Well, I'm not a fotki member and can't see the pics; guess I'll have to sign up. The first pic posted by OMEGA is at Arlington Drag Strip, Arlington Washington. Planes still cannot land on that particular runway at the Arlington Airport, as it's in really poor shape; the other 2 runways remain active. I'd rather see the old Junior Stocker class cars run than a full field of fuel cars. My delivery is being built "psuedo-Junior Stocker" style. I had all the hydro gear for it even, but gave it all away in a fit of stupidity. Junior Stock had to run a 16 lb exhaust aft of the headers, but it did'nt need to be funtional. NHRA allowed the hydros in Junior Stock for a while in deliveries as they were built/licensed as "trucks". Sedan Deliveries never came with hydramatics! NHRA also allowed them to run dual four carburetors/fuel injection, as deliveries were built on a passenger car base. None of those came equipped that way either. The FENDERWELL headers used on 55-57 Chevrolets came about originally because of the starter motor, being mounted "upside" down with the solenoid on the bottom, chassis outlet headers had no clearence. Chevrolet V-8 Hydro starters were a one off application; these days they're impossible to find. But yeah, anyone could build and race a Junior Stocker and be competitive; now it's even hard to build a competitive bracket car. 57 Delivery, the HYROPHOBIA car still makes nostalgia races, I've seen photos of it. 57 Delivery, the car I mentioned is your reproduction of the original taken at ATCO Raceway, New Jersey.
I defintely remember this one. Gordon Williams the owner of this Stude lived a couple of blocks away from me back in the day. Not only was this thing raced regularly it was more or less a daily driver, in fact his wife was a school teacher and drove it to work!!
My drag racing started in 1965 at Delmar, DE. Uncle Sam had me from late '65 to '69. 1970 was when I really started having fun. My closest friend, Charlie Hampp, bought my '55 Bel Air and ran it in Q/S. The car was a National Record Holder in '68, '69 and '70. We hung around with some of the best cars and drivers in the country. George Cureton, 1968 World Champ, John Thropp, 1969 World Finals runner-up, National Event winners and record holders Alex Jarrell, Wheatley Brothers, Tony Pizzi, Tim Bishop, etc. I remember one Sunday when Jr. Stock Eliminator had twelve cars that had either won national events or were record holders. That was a tough crowd. For seven years I was Parts & Service for Harold Ramsey's Pontiac dealership. He was the 1959 Nationals Stock Eliminator.
My uncle ran Pure Stock in '69 at Pittsburgh International Dragway w/ a white-on-white '64 Impala SS 283-2bbl. This was a factory 409/425 car. He yanked the 409 when he got tired of feeding it gas (daily driver) and blowing up rear ends. He installed a low mile 283 from a wrecked '65 Impala 4-dr and went racing. He ran a M20 or M21 w/ 3.70 or 4.11 gears. I seem to recall him saying he ran mid-16s. he still has 2 top eliminator trophies from that year. Little cheater things like the 2.5" 409 dual exhaust, etc... He said he had more fun with that 283 at the track because you could powershift it all day long without grenading the stock diff. He never got to run the 409 at the track because of no safety bellhousing, but he said he went through 7 or 8 pumpkins on the street in those weak rear axles. Of course back in those days, a new one was a few bucks and a trip to the junkyard. He said it took money to run stock class and be competitive, but Pure Stock was a low-buck deal for guys that drove their cars to work everyday.
mtkawboy: Here's Dave and Judi Boertman in the winner's circle at the 1969 Nationals 57 delivery: John Archambault's Hyrdrophobia at the same event. He later drove a B/MP Hemi Cuda. Wisenheimer: Your Barry Poole also at the Nationals
Back in the day a racer at Pocono Drag Lodge had a 57 Chevy sedan delivery, I think it was a 265, 2 barrell with Hydro, dark green with no lettering. He did well and sooner or later would have to race Tim Richard's max wedge car. Don't remember what his spot was but he was way down track when Timmy saw green. The Chevy guy told me he could hear that MoPar leave the line and it was like getting passed by a 100 mile an hour freight train, some times before the finsh line and sometimes after but he ALWAYS got passed.... Would love to have either of those two im my garage. .
He said the same thing as far as the launch goes. I'm pretty sure he never even tried anything other than a Muncie 4-spd, since it was a factory 4-on-the-floor console car. He did say he had M-20s and M-21s in the car at various times. Can't remember which he said worked best. Maybe it was the close ratio / deep gear combo? Having been out of the hobby for years, he can't recall a lot of those details. He showed me a pinion shaft snapped in half right behind the splines from one of those rears. I think that was from the '09... don't think the 2GC 283 had the grunt to do that.
Wow,that is a great shot of Archie's delivery. The guys from Bash ( the machine shop who did all of his engine work) gave me the actual General Kinetics #8 cam from Archies car. Old and probably useless but I have it in the garage. I had Lunati regrind a cam for the Hydrophobia clone .The clone is white and metalflake blue but still says "Hydrophobia" on it. Would I ever like to find the original yellow car..........thanks
No,(unfortunately) he was not. But how cool that might have been. The guys at the BaSH machine shop in Philly were Dave and Mitch. They always had a cool story about Archie or the car itself. Thanks
When I think of Jr. Stock, Marv Ripes and John Dianna certainly come to mind for a few wagons and a vintage Corvette. There was a car popular in the Carolinas, a '57 Chevy wagon, called "Good Ole Charlie Brown" that some of you may remember.
Yes, I have quite a few from national events in the early 1970's. I've just started scanning slides, but I have a lot of work to do in sorting out all the negatives that I have as well. Looks like a good winter project.
Yup, and it's still in the same condition as when it was new. The car has run several classes over the years with different engine/trans combinations but it now has the 302 back aboard and running as strong (or stronger) than any similar combination in the country. The first pass with the car in 1967 was a 13 sec ride and got progressively faster as it got dialed in. It now runs in the 10's. He stages the car, sets the linelock,runs the engine up against the rev limiter (around 7500-8000) and at the second to last yellow puts it to the floor, side steps the clutch and shifts to second while passing the tree. I put the 6 point roll cage in it for Ben around 1975 and it's still in the car some 30 years later. Frank
No. John was a friend of Herb Brinn (a fellow Shaker member) and drove the car during it's last days as a race car. When the 440 Mopars that were in the class started to win he came up with the idea to drop it in gear at the last yellow instead of running it against the converter. That little trick kept us ahead of the game until NHRA (under protest by Chrysler) stopped us from doing it. Kinda cool that we were the reason for the "no neutral starts" rule from NHRA. Chrysler threatened to bring a semi load of Torqueflites to the Nationals and give them away to every Mopar competitor if they didn't stop us from neutral starting. The T-400 would take the abuse, the torqueflites would explode and give the cleanup crew the job of sweeping up a case of ATF on the starting line. At the time Chrysler was a big deal in NHRA and Chevy was swimming against the tide so you can guess who got the preferential treatment. After the car was retired I bought out everyone's interest, replaced the 396/turbo 400 with a 435 hp 427/M-22/4.88 and gave it to my wife for a daily driver. 25 years later Herb Brinn bought the car and restored it to it's racing configuration so it's come full circle and competes in some of the local bracket races. No where near as much fun as the 427 on the street. Frank
That looks like the car. You have to remember that was 44 years ago and we didn't take pictures of our drag racing accomplishments back then. VERY few people did. We were busy with our day jobs and working every night on about 4-5 cars so we would be ready for the next weeks competition. With todays phone cameras and the intenet it's so much easier to record your activities on the fly. I was and am grateful to have been a part of it all. Frank
Do you think there is a remote possibility that SOMEWHERE there is a large (or small ) cache of old Junior Stock parts squirreled away?? I know it's been 40 years but occasionally some weird stuff pops up.............
I owned and drove the blue 56 delivery in the early 70's,I sold it in 1977 and it is still sitting where the guy that bought it from me parked it in 1978.no it's not for sale.Thats really a bad picture,the car was pretty nice.
TMcCrea - You made my day (week, month.....) ! The middle picture you posted is a F/SA Dodge called "The Villain". This is the car that started it all for me. It was parked on a trailer out on the street about 4 blocks from the house I grew up in. We lived in a little town called Pompton Lakes, NJ. I've looked for a picture of this car on and off for a few years......... Is this a picture you took?
I saw Iaconio's name on the driver's door.........and I was shocked! I had no idea. Pretty humble beginnings. That car sat on an open trailer in front one of the partners houses for years... I don't think they even had a garage to put it in. But for this 10 year old kid, it was the coolest...... Iaconio's bio says he drove a Plymouth for someone else in about 1970, so I'm guessing that's when you took the picture..........?
Great topic colesy. The pix by you guy's are neat stuff. Those who lived it and tell your storie's are priceless. Frank, you are a Ledgend!
Ramon Lowe's 58 Pontiac. You take away all the Jenkins tuned Jr Stocks and I think he would have won a few more races.
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