The Definitive Book on Drag Racing a Stocker?

All right, another book on drag racing.

Or rather, I should say:

ALL RIGHT! Another book on drag racing!

Super Stock: Drag Racing the Family Sedan, by Larry Davis is something special. But it isn?t without its drawbacks.

Let me explain.

When I pickup a new book, especially a coffee-table book with lots of pictures on a subject I know, I let it open to a random page and read the first thing that falls to my fingers and eyes. If that caption is correct in my thoughts, I find another spot and read there. After three or four tries, I either lay the book down or go back I have a theory. If I find inaccuracies in these spots, I might be suspect of the rest of the book about things I don?t know about. If things appear right, I head back to the front and start reading.

I did the same with Larry Davis? book. The first try went to page #156 where I immediately spied a photo of one of my favorites, and a car I was intimate with in the mid-60s, the Alan Green Chevy II, driven by Dick Milner. It is a photo taken at Pacific Raceway by my friend Russ Griffith. The car is racing another northwest machine, the 65 Plymouth A-990 known as Pilgrim?s Progress, a S/SA driven by Pete Kost.

?Cool,? I said to myself, and settled in to read the caption.

?Bill Thomas Race Cars built three of the fastback Chevy IIs in 1965: Huston Platt?s Dixie Twister, Fritz Callier?s CKC Racing Team, and Dick Milner?s Alan Green Chevrolet in Seattle, Washington. All three were initially powered by Z-11 427 engines, but late in the season received 396 Chevy Semi-Hemis. In this ?65 photo, Milner?s Chevy II takes on Murray Mathews and the Pilgrims SS/A Plymouth at Puyallup Raceway. (Russ Griffith)?

?Oh,? I groaned to myself. ?So many errors in a single caption??

OK, let me try to fix that one caption. Bill Thomas built the three Chevy IIs in 1963 for SCCA distance racing, namely the Daytona 24-hour and Sebring 12-hour events. For optimum handling, an entire independent rear suspension from the new Stingrays was placed under the little Chevys. At least one car actually had track testing with a regular hardtop before the fiberglass fastback roofs were fit. All three had Weber-carbed 366ci small blocks from Traco Engineering, very typical of roadracing powerplants of the era. Unfortunately for the exercise, Chevrolet pulled out of racing.

Larry Davis knows all-too well that GM got out much earlier, but he still wrote ?1965? right there.

I?m not sure whose idea it was, but conversations between Thomas, a couple drag racers and whoever held the keys to the backdoor at Chevrolet led to three groups receiving the cars. Larry Davis got those three parties right, although the way it is written, it sounded as if Dick Milner owned the car, the dealership or both. The cars were picked-up/delivered in early 1964.

The CKC Chevy II was featured in a two-part Hot Rod magazine article on the brand new fangled match race stocker phenomena. It had already been altered but it was hard to tell just how much. Also featured in the article was Dick Landy?s highly modified 64 Dodge sedan, one of the very first substantially altered stockers in the country.

In the northwest, the Alan Green dealership fell on their car and turned it into a dragrace bad guy. They had run a Z-11 63 Impala lightweight and also had a roadrace Cheetah. When it first appeared on the dragstrip, their Chevy II still had its 366 and IRS aboard and it ran OK. By mid-65, a crate with a 396 indeed landed on the dock at Alan Green, and it was quickly stroked to 454 and dumped in the racecar. In this form, the car was featured in Car Craft, complete with beautiful cutaway drawing.

Although it set and held the A/FX speed record during 1965, two things changed the AG car drastically. The swing axle broke way too often and the funny car craze was quickly evolving.

So, in the winter of 65, the car lost weight while receiving an altered wheelbase, a Pontiac/Olds rearend, a Torqueflite, fuel injection and nitromethane. When it re-debuted, the car was quick, fast and immensely popular.

I?m pretty sure both Platt and Callier did install Z-11s in their cars, but Bill Thomas had nothing to do with that engine. A Z-11 was never raced in the Alan Green car. Platt chose to install a 1965 grille in his car while the other two always stayed with the original 63 lineage. I don?t believe either Platt or CKC raced their cars with the IRS.

Moving on, I don?t know Murray Mathews. Did he own the Pilgrim?s Progress Plymouth? I can?t say. I was too young to know that bit of info. I do know that Pete Kost, who had been running a tri-five Junior Stocker, previously, got the nod for the hemi-Plymouth for 1965. He would go on to a factory, err dealership backed Olds 442 for 1966. I?ll forgive Larry for not knowing the true name of the car because it is cutoff by the nose of the Chevy II.

But the last thing is that it says Puyallup and it is Pacific. Both are in Washington but not the same place by far.

I'm not sure why there are two book covers but there are. I have the one of the Pomona starting line.

I must admit to laying the book down immediately and not picking it up again for several months. When time came, I bit my lip and dove in from page 1 without going back through my little random page trial.

As I read, I immediately knew that Larry Davis was very knowledgeable on the subject matter. And furthermore, I was enthralled with the information unraveled in the early chapters.

He first introduces readers to his own exploits with a 425hp Corvette, that broke a lot, and the car that replaced it, a 327 350hp 66 Chevy II. Locally, he was the scourge of A/S. Later, he modified it for B/MP and was a winner ? until he made the decision to head for Indy and was introduced to the factory-entered Mopars.

The next chapters show the early factory cars available for Stock dragracing, especially the Olds Rockets and the introduction of the small block Chevy. As things progress, Davis lists in very nice descriptive prose the additions each engine and each year received. He points out why carburetion, camshaft and cylinder head technology led to increased horsepower and performance by certain brands, and how Pontiac and Chrysler began to muscle in, followed closely by Ford.

With the horsepower race full on by 1960, Super Stock: Drag Racing the Family Sedan really takes off in Chapter Three. With full descriptions of the weight breaks and the cars that fit them, and the new allowances such as hotter ignitions, rear gear ratio changes and traction aids, the book shows why Stock drag cars began to gain interest from both racers and fans. But I?ll let you read all that for yourself.

There are many great pictures of big names and not so well known racers from all eras, and from many parts of the country. Larry Davis must have pulled in a number of favors to dredge up so much archival stuff. And, while some of the photos are the authors own, mostly from the grandstands at various 60s strips, all add historic background to the subject.

When the introduction of Factory Experimental classes (1962) happens, Davis is strong in his descriptions of various packages released, from big engines in small cars to big engines in pickup trucks, all in the name of winning and marketing. It had been subtly going on for sometime but suddenly the horsepower race was flagrantly out in the open. Where before factories had offered a few hotter camshafts and a radio and heater delete options, in 62, aluminum body parts were offered and big block engines found their way into compact cars. The fans ate it up.

Another strength of this book is the major event coverage wherein class winning names, brands and combos are all there, with nice descriptions of how it all happened. I suspect Mr. Davis spent an inordinate amount of time in research.

As the story unfolds surrounding those wonderful cars, drivers? names begin to take on more meaning. Don Nicholson, Ronnie Sox, Tommy Grove, Arnie Beswick, Butch Leal, Dave Strickler, Bill Jenkins, Malcolm Durham, Gas Ronda, Bill Lawton, Arlen Vanke, Hayden Proffitt and dozens more evolve from weekly racers at local tracks to bona fide heroes making a living off their sedans. And, how those same names were pursued by factories and allied with the highest bidders.

For example Sox and partner Buddy Martin raced a 409 Chevy in 62, received an aluminum-nose 63 Z-11 from Chevy, were romanced away to Mercury for 1964, then moved to Plymouth for 1965. Butch Leal had a similar journey, except his middle ride was a Ford Thunderbolt. It was not an uncommon path.

The year 1964 was two-fisted as the factories went for both Stock and FX titles at major events. Match races were becoming far more prevalent as fans demanded the ever quicker and faster doorslammers. It was the first year in dragrace history that sedans drew as well as dragsters.

Larry Davis keeps the storyline going as the drama unfolds. To a reader interested in the subject, the book reads like a thriller.

The demand for quicker and faster forced racers and factories to build more exotic machinery until suddenly it was 1965 and rules were trashed in favor of performance. Where once Max-Wedge and High Riser options were adequate, Hemis and overhead-camshaft Hemis were the norm. Wheelbases were whatever, carburetors were ash-canned in favor of injectors and even blowers, and gasoline was rather pass鮠Having lived the evolution as a 14-year-old, both through magazines and at northwest tracks, I can tell you it was a very exciting time.

As Stockers evolved into factory experimentals and into ?run-whatcha-brung? match racers or Funny Cars, Davis? book takes the route most of the factories did. They both divert to the new NHRA Super Stock classes, and the ?legal? A/FX cars. While Funny Cars received most of the headlines, the factories were still trying to race what they sold.

In 1966, for example, one of the more hotly contested races we all watched excitedly was the one for A/S between Jere Stahl?s new Street Hemi Belvedere sedan and Bill Jenkins? 350hp Chevy II. It looked to most as David vs. Goliath, but the cars were quite equal on the track.

The following year, the factories stepped even further away from the funny cars by sponsoring ?clinics? for their featured drivers. Davis titled his final chapter, ?1966-1968 ? The Era That Top ?Stock? Died.? He?s not far off.

Stock had evolved in so many different directions it was hard at the time to dissect its exact route. Funny Cars were mostly fliptop fiberglass replicas, or were called Experimental Stock at national events. A/FX was a class that was evolving on its own into what would become Pro Stock in another year or so. Stock had become Super Stock, with roller cams and big tires allowed, virtually identical to Factory Experimentals a year or so before. There was still a Stock Eliminator, of course, but it was mostly filled with earlier models of bygone times.

This book covers it all in over 200 pages of jam-packed, dramatic action, and does it well. It covers just slightly under two decades of time when Detroit became seriously interested in a little quarter mile acceleration sport.

Are there mistakes? Yes, and quite a few. But nothing that will detract from the overall feel of this great piece of literature. I would love to sit with Larry before the book goes to its second printing and fix a few of them. And it will go to a second printing, it is that good. In Larry Davis? defense, he is an aviation historian, after all, author of over 70 titles on the subject. This is his first attempt at dragracing.

As an extra treat, there are several appendages in the very back of the book, covering rules as they changed, the Stock Eliminator winners over the years, the top combinations available from the various manufacturers over the years, a quick chronology of engine development and even a list of car names and drivers associated with them.

I highly recommend Super Stock: Drag Racing the Family Sedan, by Larry Davis, to dragrace fans and lovers of automotive history. It needs to be on everyone?s coffee table or library.

They are available at most fine book outlets like Borders, Barnes  & Noble, Amazon.com, and prices vary from about $35-$45. The author has a few on hand too. If you Email him direct SabreClsx@aol.com and send him $40 (includes postage), he?ll send you one autographed.

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