crank trigger and an MSD box, so we scrounged up a C/T bracket and put in a horseehoe LED/phototransister setup out of something or another. We built a thin wheel and notched it every 90°. For a long time, we used it to trigger an old Accel BEI box I had scrounged from someone. We ended up with a multi-fire ignition, but Jeff built it. We had a delay box in that car, years before anyone else had even imagined running one. People would see the box, with a dial on it, mounted to the shifter housing and ask what it was, so we would just play dumb. When we built the car, we ignorantly chose the T-400 trans, not knowing any better. At the time, Lamb was making an external brake for the T-400, but we had Griner on our side and were running an internal trans brake, 3 or 4 years before anyone else knew anything about them. We built a pretty nice 482" motor, but we spent everything on the heads and intake and couldn't afford a decent oil pan. We found an old Competition Engineering pan someone had windowed and copied it, in aluminum. We never could afford the good stuff, so we would always build our own junk. That was how the name for the race team came about - Kobble Racing. Jeff's last name started with a K, so we swapped it into the name as a joke and it stuck. Lord only knows, we cobbled a lot of junk together.
We always struggled with gear ratios and trying to get the car to hook. In '81, we back-halved the car, swapped the T-400 for a shorty 'Glide and we decided to try some new motor plates. I jacked the motor up almost 3"! If we ran a marginal track, we were toast, but if you could get the car on a well-prepared track, that heap would leave like Jack-the-bear. At a track like Indy, our 60' times sucked, because we would trip the 60' timers with the rear tires, as it would still be carrying the front end.
We broke our 482" motor at Indy, that year. BIG style. As in it broke, coming out of the water. She grabbed a rod bearing and slammed the piston into the head. Yes, I can say we did oil the starting line. In the good lane. On the last qualifying pass. <cough>
We bought a motor out of John Lingenfelter's A/ED, a 429" destroked combination. John had managed to get his blue, Ness car to run 7.69 (HEY, this was over 30 years ago, OK?
) at the World Finals. I was always pretty proud that we managed to get the car to go 7.70, at Indy, in the heat.By the end of the 1983 season, we were up against it. We knew our car was outdated and there was no money for another one. We already had a motor that was making good power, but the car just was too tight to ever work right. When we got home from Indy, that year, we decided it was time to call it quits.
I spend some time trying to help a guy with a C/EA Opel GT, in 1984, but he was a clown and I knew naught about door cars. I went to work with Brian on the 6-cylinder car, in 1985. Suddenly, there was money to afford the good parts and I was in seventh heaven. To go from where I had been a couple years earlier to suddenly working on one of the fastest Comp cars in the country was like living a dream.
But, there was still something missing from the old days. I don't know what it was, but when we were racing on a dream and not much else, we sure were having a lot of fun. We would race over at Bunker Hill, every Saturday night. We knew the owners of the track very well, so at the end of the night, we would help them take down all the timing equipment and put it all away. Mary would close down the concession stand and throw all of her leftover popcorn in a big plastic bag, to bring over to our trailer. Jim would run down to the house (they lived near the 1/4-mile finish line) and grab some cold beers. We would haul a cooler full of beer out of the trailer and we would sit there drinking beer, eating popcorn and telling war stories until the sun came up on Sunday morning. I miss those days.
GAB
Member
Fluid George,
That post brings back some memories for me as I had done a back halve and cage in Jim Ruble's Corvette.
Ruble used to tell a story on his partner, Duane Mayfield, about long hard nights on the road in pursuit of drag racing glory. They had been some where a long ways east from home in Springfield. Ruble had taken his first turn behind the wheel and turned it over to Mayfield. Time for a snooze. Some time later, Jim awoke to find Duane really up on the wheel and sawing away like he was entering turn 1 at Daytona. Only problem was that they were in morning rush hour traffic in St. Louis...and he was running about 5 m.p.h. Sleep deprivation is a bear!
George...the other George
That post brings back some memories for me as I had done a back halve and cage in Jim Ruble's Corvette.
Ruble used to tell a story on his partner, Duane Mayfield, about long hard nights on the road in pursuit of drag racing glory. They had been some where a long ways east from home in Springfield. Ruble had taken his first turn behind the wheel and turned it over to Mayfield. Time for a snooze. Some time later, Jim awoke to find Duane really up on the wheel and sawing away like he was entering turn 1 at Daytona. Only problem was that they were in morning rush hour traffic in St. Louis...and he was running about 5 m.p.h. Sleep deprivation is a bear!
George...the other George
