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BACK IN 1970, I STARTED BUILDING AND DRAG RACING MY 69 CAMARO SMALL BLOCK! AMERICA'S VERY FIRST MR GOOD WRENCH For all of you movie buffs, historians and post WW2 baby boomers, the arrival of the 1970's marked the beginning of many new and wonderful changes in American Society and Culture. It was a decade of rapid new advancment in technology and centered in it's bright spotlight was a term the Big Three American Auto Makers, General Motors, Chrysler Corp. and Ford Motor Company had coined THE MUSCLE CAR ERA. (1964 to 1972) With President Nixon fighting for his Political life against Maine Senator Edmund Musky, a young aspiring unknown Firm Director by the name of George Lucus (Star Wars and Indiana Jones) was staying right here in Manchester New Hampshire while attending America's First in the Nation Presidential Primary. Implanted firmly in his mind was an Idea he had to write a new political movie script he hoped to sell back in Hollywood California. It was around 10 pm on a somewhat till then quiet Elm Street located just below his third floor hotel room window when that same 28 year George Lucas first thought he was hearing the faint distant rumblings of an arriving summer thunder storm! However it soon became apparent to him by the continuous loudening sounds now growing almost constant in noise level, it was not at all Mother Nature hard at work, but had to be man related and thus being produced as he intently looked outside with a building interest. Perhaps 200 feet to the south of his upper level hotel room window view was a four way set of traffic signals on this warm June night. Turning to his left he then viewed the very first of a double line of slowing arriving cars that were all revving up their loud high performance motors in a very defying way! George didn't know during those first few moments, that a brand new Idea for a great movie script was beginning to be born right then and there that would lead to a blockbuster 1973 release of his very first Hollywood Movie movie he would write, direct and fittingly name American Graffiti! From overhead he was viewing what all of the younger generation locals has recently come to call "A Rat Pack". No not Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr. and Joey Bishop out there in Las Vegas, but rather a collective group of High Performance Manchester N.H. Street Machine owners and followers hell bent on having themselfs go on an exciting action packed Friday Night Mission of Celebration! Being somewhat of a car buff and once six earlier having owned his very own 1965 Mustang 289 cubic inch engine that came equipped with its four speed on the floor manual transmission, young screen writer and near future film director George Lucas couldn't help but smile at this assembled passing long double laned group of Street Machines that included Camaro's, Chevelle's, Charger's, Road Runners, a blue and white AMX, a rather plain looking Mercury Cougar just beginning to drive up on the sidewalk. Also included were two Pontiac Fire Birds and a GTO 400 slush bucket of earlier 1960's vintage. The last obvious hot rod to pass his window was a dark Blue Mustang 2 plus 2 fastback small block three speed that was being driven by a lone tall slender very late guy wearing a big sheepish grin as he perfectly played with his in first gear clutch and gas pedal to show off his new not quite anymore stock and street legal duel exhaust system. As luck would have it, four more sets of Elm Street traffic lights would periodically stop this assembled all hot rod procession Rat Pack carrivan with one of it's members a guy named Nutsy, now exclusively driving that Copper colored Mercury428 Cougar well up on the city sidewalk. Rushing frantically to get too his parking lot rental car, Geoge Lucas could only hear the faint roars of those High performance gas guzzlers now in the distance as he too found himself now driving in the same direction on Elm Street while in hot Pursuit.. Ten lucky minutes later, he parked that local Merchant Motors rental car along side many other parked and empty spectator cars on a very rural wide country style street named East Industrial Park Drive! Only one huge building bearing the name of Raytheon Corp..( which later made America's Patriot missile) Yes it was Friday night at this locally created Illegal Quarter Mile street drag strip that was very similar to the one now used on the current hit television show Street Outlaws! Already seven different Street Drag Races between fourteen anxious and drivers simply seeking some Bragging RIghts had been agreed upon and mutually set up. Catching George's eye was a very impressive green 1955 Chevy 2 door that simply sounded loud, awesome and ultra powerful as it's big block rat motor was making a statement to all within it's wildly extreme and radical camshaft rumblings!. But it didnt and wouldn't race that night at all as Mr Lucas viewed the blue with white stripped AMX driven by a pot bellied guy line up against a road runner with the lic plates RUOK on it... Dam how that automatic 390 AMC product launched so effectively out of the hole instantly leaving that 383 mo par well back in its wake! Who ever painted that drag strip had done a great job...There were two lanes with even designated burn out areas and the words CHEVYS ONLY in the left passing lane while at the right side lane was written FORDS & OTHER JUNK just before the generous staging area. Marked exactly one quarter mile down the road in large white six foot long three feet wide letters were the two well spaced apart words F I N I S H L I N E that took up almost both full road traffic lanes And so for the next nearly 90 minutes all of his new Ideas for the future hit Movie AMERICAN GRAFFITI were born before his very eyes!. Yes a beautiful Black 55 Chevy driven by future film star Harrison Ford would race Modesto California's very own John Milner and his 32 Ford Model B duce coupe with its souped up 1966 327 cubic inch Chevy small block! But this would be in a scripted movie and not THE REAL THING that was wonderfully unfolding before his very lit up and fully locked in eyes. With the best saved for last, A very impressive 1969 Metallic Green black vinyl topped Chevy Camaro with a custom open faced hood scoop and some great looking Crager chrome reverse rims was then carefully lined up against its arch enemy a very nice looking and equally impressive orange and black late model Ford Mustang. By the peaked interest of all the crowd now moving in closer, this was no doubt the star race of the entire evening. Under its hood with a narrow thin long bladed screw driver in hand, was that Camaro's single dark haired crew chief who was putting his final tweeking carburator adjustments to its air cleaner less large gold colored 4 barrel duel feed. Then satisfied with his highly skilfull efforts, he shut the hood and locked its two hold down clips firmly in place while signaling they were ready to GO!. Now that entire young crowd of perhaps thirty five to forty mixed racers and spectators all moved in much closer to that double laned starting line to get a much better closer view of the sudden launch of nearly eight thousand pounds of made only in American Muscle! It was that same tall thin blue mustang fastback lad that with the sudden drop of both of his arms triggered the start to that awesome drag race. In the end it was that the Black vinyl topped Camero that just nosed out that equally impressive Mustang by the distance of just less than half of a single car length! The Favored Mustang with it's great number of class winner NE Dragway stickers attached to both its back side windows had lost by perhaps The perfect tweek of two carburator mixture screws! Next from somewhere in that onlooking partying crowd of joyous race fans, came the loud male warning cry of "THE COPS ARE COMING" as a mad scramble ensued for everyone to get the hell off and out of East Industrial Drive ASAP! A slew of thrown beer bottles were suddenly pelting the nearby road side bushes as many strong sounding motors all at once were again being fired up. Within two short minutes, George Lucas found himself completely alone viewing those shrinking fading distant tail lights while the fresh smell of burnt hot summer rubber still filled his flairing nostrils. With his joyful mind consumed with the knowledge he had just been feed nearly the entire script for a action packed movie about the young crowd of American youth by these Manchester New Hampshire united band of street racers, his eyes turned to focus up to the starting line. Such wonderful Graffiti he whispered out loud not once but twice, Such wonderful American Graffitti. Thus his movie titles Name was born. Almost a short year later in late May of 1973, all the rest of his copied and converted Rat Pack Drag story became history as he was nominated for a best directors Oscar for this American Classic Smash Hit Film. Rat was the nickname of Chevrolet's bug block427 and 454 cubic inch motors back then. That to match Chrysler's Hemi engines. Yes he would write this amazing movie script with such real ideas flooding his alive and active mind. Now totally forgotten by him was this suddenly unimportant New Hampshire Presidental Primary as he would find himself boarding a Grenier Field Delta Flight heading back to California early the very next morning. But the beginnings of this story really took place well over a year earlier when a 20 year old third of a very gifted local area Residential Building Contractor would bond with a older married fellow car guy who only wished for and wanted his basically stock plane jane 69 Camaro Souped up a little bit so he could race it now and then without any real embarrassment! With a infant and a not well paying restaurant manager trainee job to fall back on, the odds of ending up with one of the fastest Hot Rods in all of Southern N.H. looked bleak and almost impossible to even imagine. Sometimes the Ingredients of Self Confidence Blended with Determination and added Experience can lead to a great Recipe For Reaching Success. While Dan's initial hopes were to simply become somewhat competitive with the other four or five dozen or so nightly cruising drag racers in the area, his new partner Russell had far greater ideas! Sure his older brother's big block 454 Chevy ruled the streets back in those days. Hell his 55 Chevy later named MIGHTY MOUSE at one time supplied nearly 700 true power to it's rear wheels while then being street driven daily. So on a wing and aprayer with their limited budget, this new team set about slowly at first adding new replacement equipment one pain staking and small step at a time. Dan's Camao was a blue plane jane bottom of the production line Sport Coupe 327 small block rated at a very modest and low 210 stock power. Its 273 gear ratio single track ten bolt rear end clearly placed it as the worse performng V-8 Camaro produced that year of 1969. It was hardly a prime candidate to become an even close too competitive drag racing car! At that juncture in time. Dan had little if any experience around cars, he had once put in a cam for a friend but didn't even know about intake and compression strokes nor firing orders. It was a friend named Bob LeClerc that corrected his 180 off distributor error to make his first car efforts come out correctly. While Chevrolet Motor Division created Mr Good Wrench as a Marketing Repair and Parts Tool ten later in 1983, the first Mr Good Wrench was about too step forward both in an outside speed shop parking lot and Dan's rural driveway as well. Many times in life, younger siblings are treated to free lessons by their older brothers. Russel learned a great deal watching his older brother Reggie work his love for cars. to help and get dirty, Russ went full speed ahead with both the same passion as Reggie always did and I might add the same successes in the forms of rewarding accomplishments. Both had been blessed with a extremely high degree of gifted Mechanical Abilities! I should point out here that these two guys weren't by any means alone. High Performance breeds rivalries as well as strong rooted competition. The very things George Lucas would base his hit movie on just a year later...John Milners 32 coupe up against the cowboy hat wearing bad guys jet black shiny 55! Beyond just determination, came Means. Yep finding funds to obtain all of the endless list of badly needed parts Russel knew were going to be vital and totally necessary to reach his quite lofty set of GOALS! What George Lucas had viewed leading that Rat Pack with the licence plates RAT-P that June night, was the end results of great planning, hard work, taking gutsy chances and never giving up with such great odds firmly stacked against them.... They were a team not very well liked by many of their soon to be rivals as jealousy a bad human trait again reared up its ugly head. Armand was their loyal friend always to lend a hand and provide himself and his 289 mustang as a steady race opponent to quite accurately guage the Camaro's slow at first progress and performance progression. Leo down at the speed shop always allowed Russ full access of his outside parking lot plus the use of some tools to work with. Many different times Russell returned the favors by solving for Leo, many of the vast number of complex problems the speed shop would now and then run across! In fact a great many times in the absence of his older brother Reggie who worked at the speed shop, Russ would lend and donate his skillfull services unselfishly! A few others like Arthur and Peter also at times kicked in with some small help but for the most part, it was Russel always turning the wrench himself while Dan worked his daytime ice cream shop job. Ever so slowly, stock parts were replaced one by one with high end performance parts. The long growing list included Carburation, wiring, a M-23 rock crusher transmisson, custom outside corvette type exhaust, track bars, fuel pump, dial in ignition, a new positraction rear end, replacement quarter mile racing ratio gears and topped off with a new 350 cubic inch small block engine that came out of all places, another speed shops crashed Chevrolet delivery truck! A crane SS-330 cam with solid lifters and a 780 CFM Holly duel feed carb now had this once tame plane jane turned into quite a impressive high performance small block now nearly ready to be reckoned with. But it kept breaking up when put under a heavy load or high RPM's and only at best showed the faint promise of what both hoped and wished for. With no money left, the pair had to wait a few long weeks before a new distributor along with a complete set of high performance spark plug wires could be bought. The CAMARO'S first test was run on blind faith as for the very first time, it lined up against that light and peppy 69 AMX that never had come close to being beat off of the line and out of the hole! A fast quarter mile later and ahead of the AMX by a good four or five dominated car lengths, Russell officially christened their at last race car by pouring an entire 12 ounce bottle of Budweiser all over his passenger seat head! It had been a long hard struggle and certainly came with its share of set backs and disapointments. Built with very little money and mostly on a wing and a prayer, this was what turned hard efforts in the Sweet Smell of Success. While other racers spent up to five times the money on far more top of the line speed shop performance parts like higher compression pistons, cams, and goodies to boost raw power, Russel's plan was much more simpler and basic. Simply to get the right complex combination of carburatiion, cam shaft and rear end gears while taking care of all of the many other little things in a backup kind of way. I should point out here that there are two real important elements of having a great set of wheels..........Besides Go is Show and with the luck of a fluke accident and dumb far too generous insurance adjuster, Rat-P also ended up becoming a one of a kind great looking custom Car. While Camaro's, Mustangs, Barracudas, Corvettes and Scramblers ect. ect. are not considered true American Muscle Cars due to their reduced size and gross weight, it was all about SHOW AND GO back then in those Golden Days of Drag Racing. One had to perform a great deal of work to build themselves a competiive car. Mechicanal l skills seperated the men from the boys. Not like todays Street Culture where money can buy speed. Who can't install a magic computer chip to gain up to two full seconds of elasped quarter mile time? Or buy a turbo from thier dealerships parts department and follow the simple instructions on how to bolt the thing on. Few over 500 Power cars existed back in those days, Today you can order one delivered at the dealers lot sitting with 705 factory built power under the hood. For what it has started out as, it had ended up right up there at the top of the field. Yes against those staggering odds, this unlikey team and that Camaro far exceeded any ones and every ones greatest expectations. Few breakdowns ever happened over the full course of hunderds and hundreds of all out quarter mile runs.. One was a blown rear end on a solo trophy class run one Wednesday night up at New England Drag Way. It was Dan's worse time ever driving the quarter mile. He always remembered that night and that solo race... His time card read 35.90 seconds Elasped time and just over 16 miles an hour Speed when he finally coasted with clutch in over that 1320 feet finish line.. In being a solo Trophy Run, he stopped to collect his very own first trohpy but the asshole at the ticket window that handed him that runs offical time card informed him that was no way he would be issued a trophy that night. So he went up pissed off to the starter with his head phones on and informed him that WE had spent thousands of dollars and countless hours in earning OUR trohpy!!! That race starter then took off his headphones and wrote a small ISSUE message on Dan's time card. Dan then walked straight back to the booth and got his CLASS WINNER NEW ENGLAND DRAGWAY TROPHY but not a valued window sticker... Up the road he gave that Same Prized Trophy to Mr Goodwrech (Russell) out of sincere gratitude and thankfulness for all of the Joyous memories and fun he had provided and they shared! Yes here in Manchester New Hampshire and not Modesto California or inside any movie house, came the greatest collective times of my entire life.. Memories to reflect back upon, to re-live in part again and again and feel and receive the same level of pure enjoyment and pleasure. This story was written to again take us back to those magical times so we could Thank, Honor and such well deserved Tribute!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So Many of us Thank you Mr. Russell (Good Wrench) LeMay, from the bottom of all our collective hearts!! May you rest in peace amongst the fumes of buring tires, rich gas fumes and the sounds of disappearing roars live in your soul forever good friend!! Dan M. updated Dec. 11, 2018 to go with my other 1970 Post.today!    |
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This story was for a slowly dying friend I first met back in 1968. All the accounts of the rat pack and drag racing are 100% true.........The photo was my 69 camaro sport coupe plane jane purchased for $ 3056 dollars back then, it had a 327 small block three speed on the floor with 273 gears. Russ a very gifted mechanic did all the mechanicl work while I had the real spoiler, vinyl top, hood and after market wheels done elsewhere. Some 10 thousand dollars later, it was weekly winner in the NHRA junior stock class winner. Monies won hardly made a dent in its totall cost, That including a 350 sreplacemtn small block with a crane SSs 330 solid lifter cam. A Holly double pumper carb dejetted two stages, a Dana Eaton 456 rear end, a Hays special dragzoom clutch, MM-23 rock crusher four speed, ahigh rise intake, wheelie bars, mallory dial in custom distributor, hooker headers, a herts 4 speed floor shift, 29 inch slicks when running jr stock at the New England Drag Way Strip. On the street it had for exhust , corvette side headers instead of a regular stock muffler and cat converter, Also a sun rev limiter tach, custom steering wheel. Custom paint job was a Cadillac fire mist green. wheels were cragers not shown on photo...same with corvetter exhaust done after picture.
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the good old days
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boogie> drag racing was a part of my life for many years. yes Shirley M when she ruled Top fule and married the Bountry Hunter aka connie K... saw don garlites in his first swamp rat car back in your 1960 you mentioned, this before the 200 mile an hour barrier he broke a year or two later. thank you for the comment (s). makes the time spent well worth it. here in New Hampshire, ronday Knox of weare nh ruled the ladies.. I heard of the black widow... ring a bell. ty again.and midnight passion the best name going.....what a way to start a day... lol
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12/22/2018 1:43 pm |
Im a back seat driver ..
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12/23/2018 3:29 pm |
I like your blogs so far. going to read them all when I have the time after Christmas.
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