History Keith Black- History? Info?

I KNOW we have all heard about him. He was, from my understanding, an engine master. Does anyone have any information on the man? History? I'm curious as hell. I just read in TRJ about him building an engine for Tony Nancy, and it piqued my interest..

 

By the way the wiki article on him is pretty vague...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keith_Black_(engineer)

 

http://www.keithblack.com/history.html

 

Some entertaining stuff about Keith can be found in the book High Performance, by Robert Post...you can usually get it through your local library, if not the usual sources. Well worth the read...it covers drag racing from 1950-1990, from a technological progress point-of-view. Sounds boring, but isn't. Chassis Research, Garlits, Swingle, Ivo, and a cast of hundreds more. I've read it at least four times, learn something new each time.

 

When I was in high school I wanted to grow up to be Keith Black.

 

Ha-ha...I can't say that I was that extreme, but I would always stare and drool at the Keith Black Hemis in the magazines and then picture them in every car imaginable: Willys, Vegas, my mom's van.....

 

I had the good fortune to work for Keith in the early 70's as a crankshaft grinder. Keith was the real thing a gentleman and innovator. To bad he died so early.

Randy Bradford
www.bradfordsfiat.com