I did talk to John and yes you are correct he is a nice guy and the original owner of my 1966 Chevrolet Biscayne
My fellow Poor Boy Forest sold his 56 Chevy Gasser to buy that car....than had to sell it due to family matters. Cool to see it on here. Did you get the extra parts and Trophys. I think the gas station building is still inn Northville, mi, but now closed. Was told he bought the car off the executive lot at the GM tech center we were told. Also a rare color combo..car had low miles due to the fact it became a Race car
Fred told me he sold it to a guy named Forest who was a neighbor or friend? The trunk was still full of parts but some were sold off before I got it. Fred said he bought a new 4:88 differential back in 64 and had extra heads that went with the car. Unfortunately, those parts are gone now. Luckily the Mallory distributor was still in the trunk. I think the Northville gas station is a trendy restaurant now. Car is showing 40k miles. Trophies are still with the car.
That's my 56 Chevy in the background of the red 61 Vette. (post 12708) It's the white 56 210 with silver stripes. 210 hp, 265, 3 speed. We raced it in Jr Stock, I/S or J/S in 1966 and 1967. Was only at Thunder Valley a couple of times, we were from Omaha. I remember winning class, and then red lighting about the 3rd round in Jr stock eliminator, the last time we were there. Raced mostly at Omaha Dragway (Flightland Airport)...some at Sioux City, Ia, and Lincoln, Ne. Won our class about 95% of the time at local tracks...still have some of the trophy's. Don't have hardly any photos of the car. Have only one with it sitting in the driveway. Have been searching on line for years for any photos. We didn't have the budget for high dollar pistons, cheater cams, Stahl headers, or trick 3 speed trans, etc. We were just out of high school, budget racers for sure. Really really fun times. We sold it to a guy that raced it later, painted it maroon...never saw it again. Went to college and worked at engineering career forever...gave up semi serious racing.
That is cool and we were in the same boat low budget and would have done more if we could. If you look back through this thread on Corvettes a guy asked about one of the corvettes and I went back and found the site that had the photo of your car. And told him about the RED CORVETTE at Thunder Valley. In that post is a link to the site. If you don't find it let me know and I will try and find it again. I remember now I found it by searching "Olsen + drag racing" and it had the site in the answer. http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/...s-picture-thread.545759/page-64#post-11811631
found the site look under the 605 section on this site http://www.greatplainsstreetrodders.com/cruisin-605/tom-olsen-page/at-the-drag-races/
Thanks for finding the site. It's unreal to see a picture of our car after all these years. My other partner with the car passed away a few years ago. I know he had some 8 mm film of the car at one time, but he had moved to Minn. a long time ago...so no idea what trash can they got thrown in. Have lots of stories of about the car. We could win our class most of the time at Omaha Dragway, until there was a points meet, and cars from all over the midwest and more, that came and could run near the class record. I remember running (in class against I think it was a guy from Tx) and getting our doors blown off because he was running a Sonny Bryant 3 speed (I think) that could be power shifted into 2nd gear (I could hear him power shift) and he would gain a car length just because of the power shift.....that alone was worth 2+ tenths. And he probably had a Forge True engine with more power. (Stahl I think was famous for building "slick shift" 3 speeds at the time, but cost about $200. (about $1,000 now) We could build a budget complete Jr stock car, with a TRW engine for about $1,200 - $1,400 back then. We did get what I think was a Lenco center drum for about $35, and it worked (power shifted) until something else broke in the trans, and eventually destroyed the rest of the trans. If any of you raced the 55 or 56 Chevy 3 speed you know the whole issue. Could change a trans in 30 min at the track. We always brought an extra. Even rebuild a trans, and put it back in, at the track, in about an hour or so if there was time between races....those were the days ! Sorry for the endless diatribe.
Shain, it's not endless diatribe...we love the stories from those who raced and lived those great times. you got more, let's hear it!
Shain I feel your pain. We ran C/A in the mid 60s and fared rather well until the Karbelt 'Percy Also' showed up. They were national record holder. Also we ran a Chev 3 speed and until we discovered the Lenco synchro drum, we were also rebuilding the tranny between runs. But man, I wouldn't trade that time for anything. Warren
One more quick one..... Our first engine (1966) was a 265 we home built pretty much by ourselves. Had it balanced, and machined at a local speed shop (Charleys) where I worked part time. These were jr stock, factory spec engines. Back in the late 60's NHRA was allowing lots of Corvette stuff in passenger cars. Our car could use the 210 hp solid lifter cam. (56 Corvette single 4 bbl.) (the factory 56 passenger sedan came with a 205 hp 4 bbl, hydraulic engine) So we used a dealer bought 210 hp cam. It may have been same grind as the dual carb 225 hp 1956 engine ??? Ran about even 15 to 15.10 sec. what I recall was on about mid 14's record. Ran in the 14's a few times. Our best was about 14.70's or so. About that time stock "cheater" cams were being developed by Jenkins & Stahl, etc. We didn't know much about them at all. Let alone get one. We had heard Crane made stock "blueprinted" regrinds...so we got one and put it in our 2nd years 1967 racing year engine, that was still a TRW engine, but we tried some new "tricks", and a Crane "blueprinted" cam. The new engine wasn't much faster than the first one we built the year before. We tried several things to get more speed out of it, and eventually put a dealer stock cam back in it and it ran quicker...we never understood that. But years later I found out that many of the GM factory cams were not ground exactly to original specs, and could be better power wise, than a "blueprinted" cam. But you could get disqualified (at Natl event) with the factory cam, because it may not meet NHRA's tech book specs. One time we sent a letter to Bill Jenkins .... and to our surprise, he responded. No idea now, how we found his address. We were real amateurs then, so we needed help We asked about spark plugs and carbs settings. Maybe something else, don't recall what else. Maybe rear gear ratios. Were were using regular Champion J12Y spark plugs, and he told us to use to use XJ20Y's , (could then run richer carbs settings) and to set up the front float (I think) real high in carb, and it helped reduce the "bog down" right off the staring line. ...worked! ...picked up two or three tenths. Our car was real quick off the line after that. We made our own copper coiled cool can. Could put ice in it .....not sure it made much difference in our car.
Great Stories Shain post anything you remember. Your story sounds like mine same type of thing. I too built my own cool can out of copper tubing and put it in a Coffee can that was from a store with a lid cost about a dollar or something. Ended up soldiering a radiator drain petcock in the bottom AFTER the first week when all the ice melted into water and had no way to get it out LOL.
I know it sounds really far fetched, but we did it by sending a letter that just needed blanks filled in to answer the questions, and included a return address stamped envelope....I do remember that. And it was 1966 so Jenkins was really still working mostly on Jr stocker stuff and hadn't gotten into match racing and the big, big time. He was racing his first 66 Nova small block, as I recall, and wasn't as famous as he became a little later. I just don't recall how we got his address ?? I worked in a speed shop them ...so could have been through a rep from a speed equipment company...or ? We sold Hooker, Moroso, Holley, Crane, Weiand, etc etc, and the company reps came to the shop every once in a while, and would call the factories some to order parts.
The fellow on this site goes by the "Kentuckian" is who bought the car from my father. Back in 1983. Lee,
Yes, I was their first "employee". Helped them get into the speed shop business...about 1965-66. Charley left Raceland and started doing machine work in his garage/basement. Sold parts with Rose and helped in their first shop, on the east side of the bridge at about 84th & Blondo. Later moved across the creek, west, to the last shop they had in Omaha. (their 3 boys were kids then.) When I went back to college, I still worked there part time for several more years selling speed parts. Later "Charleys Speed and Machine" move to Blair. Another cool tid bit and claim to fame....one day in the late 60's early 70's, Don Garlits came into the shop to buy spark plugs for his dragster. I think he ran an exhibition at Omaha Dragway ...maybe a match race. Some one had sent him, to see Rose. We might have ordered some for him, don't recall. You've got to realize this was in Omaha, Nebraska...not at the Nationals. Was cool to talk to him right across the counter. I remember when the shop was buried with business (late 1960's early 70's), especially on Sat. The parts counter & retail area was lined with people waiting. Drag racing was in it's hey day then. The machine shop was full too. Both drag racers and circle track racers would have Charley machine/build their engines. I learned a lot from Charley. I didn't see them a lot later...I had my own career, and kind of got out of building cars. Went to the Blair shop a few times to visit, but not much. I didn't know Charley had passed, a few years ago. And I didn't know until a year or so after he passed. Felt bad that I didn't know about it, when it happened.
The Grump,and Jere Stahl both did the Tech Corner for Super Stock magazine.They both answered readers questions on all makes of cars.The Grumps column started about 1965 after he won the NHRA Championship in his Plymouth.I will try to post some of the columns.
Thanks Lyn, I know I'm not the only one that would love to "hear" the Grumps thoughts. BTW, didn't you belong to NNN in the 80's?
Thank Lyn, very cool stuff to read. Jenkins magazine column must have been how we got info from him. Building the 56 Chevy Jr stocker and all the experimenting, changing, and trying different stuff.... was intriguing, challenging, and very interesting to do. We just didn't have the money to get the good and trick goodies. And I learned a lot from Charley about engine building, and then combined it with what was necessary to build a NHRA car. Charley wasn't really a race car builder, rather a excellent and talented machinist/racing engine builder. All of it .....I guess that's why I ended up staying in engineering design field,
Sorry, but one more..... We sold our car mainly because of NHRA's changing the class breakdowns. We were at almost the best and nearly the end of the breakdown at just over the 15.60 class min. weight to hp ratio. NHRA changed it to 15.00, so we would have then been at the wrong end of the ratio. We would have to change body styles, or go to dual quad set up, and change body styles...etc etc. It just wasn't in the cards. My partner got married over that same winter, and that was it for us. A couple of years later NHRA famously threw out all the 55-57 Chevy car set ups anyway (and others), that had helped the average racer have so much fun. And went to what was I think a 10 year old rule where you couldn't use stock class cars older than 10 years old...literately cut thousands of guys off at the knees. Just plain stupid..... At about the same time I built a tow car. It was a 56 Nomad and paid $125 for it, a complete decent car, but no engine or trans. Had a garage full of 56 Chevy spare parts, so.... I put our first 1966 version engine in it and drove it on the street. Put in a Borg Warner T-10 4 speed, and an early corvette dual quad set up that we had bought, when considered maybe using it some day on the Jr Stocker. Painted it Corvette bronze. Loved that car. Those really were the days....can never forget all the good times we had. Never can replace the experience. Never had another 55-57 Chevy after about 1975. Had maybe 20 different ones. About 2 years ago, I got a 55 Chevy Delray 2dr 265, power glide, pretty much stock, from my brother in law, that had owned it about 30 years (his son had it in high school) I was with him when he bought originally. Needs new springs, steering fixed, and a few other things. Already bought some new chrome stuff. Here I am 50 years later at it again !!
This must have been the introduction of Jenkins to the Tech Corner. It's from the December 1964 issue.
Great find Tim.I will post a picture of my pc of Grumpy owned Jr stock memorabilia later tonight.Stay tuned.
Purchased this Torque wrench from Grumpy's estate after he passed.We think he won it in 1965 when he won NHRA championship with the Plymouth.If only it could talk and tell us of some of the engines it torqued parts on to.