Offy Killers

The early days of midget racing were splashed with ingenuity. You had guys with fat budgets, guys with medium budgets, and guys that barely had enough skratch to put food on the table racing each other every weekend. While the spendy fellas were sitting pretty with Offy powerplants, the lesser endowed were working on ways to beat them with shoestring budgets. With a cut off of 140 cubic inches, the power plant options were incredibly limited. Guys were cutting four holes out of straight eights, down sleaving big/heavy motors, running industrial generator motors, and in some cases even fabricating their own blocks.

In the end though, it was a rare occassion to see an Offy getting passed on the circle. More money and more lab engineering was just more consistent than less money and shade tree engineering. And then it happened…

Ford introduced the v8-60 in 1937. Finally, the working man had an affordable foundation to fight the Offy. And fight they did… Guys like Chet Wilson, Rodger Ward, and Tony Bettenhausen gave the Offy fellas absolute hell across the country. And of course the aftermarket followed as Edelbrock, Sharp, and others began to bring performance parts to the market. While still down on the power to weight ratio of the Offy motor, the little flathead did have considerably more torque and a longer life span.

“You may get me the first couple of heats, but I’ll get ya in the end and I won’t turn a wrench all day.” – Tony B.

Considering the breakout success of the almost stock little flatheads, you would think that this era of innovation would come to an end. It didn’t… Instead, it spawned even more innovation as guys like Vic Edelbrock used the motor as a basis for testing ideas such as nitro (Editors Note: I believe Vic’s nitro car was actually the first to take down an Offy at Gilmore Stadium in 1947) and other fuel alternatives.

My absolute favorite example though went down in Colorado where Buddy Shay experimented with running his v8-60 wrong-side-up. I could tell you the story, but I think Don Radbruch does a better job. Take a gander and think about pearing over the oil pan while exiting turn four… Incredible.