Old drag race trivia, nostalgia

wasn't mr harrell the guy that bought and made it possible for gm to build 1969 zl-1 camaros ?

 

Sort of... his sponsor Fred Gibb ordered 50 of the ZL-1 Camaro models for 1969. With help from Chevrolet exec Vince Piggins the first ZL-1 Camaro was picked up and trailered home in late December 1968. In the spring of 1969 Roland McGonegal went to visit Dick Harrell in Kansas City, Missouri. His story was featured in the May 1969 'Super Stock' magazine. Dick Harrell had two of the ZL-1 Camaro models on hand. One was a street car painted Dusk Blue and the second was a modified race car which also started out painted Dusk Blue. The street car ran 11.64-122MPH in the quarter mile. The sticker price back then was $7379.75 with the aluminum motor making up $4160.15 of that cost. The high cost of the optional engine made the Camaro difficult to sell. A number of these ZL-1 Camaro models were sent back to Chevrolet. Later these particular cars were reshipped to other dealers including in Detroit MI. Some years later Vince Piggins provided a list of the serial numbers and options for each of the 69 special Camaro models built during 1969. Most but not all of the 69 cars built have been accounted for today.
CH

 

PRO STOCKS!!!
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Now you are talking. Great selection of Pro Stock race cars there. Very appropriate to have the real "MR 4-Speed" Ronnie Sox front and centre in his 1971 'Cuda. Years later when the Lenco clutchless shift transmission was introduced Ronnie Sox could shift faster with his manual 4 speed transmission in the car. The Lenco allowed any racer to shift like Ronnie Sox however.
It was the racers who would lobby the NHRA for a class to run which would be called Pro Stock in 1970. The first year the cars ran with the rule of 7 pounds per cubic inch and production vehicles with no tube frames. For the 1971 season the racers pushed the rules with all sorts of unseen modification. Some were very inovative in their modification and replacement of various car parts. Chevrolet didn't win much that year and for 1972 NHRA allowed a weight advantage if you ran a wedge engine instead of the Hemi engine cars that were given an extra weight handicap from the previous year. For 1972 Bill Jenkins introduced a little Chevy Vega with a 331 cubic inch motor and a tube frame chassis. The debut at the 1972 Winternationals saw Bill Jenkins defeat all the Hemi cars to win Pro Stock there. He would go on to win more NHRA national events and also match races that year which brought his winnings to more than a quarter million dollars. More money than Wilt Chamberlain made that year.
The following year 1973 saw 'Dyno Don' Nicholson become Pro Stock champion in a Ford. Another Ford racer; Bob Glidden would have even more success racing Pro Stock after that. As a 'Ford guy' he suprised everyone though when he raced a Plymouth Arrow for 1979. That car would win Pro Stock for him at the 1979 Winternationals which was traditionally where the new race cars first appeared.
CH

 

thanks,thats what i read years ago, gibbs chevorlet was in a small il. town ,i think i saw the old building on my way to st. louis a few weeks ago,,i thought i read 10-15 of those were still not found,,like finding a winning lottery ticket

 

Love the recap! Being an Indy area bracket racer, we would count on Glidden to sell off his old parts, ring and pinions and such, to keep our bracket cars fresh. Certain stuff was always covered up in the shop, and he and Etta were ALWAYS in the shop. Day and night, nearly year round.

Speaking of Lencos, at one time a buddy and I raced this car when it retired from the Pro Stock ranks. I put my Camaro 460" Chevy in it and ran my personal best ever ET. The car was fun to work on since it stripped right down to the chassis with Dzus fasteners. With no engine in it I could lift the front end by hand and move it in the garage. Cool car. It had run in the 75 US Nationals and had the later model front end on it.
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thanks guys, a great walk down memory lane.

Art

 

Bruce Larson still maintains his old cars at his farm in PA.

I was always a Fuel guy myself - especially the old floppers. I've taken a shine to the FEDs, especially the resurgence in nostalgia (although I hate the "new old" diggers).

I've half-heartedly looked for an old, mid-60's dragster frame to make a "cackle car". Unfortunately, it's expensive and not really practical (less so than a Ferrari, for sure).

I'm a member of another board that's focused mostly on old-school drag cars. One of the members there hand-crafted his own 60's style dragster - it's wickedly cool if you haven't seen it. He now offers his services to others (www.kingchassis.net). Note, I am not affiliated in any way, just a fan and a dreamer that may one day possess something from the genre.

Ok - another easy trivia question for those in the know: Who is this driver (the man in white)? What is the name of the car he drove (the one shown in the pic)?

Added bonus - who is the little guy sitting in the driver's seat?
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Larry Dixon Sr with the 392 Hemi powered "Howard Cam Rattler" rail. Larry Dixon at the controls. Lions Drag Strip?
CH

 

yes and those were closer to real street cars too

 

Another Funny Car racer who also had a Pro Stock car was Kelly Chadwick. He ran a P/S #402 on a Chevy Vega.
CH

 

Bingo!

I remember when Billy Meyer built the Texas Motorplex. At the time, it was state of the art (and being biased about my local Englishtown, I was "jealous" of the great facility he built) - the model for other tacks to follow (e.g., all concrete track).

He still owns it today, yes?

Gene Snow is going to field another car? Let's hope he puts his past behind him...I know he's had some legal issues.

 

Now as a NJ guy how about a picture of the 1970 Super Stock World Champions car. The famous Truppi-Kling blue Chevelle convertible driven by Ray Allen. Sponsor was Briggs Chevrolet of South Amboy NJ. Truppi-Kling towed another Super Stock race car behind their own truck when they drove out to the World Finals. Which Super Stock class did the other team race in and what was the auto transmission 1970 racecar that they campaigned? Hint they were another two name team with the initials T & M and it wasn't a Chevrolet but their car certainly got a lot of coast to coast 'ink' in 1970...
CH

 

Super Stock & Drag Illustrated

Thirty years ago, the Detroit Musclecar War was winding down after 15 years of steady escalation. Not because Detroit wasn’t willing to go on, mind you, but because the federal government was winding it down for them by means of the Clean Air Act of 1970. Those small and medium-sized cars with their 7-liter-plus engines were gas hogs, and their high-compression engines emitted more hydrocarbons, carbon monoxide and oxides of nitrogen than a small factory.

But, before it all wound down and disappeared, Chrysler Corporation fired one last, decisive round across the bows of the 454 Chevelle, the 427 Camaro, the Buick GS 455, the Pontiac HO 455, the Hurst/Olds 455, and the Mustang Cobra Jet 428.

I first laid eyes on this package during the third week of June, 1969, at the traditional Chrysler media gathering at the Chrysler Proving Grounds in Chelsea, Michigan, about 70 miles west of Detroit. We all knew in advance that it was coming, but on the day of the great unveiling, the excitement was palpable. The 1970 Plymouth Barracuda 426 Hemi was to be the greatest expression of Detroit muscle ever built, built only in 1970 and 1971 in coupe and convertible body styles.

The Barracuda itself started rather humbly in 1965 with very bizarre styling, a huge back window, and a small 273 cubic-inch V-8 engine as its maximum performance package. NASCAR racer Richard Petty, after a tiff with NASCAR over rules, actually built and drag raced one of these early cars with a 426 Hemi engine in it until it went out of control and crashed into some spectators. But the seed was planted at Chrysler that this combination might make for a winning drag race package if the need should arise.

George Hurst of Hurst shifter fame and his engineering staff built one of these early Barracudas with a Hemi engine in it as well, but this time, the engine was installed in the rear of the car inside the massive rear window, and it was called the Hurst Hemi Under Glass, designed to run in the wide-open Exhibition Only class at the drags. Well, the engine was so powerful and so far back in the car that there was almost no weight on the front tires under acceleration, so the car did monster wheelies, and became the most famous wheelie car of all time. Its successors still make appearances at the drags today, 35 years after it was built.

In 1968, the Barracuda styling changed radically, and Chrysler needed something to fight off the Fords and the GM cars at the drag races. So it built a fleet of superlight Barracudas and Dodge Dart sister cars with the high-compression "race" version of the 426 Hemi engine, a giant hood scoop, and a host of fiberglass, aluminum and plastic parts. To meet the rules, they had to build 50 of each, and these 100 cars dominated drag racing for years in the hands of the Chrysler factory teams. Many of them still race today.

But these cars weren’t street legal. While the Dodge and Plymouth drivers could root for them at the races, they couldn’t buy them because they were all spoken for in advance, and they had no exhaust systems or safety equipment for street use.

Street Hemis

By 1970, the Barracuda (and Dodge Challenger) styling changed again, and this time, the factory decided to build and sell these cars not only with 340, 383 and giant 440 cubic-inch wedge engines, but also with the mighty "street" version of the 426 Hemi engine. Mass produced and street legal, they were rated at 425 horsepower for purposes of drag racing classification, but they actually made closer to 450 horsepower and nearly 500 lb-ft of torque in stripped-down Barracuda bodies with both four-speed manual and three-speed Torqueflite automatic transmissions. They fit neatly into NHRA’s Super Stock D and D Automatic classes, and they cleaned up, particularly against the Chevrolet competition. But more importantly, they were available to real, paying customers, and at drive-ins and drag strips all over the country, the Hemi Barracuda was nearly invincible.

Our drag racing and street performance magazine had arranged with Chrysler Corporation to obtain one of the very first 1970 Hemi Barracudas in order to build a "project car," taking the readers through every step of its modifications for drag racing in the hands of a proven team from New Jersey, Pete Tritak and Billy Morgan.

But it was shipped to our office first, and for two weeks before we had to give the car to the team, we terrorized Alexandria, Virginia, and its environs with it. It was refrigerator white with a black vinyl bucket-seat interior, a four-speed manual transmission with Chrysler’s famous pistol grip shifter that seemed like it was about 28 inches long, and 4.10 gears in a huge 9-3/4-inch housing for all-out acceleration. It had simple, lightweight torsion-bar front suspension and very heavy duty leaf springs in the rear, and it had 11 x 3-inch police interceptor drum brakes on it. There was no radio, and no air conditioning; it made its own music, and it was way cool inside and out. By its bodacious hood scoop, plain Jane wheels and discreet markings, everybody in town knew exactly what it was. At the time, the only other Hemi Cuda extant was 3000 miles away in L.A., so it drew crowds wherever we went.

Night after night in a sea of supercars, we went looking for trouble and found it. On the famous Beltway that encircles the national capital, on the George Washington Parkway, through town, over in Maryland, we raced any and all comers however far they wanted to go, stoplight to stoplight, quarter-mile, or high-speed, and we lost only when I missed a shift now and then (the car was perfect; I was not). I felt like the hottest shoe in the world. Tall skinny me, driving the baddest car Chrysler ever built, being the coolest guy at the drive-in as long as I was driving it. When it was time for the team to come get the car, I felt like Cinderella after midnight. No more ‘Cuda. No more kudos. No more clouds of tire smoke. I damn near cried. It was the single most powerful, most visceral, most purposeful factory vehicle I have ever driven on the street in more than 30 years of trying.

Tritak & Morgan went on to win NHRA Division One Super Stock honors with it and eventually took the car, by now repainted in metallic red and white, to a runner-up spot at the NHRA World Championships, all the more reason to remember it fondly for the ink it brought to our magazine. Like the character Roy Hobbs in the baseball movie "The Natural," it was the best there ever was.

 

By the tower there the Truppi-Kling Chevelle looks like it's at the Supernationals in Ontario California. Rumor had it NHRA shortened the track by 10 feet which resulted in lots of good press for the fantatic et times run there. The Ray Allen Vega looks like it was built by SRD Race Cars.

Kelly Chadwick had a lot of race cars over the years. Quite the selection you found. The 1969 F/C Camaro looks perfect there. Thanks!
CH

 

You, 1986, scary fast? 8's Also you?
CH

 

Saw him at Green Valley Raceway.
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Well you answered it in your post, it was Bill Morgan in C/SA (Tritak and Morgan was the team).

As I was only a few years old, and my attention was focused on AA/FD, AA/FC, and AA/FA, I wouldn't have known that. I couldn't even find the answer on Google. Where did I find it?

YouTube - on the 1969 US Nationals recap...almost by accident. As soon as I saw Tritak and Morgan, I knew it was the answer.

Too bad I was too late

 

Thanks, neat 1968 Camaro with a 396 big block motor. Chevrolet factory painted the vertical panel surround for the tail lights flat black regardless of the basic exterior color when you ordered a 396 Camaro. It also looks to be the Rallye Sport version with the covered headlights.
CH

 

It was a tough question so I decided to fill in the blanks before the three people left lost all interest! The northeast was a hotbed for stock and superstock racing in the late 50's and especially into the 60's. Much of the information about racing came from the monthly magazines before the internet. Super Stock & Drag Illustrated showcased many of the racing greats of that era. With the SS/DA Cuda they sort of became their own story.

Well better late than never. It was indeed Tritak & Morgan. Though their 'Cuda ran SS/DA for Hemi cars. It was a tough class that also included the factory 427 Camaro models. When Chevrolet introduced the 454 in the 1970 Chevelle convertible it's extra weigh meant it raced one class lower on an easier national record in SS/EA. The farther you could run under your class national record gave you a big advantage.
Though the Hemi cars were probably easier to run than the big block Camaro. Al Olster had a 427 Camaro running SS/DA that constantly ate parts; even with the help of Bill Jenkins. They named his Camaro "Arnold" after the pig on the TV show Green Acres because it ate so many parts. It was so bad that it destroyed the torque converter just backing the car off the trailer one night. When finally sorted out the Camaro ran high 10's which was fairly competitive at that time.
CH