Critical Mass - Blind Man's Bluff = SPLIT THREAD

[bluffman]

Re: Critical Mass - Blind Man's Bluff = SPLIT THREAD

I am going to try some photos. Larry

[bluffman]

Re: Critical Mass - Blind Man's Bluff = SPLIT THREAD

Another one

[bluffman]

Re: Critical Mass - Blind Man's Bluff = SPLIT THREAD

I think I may have this figured out, finally. Will try more photos tomorrow. Larry

[AAFO_WSagar]

Re: Critical Mass - Blind Man's Bluff = SPLIT THREAD

I think I may have this figured out, finally. Will try more photos tomorrow. Larry

[bluffman]

Re: Critical Mass - Blind Man's Bluff = SPLIT THREAD

If this works it is the Can Am car that Charlie Hayes drove. Note my Quicky front spoiler, and the upswept exhaust that I mentioned in the earlier post.

[bluffman]

Re: Critical Mass - Blind Man's Bluff = SPLIT THREAD

I'll try another one. Bill Simpson Dec. 69 at Rex Mays 300 at Riverside, California.

[bluffman]

Re: Critical Mass - Blind Man's Bluff = SPLIT THREAD

Wayne, How do I decrease "sum of attatchments?" I got somewhere last night and decreased them, but I can't seem to get there again.
Larry

[bluffman]

Re: Critical Mass - Blind Man's Bluff = SPLIT THREAD

I will try another and see if I have enough space left. This is the Mickey Thompson FWD car at Indy in 67, with Sammy Sessions.

[AAFO_WSagar]

Re: Critical Mass - Blind Man's Bluff = SPLIT THREAD

I just increased you Larry... I thought you were already a "senior" member.. I'll have to check it because it's supposed to automatically make you one..

You are now so go for it!

Wayne

[bluffman]

Re: Critical Mass - Blind Man's Bluff = SPLIT THREAD

Thanks Wayne, This one is Daring Darrell Dockery in the car I built up in Fresno. This was taken at Sonoma, California, on a road course. His first time on a road course, but he did real well. I haven't met with Darrell yet, but I wanted to post this photo anyway. I want to familiarize myself with this picture process. I think I have got it going my way now.
Larry

[bluffman]

Re: Critical Mass - Blind Man's Bluff = SPLIT THREAD

After the movie thing was over I went sprint car racing with my brother Dale. I think I have this in sequence, not that it matters that much, but it is close and really happened about that time. We towed Willy Davis’s sprint car to Reading, Pennsylvania from Indianapolis for a USAC race with Dale’s Chevy, I think it was a 1956. He qualified pretty good, but the way it worked was that to make the main you had to finish up front, in the top 4 I think, in your heat race, and if you didn’t you had to run the semi- main, and finish in first or second to transfer into the main. Anyway that didn’t happen for some reason, and we missed the show. Sometimes it happens that way. Now we had to get back to Indy, but when we got down the road a ways we ran out of gas, and had none with us, but we had lots of alcohol fuel in the race car. We knew that the old Chevy wouldn’t run very well on that, if at all, but we had to try it, because we out in the middle of nowhere. Dale fueled her up with some alcohol, and it ran, but just barely. I doubt if it would go more than about 25 miles an hour, but it got us to a gas station. Then the situation got worse, none of us had any money to buy gas. I don’t know why that was the case, it just was. Luckily some other racers were also heading back to Indy after the race, and they spotted us and pulled in to see if we had broken down or something. Dale borrowed some money from one of the guys, and we were able to continue our return to Indy. Needless to say, all this made for a very unpleasant trip, but a memorable experience. Shortly after that I headed back to my home in California. I kept busy doing some sprint car stuff for a while, then Dockery called and pretty soon we began finishing up the Indy car, getting it ready for his entry into “big time racing”. He had to run three races , Phoenix, Monterey, and Trenton to be allowed to take his rookie test for the Indy 500. He had zero experience in a rear engine car, let alone an Indy car, so we had a lot on our plate.
Larry

[bluffman]

Re: Critical Mass - Blind Man's Bluff = SPLIT THREAD

Sorry I haven’t been posting, but I became confused about the sequence of events, and had to dig out scrapbooks of photos, newspaper clippings and my old passport to get things in order. After completing the Dockery rolling chassis, I went to work for Bill Simpsonand I mentioned in an earlier post that we ran Dover, Delaware, and Riverside, California in December 69. In between those races we also ran Brainard, Minnesota. I don’t know how I let out the Brainard race, because we had a unique experience there. The car Simpson had at that time was a “Gilbert Cheetah”, a Brabham copy built by Howard Gilbert, with his personal touch. Earlier they won the Phoenix , Arizona race with a Chevy engine, driven by George Follmer before selling the car to Simpson without an engine. Jim Ward built a legal 320 cubic inch Chevy engine for the car. At Brainard during practice Simpson was following somebody, and they spun off the course and showered Bill with dirt and gravel. Unfortunately some stones went down the fuel injection stacks, and killed the engine. We didn’t have a spare engine with us, but did have a spare set of heads. The pistons were junk, and the only person we could think of that might have some was Howard Gilbert. I asked him if he had some, and he said ”sure”, and gave me a set of eight. I was cleaning them up, and was going to put a set of piston rings on them while Ward was getting the block, oil pan and things ready so we could assemble the engine. Something didn’t look right, and I had Jim come over and take a look. Ha! Howard had mistakenly gave me a set of pistons for a 364 cubic inch motor. No wonder they had won the Phoenix race. When I confronted Howard about this, he got a sheepish grin on his mug, and said, “I guess I dug into the wrong box”, and took them from me and returned with another set, and said “these should work better.” Ward got the engine put back together, and we got it back in the car for another practice session. Luckily this was a two day event because after a few laps Simpson pulled in with smoke bellowing out of the clutch housing. The engine was still running when out of nowhere appeared a fireman with a “dry powder” fire extinguisher, and he emptied it into the clutch housing while the engine was running. Man, there was dust flying everywhere, it looked like a bomb had gone off. Simpson shut it off and jumped out of the car wondering what was going on. Of course this drew quite a crowd! There had been a oil leak at the rear of the intake manifold, and since this was a road course with a lot of shifting and using the clutch it was pretty warm. We had to remove the engine to clean out all of this “dry powder”, and fix the oil leak. Jim and I got it all back together and the next day Simpson got qualified and made the race. I don’t recall how he finished, but I don’t think it was too bad considering the drill we had gone through. This takes the story up to the Riverside race in December 69. Next came the Tasman Series in January 1970. After returning to the good ol’ U.S, the Dockery caper begins. (I think I’ve got it all straightened out up to this point.) From here on I recall pretty much how things happened. The Dockery experience will prove to be quite interesting. We had to pull a few “fast ones” to get him on the Indy Speedway.

Larry

[bluffman]

Re: Critical Mass - Blind Man's Bluff = SPLIT THREAD

Wayne, and all, be patient with me, I am doing some research so that I can get things right, and haven't met with Dockery yet. This caper was with Darrell, Gordon Cole, and I. That was our whole "race team", just the three of us. I have talked to Gordon quite a bit, and he has a good memory about how things went, but I would still like to get Dockery's input as well. This was a very "different" experience, and I don't want to leave anything out.

Larry

[SpinB]

Re: Critical Mass - Blind Man's Bluff = SPLIT THREAD

Mr. Burton, take all the time you need! We don't want to pressure you at all! I, for one, have enjoyed the "ride", thus far, and don't want you to change! Your still....'the man'!!! Thank you for your story!

[bluffman]

Re: Critical Mass - Blind Man's Bluff = SPLIT THREAD

I will pick up on the story now, I think that I have it pretty well straightened out. On post 219 I talked about the “Tasman Series” in New Zealand and Australia, and I returned to the states in late February 1970. I shortly thereafter went to Phoenix, AZ to help get Dockery’s car ready for the upcoming race there. That was the first of the three races Darrell would have to run to get to Indy for a rookie test, as I mentioned earlier. There wasn’t much time left because the race was in either late March or early April, for some reason I haven’t been able to nail it down. All of my searching the internet for USAC races produced data for races from 1971 on. At any rate, we had a lot to do in a short time.

I need to explain how, and why this whole Dockery thing came about. Back then there were hundreds of young racers that dreamed of somehow, someday racing in the Indianapolis 500. Every one that was running midgets, and sprint cars were doing so to get the necessary experience that they needed to move up, and hopefully get noticed by an Indy car owner that would give them a chance. For instance Mario Andretti was one of those, and someone told Clint Brawner, chief mechanic for the Dean Van Lines Indy team that he should give Mario a chance. Clint watched some races that Mario was running, and decided that he didn’t have the skill and finesse for Indy. Another fellow that Clint had a lot of respect for told him that he should reconsider, and so Clint “hired”Mario. The rest is history! It was a Brawner “Hawk” that Mario won the 1969 Indy 500 driving. Well, Dockery was one of those “hopefuls” and hadn’t run back east where he could get the exposure to get recognized. Darrell was a produce packer, lettuce and cantalope mostly in the Fresno, California area, when he wasn’t racing his sprint car. The Gehrhart Indy cars were built in Fresno, but had ceased building cars, but the race car shop was still pretty much intact. Lots of pieces, jigs for building suspension parts, welders and other equipment needed to fabricate cars. Darrell went there and talked to Fred Gehrhart, and made a deal with him that we would buy and build a car from the various parts laying around. Darrell would pay him weekly from his pay checks. “Cantalope Money”, I guess it could be called. So, I went up there, and when the farm laborers went to the fields each morning, I would go to the shop and put together a car. There was a somewhat complete monocoque “tub” that had not been finished, so I had a good starting point at least. It had been intended for a turbo Offy, so I had to modify it some for a Chevy. There were no suspension pieces to speak of, so I had to figure out which jigs were for what. We ended up with a car, but I will guarantee you that it was “one of a kind.” As I was putting this thing together I would run across parts that were used on their production cars that I figured weren’t really needed, so I left them out. I could tell by looking at and measuring the front bulkhead that the car was intended to be offset to the left, and I didn’t like that, so I modified it to be on center. A lot of these things had been figured out by an engineer I’m sure, but as I have said before, I was not encumbered by a degree, so I did it the way I thought it should be. It all turned out fine, the car handled great on ovals, flat and banked, and also road courses.

This whole deal was done with no intention to be financially compensated by myself and Gordon Cole. We wanted to prove that we could do it, and by golly Daring Darrell was going to get to Indy, one way or another. Sometimes a dream can turn into a nightmare, but in this case it didn’t. We will make it to Indy, but first we had to get it to the Phoenix race.
Larry