It's Saturday morning and I have a few moments so I can tell you what happened next.
When we got there, the place was already full of cars and transporters and we got there at 8:30 am! We had hoped to pit near S&M but couldn't. His group had a very nice designated area close to the restrooms, etc. Oh well, they deserved the perks! We got it unloaded and walked down to see if we could find Ronnie and Buddy and Jake. We found them all kicked back and relaxed - they came in the day before. I don't know what was wrong with Buddy but he wasn't very friendly. I noticed it when I asked Ronnie if he would still make a pass in my car. He just looked at Ronnie and got up and left so I just avoided him after that. Jake was cool and asked what I had done recently to the car and if we covered every detail at least twice. He walked down to our pit with us and we lifted off the glass 6-pak hood and he checked it out. He said he wished we had the scoop sealed to the carbs to take advantage of the air at top end but it was good that we had the original air cleaner base on it to smooth air transition. He got in the car and started it, blipping the throttle for response, checking the oil pressure (90 lbs cold), feeling the clutch and the shifter. He said it reminded him of that '69 RR they used to run that had the cut out rear wheel wells (I hated that and so did Jake. Some fool at Chrysler came up with that.) They were starting time trials at 10:00 and they notified all the drivers what staging lanes to use and when the match races would begin and some exhibition cars would go down. TV Tommy Ivo was there with a drop dead gorgeous fueler. It was inside an enclosed transport with plexiglas side windows and a candy tangerine Corvette T-top parked on top of it! He was a friendly guy and a real showman. Ronnie's focus was on the Duster match race car. They had also brought a winged car with a 440 6-pak that Jake had recently finished. Jake said the Duster was ready to take on all comers but he was concerned about the richness of the carbs on the 440 car. It was an automatic. Ronnie fired up the Duster and it was barely standing room only as the crowd packed in! He had jacked up the rear and just let it idle in first gear to circulate lube and put a little temperature in the gears. He let it warm up to 180 degrees and shut it off, let it off the jack and checked the air pressure in the slicks. He had some brand new Firestones on it with a new super soft compound and he was anxious to feel them.
We didn't come to race the Hemi, but rather to just make some timed passes and see what it would do. We were after impressive time slips. We were in the first group to make time runs and the track was all prepared with VHT. A red 427 Camaro was in the other lane from me and it really sounded good. I just kept my focus on the tree. I cut a great light leaving on that last yellow carrying the wheels about a foot in the air. I clicked off every shift perfectly at 7,500 rpm. I never saw the Camaro after I left the line until he was behind me on the return road. I kept hearing an awful thumping sound when I hit bumps on the return road so I knew something happened in the back. I stopped at the et shack and got my slip....10.96! Jerry and I knew it had the guts to do it! I was exstatic! We popped open a couple of ice-cold stroh's and celebrated. (We always had our beer but we were very careful never to over-do it at the track. Ronnie didn't drink and I never saw Jake ever do it and Buddy was so anal I'm sure he never did so we kept the beer low so as not to be seen and maybe looked down upon.) We walked down to the S&M pit. Jake said he and Ronnie went down to the starting line to watch the car and they both said they liked what they saw. Ronnie told me he was sorry but that he would not be making a pass in my car. I graciously accepted. They said it was just like their SS/B car and I was in heaven. I showed them the time slip and then they told me that they thought that it was great but capable of more. I asked what they thought I should do. They asked about tire pressure and was the car "twisty" on the top end. I told them no and we ran the 12" slicks at 10 lbs. Ronnie thought maybe go to 8 lbs but then he and Jake agreed that the "squash" and wrinkle was perfect when it left so they said to leave it alone. Jake asked where we had the timing set (I don't remember now just what it was) but Jake said he had just enough time to put a light on it for us. He used his because we didn't bring one. As I remember, he backed off the timing a few degrees and then he told us to check the plugs. We pulled one and showed it to him and he said it was a little lean for his liking. He said that often happened when the air cleaner tray was used like we did. We didn't have any jets with us because we never intended to get into all that. We thought about stretching the metering rod springs a little but Jake said no. He told us to follow him back and that he would give us a set of "colder" plugs. This seemed odd to us but we were not about to question the master and look a set of gift plugs in the mouth! We did as he told us. I want to add here what a cool, laid-back guy Jake was. He was quiet and totally organized. Everything he had or did was in its perfect place. Every tool in his box was in a certain position and spotless clean. I never ever saw his hands dirty and the entire team was spotlessly attired. They were pure class and exuded confidence. Before we went back to put the plugs in, I told Jake how I hated putting new plugs in a hemi only to have them have to burn up oil that leaks past the tubes into the chamber. He told me then that Milodon was making neat aluminum tube seals with o-rings that totally eliminated that problem. I sure wished we had them.
Sure enough, we looked like mosquito control when we fired up the hemi. We fogged the place good. One guy yelled, "Turn that stinkin' son of ***** off...we're trying to grill hamburgers!" Another guy asked us if we blew the engine up. I remember his name was Joe and he hung around with us the rest of the day. Never saw him again after that.
The match race cars got their turns to make practice runs and Ronnie was first in line. Buddy put down the rosin and swept and Jake watched the actions of the chassis. Ronnie was happy with the burn-in and did his trade mark "hop". He would bring it up to were the cam broke even and just give the clutch a quick snap to feel the chassis react. This particular car had ladder bars and coil overs - not the usual SS springs and long shocks - and no pinion snubber. Somehow Ronnie could tell for certain how the car was going to leave "on the wood" when he felt that reaction. He was like one with the car. Man, that Pro Stock hemi sounded good - it sounded like it was turning 10-grand! Dominators feeding the big tunnel ram! When he popped the clutch, the Duster immediately went into the sky and hard onto the Don Hardy wheelie bars. Ronnie rowed those gears so fast that you could have sworn it was an automatic and he turned a 9-something. It lifted the wheels even on the shift to third. When they got back, they took some travel out of the front and reset the wheelie bars. There were some bad cars there to match race...Hillbilly Roy Hill in a hemi Duster, Reid Whisnant in his beautiful candy gold Duster, Wally Booth in a Camaro, Frank Iaconio driving someone elses car I think and Hubert Platt driving a Boss 429 Maverick. To make a long story short, Ronnie won his match. Roy Hill almost hit the wall and had to lift but he was hauling ***!
Our next move was to find what that thumping noise was in the back of the car. The violent leave had torn the rubber bumper off the pinion snubber. Poop happens! We were given only two pass tickets so we only had one more chance to run as they were dedicating the most time to the cars in competition - and there were a lot of Modified Production cars there. We decided to make the pass without the bumper but we left what was left of the snubber on the car. We needed something even if it mangled the floor pan. The traction had gotten better as Ronnie had predicted and there had been very little breakage on the starting line. I staged as shallow as I could and payed no attention as to who or what was in the other lane. I did everything like I did on the first run and it worked. The Hemi carried the wheels in first and I hammered that 4-speed. Whoever was in that other lane, again I never saw them. I got to the ET shack and got my ticket and it read......10.64! I was beside myself with pride and joy! There wasn't much noise from the rear this time. The metal part of the snubber had mangled the hell out of the floor pan section it contacted. I remember I was wearing a Sox & Martin T-shirt that I dearly loved and I ruined it getting melted rubber residue on it from the lower rear quarter panel getting out from under the car.
We celebrated with a few more Stroh's and loaded the car on the truck. Just the simple things Jake did for us made a lot of difference. I wished the car had been lighter. Anyway, the Tech Director told us if we ever brought that car back, it had to have a roll bar in it. I wasn't about to do that. This was the last time the Maysville Hemi was at a drag strip. I proudly displayed my time slips taped to the inside of the windshield. I couldn't get a street race if I had to. A lot of things were changing then for me. I was ready to graduate and I was engaged and all that fun at the strip had given me the fever to focus my racing there. Jane and I had planned to move to Florida so some serious changes were in the making. It's sad to say but I sold the Hemi RR and bought a new Chevy Impala Custom with a 350, auto and A/C...a real family car. I teamed up with Dave Lewis and Bruce Scott down in Cincinnati to go racing. They both worked at Cincinnati Milling Machine and had just sold their record holding C/G Corvette and were building a '69 Camaro to go after the D/MP record. My wife, Jane, had a room mate named Janet Newnam and she and Dave later got married. The Camaro held the record for 2-years. It had a beautiful Bill Roell candy blue over pearl paint job. One weekend early on, we won a "triple Crown" Modified deal. Friday night at Kilkare Dragway in Exenia, OH, we won and got $2,000 cash plus contingencies. We had to tear the motor down after every win to prove legal. After clearing tech, it was after midnight and we drove back to Dave's in Cinti, a few hours sleep and put the engine back together. Saturday night's part of the Triple Crown was at Edgewater there in Cincinnati. Again we won $2,000 plus contingencies and again it was a late night. We put the tunnel ram & carbs and the one pulled head and header in the trunk of the Chevelle SS tow car and headed for the third stretch down in Bowling Green, KY. We broke a ring gear on the first time run and didn't have a spare. David Hutchins was there (later known from the Wayne County Speedshop) racing a Chevy injected fastback Mustang and he lent us his spare. We beat him using his parts! Well, again we won the meet and we set a new national record at Bowling Green with I think a 10.62. We won $6,000 cash plus at least two grand in contingency prizes in one weekend. Another amazing thing was that each final run was against the hemi powered injected Challenger driven by Thompson out of the Rod Shop. He and Gil Kirk were definitely unhappy!! After I moved to Florida, one of my buddies back in Lexington told me that the guy that bought the RR was speeding on Nicholasville Road and hit an oak tree, shoving the engine to the back seat and killing him instantly. I cried my heart out at the thought of such a noble beast of a car ending up that way. I still have no sympathy for the idiot that did it. That's it for now. Gotta go.
Pat
When we got there, the place was already full of cars and transporters and we got there at 8:30 am! We had hoped to pit near S&M but couldn't. His group had a very nice designated area close to the restrooms, etc. Oh well, they deserved the perks! We got it unloaded and walked down to see if we could find Ronnie and Buddy and Jake. We found them all kicked back and relaxed - they came in the day before. I don't know what was wrong with Buddy but he wasn't very friendly. I noticed it when I asked Ronnie if he would still make a pass in my car. He just looked at Ronnie and got up and left so I just avoided him after that. Jake was cool and asked what I had done recently to the car and if we covered every detail at least twice. He walked down to our pit with us and we lifted off the glass 6-pak hood and he checked it out. He said he wished we had the scoop sealed to the carbs to take advantage of the air at top end but it was good that we had the original air cleaner base on it to smooth air transition. He got in the car and started it, blipping the throttle for response, checking the oil pressure (90 lbs cold), feeling the clutch and the shifter. He said it reminded him of that '69 RR they used to run that had the cut out rear wheel wells (I hated that and so did Jake. Some fool at Chrysler came up with that.) They were starting time trials at 10:00 and they notified all the drivers what staging lanes to use and when the match races would begin and some exhibition cars would go down. TV Tommy Ivo was there with a drop dead gorgeous fueler. It was inside an enclosed transport with plexiglas side windows and a candy tangerine Corvette T-top parked on top of it! He was a friendly guy and a real showman. Ronnie's focus was on the Duster match race car. They had also brought a winged car with a 440 6-pak that Jake had recently finished. Jake said the Duster was ready to take on all comers but he was concerned about the richness of the carbs on the 440 car. It was an automatic. Ronnie fired up the Duster and it was barely standing room only as the crowd packed in! He had jacked up the rear and just let it idle in first gear to circulate lube and put a little temperature in the gears. He let it warm up to 180 degrees and shut it off, let it off the jack and checked the air pressure in the slicks. He had some brand new Firestones on it with a new super soft compound and he was anxious to feel them.
We didn't come to race the Hemi, but rather to just make some timed passes and see what it would do. We were after impressive time slips. We were in the first group to make time runs and the track was all prepared with VHT. A red 427 Camaro was in the other lane from me and it really sounded good. I just kept my focus on the tree. I cut a great light leaving on that last yellow carrying the wheels about a foot in the air. I clicked off every shift perfectly at 7,500 rpm. I never saw the Camaro after I left the line until he was behind me on the return road. I kept hearing an awful thumping sound when I hit bumps on the return road so I knew something happened in the back. I stopped at the et shack and got my slip....10.96! Jerry and I knew it had the guts to do it! I was exstatic! We popped open a couple of ice-cold stroh's and celebrated. (We always had our beer but we were very careful never to over-do it at the track. Ronnie didn't drink and I never saw Jake ever do it and Buddy was so anal I'm sure he never did so we kept the beer low so as not to be seen and maybe looked down upon.) We walked down to the S&M pit. Jake said he and Ronnie went down to the starting line to watch the car and they both said they liked what they saw. Ronnie told me he was sorry but that he would not be making a pass in my car. I graciously accepted. They said it was just like their SS/B car and I was in heaven. I showed them the time slip and then they told me that they thought that it was great but capable of more. I asked what they thought I should do. They asked about tire pressure and was the car "twisty" on the top end. I told them no and we ran the 12" slicks at 10 lbs. Ronnie thought maybe go to 8 lbs but then he and Jake agreed that the "squash" and wrinkle was perfect when it left so they said to leave it alone. Jake asked where we had the timing set (I don't remember now just what it was) but Jake said he had just enough time to put a light on it for us. He used his because we didn't bring one. As I remember, he backed off the timing a few degrees and then he told us to check the plugs. We pulled one and showed it to him and he said it was a little lean for his liking. He said that often happened when the air cleaner tray was used like we did. We didn't have any jets with us because we never intended to get into all that. We thought about stretching the metering rod springs a little but Jake said no. He told us to follow him back and that he would give us a set of "colder" plugs. This seemed odd to us but we were not about to question the master and look a set of gift plugs in the mouth! We did as he told us. I want to add here what a cool, laid-back guy Jake was. He was quiet and totally organized. Everything he had or did was in its perfect place. Every tool in his box was in a certain position and spotless clean. I never ever saw his hands dirty and the entire team was spotlessly attired. They were pure class and exuded confidence. Before we went back to put the plugs in, I told Jake how I hated putting new plugs in a hemi only to have them have to burn up oil that leaks past the tubes into the chamber. He told me then that Milodon was making neat aluminum tube seals with o-rings that totally eliminated that problem. I sure wished we had them.
Sure enough, we looked like mosquito control when we fired up the hemi. We fogged the place good. One guy yelled, "Turn that stinkin' son of ***** off...we're trying to grill hamburgers!" Another guy asked us if we blew the engine up. I remember his name was Joe and he hung around with us the rest of the day. Never saw him again after that.
The match race cars got their turns to make practice runs and Ronnie was first in line. Buddy put down the rosin and swept and Jake watched the actions of the chassis. Ronnie was happy with the burn-in and did his trade mark "hop". He would bring it up to were the cam broke even and just give the clutch a quick snap to feel the chassis react. This particular car had ladder bars and coil overs - not the usual SS springs and long shocks - and no pinion snubber. Somehow Ronnie could tell for certain how the car was going to leave "on the wood" when he felt that reaction. He was like one with the car. Man, that Pro Stock hemi sounded good - it sounded like it was turning 10-grand! Dominators feeding the big tunnel ram! When he popped the clutch, the Duster immediately went into the sky and hard onto the Don Hardy wheelie bars. Ronnie rowed those gears so fast that you could have sworn it was an automatic and he turned a 9-something. It lifted the wheels even on the shift to third. When they got back, they took some travel out of the front and reset the wheelie bars. There were some bad cars there to match race...Hillbilly Roy Hill in a hemi Duster, Reid Whisnant in his beautiful candy gold Duster, Wally Booth in a Camaro, Frank Iaconio driving someone elses car I think and Hubert Platt driving a Boss 429 Maverick. To make a long story short, Ronnie won his match. Roy Hill almost hit the wall and had to lift but he was hauling ***!
Our next move was to find what that thumping noise was in the back of the car. The violent leave had torn the rubber bumper off the pinion snubber. Poop happens! We were given only two pass tickets so we only had one more chance to run as they were dedicating the most time to the cars in competition - and there were a lot of Modified Production cars there. We decided to make the pass without the bumper but we left what was left of the snubber on the car. We needed something even if it mangled the floor pan. The traction had gotten better as Ronnie had predicted and there had been very little breakage on the starting line. I staged as shallow as I could and payed no attention as to who or what was in the other lane. I did everything like I did on the first run and it worked. The Hemi carried the wheels in first and I hammered that 4-speed. Whoever was in that other lane, again I never saw them. I got to the ET shack and got my ticket and it read......10.64! I was beside myself with pride and joy! There wasn't much noise from the rear this time. The metal part of the snubber had mangled the hell out of the floor pan section it contacted. I remember I was wearing a Sox & Martin T-shirt that I dearly loved and I ruined it getting melted rubber residue on it from the lower rear quarter panel getting out from under the car.
We celebrated with a few more Stroh's and loaded the car on the truck. Just the simple things Jake did for us made a lot of difference. I wished the car had been lighter. Anyway, the Tech Director told us if we ever brought that car back, it had to have a roll bar in it. I wasn't about to do that. This was the last time the Maysville Hemi was at a drag strip. I proudly displayed my time slips taped to the inside of the windshield. I couldn't get a street race if I had to. A lot of things were changing then for me. I was ready to graduate and I was engaged and all that fun at the strip had given me the fever to focus my racing there. Jane and I had planned to move to Florida so some serious changes were in the making. It's sad to say but I sold the Hemi RR and bought a new Chevy Impala Custom with a 350, auto and A/C...a real family car. I teamed up with Dave Lewis and Bruce Scott down in Cincinnati to go racing. They both worked at Cincinnati Milling Machine and had just sold their record holding C/G Corvette and were building a '69 Camaro to go after the D/MP record. My wife, Jane, had a room mate named Janet Newnam and she and Dave later got married. The Camaro held the record for 2-years. It had a beautiful Bill Roell candy blue over pearl paint job. One weekend early on, we won a "triple Crown" Modified deal. Friday night at Kilkare Dragway in Exenia, OH, we won and got $2,000 cash plus contingencies. We had to tear the motor down after every win to prove legal. After clearing tech, it was after midnight and we drove back to Dave's in Cinti, a few hours sleep and put the engine back together. Saturday night's part of the Triple Crown was at Edgewater there in Cincinnati. Again we won $2,000 plus contingencies and again it was a late night. We put the tunnel ram & carbs and the one pulled head and header in the trunk of the Chevelle SS tow car and headed for the third stretch down in Bowling Green, KY. We broke a ring gear on the first time run and didn't have a spare. David Hutchins was there (later known from the Wayne County Speedshop) racing a Chevy injected fastback Mustang and he lent us his spare. We beat him using his parts! Well, again we won the meet and we set a new national record at Bowling Green with I think a 10.62. We won $6,000 cash plus at least two grand in contingency prizes in one weekend. Another amazing thing was that each final run was against the hemi powered injected Challenger driven by Thompson out of the Rod Shop. He and Gil Kirk were definitely unhappy!! After I moved to Florida, one of my buddies back in Lexington told me that the guy that bought the RR was speeding on Nicholasville Road and hit an oak tree, shoving the engine to the back seat and killing him instantly. I cried my heart out at the thought of such a noble beast of a car ending up that way. I still have no sympathy for the idiot that did it. That's it for now. Gotta go.
Pat
