Chrysler's Motown Missile: Mopar's Secret Engineering Program at the Dawn of Pro Stock

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Geoff Stunkard. Chrysler's Motown Missile: Mopar's Secret Engineering Program at the Dawn of Pro Stock

The Team

The Experts

The Shooters

The Car Owners and Friends

Dedication

Science Class

En Route to Pro Stock

Pro Stock’s First Rules

Express Travel to Dodge City

Performance Automotive

Before the Motown Missile

Pro Stock Racing Through May 1970

On and Off the Drawing Board

First to the IR

Then a Clutch Play

Into the Record Books and First Time Out

Three to Six–The Big ’Flite

Feel the Light

Success at First, But the Show Goes On

Testing Continues

Grand Finales

Working for a Living

Rocket Science

Winter Racing Recap

Don with a Clutch and a National Event Win

Summertime Blues and Another Big Win

Testing Continues

The 1971 Test Results

Indy, NHRA in Amarillo, and IHRA’s First World Championship

The End of an Era

Performance Automotive to SVI

The Motown ’Cuda

Before Pomona: The Shape of Things to Come

Winternationals of Discontent

Testing 1-2-3

Chomping at Gainesville

Spring and More

Missile Tests Continue

Oh, Boy(cott)

Meanwhile, the IHRA Continues On

A Final Look at 1972

That Butler Guy

Florida Flyer Cover Car

A Little Less Engine, Please

That Pappas Guy

On to the Races

NHRA and IHRA:Florida Follies and Their Aftermath

Nothing Changes

Tricks of the Trade

Test Time

Spring Has Sprung

Indy 1973 and NHRA Season End

IHRA World Championship #3

Wild Horses

The Yellow Car

Real Time Data Recording

At the Shop

LA-Engine Efforts

Racing 1974: Part 1

Final Frontier: The Wire Car

Racing 1974: Part 2

In the End, the End

Southern Nights: Don Carlton and the Post-Factory Era

The Spirit of 1976

The First Half: 1977

July 5

A Final Requiem: The Last NHRA World Championship of the 1970s

1970–1971 Dodge Challenger: Spehar/Oldfield/Koran/Chrysler Engineering

1972 Plymouth Barracuda: Spehar/Oldfield/Koran/Chrysler Engineering

1973 Plymouth Duster: Butler/Oldfield/Chrysler Engineering

1972 Demon/1974 340 Yellow Test Car: Hodges/Oldfield/Pappas/Chrysler Engineering

1974 Plymouth Duster Wire Car: Knapp/Adam/Pappas/Oldfield

1972 Colt: Knapp/Butler/Pappas/Oldfield/Hodges

The “Hodges Dodges” Pro Stocks and More

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Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

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So, going into their biggest event of the year, the NHRA decided to catch the racers at their own game. This was when the NHRA stated that at Indy every run down the track could become the index for Monday’s finals. Since only the class winner and runner-up from Saturday afternoon’s class runoffs were allowed to advance to race in Monday’s final eliminations, these new racing indexes would obviously be derived from the fastest runs made during that weekend. This was because the NHRA assumed every driver would have to run flat out to win a class crown. Still, to make it fair, they also agreed that the index would not change again on Monday. For the first time, drivers could run flat out all day and the record rule would not apply until the final. In the final round, the drivers could run as fast as necessary, but that fast time was the new index heading into the following event.

On Friday morning, the Chrysler racers slowly left town, heading for a little track just over the Ohio state line a couple of hours east. Dave Koffel rented the track with his American Express card, and now each of the three-dozen-plus drivers arriving there would make three passes to see who was truly fastest. The two best in each class would then return to Indy to run for the class win and runner-up slots. Once Chrysler had determined who the fastest guys were fair and square (away from the oversight of NHRA officials), the three chosen duos in SS/B, SS/BA, and SS/CA (all Hemi cars exclusively) returned to Indianapolis and basically cruised downtrack on Saturday for the class battle and “new” records. The predetermined faster car from the so-called “Mini-Nationals” also deliberately ran slower to be the class runner-up, all of which kept the old indexes used before the Nationals completely intact. Meanwhile, the other guys fought each other hard, and most had killed or reset their indexes when clocking their best possible number round after round in taking class victories. For their part, Hoover, Maxwell, and factory race boss Bob Cahill wandered around the Indy pits on Friday morning, shrugging off questions about where all the absent racers had gone.

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