Читать книгу Chrysler's Motown Missile: Mopar's Secret Engineering Program at the Dawn of Pro Stock - Geoff Stunkard - Страница 8

Introduction

The sport of drag racing, once the bane of local law enforcement and the subject of teen exploitation flicks of the 1950s, grew alongside the performance vehicle era of the early 1960s. While running a pair of anything side by side to determine a victor is certainly older than the automobile, it was drag racing that made it possible for anyone to compete, whether his or her vehicle was a bone-stock car fresh off the showroom floor or a contraption of cubic inches, steel tubing, and bravado.

As the sport segued into more specialized compartmentalization, those promoting it as a spectator sport constantly looked for ways to make certain that there were cars appearing to be stock but were actually modified. They tried Factory Experimental, and things got out of hand with Funny Cars. They tried Super Stock versus pure Stock but found that the need to equalize performances between various designs created racing challenges.

In 1968, the American Hot Rod Association (AHRA) created a specific heads-up Super Stock class with rules carefully governing appearance but also allowing powerful enhancements. In late 1969, the bellwether organization, the National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) did likewise. The result was Pro Stock, and the book you are reading focuses on a group of Chrysler engineers and associates who determined early on that using science was the way to win.

Dick Oldfield and one of the Spar brothers from B&M get ready for work on the transmission in the pits at Indy in 1970. Tom “The Ghost” Coddington is in the background. (Photo Courtesy Tom Hoover Family)

Let’s begin by introducing three of the main participants: Chrysler engineer Tom Hoover, engine builder Ted Spehar, and driver Don Carlton. Each of them established a reputation as an expert in his respective field. All three had a certain drive not often found in any discipline, the type of drive that can only lead to success over the long run if everything is on a level playing field. And the three of them functioning in harmony was a beautiful thing.

That stated, not a single one of them would have taken sole credit for what happened in the era that the Motown (and later Mopar) Missile program began. The team was surrounded by people who valued hard work and had a passion to win.

For Hoover, leading the factory development program, it was his fellow engineering cabal, many of them former members of a drag racing team called the Ramchargers. By the late 1960s at the height of the Detroit performance era, they remained strategically placed in Chrysler Corporation management, marketing, and development. Dave Koffel, liaison for the racers who began working for the firm in mid-1968, once noted they worked for a number of bosses over the years, but the focus never wavered. Whatever was needed to succeed was done. You will meet many of them on these pages.

For Spehar, it was the crew of guys who worked with him at his engine shop. Car builder and driver Dick Oldfield, engine-building associate Leonard Bartush, and shop manager Mike Koran shared in that effort. Ted himself was always in close association with factory boss Tom, who is reverently referred to as “Mr. Hoover” to this day. In his role of developing pieces for the racing environment, Spehar did relentless and thorough testing, finding solutions to problems that had never been seen before. Sometimes shown in the periodicals of the day working on an engine-based challenge during a long race weekend, Ted was typical of the mechanical geniuses the sport attracted, and the machine spoke for his effort.

Carlton, also bespeckled in black rims like the other two, was perhaps the person least expected to be the image of a drag racer. In an age of Aquarius and toughguy drivers, Don was not someone normally showing up in beefcake photos. However, put him in a 4-speed race car, and he was quickly a hero to the fans. Indeed, his competency as a driver quickly proved itself in his native North Carolina, and he came into focus for the team in 1971 after driving stints with other teams. Once the factory turned the team over to Carlton full-time, Dick Oldfield would come to work for him, as would another die-hard wrench named Joe Pappas, and Don would continue maintaining his own race operation on his family property in the South, assisted by Clyde Hodges and fellow driver Stu McDade.

Together, this collective was to change the focus of the sport from its sometimes shade-tree roots into something that could be quantified by computer science, applied practically for answers, and then used to dominate the sport. The data generated for this program helped all Chrysler factory-associated Pro Stock teams, not just their own, and some advances were also applied to further benefit all racing of this type.

In every good story there is a nemesis, and in this case it would end up being those in charge of parity. You see, this volume is about a single Chrysler team but encompasses everyone who raced these products. Early on, they won. They won a lot. As the other popular (and frankly better-selling) Detroit products were beaten on a regular basis, those enthusiasts complained to listening ears in the sanctioning bodies who ran organized racing. These so-called “high sheriffs” of the rule book in turn steadily applied conditions that would eventually make all Chryslers in Pro Stock uncompetitive, regardless of how much effort and money these men and their associates put forth. If it is said that life is unfair, this would certainly be the case for these teams that put so much focus into this era to no avail.

But this is no place to whine about all of that. As you progress through this book, you will get a real sense of the time when this effort happened, the people who made it possible, and the drama of the sport of drag racing in the upper echelon of the factory hot rods. In later years, when a much greater amount of money was spent on research into competition engineering (coupled with an almost boring level of product conformity), development would allow for performance levels undreamed of in the age of the Motown Missile.

This photo was sent to Don Carlton (standing, center) from Wally Parks following the 1972 win at Gainesville and is in Don Carlton Jr.’s business office.

But these guys did it first. For many fans of this era, they also did it best …