Hope some of you still remember this day. Harvey and Dave showed up unanounced and blew off all the local heros. They were back east visiting their families and friends and decieded to haul up to Maine that Sunday. Lots of pissed off fans and racers. To make matters worse Charlie Hiller and Johny Clark towed up with us and proceeded to beat Pete Tropeano for Little Eliminator. The only guy that came up short was me. Blew the flathead in my D/A. Still the best day of racing I ever had. I was 17 then, 65 now. Still friendly with that group....
Cool story. Thanks. I hope some New England old timers will chime in on this one. Roger Walling? Ridge Runner? Bearing Burner? Ronnie?
I hope they will too. There's lots more to tell about that day, like when Joe Jackson, (R I P ) threatened the A and B Speedshop guys with a breaker bar!
Sounds like quite the day but I can't help with any additional details. I didn't get to many meets in '65&'66. Most of my wrenchin' then was on boats by the mouth of the Merrimac on Plumb Island with sponsorship from our uncle. Ed
I met Nick Marshall two years ago at the CHRR, he was with Dave Vermilya. Dave and I have been friends for many years. He is one of the nicest guys I have known in drag racing. Marshall & Vermilya were hard to beat from 65 through 1967.
I see Dave and the gang quite often as we all live in S E M***. Dave is a really nice person and still one of the sharpest engine guys and fabricators I have ever known. We'll be out with our "T" altered this year. Look forward to seeing you........
I've got a color slide of Marshall and Vermilya racing at the Nationals in Indy in 1966. I'd never heard of them until I went to that meeting and that name has stuck with me for almost 50 years-oh and it's written on the slide. I'll have to dig it out and see who they were racing.
I've seen photos of them racing the Ramchargers at that meet, who they beat..... There were others too.
Sounds like it was a great meet.My last time at Sanford was June 18th 1964 when I got to see Don Garlits and Art Malone do a best 2 of 3.Didn't quite turn out that way.First run Malone cleaned out one of the clocks with his front wheel.Eldon Sidebotham lent him a wheel for the second run and he hit the clocks again only this time with his front axle. Pete Robinson was there with his infamous "jack car" AA/GD and offered to run Big Daddy.Pulled an enormous hole shot on Don and turned an 8 flat 177mph.Garlits barely caught him in the eyes and turned a 7.8 195 mph. They didn't call him,"Sneaky Pete" for nothing. Two days later I'm on a train headed for the Great Lakes Naval Training Center. Put it off just to see that match race and will never forget it. When Marshall & Vermilya were running that day I was loading weapons on an F-4 Phantom;I did that every day.
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