Critical Mass - Blind Man's Bluff = SPLIT THREAD

[Bob]

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

Larry,
Cant wait to meet you at Reno!!!!!!!

[ebutner]

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

Larry,
Cant wait to meet you at Reno!!!!!!!

Yeah what he said... You're going to be a popular guy!

[bluffman]

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

I left off with Dale and Suzy moving to Tempe, and the “Warthog”. I’ll pick up on the story from that point.

Stu decided he wanted the Ford and “Warthog” painted black, which isn’t the best choice of colors when you live in the desert. When it’s 115 to 120 degrees, and you are working on one of these black cars outside in the sun, it gets damned uncomfortable real fast. To get even with Stu, I had Dale paint his helmet black as well.

I had come up with a design for STB T-shirts that had a desert scene instead of the usual racing T-shirts that had a race car scheme. There was the mountains, desert with Saguaro cactus, and of course the sun, and a small rather indiscrete banner that had STB Racing, Inc. on it. These T-shirts became very popular, mainly because they were so different, but still racing oriented. We never sold any that I recall, they were given as a promotional gimmick for advertising. It was amazing where we would see these shirts as Sandy and I traveled around the country in later years. Stu liked it so much that he had Dale paint this scene on both sides of the engine cover on the Formula Ford. ( I am going to post some photos that you can sort of see this on the car and also on some of the shirts)

Stu was from St. Louis, Missouri, but when he came to Arizona, he became “western”, cowboy boots and big “ten gallon” hats. He was also enamored with the “Phoenix bird” logo, of the bird rising from the ashes. You can see this “bird” painted by Dale on the nose of the Ford, and also on the front of the cowl on the “Warthog”.

In the photo of Stu leaning over in his cowboy hat talking to me, the man walking away on the left is brother Joe.

Larry

[bluffman]

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

Stu said that we that we were going to go to a race with the Ford and the “Warthog”, and we would need a truck and an enclosed trailer that both cars would fit in. He told me to go buy a Chevy Crew Cab Dualy, you know one of those things with the dual wheels on the rear. It had to be silver and red, and there were certain options that he wanted. He was very specific about how this truck had to be, I had no clue why, but he was the boss. I called a couple of Chevy dealerships, and they said that it would be impossible to get one of these on such short notice, and wished me luck. I had only a few days to get this trailer and truck rounded up in order to get to the race that was in California. I recalled that Bobby Unser had a Chevy dealership in Avondale, a sort of suburb to the west of Phoenix, so Sandy and I “hot footed” it there. Incredibly, there was one of the exact trucks that Stu wanted there. Of course Bobby wasn’t there, he was at home in Albuquerque, New Mexico, so I had to speak with one of his salesmen to get this truck. This guy told me that it was already sold, but I told him that I wasn’t leaving without it, and I was paying for it with the cash in my pocket. He said that there was no way that he could let me have it, so I said, “do I have to call Bobby Unser, I have his phone number in my wallet?” This got the guys attention, and he sure didn’t want to make Bobby mad, so he did what he had to do, and Sandy drove it back to STB, and I followed her in our van that we drove there. I wonder what the salesman told the guy that had ordered it?

I had called a few race shops in the Phoenix area and found a suitable trailer, so I bought it. We had to make some proper ramps for loading the two cars, but that wasn’t a big deal, and very shortly we had everything that we needed for the trip to California. Needless to say, Stu was happy that I had managed to get all of this done so quickly, and I told him that all it takes is money, and “hutspa” , and as long as his money held out I could make anything that he wanted happen. I never told him what I had to pay for the truck, but I must say that I paid dearly to get it, but I had the truck, and the salesman had an unexpected wad of $100 bills in his pocket.

Larry

[hm66sk]

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

To get even with Stu, I had Dale paint his helmet black as well.

That's funny! How did that play out?

[bluffman]

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

hm66sk, Stu got my point, but asked if I would at least paint a white stripe on the top of his helmet. In the one photo you can see that I did.

Larry

[bluffman]

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

We got our act together and took off to California and the Sonoma Mountain area for the race at Sears Point. Sandy and I, Joe and Vivian, a photographer that Stu hired to capture his prowess as a driver, and a couple of other guys that Stu hired to do something, but I never discovered their purpose, and of course Stu made the trip. Stu’s wife did not go along, she had pretty much lost interest in these shenanigans.

The cars ran pretty good during practice, but I made some gear changes on the Ford. We chose not to do anything to the “Warthog”, it was what it was, for better or worse. It was classified as an “A- Sports Racer, the highest class running at this race.

Much to my surprise, Stu finished second in the Formula Ford race, and then went out and won the A/SR race! He got a small trophy for the second place race, and a little bigger one for the win with the “Warthog”, and he was thrilled to death with these things.

Stu’s bubble burst when he arrived home and showed the trophies to his wife. She made some remark about “is that all you got for all of the money you spent” or something like that. The “you know what” hit the fan, and Stu’s racing days were over. Some accounting was done, and some of the money spent was not Stu’s to spend. STB folded up, and Stu told me to sell the truck and trailer for whatever I could get, and advertise the Ford for sale. What a shame, all of that money spent for just one trip to a race. I never found out what happened to the “Warthog”, it just disappeared.

I kept the shop running, just changed the name to Burton Racing Services, we had some cars in the shop that we were working on, and there was more work lined up, so it made sense to keep on going. All of the equipment that Stu had bought stayed in place, and he never mentioned anything about selling any of it, so it was business as usual.

Larry

[bluffman]

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

It wasn’t long before a guy came to the shop inquiring about the Lola Formula Ford that was for sale. He seemed to like what he saw, and we made the deal. Along with the car he got the open trailer, and all of the Lola parts, including the mold for the nose with the “bubbles for Stu’s big feet. I hadn’t noticed what he had driven to the shop but I told him to hook it up and take her home. I think that somewhere along the line he had said that he had come down from North Dakota, but that didn’t seem unusual
considering all of the miles I had spent dragging race cars around. Then he really got my attention, he said that he had enough power to tow the trailer, but it might be a problem hooking it up to an F-4 Phantom.

He had flown from Fargo, North Dakota to Luke Air Force Base just west of Phoenix in an Air National Guard F-4. He said that he would have someone tow the car home later. That’s how I met John Foyen in 1979, yep, the same John who I posted in the photo of the Carbon Fiber Cobra earlier, and also the friend who escorted me to Indianapolis a few days ago, along with his friend, Dr. Dave Humphreys. John and Dave took real good care of me during the trip, I could not have done it without them. Dave is a retired Orthopedic surgeon, and John is a retired Air Force pilot, 29 years, and he says about 8,000 hours in F-101s, 102s, F-4s, F-16s, and many more. He flew with Skip Holm in the 101s, I think it was.

The sale of the Ford to John way back then led to our paths crossing many times over the past 29 years, and we spend a lot of time together these days, along with Gordon Cole, from the “Dockery” Indy car caper in 1969-70. John and Gordon grew up together in Fargo, North Dakota. It’s sure a small world, isn’t it?

John raced the Ford for a while, then moved up to other classes later. This is a photo of Ol’ Lola after John rebuilt it.

[bluffman]

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

We were soon swamped with work, two Formula Fords, a new design midget, an Indy Eagle, a couple of sprint car chassis, and Mike Shoen, of the infamous U-Haul family brought a formula 3 or something, two Shelby Ford 1965 Gt-350-Rs, and three or four Chevron BT-16s in for restoration. Dale was also painting and lettering a sprint car. Fortunately the guy leasing the other half of the building moved out, and we took over that space, doubling our square footage. I hired a couple more guys, and we dug in ”with our heads down and our ears back”, “full speed ahead”.

Posting a couple of photos of the GT-350-R Mustangs that Shoen wanted restored to original. Pretty obvious that they had been mutilated real bad. Now the trick was figuring out what “original” was!

Larry

[bluffman]

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

My computer freaked out, but I managed to get it going again to do the last post. It is late, and I am pooped, but will get going again tomorrow.

(damned Vista!) Larry

[bluffman]

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

While were working on the GT 350-R Mustangs, we were also working on some of the other Shoen cars. The little green car was Formula 3 or something, but we just called it the “Pickle”, it was powered by a Norton Manx motorcycle engine. The orange car was one of the Chevron BT16s, the first one completed. The Burton Racing Services painted on was Shoen’s idea, you can see it on the rear deck on the rear view. Some of Dale’s artwork. The other Chevrons were pretty rough, and we pulled molds off this car to make nose pieces, etc. for the other cars. It was powered by a Cosworth overhead cam engine. One of the others had been butchered up, and had been converted over to a Porsche engine, so of course this had to be corrected. These Chevrons were very rare, not very many made, and very few survived, maybe six or so, as I recall.

I had to replace the rear quarter panels on the Mustang in the rear view photo, and they had to be installed like original, and leaded in , no Bondo, just lead solder, and a lot of torch and paddle work. One of these cars was serial number 001, and the other was 012, I think, of 13 like these built, but there were 35 or 36 other competition models built. To be legal for racing in SCCA, as B/ Production class, there had to be 100 GT 350s built, so this was handled by building Gt350-S cars that were similar. These cars became very popular, and a total of 562 were produced. The history of these cars is very convoluted, and arguable, so there are a lot of “expert” opinions. When I had any question as to how things were supposed to be done, I called Phil Remington, who was the man in charge when they were built at Shelby American.

Larry

[kevracer58]

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

I've always thought that the Chevron B16's are beautiful racers, and as you mentioned very few were built (23) and of course many were destroyed through the years. In 2006, Chevron cars started making what they call "continuation" B16's. Do you know the whereabouts of the car in the photos?

Kevin

[RAD2LTR]

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

Chevron B16s are crazy fast. I saw a few at the Wine Country Classics at Sears Point last year. One of them dropped the field and was gone. Dropped the Porsche 935s that were in the field as well as everything else. I hope to see a few of them this weekend at the same event.

As for the GT350Rs, I think I might know a later owner of s/n 1, I know the guy had a very very early car, and I think he said it was different from all the others. I'll have to check with him.

Will

[t-dub]

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

Here's a few of the cars that were at the HMSA Reno Historics a couple of weeks ago. The event unfortunately was about half the size of years past. Hopefully you'll see a good event in the wine country......

[bluffman]

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

The Chevron #16 was crashed at Phoenix International Speedway by Mike Shoen. Someone repaired it I heard, but I have no clue where it is now. Don't know anything about continuation Chevrons. As far as the Mustangs, the early ones were "racers", then here were "competition " models. Note in the photos that the " racers" did not have the side rear windows.

It's been almost 30 years since I had anything to do with these cars, and my recollections are from that era. There have been a lot of myths, some valid, created since by "experts".

Larry