A Reincarnation from Drag Racing’s Past

By Bud De Boer

It had been over 41 years since Jerry Baltes saw the top fuel dragster that carried him on many a run down the quarter-mile in 1963 and 1964. More often than not, those runs produced record clockings both in elapsed times and miles-per-hour. It was in 1964 that Baltes really stretched his wings while on national tour. Not only did he set both the NHRA and Standard 1320 speed records for AA/Fuel Dragster, but also firmly entrenched himself as No. 3 on the Drag News Mr. Eliminator List. Jerry then topped off the season by winning the World Series of Drag Racing and finishing second in the NHRA Top Fuel point standings, after leading them for most of the year. It had been a good ride in the car that he teamed up with Billy Lavato and Don Croshier to purchase in late 1962. But after spending more than two years competing and traveling week after week, it was time to stow the driving gear for a while and focus on other commitments he had at the time.

In mid-July of 1965, Baltes put an ad in Drag News offering the Croshier-Baltes-Lavato dragster for sale. It was a chance to purchase a championship caliber car and it didn’t take long before someone seized the opportunity. Only two weeks after the ad appeared, Jerry had a firm offer. The car was packed and shipped via Delta Freight Lines to its new home in Toledo, Ohio.

For the next 25 years or so, aside from wheeling a Top Fueler as a hired driver and his involvement in the Tom & Jerry funny car team. Jerry and wife Pat put their efforts into establishing a successful truck washing business. But Baltes always kept abreast of what was happening in drag racing and attended events whenever possible. At the California Hot Rod Reunion in 1992, Jerry noticed a couple of Top Fuelers from the 60s being restored and thought, “What if I could find my old car and do the same?” So, for the next 10 years or until about 2001, Baltes looked everywhere and talked to anybody who would listen to him about his search. But it was to no avail.

Reproduction of the original Croshier-Baltes-Lavato dragster is a real beauty. Just ask anyone who’s seen it.

In the summer of 2003 following the NHRR, Rod Peppmuller agreed to start construction on a chassis like the one he had built for the original CBL dragster while working for Tommy Ivo so many years ago. However, since there were no plans or drawings to go by from those days, duplicating it was going to be difficult. But as luck would have it, Rod was able find a collector who had a dragster from the early 60s with the same type of chassis. He took measurements and proceeded from there. Baltes then asked master metal crafter Tom Hanna to do the body. While the car was at Hanna’s shop getting new aluminum skin where needed, Bob Kreitz, Carl Johnson, and Steve Carbone were busy putting together a blown, nitro burning 392 hemi for the car to “cackle at its best” when asked to do so. It’s a real treat to listen to the motor come to life with “weed burner” style exhaust pipes emitting sounds from days long ago. The final touch for the car came via the talents of award winning painter/letterer Chris Ellis. The end result was a real show stopper.

‘64 FED FOUND HANGIN' IN SHOP, HELP WITH ANY HISTORY. Those were the words posted by Ohioan Don Moyer in the fall of 2006 on a car enthusiast web site called HAMB. Moyer had come across a dragster hanging from the ceiling of Jim Urbanek’s shop in Eastlake, Ohio, when he went there to pick up a street machine that had just been painted. Don found that the dragster had been hanging from the ceiling for over 15 years and was put there shortly after Urbanek acquired it from a former employee. Moyer’s posting set off a series of questions regarding the FED’s origin and it wasn’t long before someone asked, “Could this be the car Jerry Baltes reproduced in 2005?” It didn’t take long before Baltes got word of the dragster’s finding. Jerry was skeptical of its authenticity, so he contacted Moyer and asked for pictures of the rail. Surprise—Surprise. After looking over photos he got in the mail a short time later, Baltes said, “This is definitely the car.” There were certain things Jerry saw in these pictures that left no doubt. The unmistakable clues were as follows:

A sticker from Bakersfield 1964 inside the cowling of the driver compartment.

A clutch pin hole on the left side rear body panel.

A seahorse sewn vertically by Tony Nancy in the driver compartment upholstery.

“This is the real deal,” says Jerry Baltes as he checks out the original CBL car he’d not seen in over 41 years.

In mid-January of 2007, Jerry and Pat Baltes made the journey from their home in Virginia to Jim Urbanek’s shop near Cleveland to see the car for themselves. As stated earlier, it had been over 41 years since Jerry had seen the car. Here was a chance to see for himself that it was in fact the original dragster he had once owned and driven. It was.

What’s next? Jim Urbanek plans to take the car down from the ceiling, clean it up and take it to Columbus for the upcoming National Hot Rod Reunion in June 2007. There it will be displayed alongside its reproduction for all to see. The story of how the car was found will make for some interesting conversation. What does the future hold for the original Croshier-Baltes-Lavato dragster? Well… you’ll just have to wait and see.

Even though Jerry Baltes has built a reproduction of the car that carried him to drag racing prominence during the early years of the sport, he never gave up looking for the original. You might say, “With infinite patience and tenacity, that which was lost… now is found.”

Photo credits: Don Moyer, Vic Cooke, Jerry Baltes.