Arnie “The Farmer” Beswick is a real nice guy, I talked to him in his house!

Well, its been a while since I met Arnie beswick but I have to get this out, it actually happened over Christmas when I was at my grandpas farm in Illinois. Anyways…..When I was there, I was driving into town, not even a mile from the family farm when I noticed the door of a barn I’ve seen a million times blew off, and inside was the *** end of a dark blue 62 Pontiac Catalina 2 door poking out, I had no clue it was in there, immediately I thought “this could be a 421 car!” So, I turned around and pulled in the guys drive way, got out and knocked on the door. An old guy came out and I asked him about the car, he said “Oh yeah, that car belongs to Arnie Besweck, he lives across the road, I’m just storing it for him” and he pointed to the farm across the road. In shock, I went over there and knocked on the door. A man came to the door, I said “Arnie The Farmer Beswick?” He goes “that’s me!” and invites me in to his house because he couldn’t believe such a young guy knew who he was. We talked for a while, about his cars like “The Grocery Getter” and a lot of how he got into drag racing in the 50’s along with the cars he started out with. He grew up on the farm he is currently living on. I come to find out he knows who my grandma is and alot of my family! The best part is, without even saying anything he grabs a few books about his drag racing history and autographed them personally to me, and I didn’t even ask him to do it! Keep in mind here, you can see my grandpa’s farm from his house….and this whole time I never knew he lived there. When I got back to my grandpas house all excited, I told my grandpa about this and he knew all along he lived there, and always forgot to tell me. So that’s how I got to talk to Arnie “The Farmer” Beswick in his own kitchen. Oh yeah I got the full story on the 62 Pontiac too, it turns out it’s a 389 car that he has plans on turning it into a 421 drag car. He still races too, a 64 GTO “Tameless Tiger” but it is currently being rebuilt because of a bad fire he had in it, it burnt him pretty bad but he’s almost recovered from it luckily.

 

!!!!

Holy Chit.
did you bow before you came in?

 

Talk about a 'barn-find', DAY-UMN..............

 

Cool story!......but you should have kept that one to yourself!

Now we will have to put up with all of the Californians and Texans moving here because now everyone knows all of the cool **** really happens on farms in rural Illinois, not So Cal or Austin. Ha Ha Ha

 

I Wasin Highschool In The 60s Arny The Farmer A Lowbucker Was One Of My Heros A Friend Of Mine Bought Some Poncho Parts From Him A Few Years Ago Tim

 

I spoke with Mr. Beswick for a while last year at Byron dragstrip here in Illinois. What a truly nice guy, and very approachable. He's just as humble as can be and really appreciates his fans.

BESWICK FOR PRESIDENT

 

Met him a few years back. He had some fab work done here in ****py ol Flint by Diamond Collision. Cool guy.

 

I've never met him personally, but a family friend is a fabricator at the ch***is shop where his current Tameless Tiger car is to be worked on. I believe Arnie is going to have my buddy involved in building/recreating one of his old Pontiac Funny Cars. He said the same thing, one of the coolest, most humble guys.

 

Met him quite a few times over the years at different Pontiac events. I was big into GTO's and had four of them over the years. Arnie was always cool to me and we talked every time he saw me. Some of the first work I ever had published was in my GTO club's newsletter and I always managed to get shots of "The Tameless Tiger". Glad he's doing well after the fire.

Spike

 

Yep Arnie is a nice guy...Easy to talk to..
I had some discussion with him years ago about cloneing my car as the first Pasionate Poncho...He was very cool about it but in the end I just didn't do it. As I explained to Arnie my ***ociation with MY car and why I backed down he understood where I was coming from...Never the less I felt honored..
But my car is now a "Signature Series" Arnie Beswick car..
He autographed my dash/car while at Mason Dixon Drag Way in Maryland.
Check my dash out if you get close to it..

 

Cool story!

Sam.

 

2 words....HAMB Drags

 

How is he doing? Last I heard he was recovering from a bad accident..

 

He recovered fully i believe and is back racing,

 

Arnie is one of our heros. He talked a few months ago to a freind of mine that works at the DMV. When he came into the station to take his driving test he also had some ***le transfers to do. When he started looking at the ***les they were all Pontiacs. He looked at the back of the ***le and the name was Arnold W. Beswick. He says " Are you Arnie "The Farmer" Beswick?". "Yes I am" he says. "My friends would be jealous if they knew that I was talking to you". "Who are your friends?" Arnie asked. " Mike and Steve Zettle from Forreston", he replied. "Those are the boys who have that '65 GTO straight axle, I know them!!" "They also helped Alan Ranz restore my '61 Ventura, those guys know there Pontiacs." Pretty cool when your hero knows who you are!!! By the way, he gave him his driving test, he kept it under 60!!LOL

 

He is basically alright, his skin was damaged pretty bad, he doesnt have any finger nails anymore, but other than that he looked like he was doing fine. He said he will be racing again, when he gets his car back together.

 

I replaced some "Tiger Stripes" when his car got damaged at Baytown, when I worked at a sign shop about 15 years ago. Someone else brought the car in, though, and I didn't get to meet him.

 

If your a fan of Arnie, check this car out on Ebay. Curt (the owner) does some fantastic fabrication.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/1963-PONTIAC-TEMPEST-ALT-WB-ARNIE-BESWICK-CLONE_W0QQitemZ300072866953QQihZ020QQcategoryZ6426QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

 

I'd trade my Falcon to get something like that!!!

 

This is why old drag racers are better than the new ones. John Force is cool, but I don't think you'd be able to knock on his door and get to meet him. (If you have done just that-out with the story, man!) Awsome stories guys.

 

Back in '93 I was at Saturday night a sprint car race in Crystal, Michigan. After the races I heard a radio "SEE IT...SEE IT....SUNDAY....SUNDAY !!!!" ad for a match race between Garlits and Muldowney at the Mid-Michigan Motorplex the following day. I hadn't seen nitro cars in a bunch of years so I decided to take it in. They also had Arnie "the Farmer" Beswick match racing "Dyno Don" Nicholson. Between rounds I wandered over to Beswick's pit and, right away, he started chatting with me. He was a very nice guy and the guy helping him, after I showed them a picture of my dragster, said knew my car. He said he had watched us at Minnesota Dragways years before. That in itself just blew me away.... I always thought we were as memorable as a cankar sore.

They were busy thrashing so I didn't take up too much of their time but I got Arnie's autograph and, later on, a cranky Don Garlits signed the thing too.

 

...got Arnie's autograph a couple of years ago at a car show in Sycamore, Illinois. He's gotta be one of the most "down-home" friendliest guys of all the big-name celebrities. He truly appreciates all of his fans equally and takes time to make every one of them feel important. He told me to come down to his farm sometime, " if you don't mind cattle and flies! "
...He's still a hero to many, can't wait to see him on the track again.

 

I talked with him couple years ao at the drag expo in St Charles. Great guy, I ended up giving him one of my clocks as a door prize.
I ws so glad to see the Tameless at the drag expo this year, with fresh rubber on the quarters.

 

Arine is Mr. Pontiac and he takes time out for everyone, That is just one thing that makes him special to all in the hobby and yes he dose have a great memory and dosen't forget to many people once he meets them.

 

I've never met him, but I used to coat his clutches for him (don't ask, 'cause I can't tell) and when I had to call him to find out exactly what type, and amount, of coating he wanted on his floaters and plate, he was very nice and friendly and personable on the phone. I told him I remembered the day his GTO kicked Gas Ronda, **** Landy (RIP, ****), Sox and Martin, Hayden Proffitt, and Hubert Platt's *** all over Carlsbad Raceway... He got quite a kick out of that, that I remembered...

 

I met Arnie about 2 yrs. ago at a pontiac convention here in St. Louis. I waited for about an hour for him to finish doing a workshop lesson. I asked him if he would autograph my car, and he was excited to do it. He could have said no or charged me money, but he said sure bring it over to my tent and I'll do it! We talked for a minute about my car and his old Grocery Getter. After he signed my dash, he asked me for my name and phone number and proceeded to write it down on a sheet of paper with at least a hundred different names, numbers and what types of cars these people had. I just think its cool that he takes the time to be interested in his fans as much as they are into him.

 

I spent a lot of time with Arnie at his farm about 15 years ago seeing another side of him that you guys don't see... Arnie the farmer. I was trying to help him make a "comeback" with his beef cattle operation. Being more of a circle track fan myself, I never full appreciated Arnie's fame as a drag racer. That changed one day when I walked into his kitchen and had to patiently wait while he finished chatting on the phone with an old friend. When he hung up the phone he casually mentioned who was on the phone..... Richard Petty! Apparently Arnie and Richard were old buds from their Pontiac factory support days and still talked frequently. It was very cool to listen to them chat as old friends even though they were from totally different aspects of motorsports. BTW Another circle track racer Mel Kenyon, well known for midget and Indy car racing years ago, is from the same general area as Arnie. So those corn belt farms DO produce some great racers of all types.

 

If you ever get the chance to visit the Moroso race support trailer stop in and say hi to Howard Masales. Howard used to crew for Arnie in the early sixties. He went on to racer a 62 catalina in NHRA stock under the name Pampered Pappoose. After his racing stint he went to work for Hurst and was the shifty doctor for many years before becoming the Scheifer clutch guy at the track. He was responsible for setting up the Hurst Safety tent where racers could get their junk fixed courtesy of George Hurst.
I worked with Howard for seven years and never got tired of his race stories. I also got to meet Linda several times and she even gave me a back rub! And of course I met Arnie many times because he would stop to talk to Howard whenever he was at the track. Someone needs to sit down with these guys and get all their stories down on tape for history. They just don't make people like them anymore!

 

that is absolutely awesome!!!

 

how cool is that , and autographed books to , some guys have all the luck lol