Art & Inspiration Traditional images that need no explanation.

Nice line up here, the Dick Flint roadster, owned by Duane Kofoed at the time, Sam Conrad’s Olds powered highboy, Dick Scritchfield’s highboy and a couple more bringing up the rear.

 

Hello,

When we were ready to race our newly constructed 1940 Willys Coupe for the B/gas class at Lion’s Dragstrip, they wanted to know which altered class we wanted to register. Why? It is a stock bodied coupe, fully street legal with lights, license plate and full muffler system. Well, we had taken off the front bumper and attached the custom tow bar to the brackets. That pushed a street legal coupe build into the altered coupe class. The ruling was complete from the 1958 rule book:

In other words, a stock body coupe or sedan with allowable modified motors. At the time of 1958-60, superchargers were rare and that ruling was there, but not strictly enforced.

Our Willys was complete and we drove it licensed for the street prior to towing it to Lion’s Dragstrip. the tech committee said if we had a front bumper, we could be in the Gas Coupe and Sedan class, instead of being pushed into the “Modified” Altered Class. The Altered Coupes and sedans had full modifications, including a 25% set back, no fenders and bumpers, etc. In other words, a full on race car only and certainly not for the street legal usage.

Jnaki

Luckily, we lived a 1.5 mile distance away and I drove home to get the front bumper and bolts. When attached, they gave us the B/Gas designation. Otherwise, it was going to go into the B/Atered class. Yikes…

Eventually, with a total rebuild of the original 283 to 292 C.I. we stayed in the B/Gas class. When the 671 supercharger was added, it was still in the B/gas class, as there weren’t enough supercharged cars to make up a special class and we were all lumped in together. The E.T. times were similar, with only a few standing out and winning.

We knew that it would take welded in, added steel plates over the rear wheels in the trunk to give us the difference to get into the C/Gas class. Welded in was required, not bolted in place. It gave the trunk and rear area rigidity and support for the hard acceleration.

So, with the 671 292 motor, the added extra weight welded in place, our 1940 Willys Coupe ended up in the C/Gas Coupe Class. We were within a .25 off of the National Record for the C/Gas Coupe class.

The odd thing was, in a story report in August of 1960, the reporter made an error in his story of the Albertson Oldsmobile FED race car win streak being stopped at 12 consecutive weeks by a C/Altered coupe exploding the clutch all over the dragstrip and resulting fire. Accuracy was obviously lacking.

 

Looks like Hayden Profitt and Mickey Thompson.

 

I'm STILL waiting on those hovercrafts they promised us...