Lord Voldemort

[PowerByPackard]

for those of us thAt aren't in the know, can someone pLeAse provide a brief explaNation as to why and how "he who can not be named" attained this status?

[RAD2LTR]

Re: Lord Voldemort

I'll wager a guess, he ticked a lot of people off, and killed the Stiletto program before it really got going.

Will

[wingman]

Re: Lord Voldemort

In my case he still owes me money from 1986. And ask BellcobraIV about the finances (prize money) from the Bakersfield Race. The man is a jerk...

Neal

[BellCobraIV]

Re: Lord Voldemort

In my case he still owes me money from 1986. And ask BellcobraIV about the finances (prize money) from the Bakersfield Race. The man is a jerk...

Neal

A-L-A-N isn't a nice guy.

[Big_Jim]

Re: Lord Voldemort

Several years ago I was having a conversation with Bob Hannah and his comment was that there were two kinds of people in the world...those that A-L-A-N had screwed over and those that A-L-A-N WOULD screw over in the future.

And understand that A-L-A-N (through help if Bob's friend Bruce Lockwood) had signed off on Buckwheat's racing license, and I even have a photo somewhere of Buckwheat wearing A-L-A-N's flight suit.

I recall him jokingly calling him "Alan PISS-ton"

[Big_Jim]

Re: Lord Voldemort

for those of us thAt aren't in the know, can someone pLeAse provide a brief explaNation as to why and how "he who can not be named" attained this status?

Its actually not a 'brief' story to be told. It's part of a longer tale starting with Zeuschel clipping the wings on "Jeannie", Wiley Sanders getting pissed and selling the plane to Leeward, and Z making the decision to build his own racer since this was the second unlimited sold out from underneath him.

"Stiletto" was supposed to be Z's "house racer" that he could build and run however he wanted and not have to answer to anyone. Unfortunately, money came into play, and Z brought on this new guy nobody had heard of named Alan Preston to finance the project. They won the first race out, but after that it was all about the mighty dollar, with Preston not paying Z for work done on motors and it got ugly. As I recall the plane sat for a long time after the Bakersfield race as the arguing continued. It reached its low-point after the breather-line popped at Reno '86 with Skip leading the race in "Stiletto". This was shortly after A-L-A-N had 'won' "Dago Red" from Frank Taylor in the so-called "Ugly Contest" (which is a legendary story in and of itself). A-L-A-N finished 4th that year in "Dago" and made a public remark that his engine, which had been built by Mike Nixon (a prot?g?e and former employee of Zeuschel's) ran perfectly...unlike the piece of crap that Z had built for "Stiletto" that couldn't even finish.

Shortly after that, A-L-A-N took "Stiletto" away from Z and gave it to Denny Sherman in Florida to 'sell'. The Sherman's raced it for a couple years, and then A-L-A-N took it back in 1989 to be incorporated into the new Museum of Flying race stable....which A-L-A-N was forming with David Price. The airplane took backburner status until Matt Jackson convinced everyone to let him have a shot with it. Matt did some pretty good stuff with it at Reno '92 with the new boil-off system, and it looked like "Stiletto" was going to be the MoF racer of the future. But according to Matt, a couple days after Reno, "a couple of Price and Preston's goons met him at the airport and said that he was out and they were going to concentrate on "Dago" instead". So A-L-A-N took "Stiletto" and gave it to Teeters to be converted to a TF-51 instead.

Screwed a lot of people with that airplane.

Now....maybe next we can talk about the Zeros and Allison-powered Yaks that were built in Russia, and how many people THAT project screwed over?

[AAFO_WSagar]

Re: Lord Voldemort

Wow!

[PowerByPackard]

Re: Lord Voldemort

Thanks for the info. Just trying to understand the history there. Went back through the archives and found a bunch of stuff here on AAFO but nothing really that covered this. Did come across the "Ugliest Story".

Also came across several Dago themed picture stories from Bucky that were really awesome.

[John H]

Re: Lord Voldemort

Reno 2006, he cut the line at the Southwest gate , you should have seen the guilty as hell body language . Turning around every few seconds to make sure air racers and more he had screwed were coming to get him.