Book Report: Junior Stock, Drag Racing the Family Sedan

Junior Stock, Drag Racing the Family Sedan, Stock-Class Drag Racing 1964-1971
(Doug Boyce, 2012)

By Phil R. Elliott

I had to borrow this one. I’d love to have Junior Stock, Drag Racing the Family Sedan, Stock-Class Drag Racing 1964-1971 in my library but right now, buying more books is not feasible. So, I borrowed this one from friend, boss, and many time divisional and national event winner, Larry Tores. Interesting, his name is only mentioned once, just as a “helper” to John Barkley. Oh well. I read on.

This copy was autographed to Larry by Junior Stock maven and automatic transmission guru, Marvin Ripes, who was a mentor and advisor throughout Tores’ racing.

Author Doug Boyce admits to coming along a bit late for the Junior Stock craze; about 1970. And, today considering the wide gap between the Top and the bottom of the heap in dragrace parlance, discussing drag racing a lowly stocker seems far removed from today’s reality.

Jim McFarland’s Forward does a great job of quickly putting the dragracing of lower level cars into an understandable perspective, showing just how important those who chose to develop these cars were to the overall advancement of the sport. And, how the camaraderie among the racers was one of the stabilizing factors that kept it all alive and growing. One of Jim’s well thought out descriptions is: “In its purest form and despite their drive to win races, real members of the racing fraternity came to the aid of each other when the chips were down.”

Once upon a time, a great many young men, as well as a few women, found it a fulfilling challenge to research the rulebook, find a car/engine/transmission combination that they found feasible, search out and find a likely candidate, then build and race it. Initially, the Junior Stock movement was certainly helped by the glut of available-for-cheap 10 to 15-year old cars. These were the cars that sat neglected on the back row of every used car lot in the country, or behind mechanics garages or even in fields.

And listen, these pages of pages of photos and info about the cars that were all around me in the ‘60s, mostly the very ones I craved; Chevy and Ford sedans, 2-door wagons and sedan deliveries. Oh ya, and the same ones that are now worth $25,000 to $50,000. Sigh.

The book is basically laid out with years as each chapter; with Chapter 1 covering the early drag history of 1955-1963, back when “stockers” were mostly neglected but necessary. As the “horsepower race” evolved, Stock classes grew, and grew as fans began to enjoy matches between the best Detroit had to offer, the very cars they could purchase and drive. Boardroom bragging rights led to the “win on Sunday, sell on Monday” mentality that replicated a wind-fed wildfire. Covered in Junior Stock are the changing weight breaks and classifications, as well as the names that turned derelict rust buckets into magic early on.

When 1964 rolled up, the big ink went to Ford/Mercury and Dodge/Plymouth, based on their lightweight, high-horsepower offerings that were quick, fast and exciting. And, it wasn’t long before match racing gave more input to performance-minded engineers than did national events. Engine set backs and adjusted wheelbases came next, and Stockers snow-balled through fazes known as Ultra Stock, Factory Experimental, Experimental Stock before eventually evolving into Funny Cars.

At the same time, little guy racers were discovering and developing a whole different phenomenon – the Junior Stocker. If you split Stock Eliminator in two, and call SS/S down to say D/S “Top Stock,” everything else naturally falls into this Junior category.

There were pockets of higher levels of Junior Stock competition; the northeast states was one of these, Southern California – especially the San Fernando Valley – was the other main hot spot.

Bill Jenkins, and his Jenkins Competition, was the go-to shop for anything Stock around Pennsylvania and the greater New England region. If you saw his familiar logo on the flanks of a Stock entry, you knew it was going to be a winning combo, and probably a record holder. A long list of northeast racers called “Grumpy” their guru, and it paid off with performance increases.

There were certainly other major advisors and engine builders to call on as well such as Jere Stahl, Truppi & Cling, Sox & Martin and many more.

In SoCal, the braintrust was somewhat different, more of a huddle involving deep thinkers like Barkley and Tores, plus Marv Ripes, Tom & Tim Neja, Ray Dissette, Bob Lambeck, and several others. Not only did they help with advice, but loaned engines, transmissions, trailers, etc., to keep their friends in competition.

The formula for a competitive Junior Stocker was simple while at the same time, quite involved and even complicated. Any brand of car was fair game, and most were tried, from Hudsons to Studebakers, with plenty of Pontiacs and Oldsmobiles thrown in. There was always some brand for everyone’s taste, and, with decent preparation, they all seemed fairly competitive.

But, the tri-five Chevy was the favorite because there were so many available combinations. In 1957 alone, there were 1.5 million cars built in 19 different models, with seven different V-8 engine options. They were prevalent – every used car lot had six of them – and dirt-cheap. In the ‘60s, they were ten years old and could be had for a few hundred dollars! A little clean up, an engine rebuild, and overnight a guy had a reasonably competitive Junior Stocker. The finite details were the difference between winning and losing, and these racers found a way to liberalize the fairly rigid rules, work around them in some way, or just flat cheat until caught.

Part of this “cheating” was in getting the rules-makers to go along with the rationale that a certain combination should be legal. There was plenty of this that went on during this phase. Typical of this what-should-have-been rationalization was the allowance of the 4-speed transmission in the ’57 Chevy. It took several years before NHRA got Chevrolet to come clean that they never offered that transmission in 1957.

An even crazier combination was that the racers talked NHRA into allowing them to run a GM 4-speed automatic, the Hydramatic, in Chevy sedan deliveries and El Caminos. The key to this charade was that GM offered the big “hydro” in their truck line, and it was pointed out to rules-makers that sedan deliveries and Elkies were part of that truck line. This never-was combination was cut off before the 1970 season, but not before many were built and won scads of races.

These were just a couple of the mystical happenings that made Junior Stock one of the most popular and by far the most competitive of all of the Sportsman eliminators. For example, it was commonplace to see five and six rounds to win a class trophy.

By coming up with better components for their own racecars, many of the Junior Stock winners went on to being aftermarket parts manufacturers, and supply houses. Ripes (A1 Transmissions), Tores (T&D Machine rocker arms) and Dick Moroso are but three examples. Others advanced to much higher classes, winning in Pro Stock and beyond, by using the same detail-oriented philosophies that had made them winners all along. Junior Stock proved to be the corner stones and building blocks of much bigger and better things.

This book, Junior Stock, Drag Racing the Family Sedan, Stock-Class Drag Racing 1964-1971, is now the definitive source of information on the breed and this wonderful phenomenon that is now only a footnote to the history of dragracing.