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Posted: Tue Apr 21, 2009 5:21 pm
by draglist
Welcome to the group! Pete Gemar (Morebetter99) can put you in touch with those Messino boys... bp

Posted: Tue Apr 21, 2009 8:14 pm
by Rapid Randy Baker
Roger, welcome to the board. That was a hell of a group of racers you named off. 8)

Posted: Tue Apr 21, 2009 8:37 pm
by Pappy1
Welcome Roger,Looking forward to more stories!!!!!!!!!

Posted: Tue Apr 21, 2009 10:53 pm
by Mr. Jean
Welcome aboard Roger. 8)

Thanks for the warm welcome!

Posted: Wed Apr 22, 2009 2:40 pm
by Roger
I appreciate your feed back (Bill, wheelzman, Rapid Randy, Pappy1 and Mr.Jean)

I will take you advise and try to contact Pete, if I can figure out how?
I'm not much of a computer guy so how would I e-mail him through this site?

I hate to wax on with the nosalgia, but it seems to me if we ever forget how we got here, we will be hard pressed to keep moving forward.

The three or so years I spent ragging on that car and running with those guy's are memories that remain so vivid in me today. There are probibly some stories I can relate to you guy's that may ring true still today.

Back then there were several "things" going on in the Gas, Coupe, and Sedan ranks in order to go faster, and the gang with Shake Rattle & Run took advantage of all of them. This may seem funny to some of you, but alot of the ideas and workmanship came from the Roundy Round guy's
Dick already had a Speed Shop building the motors for the car, the same guy that built Jack Ditmars engines, a fellow by the name of Harry Simonson, and he had some damn fast circle cars, almost every one ran out of Raceway Park, at like 87th and Stoney Island ( it was a bullpen of a track, the same place the "Greek" Karimizines dove in his younger days) at any rate, another friend of harry's was a fellow race car builder and fabricator by the name of Billy Keonig(?) so when Dick decided to put a straight axel (Ford Econoline I think) on the Chevy he went to this guy.

I think we stripped the car and towed it over to him at his shop, now my memory may be failing but this guy Billy, promtly cut the A Frame suspention off the car, took a few measurements with a tape, went and got some 2x2 steel tubing, started cuttin and welding and eyeballing and welding and, adjusting, turnd to Dick & Eric and said , "There you go!"
It just seemed that fast, we went back to the house put the chevy back together went to US 30 and made a perfectly straight arrow pass right off the trailer, and maybe picked up 2/10s or less for the effort. this is Old School talent and workmanship that just kicks A-- today.

After that came Tuned Headers replaced the "harps", W&H dual coil replaced the Mag, lift bars replaced the long ladders, Good Years replaced the M&H's and the car just kept getting faster. The car always looked good, it always sounded good, and it stuck fear in alot of guys guts when they had to run it in eliminations. The Willy's and Anglia guy's hated to see us show up.................and some of them would put thier stuff on the trailer when we did.

I remember being in Martin MI for friday night racing, and I think Dyno Don's ELIMINATOR comet was there and some other people maybe Seaton Shaker corvair, or Phil Bonner's Warbuck car, I cant remeber all of them, but the Chevy, under the lights was something to see, and for that whole night we had a bigger crowd around that car than the big guy's could muster.

Hey sorry for pontificating on the Old Day's, sometimes I just go on a rant.

Hope to see you all soon.

Rog

Posted: Wed Apr 22, 2009 2:42 pm
by draglist
You fan feel free to wax on like Mr. Miagi... :lol: We love it.

Pete frequents this site and I was basically looking to capture his eye and get him to reply. You can send him a PM... he's in there as morebetter99.

Bill

Posted: Wed Apr 22, 2009 2:44 pm
by draglist
PS... check out this link for all the great SRR info on draglist.com. bp

http://tinyurl.com/cby2gp

Posted: Wed Apr 29, 2009 1:31 am
by Della Woods
Hi everyone and thanks for the invite to join your forum....della woods