Norm Ellefson
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Norm Ellefson (born in Edmonton, Alberta) is a retired Canadian racecar driver whose career spanned the period from 1954 until 1980.
His major accomplishments were winning the CAMRA Championships in 1966, 1967 and 1969.
He had a brief stint in the USAC. He entered 2 races in 1968 but didn't qualify for either. Entered 1 race in 1971 Kent, Wa USAC/SCCA roadrace.
It all began for me in Calgary, Alberta on a Saturday night, August 1954. I was walking a girl home from an early movie date and stopped at The Whitespot restaurant for pie and coffee. While sitting in the café, I noticed a guy in white coveralls walk to the corner of 4th St. & 11th Avenue and into the middle of the intersection. He held up his hands and stopped traffic and all of a sudden like a bat out of hell a sprint car went by. I jumped up, paid for the treats and ran outside. To my amazement, down at the corner of 4th and 12th was another guy in white stopping traffic. These crazies were using public streets to “tune their cars” for an upcoming race the next day. They had a ½ mile course mapped out – 2 blocks on 12th, one block on 5th, then 2 blocks on 11th, then 1 block on 3rd. Makes sense - it’s a half mile. On the corner of 4th and 12th was Big Jim Ward’s service station. That was the hangout and headquarters you could say for The Alberta Auto Racing Association. Guys like Jim Ward, George LeMay, Frank Janett, Frankie Taylor, Jim Moorehead, Len Erlam, Lorne Guerin, Bob Rogers, Jack Landage and a host of others. I had always wanted to be a race car driver. When I was asked at 5 years of age what I wanted to be, I said “I want to be a race car driver.” Now where I came up with that idea in Edmonton, Alberta in 1937 is a good question.
So on that night in August ’54, I got to meet some of the ‘boy’s’. Later that month, the local newspaper ran an ad looking for race car drivers. There was a speedway being built south of Calgary for stock car racing, or as we call it now, jalopy racing. That was the break I was looking for! I approached my employer at The Magic Shop for money and bought a 1937 Ford sedan delivery and my brother in law, Ray Bassett, put in roll bars and a crash guard and we went racin!
Opening day at Springbank Speedway was Labour Day weekend 1954. It was a real zoo - no one knew what was going on. We just went out and raced whenever they called our number (5). At the end of the day, we were standing around BS’ing and I asked the guy who was pitted next to us whether we got any money for this. His name was Phil Kurley and he said let’s go see. Down by the start-finish line was a group standing around yelling out car numbers. I hollered out “5”, the guy took a minute figuring and said you won $75.00. WOW! Here I’ve got a $100 car and just won $75.00 How easy was that! Little did I know how tough the road would be to become a racer.
We raced Tuesday and Friday nights that fall till Thanksgiving day, October 12 in Canada and I did all right. I was really lucky though, because by that time, George LeMay returned from the IMCA (International Motor Contest Association) circuit and I was running his number 5. He watched me and then decided to take me under his wing and “shape me up” as he put it. He taught me the basics of being a racer, about engines, and most importantly, about chassis set-ups.
I caught some more luck in 1955 when I was hired to drive “THE HUDSON”. This was a car built by Andy Russell from Hamill Motors in Calgary and the thing was a rocket from the start. It took about 2 weeks to get our feet on the ground. One Tuesday night, Lemay swept the program in his famous ‘77’ car. He won 3 fast heats and the Main event - the first time that was ever done at Springbank Speedway. On Friday night it was my turn to sweep the program in the Fabulous Hudson Hornet (a 262 super wasp motor with dual carbs in a ‘39 Hudson coupe body). From then on it was ‘Katie, bar the door’!
The other racers didn’t like it that Ford, Chevrolet, nor Dodge made dual carbs, so we were told to take them off, and we told them to go to hell – and the war was on. Needless to say, it was not too productive from then on. It finally ended when J R Hamill (owner of Hamill Motors) pulled the engine out of the car and banished all racers from his garage. Too bad because we were a great team.
In 1956, I picked up a ride with Dave Kroker in the OK Tire ‘37 Ford 3-window coupe and it was another good situation. Dave was a hard worker and a very good mechanic. He could go faster with nothing than a lot of guys could with a million dollars and we won a lot of races together. Plus I think we won the championship that year.
We journeyed back and forth to Edmonton a lot that year and that was really tough. Edmonton was getting into overhead valve engines and we were still running a flat head Ford, but we were running it hard and won a couple. I got noticed again, this time by Zane Feldman from Crosstown Motors in Edmonton. Zane was losing his driver Richard “KID” Klatt who was moving to the US. I hooked up with Zane and Crosstown Motors and became “The Crosstown Cowboy”. I was named that by Eddie “TIGER” Matan, another racecar driver. I had gone to school with Eddie and we became good buddies and hung out together. Tragically, the next summer, Tiger lost his life in a boating accident and the whole community was saddened by it. Auto racing was very big in Edmonton in those days and it even outdrew football. Tiger’s funeral procession was one of the longest the city had ever seen.
We had been trying to make a Rambler V8 stay together in the Crosstown car without much success. It would go like hell for the heat races, but blow up in the main and we weren’t gaining any ground. Zane Feldman from Crosstown Motors bought Tiger Matan’s racecar from his widow Jackie, and we were off to the races! We also joined up with Robert “Shorty” Moore and again I got a lucky break. Shorty was another one of those guys that could just make stuff happen. We won a lot of races together.
The first big win was The MATAN 100 in 1959 - a race to honor the memory of Tiger Matan which was won in his car with his crew chief and his good friend Norm at the wheel. Pretty special. I still have the gold ring from that win, and I also won it twice more in my career. We went on to win the championship that year and looked ahead to the next year with a lot of enthusiasm.
Well, as all racers know, the best laid plans of mice and men, often go astray. We were starting to have engine issues with the 292 Ford in the car and our reliability was heading downhill in a hand basket. Every week it was something new with the motor and we struggled for most of the season.
In 1960, on Gold Cup night, magic struck again. We had been having problems with the number 1 spark plug wire falling off. On race day, I taped them all on with black plastic electricians tape. That only lasted about 20 laps into the 200 lap Gold Cup race, so we just motored on. Well, the track got oiled up and slick as snotty glass but we kept on plugging. Then it dropped another cylinder so now I’m on 6 cylinders floggin’ away. As luck would have it, crunch time came with 5 laps to go and Logan Harter from Seattle was coming like a house on fire. He pulled to the outside of me off turn 4, and we headed down the main straight to a hole that only one of us was going to go through because of the wrecked cars on the track. Logan had a big Hemi Mopar just gushing power and couldn’t get hold of anything, while I was toodling along in my 6 cylinder, no power, hooked up like jack the bear and I beat him to the hole. End of story. I won the Gold Cup on 6 cylinders in front of the largest crowd ever seen in Edmonton. Home town boy makes good!
About this time, we recognized that we’re going to have to run against these guys from the States when we have big events like the Gold Cup. They always come to take our money! Zane Feldman decided that instead of building a car in Edmonton, why not buy one from the States that will give us a leg up. Bob Hissett and I journeyed off to Portland and bought Benny Zackett’s car - an offset modified with Mopar power. We brought it back to Edmonton and did quite well with it, but it was still lacking when it came to the big races. We sat outside the pole with Art Pollard in 1961, but didn’t have much for him. I was never happy with this car, though it won a lot of local races. We ran the car for about a year and a half and finally sold it to George Butler. I just never liked that car; it didn’t have the feel I guess. That was the car that George Butler crashed in the wall and a fire broke out and he was seriously burned.
We next set our sights on Art Pollard’s car which had won The Gold Cup three times. The first was with the great Ernie Koch of Portland, Oregon driving and Keith Randoll turning the wrenches. At the time, the car had a 292 GMC in it and it was a killer car. Fast! And Koch could sure as hell drive it. The next two times Art Pollard showed up with it and slayed everyone in its’ path throughout the Pacific Northwest. When Art Pollard wanted to sell, Crosstown, & I bought the car.
The only mistake we made was putting a Hemi DeSoto in it which was a good motor and made good power, but it was like driving around with a huge rock in your pocket. It weighed about 250 lbs. more than a Chevy small block. We ran the car about a year and a half, and then the engine blew. I sat down with Zane Feldman and talked to him about putting a Chevy engine in the car. Well, Zane was a Chrysler- Dodge dealer - the biggest in Canada at the time and he wouldn’t hear of that. His plan was to have Richard Chevalier of Edmonton rebuild the Mopar but I objected, so we had a parting of the ways. I really felt bad because Zane was a great sponsor and a great guy - he had a winner’s heart.
In 1964, I left Edmonton and went to Calgary. I’d heard Frank Janett had a car built by Grant King and was looking for a driver, so we hooked up. Frank had this young kid by the name of Dale Armstrong turning wrenches on the car, who would later go on to be Kenny Bernstein’s crew chief for many years and made quite a name for himself as the highest paid crew chief in the business.
Our last race of the year was at Meridian, Idaho in Sept, 1964. We won the ‘B’ portion of the program for my first win on the road.
We started the next spring at Victoria, BC. That was during Frank’s drinking days so we didn’t buy much new stuff for the car, like tires or spark plugs and the like. But on this day, he put in a new set of plugs and it was like getting 50 more horsepower. We won the fast heat and finished somewhere in the main.
Next was on to Meridian, Idaho again with a stop first in Vancouver, WA. We were traveling with Bob Gregg and he was showing us the ropes.
At Meridian racetrack, I was involved in my first big crash of 1965. I was passing Bud Hoezle on the outside coming off turn 2 when he stuck me in the fence. The car launched and I thought we were headed for the cow barn since that’s where a lot of guys landed. Instead, it rolled off into the infield and I got out with that ‘racetrack rash’ all over me. Two days later, I was back in the car and struggling on. Frank couldn’t maintain us financially on the road so he threw in the towel. I was always grateful, though, for the chance he gave me. It got me noticed and as luck would have it, Tom Fox, who was driving for Bob Morgan, bought the old Billy Foster car and struck out on his own leaving Bob Morgan looking for a driver.
I got the nod and drove the ‘T Bucket’ (a Morgan called it) for Morgan at Salt Lake City. Well, I got the surprise of my life the first time I stepped on the throttle. You talk about horsepower! You talk about RPM! Morgan liked to run the motor 7000 to 8000 rpm and remember this is in 1965. I won the ‘A’ main the first night and finished 5-6th after 2days and then we were off to Pocatello, Idaho. I finished second there and then on to Meridian, Idaho and I won the overall for two days.
I had finally arrived. Next I went to Spokane, WA for a new track record. I broke in the main but Morgan fixed us up and we came back Sunday and broke the track record again and won the main. Then it was on to Edmonton and The Gold Cup where we over-powered the race track with too much gear. Jerry Malloy put the overdrive gear in Jim Malloy’s roadster and won the event. We got second.
On to Victoria, BC and it was wild and wooly out there as always. There was a big wreck at the start of the ‘A’ main between turns one and two. I was up in the grass and bushes of turn one, pointed towards turn two, when I saw a lane open right down the backstretch. I stabbed it and just about cleared the mess when Max Dudley, who had been out off turn two doing some excavating thought he would drive into the pits. Well, I drove up over the front-end of Max and launched up into the air. It came down nose first and with the big club on the right, it broke the tie rod end. It turned right and slammed into the big rock that used to be on the back straight. And all this at full throttle! It was my second big crash of the year.
We took the car back to Morgan’s place in Seattle, had it repaired and ready for Meridian again two weeks later and won again. Next was the last CAMRA (Canadian American Modified Racing Association) show of the year in Salt Lake City and we were ready. We had fast time and things were looking great. I was following Jim Malloy, rolling along on the outside busting traffic and just waiting till we got clear. We came up on this group and Jim slides by. Dick Simon jumps out where there wasn’t a hole and slammed me into the Armco just coming off turn four with my foot just buried in it. Well, it bounced back and I’m still on it and it goes in again - and that finished Bob Morgan’s T Bucket. I loved that car. I went home to Edmonton licking my wounds and getting ready for next year.
We opened at Spokane racetrack in the spring of 1966. Bob Morgan bought a Tipke Roadster over the winter, so we thought we’d open where the car builder lived - just in case. Well, it was a good thing since I crashed the car in the main trying to pass Bob Gregg on the outside - a lesson well learned. We took the car to Seattle and did some straightening and started on the CAMRA tour a couple of weeks later.
We based out of Boise because it was central to the circuit, except for those long trips to Edmonton. We had a mediocre start learning the new car and such, but problems were beginning to show up with the chassis. It would qualify okay, then in the heat race it would get a little wormy. By the main, it would start to shake and vibrate in the corners and the wheels would dance - it was weird. It was like the old war movies with the guy in the plane in a power dive with the plane shaking and vibrating as it neared the sound barrier and instead of pulling back on the stick, he shoves it forward and BOOM - he’s through the sound barrier. I tried that sequence at a CAMRA show in Spokane one night. The car started to shake and ordinarily I’d lift then gather it back again. But this time, I said to hell with it and stayed in the throttle. Well, it shook and rattled and rolled down to about the start finish line where it spun out. There I was sitting sideways in the middle of the race track. Unfortunately in those days, the lighting on the speedway was so you could see up to the start-finish line, but it was like driving into a dark room on the other side of it. So the big crash came and we repaired the car at Tipke’s shop in Spokane. While we were there Morgan took some long timbers and stuck one in the nose and one through the tail and we twisted the chassis and it moved about 4 inches. We put some gussets in that old girl and roared off to Edmonton to win The Gold Cup.
That win involved a big controversy. I had a lap or better on the field, and I stopped at the flagman for an instant to point out a very dangerous situation on the back stretch. In the meantime, Al Smith from Victoria passed me. As he went by, I pulled out and tailed him until we went back to green once the back straight was cleaned up. I was going to attempt to pass him, but the risk wasn’t worth it with only about 15 laps to go and being a lap ahead. I just kept him in sight and took the checkered flag.
Well, all hell broke loose then! Promoter Percy Booth and Al Smith’s car owner, Geoff Vantreight (who had been in the scoring booth sucking on a jug of that good Canadian Whiskey) and Percy Booth declared Al Smith the winner! So my car owner and CAMRA president, Bob Morgan, filed a protest. By 2AM, after counting the lap sheets, we were declared the winner and left town for Victoria. The next day, Percy Booth fired the lap counter, Sid Collins and his crew, and declared Al Smith the winner again. The battle continued without our knowledge until the following Thursday when Hal Parson, sports editor of the Edmonton Journal, brought Sid Collins into the newspaper office and went over the scoring sheets and agreed we had won the race. We never got paid from Percy Booth for winning the race, and as far as Percy goes, he went to his grave thinking he was right.
The next weekend’s race was at Geoff Vantreight’s race track in Victoria and Al Smith’s home track. Guess who won the Daffodil Cup? That’s right - the good guy Norm Ellefson who was 1st, Bob Gregg 2nd and Al Smith (Vantreight’s driver and farm foreman) 3rd.
We left there and headed to Boise to finish off the CAMRA season on Sept.10, 1966 in a tight points battle with Bob Gregg, George Robertson and Ralph Monhay. Ralph Monhay had a good year that year, but was plagued by engine failures throughout the season. If it hadn’t been for that, he may have captured the title.
We won the main in Meridian and the CAMRA Championship. They had the banquet immediately after the race, so I picked up my hardware and headed for Portland, Oregon at 2 a.m. John Gregg, Bob Gregg’s son, had landed me a ride in Bob White’s roadster for the Sunday afternoon event at Portland Speedway. We got fast time, won the dash and fast heat and lost the quick change gears while leading the main. Not bad for my first time in the car and first time on the track. Bob White was good enough to put in a word for me with Rolla Vollstedt, an Indy car owner in Portland, but more on that later.
In the spring of 1967, I was working in Edmonton and got a call from Bill Crow in Boise who wanted me to come down for their opener on Easter weekend. I told Bill I didn’t have a ride and he said come on down and drive my car, so I took off. When I got there, Bill told me there was a slight problem. He and his partner in the car had got into an argument over me driving the car so I didn’t have a ride. I stayed for the race and represented CAMRA as the defending champ with nothing to defend.
On the way back to Edmonton, I stopped at Jim Tipke’s race shop in Spokane and asked if he knew of anyone looking for a driver. He told me about the Morin brothers - Charlie and Jim. They had a Tipke roadster (the twin to Morgan’s car), so I looked them up and made a deal. We opened in Spokane about six weeks later and I won the main - and as a matter of fact, I won quite a few mains that year.
Chuck and Jim were quite a pair. Jim was the more cerebral of the two and Chuck was the hard worker. Every time the car ran, it was torn down, gone over, massaged and polished inside and out. It was as good every time as the first time I drove it. It had big power by Dick Flynn (who Charlie worked for). Don Wilbur was an associate sponsor on “The Lucky Lager Special” - it was really a great car.
We were in Victoria for the Labor Day CAMRA show - The Daffodil Cup. Eldon Rasmussen had invited Jim Hayhoe, an Indy car owner, up to watch him drive. Unfortunately for Eldon, I won the race in Victoria and Nanaimo that weekend. Hayhoe congratulated me and told me he would give Vollstedt a holler about me, since he already had a driver, Bruce Walkup. We won The Greater Inland Empire Stock Car Racing Association championship, CAMRA championship, and the Race of Champions at Umatilla Speedway for Oregon, Idaho and Washington.
That fall, I got a call from Rolla Vollstedt who was going to be in Spokane on business and wanted to talk to me. I got hold of Don Wilbur, who was an associate sponsor on the ‘98’ car (and a pretty sharp guy to have around) and he and I sat down with Rolla. He offered me a ride in his Indy Car. The only problem was I had to pay him $2,000 every time I got in the car, which I couldn’t do. We tried to raise the money in Spokane, but to no avail. We went all the way to the Spokane Athletic Round Table, but we just couldn’t get a break
I was traveling back and forth from Spokane to Portland in the spring of 1968. I stopped to talk to Jim Hayhoe and he told me he needed a metal man to get his Indy cars finished. I told him to contact Jim Tipke in Spokane, one of the truly great fabricators and they hooked up. Jim got me in the door when they started the move back to Indy. I went along as a stooge on the Cleaver Brooks racing team owned by Jim Hayhoe with crew chief Keith Randol and Ernie Koch - it was just like old times week.
The Morin brothers had built me a new car for the 1968 season. It was a new style Tipke Roadster he call the 27T car. We started off by winning the first three races that year and then I left for the Indy 500. I worked back there for the month of May and schmoozed my old pal Art Pollard who tried to get me hooked up in a sprint ride to no avail. I appreciated the fact he tried though.
I returned to Spokane after the Milwaukee race and jumped into the Lucky Lager car. I won the Lilac Cup in Spokane a week later but then Charlie Morin sold the car and disappeared so I was afoot again. I was walking around with my helmet in my hand trying to pick up rides wherever I could. I got a call from Ernie Koch to meet him in Monroe, WA to drive the Scoville Offy.
Ernie Koch and Bud Beavert bought the car and were going to run some races back east. They wanted to have a look at me for the pavement portion of the program and Koch would drive the dirt. This car was well known to race fans around the Seattle area since Gordie Youngstrom had built quite a reputation in the car.
Well, we got to Monroe late with no time for hot laps. I had never seen the place before and as we were unloading, I was watching guys qualifying and said to Koch, “why are they backing off at the start finish line? It seems like a long way down to the corner.” He replied that when he ran there he used to drive down to the bumps just going into turn one, so I said OK. Well, I drove to the bumps and OH MY GOD around it went and around again and I was praying not to hit anything because I want to run at Milwaukie on the mile. Well, it stopped in turn 2 but they came out and pushed me off again. I got fast time, won the dash, won the fast heat but then got fired for the main! I don’t know what happened but Koch and Beavert got into a pissing match and next thing I knew, I was out of the car and Koch was in. He drove it in the main and blew it up and that was the last I heard.
Later that year, I got a ride in the Tipke house car. Tipke had crashed at Monroe when a part failed and he couldn’t drive. We went to the last race of the year at Umatilla Speedway and I won the program. In the meantime, we had started a program between Don Wilbur, Dick Flynn, Jim Tipke and me to borrow an old champ car that Hayhoe had sitting back at Indy and try to get it ready for Hanford and Phoenix that fall.
We went ahead with our champ car program and got the car to Hanford only to find that Goodyear had not brought the tire we requested. There were no rears - new fronts but no rears??? They gave us the tow tires off of Roger McCluskey’s car that had been on there for two years. Needless to say, we missed the show. We talked to Goodyear and they assured us we’d have tires in Phoenix. We went to Phoenix and guess what - new fronts but no rears! Ever drive a rear engine car with new tires on the front and rags on the rear? Funny that could happen in two consecutive races - I think politics caused it. If we had had tires and had made the show, it would have ended Vollstedt’s very lucrative “rent a ride” scheme he was running in the western part of the country. He was the western regional director of USAC at the time and I think he made the call. We just didn’t realize how the game worked.
1969 was a new start. I had a ride in the Tipke House car. Tipke wanted the motor out of the champ car program from the previous fall. Don Wilbur told him if you want the motor, you have to take Norm Ellefson or no motor. That’s how I got the ride in the Tipke car.
Jim Tipke was another of those genius guys like George LeMay and Bob Morgan that I was lucky enough to get hooked up with. It was a good deal for everyone the way it worked out. We were very formidable competitors at any race track we went to. The only place we didn’t win that year was at Gene McMahon’s Stampede Speedway in Calgary, Alberta. I was leading the main when I noticed oil in the groove. The next lap I moved up a bit and the oil moved up with me. Soon I was running out of race track and then I realized it was me leaking oil so I pulled in.
That spoiled our winning string on that part of our tour. We ran Spokane Thursday - won! Towed to Lethbridge, Alberta for Saturday night - won! Ran in Calgary on Sunday afternoon with the oil leak – too bad. Tuesday night was qualifying in Edmonton for the Gold Cup and I won with a new track record. I won the 200 lap Gold Cup Wednesday night and left for practice at the Minnesota State Fair race on Friday afternoon.
I won the Saturday race at Minnesota. On the following Thursday, we had three 50 lappers. I won two and blistered the right rear in the other and got 4th. Daryll Harrison won that 50 lap race and then I went on to win the Minnesota 200 on Labor Day. Chris Economaki was the PA announcer at Minnesota and he told us afterward to go to Oswego, New York and run the Oswego 200. He told us there was $10,000 prize money waiting for us there - but Tipke had to go home.
Jim Tipke’s last race as crew chief was in Minnesota since he then sold the car. I took the car to Salt Lake City after the race to its’ new owners - Roy Palmer and Vern Madsen. We won the main Saturday night in Salt Lake City. We only had a couple of races left on the schedule so they let us continue on to finish out the year. One of the highlights was winning the Western States Open Competition race at Fresno’s famed Kearny Bowl, with cars and drivers from eleven western states.
The season ended with a couple of high points for me. I was voted Athlete of the Month in both September and October 1969 by the Inland Empire Sportswriters and Broadcasters Association of Spokane. I was the first race car driver ever invited to the Inland Empire 22nd Annual Sports Award Banquet held on February 4, 1970. I was a head table guest along with Jerry Hendren, Gerry Lindgren, Mike Oriard, Ted Wierman, Hugh Campbell, Jerry Campbell, Cleo James, and Rosy Grier. I was also invited to the Edmonton Kinsmen Third Annual Sports Celebrity Dinner in Edmonton as the first race car driver ever invited. I attended along with Normie Kwong as MC and guests Joe Kapp, Red Storey, Ted Green, George Chuvalo, Roy Campanella, Bud Poile and myself. Wow, what a year.
1970 got off to a bad start for me. Because of the stellar year we just had, Tipke was deluged with orders for Tipke Roadsters and, being a one man operation, it was hard to keep up. So when the season opened, I had no ride. I was stoogin’ around and had a chance to sit in Jon Vrem’s 57 Chev stock car. The thing was all motor and nothing else but we all learned together. It was so slow compared to the modified and it weighed about double, so I found out early not to drive it in so deep. It wouldn’t stop or turn - there were off-track excursions plus collisions with other cars, and, naturally some irate drivers.
But it was all school. I got interested in stock cars while we were in Minnesota. We went to The Minnesota “300” while we were there and the grandstand was packed. I suggested to Tipke that we build a stock car because that’s what people wanted to see. This idea went over like a lead balloon with Jim. He’s a purist - it’s open wheels or nothing.
I got my car the first week of August and we had fits with the brakes right from the start. The front brakes kept locking up, we were getting ready to go to Minnesota, and it still wasn’t cured. It wasn’t till I spun the car in front of the field at Minnesota that Jim finally found the problem and repaired it. Now we were set to go kick some butt, but more problems arose. We started the “200” on the outside of the pole and drove away from the field only to be black flagged with a fuel leak on lap seven. I pulled in the pits and they told me what’s going on and they tried a couple of repairs but to no avail. We had to quit.
We found out later the mount plate for the fuel cell had never been tightened and at speed, air was rushing in the vent and forcing fuel out the flange. I think this car was jinxed from the beginning. It was the best handling roadster I ever drove and the fastest, but things were always falling off of it. We were at a race at Tri-Cities leading the main and the shift lever fell off the car and it popped out of gear. The next day we had fast time and won the main from the back of the field, but, because we stopped on a yellow to adjust my helmet assist cord, they protested us for working on the car and disqualified us, then gave us 6th place. It was like that all the time with that car, it was always something.
1971 was another of those years I had to wait for the Tipke house car to get finished. I started driving a stock car for Don Wilbur. He had a sponsor - Midas Muffler of Spokane - and we were going to try something new - a de-stroked big block Chevy in a 1969 Chevelle. We had a few teething problems with the motor at first, but Dick Flynn kept plugging away and when he got it right it was ‘Katie Bar the Door’ That stock car would accelerate down the straights almost like a sprint car. It was terrific! We missed the first five weeks of racing but we were really strong through the middle of the year. We wound up leading the points in the late season till we lost a sleeve in the engine. We were down for a week for parts so Big Bill Payne loaned me his stock car. I won the main with it, keeping my points lead going into the last day, when the engine puked again and I finished 2nd in points.
Meanwhile, back to the super modified. I got the rear engine Tipke house car in August with little time to shake it down before we went back to the Minnesota State Fair the last week of Aug and early Sept. We ran a couple of shows locally and were very pleased with the car.
We started off big in Minnesota. We set fast time and won heat races - we were the cock of the walk till the big one Sunday, the Minnesota 200. Well, the boys back there had had all the rear engine cars they wanted by then. Unbeknown to us, we had a target on us. I spun in some oil early in the race just entering turn three. Unfortunately, we no longer had the clutch and starter on board since I had suggested to Jim to take it out to lighten the car. I thought it would give us a little more snap since we were running a 305 cubic inch motor and at Minnesota, they run some BIG STUFF, believe me. So, there I sat for five laps before I got pushed off and got going again. Well, I had to get serious now and I put the hammer down and by the halfway mark, we were challenging for the lead again. We just came off a yellow and I made an outside move for the lead when I got hammered from someone and wound up parked near the fence. Thankfully, not in it! They let me sit for eleven laps this time. I came back again and really tore the place up, but we wound up one lap down at the finish - a real heartbreaker for the crew and owner.
I lay this loss directly on my shoulders. If I hadn’t been messing around with a lapped car, I never would have spun the first time, but I wasn’t paying attention. It was so easy with this rear engine car that I let my guard down and was playing the fool. For that, there are consequences. Chalk it up to DRIVER ERROR!
Another big event we went to in 1971 was the combined USAC/SCCA road race in Kent, WA. It was quite a learning experience for a guy who never turned right before. All the top road racers of SCCA where there - Hobbs was on the pole, Posey on the outside and we were ‘tailend Charlie’ of course. The race was run in two 100 mile sections and I got a flat on the parade lap of the first one/ I went in and got a new right rear and then went to school for a 100 miles. I just stayed out of the way and drove.
By the time the second race got under way, I had learned to use first gear and was getting pretty racy I thought. But late in the go, I had an off track excursion at turn 9. I ran out of brakes, but still finished a respectable 14th. Not bad in a 1900 lb. car with a 305 cu.in. motor. That was survival.
We went on to win a big open comp race in Boise later that year and that about ended our season.
1972 started off very badly. Tom Sneva had put together an Indy car program with a local sponsor and they hired Jim Tipke to build and crew the car. Jim sold the sprint car to the Morin brothers and they hired me to drive it - but it just wasn’t the same. While all this was going on, Don Wilbur had built a 1971 Monte Carlo for local and Winston West competition. If there was ever a racecar I hated it, it had to be that Monte Carlo. We thrashed with that thing all year and it was never where I wanted it to be. We got a couple of third place finishes with it in Winston West, but nothing outstanding. We really struggled at home with it too. I only remember winning one main event with it and that was protested.
In the meantime, the rear engine program was struggling also. I had a commitment to run the stocker at Yakima and there was a sprint race at Portland the same day. I elected to run the stocker and Pat Evans took the rear engine car to the Portland Speedway. He got it in the fence off turn 4 and the car burned to the ground. It was later sold and Bud Gorder wound up with it here in Spokane. It sat in his garage for years until he sold it to Ron Turner who has restored it and now it’s gorgeous.
I had to give up on the dream in 1972. The oil embargo was here and the costs related to racing skyrocketed – tires, fuel, lodging, food, and travel in general. Everything went up but the purses we ran for stayed the same or went down. Also, the fact was I was getting older and no one was looking for an old driver. So I went to work for an auto dealership, You know, 8 to 5 and all the boring crap that went with it.
The car pictured below I was going to drive in 1973 it was owned by Gary Smith and Dave Herensperger but a slight problem came up when I told them I was also going to drive Don Wilbur’s Monte Carlo. Smith at the time was trying to put a move on Wilbur’s girlfriend and Heren’s didn’t like Wilbur because Don dabbled in hi performance parts so I got fired. They spent a ton of dough but nothing clicked for them. They changed drivers and only won one race with the car and were done by mid season all the good engines gone, and a bunch of worn out tires is all they had left.Roger Clark the crew chief gave me a call and I drove the car at the fairgrounds in Spokane and won the main event with it. The next week he called again and I told him no thank you, so he drove it himself and didn’t win and he was fired as soon as Smith found out. I think the car went to Prince George BC.
In 1980, Jon built a car and we ran for the Northwest Superstock Championship and won it. That’s when I officially retired and never got back in a car until 19 years later. Just for a lark, I ran Tom Dry’s ‘Fever Four’ Mustang for five races at Spokane Raceway Park. I made the trophy dash every night, had fast time a couple of nights, and won the fast heat three times. The last night, I swept the program with fast time, won the trophy dash, fast heat and the main event - then I retired again.
And to think I did all that, and might I add, not in a shy way Oh no, Oh no not me,
I DID IT MY WAY!
finis
