And then there were some of the really amazing friends that I met at the track and through my work -
Amos Beard lives up on the N.E. side of the Bay. I always laughed, when he was with Tri-Valley Machine, because they handed out branded condoms as one of their advertising campaigns. Amos is a super guy, and I keep hoping he and I will someday be able to get another Irish coffee at the Buena Vista, in San Francisco.
We used to do some dyno work with Ron Anderson. The guy had some pretty fast A/SM and B/SM Mustangs.
I've known Bob and Judy Bailey for almost 40 years. They live in Wabash, IN, so we used to see them every Saturday night, at Bunker Hill Drag Strip. And in all those years, I think Bob has run A/ED for all but maybe two of them.
Carl Miller is one of the nicest guys you could ever hope to meet. A long, long-time Division 1 racer.
Jimmy Jones drove this car for Don Deane, the guy wearing the straw hat in the photo. Deane was one of those guys who refused to surrender, no matter what he was doing. When gasoline started getting expensive, Don decided it was time he got a diesel. But Don never bought anything he could build. And, if you can imagine, he transplanted a Detroit Diesel and an Allison trans into that Dodge pickup. Of course, all of that stuff was way too heavy for the stock suspension, so he transplanted the front end out from under a dump truck, or some such thing. They won a race or two with the C/ED combination, then Don decided it was time to run Pro Comp, so he put a twin-turbocharged Hemi in front of a PowerGlide, and they ran that combination. After a few years, they put their driveline in an older Vega funny car. It was a hoot, because the car had Dodge Omni tailights painted on the body, so everyone always called the car an Omni.
Bob Olson's Omni/Horizon had a small Chevy in it, and I remember him screwing that motor up into the stratosphere, years before the other guys were running those kinds of RPM levels.
The Corvette in the far lane was Norwin 'No-Win' Palmer's. Palmer always ran different combinations, and this one was no exception, as it used a Cleveland Ford for power.
And there is no way to talk about nice people, without mentioning Lindley and Sheila Isonhood.
Sheila was a sweetheart softie, but that girl could bare her teeth in an instant. And when Sheila told you how something was going to go down, you made sure that was how it happened. I always laughed at this photo, because she is walking toward the car, carrying that screwdriver like a knife. And to be honest, that might be exactly what she was doing. Lindley was the TRW All-Star rep out of Division 4 one year, and towed to Columbus, OH for the race. These two still run Clear Lake Speed Center, down in Seabrook, TX, so Sheila stayed behind to look after the shop, then flew in for the weekend. We picked her up at the Indianapolis airport, and she rode over with us, and had us in stitches, nearly the entire way. The Isonhoods are just super, super people.
Lindley was building a Trans Am, and was really close to putting it together, when everything was stolen. I'll not name names, but there were a couple of brothers who ran a successful engine shop in the Houston area. <cough> They had a third brother who apparently had some issues with the laws of the land, and he was apparently behind the theft. I think Lindley and Sheila managed to recover almost everything, but they never finished the car. It is my understanding they still own the Corvette, as well.
And what would Division 1 have been, without the addition of Bob Kaiser, who we also called Father Time?
Kaiser was still using Jenkins power, when Bill took over our engine program.
That is Bob, standing in front of the Beretta, wearing the white hat. This car is another one of those cars that just never went away. Kevin Robb raced it for a bit, also as a D/EA.
Then, Billy Mayo ended up with the car. If I'm not mistaken, I think Kevin Robb even drove at some races for Billy. Kevin's step-father, Paul Thimm, was another super guy. Paulie was a big guy, and he brooked no guff from anyone. We were at a points meet in Salem, OH, and all of us were in line at the scales, after a qualifying pass. The guy behind Kevin had climbed out of his car, and the car rolled into the back of Kevin's car, Paulie went pretty berserk over it, but later in the day, he pulled me around the side of our trailer, and begged me to never tell anyone what had happened. He said he was kind of ashamed he had not hit anybody, over the deal, and he didn't want people to get the impression he was getting soft in his old age.
Paulie had gimpy knees, and wore knee braces. We were at the Dutch Classic, in Reading, PA, and were getting ready for a qualifying pass. Paulie saw Kevin into the car, then started limping out toward the waterbox. A track employee stopped him, and told him to get back into the spectator area. Paulie explained who he was, and why he was out there, but the guy wasn't hearing any of it. Paulie stepped around the guy, and kept walking toward the water box. The guy made a procedural mistake, and grabbed Paulie's arm.
They had a 54-gallon drum that sat between the water boxes, they used to throw trash in and to hang the water hoses from. The fellow grabbed Paulie, so Paulie picked the guy up, turned him upside down and stuffed him into that drum.
My son was maybe 10 or 11 years old. He was a pest, but everyone knew who he was, and everyone looked out for him. That is just the kind of people we raced with. Anyway, I was standing in our trailer, crunching some numbers and Billy walked in, to show me he had a brand-new Kevin Robb t-shirt on. I got on him about mooching free shirts, and told him to go ask Paulie what I owed him for the shirt. A couple minutes later, he was back, and told me Paulie said I owed him a kiss for the shirt.
I marched out of the trailer, walked across the pit lane, to Kevin's trailer. Paulie was standing there, with his back to me, talking to a bunch of people. I walked up behind him, grabbed his head, turned it, and kissed him on the cheek. Without saying a word, I turned around and walked off. I was always amazed Paulie let me get away with that one. Just another of the really wonderful people I met at the track.
A couple of really good guys, from up in Michigan - Garth Hill and Charlie Williams.
When Buddy Ingersoll left the turbo-Buick V-6 program, Garth and Charlie ended up with those turbos. Bloody things were as big as bushel baskets.
After the V-6 deal, they decided to build an inline car, and beep-beep, ended up with a Jeep.
I had a standard procedure I would follow, starting the car. I would stand in front of the car, whilst the car in front of us was doing the burnout, to keep rubber and pebbles from getting flung back at Brian. Once that car would finish the burnout, I would push Brian into the water, where I would turn on the master power switch. I would then open the air bottle, and tell him he had power and air. He would shift the trans into third gear. Once I saw the trans was in 3rd, I would walk forward, and show him 3 fingers to confirm the car was ready to start. I would pull the cover off the scoop as I walked by, and would tuck it into my belt. I would then stand in front of the car again, so the car leaving the starting line would not throw anything back at our car. Once the starter motioned he was ready for us, I would signal Brian to start up and he would do his burnout.
We were at Indy, and I think it was the Fall Classic race. Garth and Charlie were directly in front of us. For whatever reason (and I almost never did this), when Garth staged, I stepped in front of our car, with my back turned to the starting line. I would usually be able to read Brian's eyes, to get a feel for how he was approaching the pass. Suddenly, I saw his eyes were as big as saucers, so I quickly turned around, just in time to see Garth's massive wheelstand turn into a rollover. The car hit the tires so hard, it broke the wheelie bar, and the car rolled right over onto its top side.
That was the last time I ever turned my back on the starting line.
Of course, there were all kinds of people, from all walks of life that raced with us. And some of them ended up with a lot of problems in life.
Here was yet another giant-killer, Dennis Ferrara, driving one of Rick DeLisi's Monzas. Ferrara drove this car in B/EA, and Dempsey "Lauderdale Fats' Hardy drove an identical Monza in one of the Factory Experimental classes. The last I knew, Mr. DeLisi was still residing in the south of France, avoiding multiple charges, here in the States.
And then there was Vinston Holmes. Vinston was a rather large man of Afro-American descent, who apparently dabbled in some <cough> cash business or another. He bought a decond Beretta for his son Michael to drive, and that car was purchased with cash that came straight out of a brown, paper bag, at the race track. Maybe Vince didn't trust the banking institutions, I don't know. Vince did some time, and ended up dying in a testing accident.
And then, there was the Great Pretender. Not many people can say they have been judged with consumer redress, to the tune of $22,024,950.00.
But Scotty Wilcox sure can. My dear, departed mother taught her only son to never say anything, unless I could say good about someone, so I'll add nothing about this character.
Jim Winje was from in the Chicago-land area.
I was always intrigued by this car. We did a lot of dyno work with Jim, and his stuff made some pretty decent power. But the car was never very fast. We were at Brainerd one year, and Jim came to me and asked me if I could take a look at a computer graph from his car. I went down to his trailer and when I saw the graph, I immediately saw what was wrong. When he switched feet, there was so much clutch in the car, the motor was trying to suck in the back bumper. I mean it was like the clutch was trying to shut the motor completely off.
I told him he needed to strip a ton of base off the clutch, but he was running some kind of Ram pressure plate, where you could not adjust base pressure. You had to actually take the plate apart and change out the springs. I would have loved it, if he would have had an adjustable clutch in the car, because I think he could have really picked that car up. By a ton. And again, it wouldn't have hurt my feelings to have seen a small Mopar stepping up.
I had a lot of fun, back in the day. Are there any of you that remember these good, ol' days of drag racing?