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An older article I just discovered

Mike

Well-Known Member
It's always nice to see people sit up and take notice.

One Of A Kind Dragster

I'll never forget that day at Indy, back in '93. Jenkins walked up and handed Brian a business card from Jenkins Competition. The first words out of his mouth were, "I'm Bill Jenkins." Like there might be a drag racer in this galaxy who did not know who he was?

The second words out of his mouth were, "I can help you."

And did he ever!

About the only time he made a suggestion that went ignored was when he was trying to get us to use one of the Pro Stock motors, to run A/D. It would have taken a new car, as ours would have been too short. Bill knew we weren't afraid of cutting the clutch every pass, so he figured we could absolutely rule Comp, as the index was pretty soft at the time. The idea of building a new car wasn't real appealing and we were having trouble trying to find places to test with the V-6, so we knew it would be next to impossible to test with that kind of horsepressure. It would have meant staying an extra day at National events, to test on Mondays, and we both were trying to hold down full-time jobs.
 
Mike,

That was a hugh compliment to you guys as he seldom made that offer to anyone. When I first stared building cars in the early '70s over in west Tennessee, a friend of mine was building a Vega to run in the gas classes. He calls up Jenkens cold and ask him about buying an engine. Jenkins response was (Don't build engines for nobody but friends). Then he hung up. He wan't much for words. Shortly after that I moved to Texas and opened a shop across the parking lot from Reher, Morrison $ Shepard. Now those were the days.

George
 
Bill is a funny guy. He's not going to build anything for people he hasn't had the opportunity to study for a while. (And trust me, the guy misses nothing at the race track.) He would sit in the trailer with me and carry on a conversation, but if someone he did not know would poke their head in the door, he would start acting (dare I say it) grumpy and grunting in mono-syllables. As soon as other people would leave, he would relax and start talking again.

He would be standing in the trailer talking and would start going through the toolbox. He would grab a pair of sidecuts and start trimming his fingernails. I would pull a pair of fingernail clippers out of my pocket and he would shake his head and keep nipping away with the pliers. For several years, Brian had a partner (Don) who actually owned the chassis, whilst Brian owned everything else. This fellow was extremely quiet and reserved and his wife (Pat) was even more so. We were at Columbus for the Springnationals and it was typical Columbus weather. As Paul Smith always said, the air was so bad, the birds were walking. The temperature and humidity were racing one another to 100 and it was miserable. We went up to make a qualifying pass, so Jenkins hopped on his scooter and rode up. After the pass, we would have to wait in line at the scales and fuel check, so Bill would usually be back at the trailer when we got there. On this particular afternoon, he got to the trailer and jumped inside and made his way to the cooler for some *cough* refreshment. Only he was so intent on getting to the cooler, he didn't notice Pat was sitting inside. And Pat didn't know Jenkins from Adam, so she sees him rooting around in the cooler and pipes up with, "Excuse me, who are you?!?" She thought someone was stealing from our cooler. Bill was still sputtering like a wet hen, when we finally pulled up. I was puirless when I heard what had happened.

Larry Lombardo was a really good customer (as were R-M) and when Larry would start talking about the years he was with Jenkins, you would be on the floor, laughing your backside off. He said they would leave a match race, late at night and Bill would climb in the back seat and fall dead asleep. Larry said he would pull to a stop to get out a map to check for a close place to buy gasoline and Bill would poke his head up, wanting to know why they had stopped. Larry would explain he was trying to find a place to buy gas and Bill would look around and say, "Just follow this road up a couple more miles and take the first left. About 5 miles down, there will be a Shell and a Standard station." The guy had match-raced so many years and had been up and down so many roads, he knew where everything was.

A couple of little-known facts about Bill? He knows at least as much about trains as he does about drag racing. He loves trains. And he is so particular about the shower head when he showers, he used to carry his own shower head in his luggage, so he could change it out with the bad ones in motel rooms. The guy is really priceless and I treasure the time I got to spend with him. He taught me a lot.

Enterprise Place, down in Arlington, eh? Was Don Cooper with R-M, when you had your shop there? Don is one of the really nice guys in the industry. It was always a pleasure to pick up the phone and hear his voice.
 
Mike,

My original shop was in the old M&H rental properties. R&M were there when I moved in in the early '70s. I later closed up and moved to the east side of Fort Worth. Sometime after that they built the shop building you're talking about in south Arlington on Enterprise Place and are still there today. Don came along after they had moved to the new and current building. A few weeks before I moved to Arkansas (around May 2004 I think) I went by and saw David and Don was still there. Of course Don is married to Linda and she and Bruce Allen bought into the business after Buddies death. I'm on a short time schedule tonight but I'll sit down and fill you in on the early days of RMSE and their 1st Pro Stock car. You do remember RMSE don't you. The reason I ask that is in you're 1st post you mentioned Indy '93. Since I'm just about to turn 66 I got the feeling we were a few years apart. There was another comp car running out of their shop and I'll fill you in later. You ever remember David Majors or Joe Williams? Both ran inline 6 Fords in E/A in cop. Joe Williams was a real headache as was Bobby Cross and Bubba Corsine in their C/ED. Cross & Corsine were pretty much a R&M house car. Got to run but I'll give you some time to think about the "E" RMSE.

George
 
I'm guessing you're referring to Joe Williamson. And yes, I know Joe very well. He's circle track racing these days. I think Joey has built a bracket car, however. Remember Danny Townsend's A/A cars? Joe and Danny had a standing $10 bet, every time they raced one another, to see who could smoke the tires the hardest and longest on the burnout. Joe was good at taking Danny's money.

I also remember David Majors. I've not seen him in years.

But you have me on the "E". I remember their Maverick (which Cross drove at one point) and the E/MP Corvette, that Tony Christian ended up racing for a few years. I remember Lee's old F/MP Nova wagon. I remember Richie Zul driving the Monza, after Lee had crashed it. Didn't Lee drive Shioleno & Coeman's G/MP Camaro to a win at Baton Rouge, the year Zul was driving the Pro Stocker? If memory serves, Hans Feustel was a cousin of Richie's and that was the start of Hans' years with RMS. But I'm clueless on who the "E" might have been.

Was it Rob Morse who worked for Reher?

Cross and Corzine's small block A/ED was the innovator. They showed up at Indy with that car and I was standing in the staging lanes, giving it the once-over. (We were running a BBC A/ED at the time.) I remember a guy walked up, knelt down next to the car, pulled a magnet out of his pocket and stuck it on the block. :laugh: He was like the rest of us, he couldn't sort how anyone could build a car that light. That was 3.4 lb. class and that car was some 220 lbs. lighter than our own. We put our car on an insane diet, shortly thereafter. We managed to mill 14 lbs. off one of our blocks. We milled off the frost plugs bosses, the side motor mount bolts, the fuel pump boss, made skim cuts down the sides of the block, etc. It was stupid crazy, but we had built that car in a one-car garage, on our own. And it was heavy. We ended up with a 428" motor Lingenfelter had run in his blue, Ness dragster. John's best pass with that motor was at Pomona, when he went 7.69 (yeah, this was the early 80's). We managed to squeak a 7.70 out of it at Indy, in '83, so we managed to get close.

We knew you guys were down there in Division 4, but we also had a Comp/Modified hotbed of our own, up here in Division 3.
 
Mike,

I stand corrected. You were around during the mid '70s and your memory is excellent. Joe Williamson is who I was referring to. He was a tough act to compete against with that in line 6. I can't remember but I think he ran a Chevy in that car. David Majors ran an in line Ford 6 with a hybrid cylinder head. I went up to his shop in Antioch, Tennessee in the mid seventies to at that head and how he built it. Quite a interesting program. We pulled in behind Joe Williamson at Columbus, Ohio in 1978 (I think) at a traffic light. One fender was completely missing from his enclosed trailer. He had cut a square hole in the rear door/ramp for the wheelie bars to hang out. That kept him from having to remove them from the car when closing the door. He was always super friendly and a lot of fun to be around. And yes, I do remember Danny Townsend.

Lee's old Nova wagon was before my time in Texas. The reason I met Buddy and David was because of their Chevy powered Maverick. They sold that car to two of my friends from my hometown of Jackson, Tennessee. I went to Texas to with one of the owners to pick up a spare R&M engine. While down in Arlington I got to drinking at the famed Golden Spur beer joint with Ed Maybry (one of the founding SEMA chassis members) and a Jr. Fuel friend of mine. We decided I needed to move back to Texas for good and open a shop. I went back to Tennessee, loaded my lathe, welder and tube bender and returned within a month's time. My Jr. Fuel friend had rented us a building across the parking lot from R&M and I was in business. Two doors down from my was the shop of the Coleman Brothers G/MP Camero. There were two brothers originally. They both worked day jobs and worked on the car nights and weekends. They also built open pull a long car trailers on the side to help pay for their racing habit. Tony Shileno joined them shortly after I arrived on the seen and brought sever motors and such to help with the cause. Eventually older brother Bruce decided he liked Miss Sharon and her white Corvette better then racing so he pulled out. Then it became Coleman and Shileno. I little later in the game Schileno renamed the team to Shileno and Coleman. They had several drivers but during I can't remember all of them by name. And you are right about Ritchie Zul. And yes, Cousin Hans did come to Texas shortly after Ritchie. And like Davy Crockett, he to stayed. When Lee crashed the '75 Monza P/S car he decided to slow down and regroup. He then went to driving for Shileno & Coleman. And now for the “E” in RMSE. In '74-75 R&M were wanting to go Pro Stock racing but really didn't have deep enough pockets. There was a Fort Worth mechanical engineer that had watched them for sometime and thought a lot of them. He owned a rather large oil field equipment manufacturing company and like racing cars. A truly dangerous combination to have. He had started sending company and personal work though their shops and decided to help them get started. He bought them a new '75 Chevy 1 ton crewcab, a new Chaparral trailer, a new '75 Ness Monza and a financial agreement to allow them to run the full season on his nickel. His name was Tom Ellistion and his company was Hydra Rig. The truck was a special order as it was a 350/4 speed. As soon as it was delivered it went to Hydra Rig and the engine/transmission were removed. His company employees installed a Detroit 6-53 diesel and Allison automatic in that truck along with other items. That thing would rotate the earth or gain speed in a vertical climb. The trailer was ordered with a dividing wall in the front section so they could convert it into small living quarters. It to went to Hydra Rig for the conversion. They had no Tig welders and wanted to a build stainless shower and sink. Buddy ask me to go out there and to the job which I did. They then went racing and I didn't Tom again for quite a while. When Lee crashed the Monza, Tom bought them a new Ness Camero and decided he wanted to race. He tracked me down and said, “I want you to come out here and build me a C/EA Dodge Challenger. Women, Alcohol or Drugs, what will it take.” I replied “It's August, Air Conditioning.” That was already a done deal so I went out there with the intent of building one car and then moving on. Tom had a company employ buy the name of Robert “Hutch” Hutchinson (former 2 time NHRA World Champion) and Hutch was going to drive it. We finished the car and I agreed to go to Gainesville in 1976 (I think). Once we really got to run it we realized we needed to make a rear suspension change so I stuck around. I ended touring the rest of the year. It was a the final Division 4 points meet in Baton Rouge (I think) that we ran Bobby Cross in the final and beating him to win the Division Championship. In 1978 David Reher talked Tom into building a 316: SB to run B/EA so we built a '79 Camero that was around 1500lbs wet. This was lighter then R&M's new Ness P/S car. Hutch left Hydra Rig and driving for Tom and he parked the car due to the oil field being in a real boon. I stayed with him till the early '90s. I built cars and did a number of special projects for Hydra Rig, He moved to Weatherford Texas but we stayed close up until his death in May of 2009. It was a really hard blow for me personally and I still think about it to this day.

I think the first R&M P/S car to run the RMSE logo was the 2nd car Tom bought. It also had the
Hydra Rig logo on both rear quarter panels.

I think Rob Morse was working at R&M when I left Texas.

When we were all still in the old M&H rental properties in Arlington it was always exciting to see who was in town several weeks before a national event. There would be a number of trailers in the lot with cars less engines. Everyone was in line to get on the dyno and have David bless them with a few extra HP. I always thought Cross & Corzine got the most as they were tight.

There is a lot more to tell out of those days but now is not the time or place. I'll try and get it all written down for the future at a later date. By the way, I got a call about 6 months ago from the current owner of the R&M Maverick. They wanted to know if I would be interested in doing a partial restoration of the car see how I had done a number of modifications for the 2nd owners. I had to turn them down as I've been working out of state for the past two years but I have been keeping tabs on the progress.

As for Tom's Dodge that Hutch drove...it was names “The Wedge” and you might well have seen it at Indy that year. I'm sure I saw you or your team car in the comp pits as well. That's about it for now. Sorry for making this so long but I hope it is of some enjoyment to you. I'll be in touch.

George
SEMA 134
 
Ha! Yes, that stirred some memories. I remember the Hydra-Rig name, but never knew the story behind it. And yes, when you said C/EA Challenger, Hutch's ride was the only one I could think of.

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The Hydra Rig Racing logo is clearly evident on the rear quarter panel.

The Maverick. Didn't a fellow named Wilkins buy that car from R-M?

Here's one for you (and this took some digging). Shepherd, driving the Shioleno & Coleman Camaro in the far lane and Tony Chrostian, driving the ex-R-M-S Corvette in the near lane.

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Joe did start out with the Chevy, but he ended up using the Ford.

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I always got a kick out of this next one. The first car Brian ever owned was this car of Rich Koerner's. He was still living up in London, Ontario at this time, and it was before I started with him. But we saw the car at all the Division 3 points meets and national events.

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And look who is over there in the other lane. This was taken back in the Grace Cup days, when guys like Joe, Lingenfelter and Ferrara were towing all over the country, trying to chase that bonus.

The V-8 guys always gave us a long row to hoe. If you didn't run a 348" SBC in a Corvette or a Camaro, then you were running a fairy-tale car with a fairy-tale index. So those of us with the innovative combinations all hung together.

Joe is a good friend. A guy would have to go a long way to find people any nicer than Joe and Pat. And Joe was one of those guys who wasn't concerned with how "pretty" things looked, he just needed them to go fast. And go fast on a minimal budget.

In all honesty, we were always a bit snobbish, up here in Division 3. We watched the cars down in 4 and out in 7 fly, but we had plenty of cars up here that could run just as fast. And we pretty much never saw mineshaft conditions that were so prevalent in those divisions. Our favorite line, when somebody from 4 or 7 would start trash-talking, was to remind them entry forms for the U.S. Nationals were always available. Up here, 1800 ft. corrected altitude was good air. And we regularly ran in conditions that corrected from 3,000 to 3,300 ft. Brian and I were chasing the Division 3 Comp title and ended up at the Houston (Baytown) points meet. I unlocked the trailer on Sunday morning and my jaw dropped. The altimeter was sitting on the bench across from the door and the actual reading was -20 feet. I had never seen anything like it. I think we corrected to something like -250 feet, so Brian was under strict orders to shut off early.

Bunker Hill Dragstrip is about 50 miles east of here and we ran over there on Saturday nights, back in the 70's and early 80's. This was when they still ran a full slate of NHRA classes. And the Comp field would pull in guys like Lingenfelter, Danny Townsend, Carl Mitchell (R.I.P.), the Flagle Bros., Duane Snyder, Dan Nimmo, Tom Gunter (R.I.P.), the Baines Bros., Steve Ambrose and Jerry Arnold, on a regular Saturday night. It was nothing unusual to see 24 Comp cars show up for a 16-car field. Qualifying for a Saturday night program was as touch as qualifying at a points meet. The Modified fields were usually just as serious and just as big. Coonce & Clark, Ault & James, Sullivan & Hutchens with the Wayne County cars were all regulars.

The shop I worked at for 25 years was owned by a guy who raced NHRA and IHRA Modified for a lot of years. He had a handful of cars that ran E/G, F/G and G/G. He built some Comp cars for his daughter, they ran IHRA Factory Modified with a car one of RPM's pals built and he ended up with a Haas IHRA Pro Stocker, before he started round track racing. One of his first employees ran a G/MP Camaro with his brother. Before I started with the A/ED team, back in '76, I helped a guy with an E/MP car. There was even a steel-bodied, flip-top B/A Corvair in there. It was rough as a cob, but we had a lot of fun.

So, yeah, we knew you guys were all down there in Division 4. But we were already surrounded by killer cars, right here at home, so we were likely guilty of not paying as much attention as we should have.

Special thanks to Dave Kommel of Auto Imagery for the great photos.
 
George, with all the nostalgia racing group forming up everywhere, I have been gleefully collecting old photos, and remembering the good, ol' days.

All my life, I've always heard a different drum, and was never afraid to march to the beat I was hearing. I never much cared for cookie-cutter combinations, in anything. I always wanted to see different things, and to try different things, for no other reason that to be, well, different. I had a soft spot in my heart (some say it was actually in my head) for Mopars, particularly for small-block Mopars. When Glidden debuted his Arrow, a handful of racers followed suit in Comp and Modified Eliminators.

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I thought some of those small-Mopar Colts and Arrows were the slickest thing since sliced bread.

It was a time when it seemed everyone had either a small-Chevy C/ED, or a small-Chevy Camaro. I always used to say anyone who could fog a mirror could qualify a C/ED. So the six-cylinder cars really caught my eye.

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The Baines brothers fielded this C/D out of the Louisville area.

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At one point, they turned the driving chores over to Dan Nimmo. After running the dragster, they put their driveline in a Fiat, and ran that car for a couple of years. And they ended up graduating to a T/AD, before I lost all track of them. But you can see how old these cars are, because this was when the Pro Stock racers got fed up with NHRA's factoring pen, and a bunch of them migrated to the Altered and Factory Experimental cars, in Comp.

Not real sure what liquid the Baines car is spewing in this one.

I imagine you will recognize this car -

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And oddly enough, it appears Majors was leaking some fluids, as well.

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I loved these six-cylinder cars. Trust me, nothing awes me like the incredible power of a fuel motor, but when I sat down with a calculator and started seeing what these inline cars were capable of...

Just about the time that Browell was starting to date my former employer's daughter, Cotton Perry was driving his dragster -

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This was about the time that Brian was moving to Lafayette, and I was coming into the picture. I was doing some maintenance work in the race shop, but not traveling with the car. I only went to a tiny handful of races, with the car style in this E/D and F/D trim. I am relying on a flimsy memory, but I think this one was taken at Columbus, in 1986. Cotton had won Columbus and Montreal, back-to-back, in '85. and had finished in the top 10 for the year. And I think this was one of the last races where Cotton drove.

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One of the ginat-kiilers. Marop knew how to find his way to the winner's circle, that much is certain. Bill and Rick Koerner had partnered up and had done a V-6 for D/ED, but ended up abandoning the project and going back to B/ED. Brian bought the V-6 stuff, and we transplanted all of that into the inline car.

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This one was taken at Sanair, in 1989. We runner-upped at that race.

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About a decade later, Brian was doing a pretty good job of finding his own way to the winner's circle.

I had some pals from up in Dearborn, MI that decided to stick it out with the inline stuff.

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Steve Ambrose, Reynald Argenta, and Bob Huettman were a good bunch of guys. That would be Bob, sitting in the doorway, with Reynald standing at the right. Sadly, Reynald passed away, a few years back, but Bob and Steve carry on.

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These guys are completely obsessed with the inline motors. That cylinder head is an Alan Johnson billet head. Crazy stuff, I tell you.

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They also ran their stuff in a dragster. Bob Andrews won the World Championship with this car, several years ago.

Somewhere along the line, someone made the joke that they had seen an old wood-chipper that was driven by an inline Ford, so the joke kind of stuck. Another of the Division 3 'wood-chippers' was Jerry Arnold -

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Jerry won the Division 3 Comp title seven times, and is another former-World Champion.

@RPM, I get a kick out of some of these old photos, seeing the valve spring stickers on them. :whistling:
 
The year we runner-upped at Montreal, we had to race Allyn Armstrong's Opel in the semi-finals. Ally was a really nice guy. Quiet, but nice. And holy cow, did he ever know how to make power. He built this car, himself, and then built the 4-cylinder motors he ran. He was another who wanted to do things his own way. He used an old, converted school bus to haul this car. One side of the bus opened up, and a winch arm swung out, He had a huge eye-ring he threaded into the top of the car, hooked up the winch cable, and would lift the car up into the bus.

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This photo was taken that same year. And might even had been from the semi's, as we had him in the left lane.

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And to show you that old Opels never die -

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Charlie Greco bought the car and campaigned it in L/A. Greco had engines built in a shop you may have heard of, at some tine or another -

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OK, here's another Opel that just wouldn't go away. Anyone remember the old Wayne County A/G Opel GT?

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Well, that car was purchased by yet another of the giant-killers, Larry Kopp.

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Kopp and Maropulos were like two peas in a pod, the way they raced. Both of them always had cars capable of winning any race they attended, but they both had such winning reputations, they would always play things very cautiously. Both of them were always willing to let the guy in the other lane make the first mistake. And when you had to line up against either one of those two, you only got to make one mistake, because they would win the race.

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Another of Larry's many cars. this Camaro was raced when Kopp was part of the Team Strange deal that Bob Stange had put together. Anyone remember those days. Chris Karamesines Top Fuel car, the Frank Hawley-driven Chi-Town Hustler funny car, Albert Clark and Don Coonce's Pro Stock Firebird, Amy Faulk's Top Alcohol Dragster, Fred Mandoline's Top Alcohol Funny Car, Kopp's Camaro, and Keith Lynch's Super Stocker were part of that team.

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Kopp also ran this Cutlass for a lot of years, both with V-8 and V-6 power. I remember we ran a points meet in Numidia, PA, one year. We showed up on Saturday morning, having missed the Friday night session. I found a qualifying sheet and Kopp was qualified low at something like 0.45 under. I knew he was a lot faster than that, so I took a stroll over to the starting line. And when I saw it, I knew we were going to be in the hunt. We had a clutch tune-up that would let us race in a cow pasture, and this track wasn't much better. For the second round of qualifying, we pulled our old trick of hanging back, to see how other people were running. Larry went out and repeated what he had run on Friday, and I was licking my chops. We went out and stole the pole from him, running 0.55 under. We had him covered by a tenth!

On Sunday, we had to run him in the semi's. The staging lanes were a PITA, because they went uphill. So you had to carry something to chock the car with, in the lanes. But the lanes also ended in the water box of the right lane. And we were running the right lane, so we would have to push the car up the bloody hill, out onto the track, then push the car back a bit, then push it forward again, in order to straighten it out enough to push back into the water. mind, we ran an air-shifted, 5-speed, clutchless trans, so trying to do all that under power would have killed our air bottle, plus melted down the heads.

As we went into the lanes, I walked over to Larry and told him we were going to want that right lane again. I explained it was a huge pain to get the car into the water, and that we were certainly not trying to jack him up. He shrugged his shoulders and said, "You guys do whatever you need to do, I'll wait to start until after you do your burnout. And don't worry, I know you're not playing games, because let's face it, I don't have anything for you."

It really humbled me, to realize that he was right. This former-World Champion was about to be out-run, and he knew it. Another former Comp Worl Champion, Stevie Johns was there that day. He was the shop foreman at Jenkins Competition, at the time. After the second round, he started calling Brian, 'Warren'. When we asked what that was all about, he pointed out that Brian was having lazy lights, letting other guys leave, making sure he went green, and then hunting them down in 3rd gear. :cool:

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We won the race that day, beating Kent Ritter, in one of the former Wayne County Pro Stock Avengers, in the final.

But, back to the Opel that wouldn't die. When Kopp quit running the Opel GT, it found its way to Augusta, KS, and Patterson Racing -

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The season that Patterson bought the car was the first season that NHRA started measuring tubing thicknesses. And the Opel got a brand new rollcage, in about one week's time, because there was no way the original cage was ever going to pass.

I have to go on record as saying I always thought Alan Patterson was just a wee bit too full of himself. But Todd was really a nice guy, and I always liked to hear from him. Back at that time, they were a really good valve spring customer, as well.

And since we are talking about the former Wayne County Opel, whatever happened to the Wayne County Street Roadster?

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Well, that one found its way into Patterson's hands, as well.

The sharp-eyed may recognize the car in the far lane as being 'Lawsuit'; Lori Johns' B/ED. Anyone remember that stinking kettle of fish?

As is typical of the NHRA, after a long, long day of qualifying (read: shake-n-bake car oil-downs) at the Cajun Nationals, the decision was made to run a round of Comp, before shutting down for the day. No matter that it was getting late, and the dew was settling in, let's run these cars!

Lori was lined up against Jim Van Cleve, and based on indexes, Van Cleve got a 0.9 second handicap on the starting line. But, as is typical of the manual trans cars on a marginal track, his Factory Experimental car started moving around in his lane. He managed to get the car into 5th gear and was hoping it would settle down, when it suddenly turned right, hit the guardrail, went airborne and headed for the left lane. And here came Lori, under power.

Van Cleve's car landed on her dragster, up near the nose, but she took a helluva ride. And when they finally got to her, she was lucky to be alive. A vertebra in her lower neck was shattered, she had three broken vertebra in her lower back, a broken collar bone, a broken wrist, a piece of one of the cars in her leg, and multiple internal injuries. She went though a train load of surgeries and wore a halo for close to a year, if I recall correctly. The insurance companies were doing what insurance companies always do, they were dragging their feet, so Lori's father filed suit against the Van Cleves, to the tune of almost $1 million. His claim was that Van Cleve was guilty of gross and wanton negligence, and wanted to be sure he beat the girl in the other lane so badly, he drove the car far too deep.

My position was that Lori willfully admitted she could see Van Cleve was in trouble, but she stayed on the throttle, as well. Which makes it seem she was pretty willing to place herself in harm's way. But her father apparently didn't see things that way.

Long story short, the law suit put the Van Cleves out of the racing game, Terry Johns ended up dropping the suit, and Lori went on to race in Top Fuel for a couple of years. She was hooked up with former L.A. Raiders player, Rusty Hilger for a while, but I really cannot recall if they ever married.

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She then married Glenn Angel, who was one of the owners at Houston Raceway Park, down in Baytown, TX. Sadly, Angel passed away, a few years back. As for whatever happened to Lori, Lord only knows. It was a terrible accident for such a pretty, young girl to endure, but the decision to file the lawsuit was one that nearly changed racing forever.

A shot of Van Cleve's Pinto B/FX -

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Anyone remember Amy Faulk? Talk about a sweetheart, she was a true prize.

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But back to the long-lived Opel GTs.

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Jim Danuel's Opel was always a threat, as was the guy who was behind the wheel, in this photo. Anyone remember when Roy Johnson drove this car? You know, the Roy Johnson who now fields the Mopar Pro Stock team, with his son Allen?

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This was a pretty potent combination, back in the day.

My former employer had raced a Corvette for several years, in both IHRA and NHRA. He was actually pretty deep in the IHRA Modified points race, one year. When his daughter was old enough, they built a single 4-bbl small block and put a PowerGlide in the car, to run Super Gas. The car was too heavy for the class, so he built a tube-chassis split-window Corvette, the following year. They ran it in Super Gas for a couple of races, then decided to move over to Comp and run B/EA. At the Gatornationals, in what must have been 1986, she was involved in a single-car crash at the finish line. There were a lot of theories tossed about, but a pal who has a better-than-average eye said it looked to him like she just drove it too deep, on a cold track (another after-dark pass). There was nothing left, as the car was completely destroyed. Fortunately, Sherrie was not badly injured.

Her dad decided to commission an Alston dealer, down in Richmond, IN, to build an tube-chassis 1986 Corvette. For whatever reason, it was taking forever to get the car, so Bob bought this Opel from Jim Danuel. They put their B/EA stuff in that car, but never could seem to get it to run. When the Corvette was finally complete, he sold the Opel to Bill Rogers.

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I lost all track of this car, after that. But I am sure it is out there, somewhere.

Of course, there are always the clone cars. At one point in time, I knew three, different people who claimed to own the Coonce & Clark Corvette that had won Indy.

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I actually believe this was the real Albert Clark car. It was owned by a really good friend, who lived over in Effingham, IL, at the time. This is the fellow that drove Browell's rig to Pomona, the year we ran the World Finals.

And it is odd how there are so many connections amongst people at the track. How about back in the day, when David Rampy drove cars for Harold Stout?

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David always lettered his wife's name, Kelly, on the passenger door window.

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And what does David Rampy have to do with Sonny Ray, who drove Jerry Hurley's Arrow? Well, Sonny is Kelly Rampy's father.

Anyone remember when Harold Martin had the long wheelbase Vega?

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Well, that car was sold to Dick Stanbaugh.

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And, as you can see, Dick was a good friend of the shop.

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Duane Snyder's C/ED in the far lane. I think Snyder lived up around Ft. Wayne, IN, if my memory serves. He tried a pretty short-lived company, PowerGlide Performance Products.

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But there was more than one, stretched Vega in this division.

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Neil Hannewyk also owned one of those cars. Neil was involved with a race engine shop, up in Wakrusa, IN, called Performance Technology. The shop was run by a heckuva good guy, Jim Mikel. Jim had a fellow working for him, Jimmy Ford, who traveled with Browell and I for a few years. Sad to say, Jimmy passed away, a couple of years back.

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This car belonged to Larry Mayes, who, like Harold Stout, also sold RVs, down the Indianapolis area. The guy that is knelt down, behind the car was another guy who used to travel with Browell and I. Larry had traveled with Joe Williamson for a few years before he hooked up with Brian. It got to a point where it was time for him to go, but I kind of hated to see him leave, because he was always good for a turn behind the wheel of the truck. He and I always used to joke that we got the opportunity to dive for miles and miles of nothing but miles and miles. Larry was around when we referred to our deal as the Late Night Highway and Pizza Tour.

We were at Indy, one year. It was either the points meet, or the Fall Classic, because the weather was pretty cool. Carl Mitchell, who was an absolute prize, was pitted alongside us. Brian was getting in the car, so we could warm it up and set air gap on the clutch. I was up at the front of the motor, hooking up a timing light, when Larry hollered and asked if it was alright that he had unhooked the batter charger. Brian and looked at each other with the same dumb-founded expression, and I hollered back, telling him to hook the charger back up. Brian settled into the seat, and we heard a huge electrical arc, from the rear of the car. We both hollered, because it was obvious he was hooking the charger up backwards. Again, another huge electrical arcing sound, so we both hollered a second time. But Larry persevered and managed to get both clamps on the battery. I looked back and saw a column of smoke rising up out of the charger. I said, "Oh, sh*t!" By that time, you could smell the charge cooking, and Brian lost it.

Carl Mitchell loved to tell the story. He said it sounded like someone was trying to weld on something, so he looked out the rear door of his trailer, and saw what Larry was doing. Then he heard Brian, screaming like a mashed cat, "Move and let me outa this car, so I can kill him!" But I was laying over the top of the roll cage, so he couldn't get out. :roflmao: That was the last race Larry went to, with us.

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Tragically, we lost Carl, a year or two later.

There is a good shot of what we were used to contending with, here in Division 3. Carl Mitchell, David Majors, and Joe Williamson, all sitting cheek by jowl.

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Carl also drove this car for Russ and Fred Flagle, the guys who own Indy Cylinder Head. Carl always ran small Chevies, but this combination was a Cleveland Ford, due, no doubt, to Russ' connections to Bob Glidden.

Carl and Mike Hazlett were almost inseparable, and they were always try to one-up the other with practical jokes. They would sit with perfectly straight expressions, telling one-liners about others, and they would have the rest of the room in tears, everyone would be laughing so hard.

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that is a fairly recent photo of Mike driving one of Steve Schmidt's Pro Stockers, in B/A trim. Mike has a gorgeous '66 or '67 Chevy II that he ran in Modified Eliminator. The car was a jewel, and I remember Mike griping that he had to put Winston stickers on it, because he didn't like putting stickers on the paint. The horn worked in that car, it was so original. Mike built a 3rd generation Camaro tube car, for D/A, if I remember right. I was nagging at him for giving up with the Chevy II, because we always got a laugh out of him honking the horn in the staging lanes. Later that day, he towed the Camaro into the lanes, stopped next to us and hollered at me. He honked the horn, stuck his tongue out at me and they towed on up the lanes.

But guys like Mitchell, Majors, and Williamson were not the only threats in this division. Oh, no, not by a long shot.
 
OK, everybody knows Bob Glidden ran Fords, right? Yeah, there was that incredible intermission when he dominated with the A-motor Arrow, but other than that he ran Fords. Except for the one race, the U.S. Nationals, where he failed to qualify with a Monza.

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John Lingenfelter ended up buying the car, and strangely enough, put a single 4-bbl Cleveland in it, to race B/EA.

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John lived in Decatur, IN, up near Ft. Wayne, so it was nothing unusual to see him show up at our local track, on a Saturday night.

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When Jeff and I were still running the A/ED, we ended up with one of the motors out of this car. John had run a best of 7.69 with it, at the World Finals. We managed to get it to run 7.70, at Indy, that year. Considering the difference in air quality, I was always pretty proud of that pass. Because our old heap was a car we had built in a single-car garge, not a Don Ness car.

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Two of the very best Comp racers, ever.

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This beast was capable of .984 in 60 feet. John said it felt like his head was being torn off his neck.

If you are sharp-eyed, you will think the starting line looks like it is at the top of a hill. And you would be right. This track was in Salem, OH. I hated the place, with a passion. The hill leading up to the starting line was actually pretty steep. The staging lanes paralleled the track, and were at the bottom of the hill. I would have to put Brian in the car, get him buckled in, then turn on the power for the car, and open the air bottle, for the shifter. Then I would have to run up the hill, to where the water box would have been, if the water were not all running down the hill. :rolleyes: Brian would start the car, and drive up to meet me, in low gear. I would have him drive through the water, and would stop him. He would then put the car in third, and let go of the brake, so I could back him into the water. Then you would do the burnout, up over the top of the hill. PITA!

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Rest in peace, John.

And if having John around was not bad enough, we also got to deal with this character -

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Danny was a class act. A heckuva racer, but a really nice guy.

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We would see scenes like this, on any given Saturday night.

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I think this Bantam is always going to be one of my all-time favorite, Comp cars.

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This was the car that scared everyone. Dennis King's Asian Flew. Danny drove this car at a couple of races, and where his Bantam was running 7.40's, this thing was running 7.20's. They used an Arias motor in the car, and Gene Adams tuned it. I think this is Jimmy Scott in the car. Danny won Gainesville with this car, and then got back into his own car and won Atlanta, about 5 or 6 weeks later. I don't know whatever happened to Dennis king, or this car, but we were all pretty relived Townsend didn't stay in the seat. Danny was one with the clutch in his car, and had he ever managed to get that connected with this car, they would likely still be winning races.

Danny was badly injured, crashing his TA/FC, a few years back. And, as much as it saddens me, he's no longer capable of doing much of anything. The last I heard, he was doing some fishing, trying to enjoy his forced retirement.

I mentioned Mike Hazlett, driving one of Steve Schmidt's cars.

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Well, there is the shortest guy in Pro Stock, back when he was still running Comp. And yes, Don Beverley also went on to race Pro Stock.

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Whodathunk the Monte Carlo would ever make a good Super Modified car? Apparently Beverley did.
 
No matter how bad we thought our A/ED might have been, this car showed all of us we were wrong.

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You are looking at that car, seeing it is a small block, and thinking it must be a B/ED, or a C/ED, aye? Well, not so fast, because this car ran in A/ED.

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A/ED is a 3.4 lb. class, so how could anyone ever find a way to get a car light enough to run the class with a small block?!? Our last motor (the ex-Lingenfelter piece) was 429", so the car had to weigh 1459 lbs. It was a lead sled. But here was a car that weighed in at under 1200 lbs! And in case you are wondering, yes, the number on that scoop is a Texas-sized 1.

These Ness cars were so light and flimsy, guys would have problems staging them. I saw Gregg Dennis struggling to stage at Martin one year. Lingenfelter was standing at the starting line, so he ran out, backed Gregg up, picked up the front of the car, and gave it a jerk. He carefully set the car back down and motioned Gregg to try staging again. And it went right in and staged. Would you want to run 170+ MPH, in a car that flimsy?

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Steve Green had another of the flexi-flyers. This was back around 1980, and Ness was already using titanium fasteners for everything. These cars were bad-ass light.

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Green also drove this Kilpatrick & Connell A/D. This car was ahead of its time, but K&C had the money to cover the tab. They would anodize the body panels, to save the weight of using paint. If I remember right, this car ran one of the really small big blocks, all de-stroked with the 348 crankshaft. I think they got those things down around 366 inches.

I don't know about all of you, but I know some of you likely sit and reflect on the roads you did not take in life. I mentioned Russ Flagle, down at Indy Cylinder Heads, a post or two back. Back in late 2010, Russ offered me a job. I was making stupid-silly amounts of money, and was working from home, at the time, so I thanked Russ and declined. I remember thinking it might have been a mistake, because I think I could have learned a lot from Russ.

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But I also turned down a job offer from this guy, back when I was working with Browell. Tom and Meredith Haner were a couple of really great people. They lived in a posh suburb of Chicago and raced alone, often just the two of them at the track. Tom realized he needed some help, and he asked me to take over his race car operation. It was a pretty crazy time, because we were just turning a corner with the clutch in Brian's car. Jenkins could see were were not afraid of pulling the trans and servicing the clutch after each pass, so he was trying to cajole Brian into building a A/D. And then, along came Tom, wanting me to go to work for him. Both Tom and Meredith came from old Chicago money, and they lived quite comfortably. Meredith didn't like being on the roads after dark, so they would tow during the daylight hours, and then pull in to get a room at dusk, They ended up buying a second home, in Phoenix, so they could enjoy races out West, without having all the hassle of towing back to Chicago all the time.

I've always wondered what might have been.
 
And it is amazing how many people got their start in a Comp car.

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Anyone recognize this car? Does the name Hawley ring a bell? As in Frank Hawley, former Funny Car World Champion and now owner of the Hawley Driving School?

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No hints on this one. Yeah, it's kind of a rotten photo, so try this one -

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Would you believe Jim Head?

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Everyone remembers Larry Morgan, right?

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Does anyone recognize this TA/FC champion, who also wore the #1 on his A/EA? The one and only Bob Newberry.

Of course, there was a time when the big names took umbrage with the NHRA and moved out of Pro Stock, and back to Comp -

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B/D looked attractive to Shafiroff, so they built this car, with all of his Pro Stock driveline. And yeah, the car even had front brakes. Are there any good memories around here? Who was the guy with the long hair. He worked with Shafiroff for years. Was his name Paul Kaufman? And I'll be damned if that doesn't look a bit like Billy Mitchell, standing next to him. If anyone remembers, ping me on it.

Buster Couch, standing there, shading his eyes. Brian always called Buster, Dad, so since Larry and I called Brian, Dad, we called Buster, Grandpa. I sure miss that guy. He loved popcorn, so we would take him a bag, every now and again. He was as nice a guy as you could ever hope to find. Unless, of course, you thought that starting line belonged to someone other than him. Pull that stunt and he would take you out. How he managed to stand all those hours on the starting line, wearing those boots, I will never know. May God keep you and bless you, Grandpa.
 
Oh the good ole days. I remember quit a few of those guys and their cars. The old nostalgia cars are making a big come back. There are quite a few groups forming for old style, gassers, altereds and dragsters.
 
There's a group of guys here in pa, 422 motor sports that build nostalgia cars. The one guy I know built a Don Nicholson comet cyclone that runs in the 9's Last year at beaver springs raceway I watch him lose it and come inches from hitting the guard rail after the oil filter came lose and oiled down the track.
 
And then there were some of the really amazing friends that I met at the track and through my work -

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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.

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We used to do some dyno work with Ron Anderson. The guy had some pretty fast A/SM and B/SM Mustangs.

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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.

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Carl Miller is one of the nicest guys you could ever hope to meet. A long, long-time Division 1 racer.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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And there is no way to talk about nice people, without mentioning Lindley and Sheila Isonhood.

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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.

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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?

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Kaiser was still using Jenkins power, when Bill took over our engine program.

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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.

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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. :eek: 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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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?
 
I searched all through that looking for Jungle Pam!
Meh, Pam is much more attractive today, than she was back then. She has definitely aged well.

If you want to see a nice pair, here are two photos <cough> of Barbara Roufs -

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She was definitely a looker. Poor girl ended up committing suicide, if I remember correctly. Maybe she couldn't help with the car the way Pam Hardy did, but she certainly could dress up the scene a lot better than Pam ever did. Have you ever seen photos of Bobbi Liberman, Jungle's wife? She was a smokin' hot blonde.

Naw, this one was more about the cars and the people, moreso than the girls. The girls all came and went, but it was only the faces that changed. If the race cars were not enough to talk them into varying stages of undress, there was always a camera or two around, and they all fell for the cameras.
 
Oh the good ole days. I remember quit a few of those guys and their cars. The old nostalgia cars are making a big come back. There are quite a few groups forming for old style, gassers, altereds and dragsters.
It always seemed like there were more killer Super Stockers that came out of that part of the country, Ron. Division 3 seemed to have more tough Comp cars.

Yeah, I always did like the old days better. I loved watching Modified Eliminator. I helped a guy with an E/MP Camaro, for a short time. The G/MP cars were the ones that always wowed me. Those cars weighed 13.5 lbs, so the only way to get them to leave was with a ton of RPM and a 40 lb. flywheel. Back then, the Dana 60 was the rear end of choice, and a ring and pinion was generally only good for about 6 passes, before it would start laying teeth over. Stage the car, run the motor up to the moon, and then try to rotate the earth, when you stepped off the clutch.

Those were the days...
 

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