Rich Venza ..I found your car in Florida

Rich no **** you had a hand in this!

Pat

 

Wow, this is just off the chart!

Leon

 

Yep ...

August 1988 (40th Bonneville Nationals)
Ace HRM photog Eric Rickman p***es some words of wisdom onto @Rich Venza (black Isky hat) while Garlits
waits patiently in the drivers seat. Rod Kempkis holds the canopy open and listens in on the conversation.​

... for more of the story, checkout my #990 "Golden Rod" Streamliner ... PICS from 1958!!! thread.

 

Yeah ol Rich has been around, after all, he is an old fart!

 

I was there two weeks ago, I should have recognized the name! I took pictures of the car.
http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=458069&page=2

 

too cool!

 

Nice car Rich.

Haven't been to the museum in a few years but he has a great collection of everything "Big Daddy" and lots of other cool stuff.

Cliff Ramsdell

 

Wow--- very cool.

 

How cool Rich. Blown flathead, 200 mph club, record..now that had to have been a great time.

 

Yes..it's all true. I'll have to scan some old photos of the car as it was being built in 1988. We had a very talented group of fabricators in Lincoln, Nebraska who literally worked around the clock to build the car in less than 7 months.
After a 200 mph wreck in 1990 with Dave Thomssen behind the wheel, I brought the car back east to EJ Kowalski's shop in Reading, PA where he and his dad built a new body. Thanks to the super strong ch***is built by Jim Schuman at his Blue Engineering shop in Lincoln, the only suspension parts which needed replacing were the Carrera coil over shocks and the Weld wheels.
Once the car was restored (first photo), we took it to the first Muroc Reunion (second photo) where EJ was able to make 2 p***es before the winds closed down the event.

 

Wow Rich, what else are you hiding from us, man you really done about everything !

 

I've got a batch of photos I took of that car in 1988 and no doubt Rich is in at least one of them. Time to go album digging.

 

... and rumor has it that Rich borrowed the accelerator pedal design from the streamliner!

 

I never thought it was possible, but they designed a car uglier than me!

 

Rich is Dreamy....A true Icon.

 

I had Blue Engineering doing a custom tank for one of my roadsters about the time Shuman was building the ch***is for the streamliner. It was interesting to see his plywood fixtures and then to see the finished product before it was skinned. He was quite a craftsman who never got much credit for his work. Not a lot of people know he did a lot of the restoration work on the vintage motors in Speedys collection. Strangly Shuman and Blue Engineering get no credit in Mr. Garlits sign at the museum

 

Now.... this is cool.

 

If Rich ever slows down he really should write a book. I'm painfully cheap but I'd step up & buy one.

 

I did some rooting around for photos this afternoon, and the only ones I could come up with are from the rebuild EJ Kowalski did ater the crash in 1989. I probably sent all the original do***entation to the Museum when we retired the car.

We were all surprised when after stringing the frame, we found no twisting of any sort. It did manage to pencil roll 7 times while it was spinning for 3 complete 360 rotations. To say the least, the aluminum body work received the sanding no one wishes to have a car go through.

The first batch of photos shows just how strong Jim Schuman's frame was constructed. Lots of diagonals and gussets. We used coil over shocks at all four corners. Warren "Jelly" Wilhelm built the special tube axle with 12" center to center on the king pins. Ha,nre Jess's dad John built all the steering and suspension parts including the mount for the Stiletto rack & pinion. After our first year on the salt, he also added sway bars to both ends.

There are 20 body panels in the car with all but a couple hand formed aluminum. The panel over the top of the wheels is a fibergl*** piece made by Frank Morawski from the remains of the original. The scoop is also fibergl***. The only "store bought" piece of the body is the tail fin shown in the Muroc photo I posted this morning. It is a chunk of a tail fin I bought at a airplane flea market in Lakeland Florida.

Once the car was restored, we took it to the Wheels of Time show in Macungie, PA and had a collection jar for the Save the Salt folks in Utah.
Nest was the first reunion at Edwards AFB and than a couple yaers at Bonneville trying to get EJ into the 2-Club. Unfortunatly the speed gods and mother nature prevented that from happening.

 

Wow!! , thanks for the photos and story. Did you ever pilot the car?

 

Great history. Thanks for posting this.

 

Rich, you devil. 100% cool. Slim

 

{ Better write a book}
Guess they better print three (3) copies!
Cause I want one!

 

Wow....great file of pics.. Thanks for sharing the build...Rich your an amazing part of our racing history....Take care Dude!!!!

 

RV ... Man you are the real deal regardless what Charlie P says... Heeeee !!!!

 

I thought I had some more photos of the original building of the car at Jim Shumans shop in Lincoln. You know you have the right builder when his business sign is a sprint car rotating on the roof. The sketches were done in December 1987, and the car was completed in eight months.

The two sketches were the beginnings of the project. With some dimensions of the flathead, Ardun and other drivetrain components, Jim designed the frame in such a way, that we were able to swap engines in a very short time. There was even a plan to move up to the D Streamliner cl*** with one of Don's Hemi's, and the ch***is would have accepted that combo as well.

We used a Ford top loader 4 speed with a Hurst shifter and a pair of Morse cables running back to the trans. Worked perfectly, but didn't have reverse. The steering wheel was an old Mr Roadster T-bucket piece equipped with a quick release hub. This allowded for a very large opening for the driver to enter and exit.

The last 2 shots show the car in front of John (Jess's Dad) MacKichen's barn/shop on it's special trailer John built. He designed the whole deck to roll off, then the tail dropped diown. This was needed due to the long length of the car and it's 3" ride height. We were on our way to test the car at Crete Nebraska Municipal Airport, south of Lincoln. Kinda handy to have hot rodders, Jay Armstrong and Geoff Gallup in charge of an airfield where you can blast off for 3/4 of a mile and pop the chute. We learned quite a bit on those tests which made our first year at Bonneville so successful. That's Don Kehr in the yellow shirt, first of our 3 drivers to qualify for the 2-Club in 1988.

 

Wow!....now I really want one bad

 

Do you recall if this intake an was cast as an Ardun-specific intake or had it been adapted from different application?