another Marty Barratt story. i was at indy a few weeks before the '71 Nationals and the tech guy said "I have a message to you from Marty Barratt...the gas line coming out of your tank is not legal. don't show up at the Nationals with it that way." i contacted marty and found out what was wrong and how to fix it. so i'm in the tech lane at the Nationals and Marty walks up to me and said "hi Bob Bayles, did you get you gas lines fixed?" i said "yes i did." he replied "good boy!" then turned, looked at the guy in line behind me and said "ah, the famed Barrie Poole." and walked away.
someone that never saw/went through, witnessed an NHRA jr stock teardown in the 60's/early 70's, couldn't appreciate HOW MUCH WORK went into checking each car "selected" to go to the barn...the camshaft tech alone, with lift/duration/overlap/valvesprings, etc., is hard to convey...you could write a War & Peace book about cool tech stories, I'd be 1st in line to buy a copy.. I helped do a rod & piston in a friends SS/MA chevelle at INDY in '78...they went through it like the DEA at the border...lol...great place to do it though...AMC dealer with a lift/workbench/radio...piece of cake...8 hours bolt-to-bolt...took out cotton perry 1st round...lol...
Are you sure the pics of "Plum Crazy" and Al Corda's wagon are from '71? In the background is a '69 Hurst Olds--doubtful if Hurst would've had a two year old car there. I guess anything is possible though.
Along through the late 70's to early 80's my friend Skip Hacker was racing his '53 Olds at IHRA. At a record meet at Bluegrass Dragway in Lexington KY Skip set the National record. The engine was sealed in prep for teardown the next day. As we were towing home to Louisville that first night, Skip made the comment that he wished the engine had not been sealed because he thought the car would run better if we could move the cam a couple degrees. I told him that I could move the cam timing if he wanted because the tech guy had sealed the wrong bolt on the front of the engine. What was sealed was a short bolt that held the water pump to the timing cover, not a long bolt that went all the way through to the block. I worked that evening removing the timing cover with the water pump still attached and moved the cam timing. The next day the car picked up a couple hundreds but I don't know if moving the cam really helped. Teardown went smooth, Skip got the record, and no one ever knew the difference.
Hello guys. New here and have been reading some great stuff. Does anyone remember that photo of VanCleeve and bortman ( not sure of the spelling) I would love to see that photo crossing the finish line with both cars smoking the front wheels on the brakes. I used to run a 55 in F/G around Avilla Indiana and sometimes at Onondago Mich, Keep up all the great stories Bob
pretty sure Skip had/ran a 66 caprice 4 dr hardtop (Q/SA?) in stock back then too...may have been one of the "infamous" Butcher cars we used to run into when we ran down there in the 76-1980 era...lol...used to have fun going racing at Bluegrass back then...CB
not jr stock, but a few jr stock veterans are tied into this pic... taken @3rd round of SS at rockingham 1973...Chevelle is a warren prepped car from NC, Alva Oxendine's SS/M...ratty Chevelle wagon was a Suffolk regular (Herman something?)...'57 Delivery is Joe Scott...Camaro up front is Randy Smith...most, if not all, were jr stock racers 2 years earlier...back when your pantlegs got soaked from all the water in staging lanes...lol...CB
If the sedan delivery is Joe Scott's....Did it have some small porthole type windows in the side panels? Joe Scott once told me he ended up with our old sedan delivery. Those windows were installed so the car could legally drive on the NJ Parkway. It was used by NJ Bell Telephone and back then no commercial vehicles were supposed to ride on the Parkway. They had those windows installed to get around that law.......I never saw our old car after we sold it in about 1968 or 1969. The windows would be a dead giveaway. They were professionally installed and looked like a factory install. We often got hassled about them by Tech inspectors so I had to tell them how and why they were there.....It was Omaha Orange when we sold it and the left front fender was blue. We had a towing incident and had to install a junkyard replacement and sold it before it was repainted.....
Chevrolet also built Sedan Deliveries with side windows like a wagon had. The tail gate was the SD type. Rare, but they are out there.
Was the Fuelie engine available in all 57 Chevy? A local expert (self proclaimed) told me today that the Wagons and 4 door hardtops were the only models that you could get the fuel injected 283 in. He claims they were NOT available in a 2 door hardtop or sedan. I'm no expert by any means but this didn't seem right to me!
Yes you could get the FI engines in any model. A 250 hp hyd liffter engine or the 283 hp solid liffter engine. He probably saw the old video produced by GM with the FI in a 4 door hardtop. Early four door hardtops did have a dash mounted mirror while the rest didn't. There's a lot of BS out there !
Thanks Bob! Thats what I thought. Yes, Lots of BS. I've learned when it comes to old cars to never say never!
Skip is now retired and enjoying life centered around his grand kids. He and I mess around with some older Corvettes and musclecars. <!-- / message --> Skip and I built a 66 4-door Belair P/SA in 1973. We won class at Englishtown and then won the Honest Charlie meet at Bowling Green that year. Sometime after that the 283/220 engine got refactored moving the Belair up a class. We decided to switch to a Caprice body...literally. Skip found a green Caprice 4dr hardtop and over a weekend with the help of Bob West we switched that body onto the Belair frame. There was a lot of body changes going on back then because the rules did not allow weight to be adjusted like today. You built a car that "fit" the class and if your horsepower got refactored you switched bodies. Lots of work but we were all younger and it was fun trying to staying competitive.
My mother had a 57 BelAir 2 dr sedan with q 250 HP engine that she bought new. I would probably have it today but my sister wrecked it.
a couple of familiar cars at the 1971 Nationals. that youngster is my friend's little brother. hard to believe that these photos were taken more than 38 years ago!
i believe these photos were taken at a Columbus, Ohio points meet in 1971. one nice thing about having a wagon is it allowed room to sleep on overnight trips. motels were not in my budget at that time.
I remember the "right trim to fit" days well...I had a CJ mustang and had 3 gas caps for the different body styles needed to juggle classes from B to D ...used to go to Bluegrass with Riedy from Milan, O.. ...Dean got R/U in stock at a points meet there @1975...we were building the O/SA '64 comet convert at the time and just got a new A-1 converter for the C-4...we decided to put it in his "bracket car" '67 fairlane 289/200 2bbl that fit O/SA and see what it did...it had a GK cheater cam, RHS heads, and picked up 3 tenths + with Marv's converter in there...it barely ran the index, thanks to the October air, and Dean hitting the tree in the .510-.530 zone all day (no reaction timers...but we knew...lol)...he won the championship in '78...CB
What a great thread! Hopefully some of you can help me out. I am looking for pictures of race car AMXs. I know most raced Super Stock, but maybe someone has some pics of the pits or staging lanes or something that might have an AMX in the background. If you are interested in the Super Stock AMXs you an check out my ever growing link here: http://theamcforum.com/forum/ss-amx-history-and-ocumentation_topic10414.html Thanks for any help.
Thanks for the Lexington pix. This is another pic for our Chesrown photo collection that I had never seen before.That photo was taken at the 68 Lexington Div 3 points meet. You can also see Mary Ann Foss(Jackson) "Go Hummer" (SS/AA) bus/hauler in background! Great shot of the infamous "Hoosier Hauler" too! Keep those pix comin'!
Hey 67 W-30, A couple years ago if I remember correctly there was a Chesrown Olds race car found after sitting for years and then it was restored or supposed to be restored. It was covered in Muscle Car Review if I remember right! Is this that car that you know of?
Thanks a million for posting, really great memories...looks like Robert Imbody Jr.'s black Mustang (brand new car back then) in front of the Hoosier Hurricane '57 Ford...I went to Rockingham in 1973 with Robert, he won Stock over Bill Drevo Jr. from Maryland in the final...CB... (the SS staging lane pic I posted earlier was from that weekend)
I often wondered about this because a guy I was friends with when in the Air Force had a '57 2 door wagon with the Sedan Delivery rear door, and only a drivers seat. It also had the SD floor in the back. It was a 6 and a 3 speed and was unrestored but in decent shape. He told me once that a Tri-5 parts guy once told him the model was called "Delivery Wagon" and was fairly rare with less than a thousand built. He didn't have anything to back that up and Brad never really looked into it.
Most of these SD's were special ordered for the US Gov. Dept of Agriculture etc. A little reading here http://en.allexperts.com/q/Classic-Antique-Car-2542/f/1957-chevy.htm they are claiming 92 built, but, who knows. Anyone ever see a SD with windows in Jr. Stock ???
Hi--Just checked out the AMX Super Stocks--very cool stuff here. Those cars were thought of as a step-child but really deserve more respect. I always liked them and wouldn't mind owning a REAL one. Another part of the Hurst mystique.
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