I raced an F/Stock AMX 1968 and '69. Sponsored by Riverdale Rambler. Name on car was " Family Affair " Division 1. Ran best of 12.85 when record was 12.82. Engine was stock the only change was Ford rocker arm studs and nuts so as to adjust valves. Factory cam, no Lunati regrind available at the time..I have a picture of the car somewhere but have not seen it for many years. If I can locate it I will scan it. Thanks for asking about AMX's...
Colesy - I can't answer the question about the Buckles, but you are probably correct in assuming father and son. For the last week I have been trying to edit the audio on a video clip I took from Charlie Hampp Sr.'s DVD. The DVD was a gift from friends who had a bunch of Charlie's 8mm movies converted, mostly family stuff with some racing thrown in, hence the music. Kinda neat to find footage with Charlie Jr., Pop Buckles, Tim Bishop and Jay Wheatley and Alex Jarrell competing all on the same day. Pop's car is at the 2:19 mark where the film is degraded a good bit. <object height="344" width="425"> <embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/Pv7hc1a3Eek&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" height="344" width="425"></object>
That would be the Ron Garey/Ben Price 68 H/O. Found and currently in restoration by my friend Steve Hunkins in Columbus, Oh. He found the car in a field in S.E. Ohio in 2008. There were pix of it posted on here earlier. My original car has'nt been located.
If my memory is correct, I think that the Ron Garey '68 H/O was actually not a REAL H/O. The car was "made" into a H/O before it was ever raced. Back then the term "clone" was never an issue and I am pretty sure most people ( at least the Olds guys) knew that the car had been mocked up. The parts used were the real deal but the car started life as a lesser model.
While reading the coverage of Stock Eliminator at the 70 Winternationals in an old Car Craft it said that the 57 Chevy stick shift guys were affected by the 4 to 3 speed ruling. Whats the whole story behind this? From what I understand the 4 speed was available only in the Vette in 57 but they allowed the other cars to run it for a few years? Is this correct?
As were most 1963-64 426 Plymouths. Mine was an "Assembled car" Still have it. I know of at least 5 of the most successful Plymouths some are still racing which never started life as 426 Maximum Performance cars much less station wagons with aluminum front ends. Back then numbers matching was unheard of..
In '57, the 4 speed was installed at the factory only in the Corvette. It WAS, however, available as a dealer installed option for other models. You could order a 2 door hardtop, for example, WITH a 4 speed but it came in the trunk. Skip Asay
That's about the size of it. The same "reinterpretation" of the rules also wiped out the advantage that had been enjoyed by sedan delivery/Hydromatic transmission combinations. The manual transmission rule affected year models other than '57. I don't remember it all but it seems that, for example, models such as a '59 Chevy with a 348 engine could be ordered with a 4-speed but a '59 with a 283 could not. The rules held racers to a tighter interpretation of the "cross-breeding" rules than had previously been enforced. A sedan delivery could be ordered with a Powerglide or a three-speed but not a Hydro. There were several outcomes to the scenario. For example, dozens of sedan deliveries lost their competitive edge while Powerglide/stall converter applications became more popular. Some manufacturers lost an edge while others like A-1 Transmissions, specializing in Powerglides ended up with a windfall of business. In spite of the "reinterpretation," tri-five Chevys continued to be very popular in Stock using Powerglide transmissions until the coup-de-grace was delivered at the end of the '71 season.
Thanks Chuck! Yes, that Car Craft article also said that Marv Ripes had good success with the same 57 Chevy that John Barkley won the 68 Winternationals with by using one of his trick A-1 Powerglide convertors.
ChuckThe 59 Chev 250 and 290hp F.I. was available with a 4 speed the 290HPand 4 speed was about 12 to 15 hundred extraold-old timerps My 59 Bel Air was a 230 3 speed car new but I talked the dealer out of the 335 hp348 out of a repo el cam. that they couldn't sell. After the eng. switch it sold within a week. I got the eng and did all the work for a charge to me of 150.00
The coup-de-grace that Chuck is referring to is when Stock was dropped entirely. All Stockers had to move into Super Stock or the new categorie they dreamed up soon after....Pure Stock..... The car we had previoulsy raced had to move from H/S to SS/J. Change the cam and the intake and add some bigger rear tires and a low 12 second car goes deep in the 11's. Pure Stock was a direction most former Stock racers didn't want to go in. Seemd like a big step backwards not forwards....and it never really caught on.
This is absolutely correct. The F-85 "police car package" car was taken from the showroom floor and converted to H/O. Oldsmobile provided us with the entire conversion package that was used in then Demmer shop to make the "real" H/O's. The only difference in this car is that the conversion was done in "our shop" rather than in the Demmer shop. This is also the reason that if you have seen any pics of the car in restoration you can see some of the original red paint that has appeared after the silver paint has peeled off. NHRA certified this car to run as H/O. Also, still in the car today is the original "police certified" printing on the speedometer face. Its just amazing that another good ex-racecar has been found and is being "period" restored. Can you say "CLONE"?? When do you all suppose the term "clone" was first used to describe a car project?? Maybe this car was ONE of the FIRST CLONE's of the muscle car era?!!!! Guess Steve can call his H/O a WOP! (WithOut Papers)! I would guess that there were many 63-68 Mopar "clone" project racecars done before this H/O.! LOL
Thanks a buch Colsey!! I've never seen that pic of my car before!! Yes, indeed, we did run the "tunnel-tube" O-K Kustom Headers on the car. Would sure like to get a copy of that catalogue? Any idea where i could snag one?? Thanks again for finding a posting the pic!! Tweed
Colsey - Just took a closer look at this pic and see that it was actually an Indy 1970 Nationals pic. That was my car number that year - and also the car has the 1970 Ohio license tag on it(R 1262 H) "proclaiming" the fastest run the car ever made -- 12.62 - sometime during the 69 season at Suffolk!! (downhill with wind at your back!) LOL. Thanks again for finding the pic!!! Tweed
Sorry, I made a reference to the '59 example on the basis of second-hand information. I was told many years ago that a '59 Biscayne 283, 230 hp car that was built to run a 4-speed in Junior Stock had been legislated to run a 3-speed and, therefore, out of existence in that bloodbath and I extrapolated the information incorrectly. In thinking back, I don't recall anyone running an injected small-block '59 during the Junior Stock era around here so that combination must not have been particularly favorable for some reason. I do note that the current NHRA Class Guide includes the FI-283 combination as a valid Super Stock possibility, however. The 1972 "coup-de-grace" was indeed a serious blow to the tri-fives. "Pure Stock" in its original format didn't last very long and the designation "Pure" passed from the scene even more quickly in both description and practice. Within two or three years it was back to pretty much the Junior Stock configuration with a couple of significant tweaks, i.e., factory pistons were mandated for about the first 15 or 20 years, nine-inch slicks were allowed instead of seven-inch, no cars older than 1960, etc. The original rules called for Stock to have no cars older than ten years but cooler heads prevailed on that issue. Fairly quickly, the racers divided themselves into the group who pursued the Super Stock pathway and those of us who were, by choice or necessity, content to work within the evolving rules structure and remain in Stock. By the time I built my first Stocker under the new rules for the 1975 season, 9" tires were legal, we were allowed to trailer cars into the track, exhaust systems were not required, and Junior Stock rate-of-lift-type cam profiles were common. In the end, as I see it, the most obvious lasting effects of the change-over were to strengthen Super Stock and remove pre-1960 cars from Stock.
Kevin Siebert drove the '71 version of the Siebert Olds, he took me out in the first round of I/SA at the '71 Nationals. John
good stuff there Bob !!! Clyde Petrusik had that Mustang forever...Bowers old Camaro Convert pic is a classic...HAROLD'S AUTOMOTIVE on the 1/4 panel is the same shop that did Leroy Hoaglin and John Lingenfelter's crankshaft work back in the early/mid-70's...CB
jrstock if your still checking this post on the fourth page or so the callahan and sulc 62 plymouth "the villain" came up. my dad bought this car in about 1982 and we still have it can anyone out there help me with info on this car i can find a few old pictures but nothing about this history except some short clips in the old magazines. here is what i know it was bought from the east coast and brought back here and raced by a guy named rick johnson. along with this car al osters car one step beyond was brought and raced by john murphy who named it decimation my dad i beleived owned the 63 plymouth of al osters for a short period but sold it and later traded for callahan and sulcs 62 plymouth from a man who bought it from rick. we have had it ever since please any info on this car and al osters would be amazingly helpful thank you guys!!! i will put up a couple pictures of this car also!!
youngmopar, I don't know about this specific car but I know that Rick Johnson was/is a Super Stock racer from the twin cities. He raced SS 68 Cudas into at least the early/mid 80s. He might still be in the area. Another guy you might try talking to is Chuck Lofgren. Go to lofgrenauto.com. He raced stockers back in the day around Division 5 and the Twin Cities area and might be of some help. If I find any more info i will pass it along. Goodluck!
we are still somewhat in contact with rick johnson, he is racing a factory 68 hemi barracuda he had a 64 dodge for awhile but i dont know what happened to it but we still see him from time to time at brainerd he still remembers the 62. i might have to bug him alittle more for some pictures back when he had his name on the side of it but anything else would be awesome to know about this car im slowly gathering old magazines with it in it and getting a few odds and ends pictures of it most of them were from the later year when frank iaconio was driving it. nothing much before that point though
In case some of you have not seen the old track in a few years, here's where all those Bluegrass shots were taken. Sad, but at least it's not sitting dormant like many great old tracks.
Some of the post here you also may want to check out are; page 250 #4993 - from March 1970 SS&DI magazine page 121 #2418 - Raceway News page 98 #1954 - Speed & Supercar magazine Hopefully some of the Division 1 folks can help you out with more information.
The Callahan and Sulc Plymouth won the Gatornationals in 1970. It was the first year for that race. Tommy Callahan and Frank Sulc were regulars at all the races with the car. They got some help from Chrysler and built a Challenger convertible. It was a small block and they were racing it and Frank Iaconio started to race the '62. One night up in Sanair, Tommy flipped the Challenger and it was destroyed. He was ok but I recall his helmet had scrape marks on it from contact with the ground. A wheel was broken and a lot of us thought that is what caused the crash. It was during a warmup race that they held that night and the WCS race was the next day. Tommy jumped in the '62 and won the race on sunday. Frank I. tried racing the '62 with a stickshift trans for a short period. Only a 3 speed was legal and it did not work very well. Al Olster's Plymouth was called One Step beyond.....There was a TV show on around that time with that title. Science fiction..... He did well with the Plymouth and then built and raced a '69 Camaro with T/K power that gave the Mopars a headache! Al was a pretty funny guy and could afford the best and he had the best engines under the hoods of his cars. I think at one time he had Bill Jenkins engines.....
The 59 Chevy L/S was the former Jon Calender car that won Jr Stock at 65 Nats? It was owned and being campained in this pic by "Honest" Jerry Marteney from Ohio(see lettering under window on door) who bought it from Calendar after that Indy win. Actually I think this pic is from a points meet at Bluegrass where "Honest" Jerry lowered the class record. He was so "Honest" that he would NOT allow his car to run with a VACUUM LEAK!!! Later he had to "digress" and "join em" - the 'Leakers" in order to stay competitive in his class!
The Jalopy Journal
