Critical Mass - Blind Man's Bluff = SPLIT THREAD

[bluffman]

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

The midget that we built was rather unusual, it had a Chevy 2, 4 cylinder engine laying on it’s side. This engine did not have a cross-flow head, the intake and exhaust were on the same side. In the photo, you can see the injector stacks pointing up, and the exhaust header was below them, making things pretty cramped up. This made the CG very low, and it took some doing to get it to handle on a dirt track, but once we got it figured out it was pretty awesome. Jack Yeley won the Arizona Racing Association Championship with this car. One memorable race at Manzanita Speedway, the track was real muddy, and I had a couple of big rain tires from the “Warthog”, that were a very soft compound. We put one on the right front for the heat race, and wore it out, but for the main we put the other one on, and it stuck like glue in the turns, and smoked everybody off and won the race, but the tire wouldn’t have lasted for more the 3 or 4 more laps, it was down to the cord when Yeley pulled in.

One of the Formula Fords that I was working on was an old, old Lotus, and when the guy brought it in he said that he had run the Bisbee Hill Climb, and finished in last place, and wanted me to try to make it more competitive. His name was Terry Davis, a real nice guy, and told me do whatever I wanted to the car. We tore it down and cut it all up, moving the radiator from the front to the side, just in front of the left rear tire, updated the suspension, shocks, springs, anti-roll bars, and all of that. Then we built a new body for the Lotus, staying just inside the fuzzy area of the rule book. I also fudged a little on the engine rules of course, but not enough that would be detected by the scrutineers. I called Terry when it was finished, and when he came to pick it up, he couldn’t figure out where his Lotus was, he wandered around the shop looking for it, passing by just a few feet from it. Of course we all started laughing, telling him that if it was a snake, it would have bit him. Colin Chapman himself wouldn’t have recognized it, it bore no resemblance to a Lotus. Terry was very pleased with the “new look”, and said that he hoped it ran as good as it looked. He took it to the Bisbee Hill Climb, and finished in first place! I’m sure a lot of “purists” who restored old cars would not have been pleased with what I had done to this antique Lotus, but to me “nothing is sacred” when it comes to racing.

Larry

[t-dub]

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

Awesome midget Larry. What was the year? Gotta be mid 70's. I have a soft spot for the midgets. My Grandfather raced midgets back in the 40's, and started taking me to the races when I was 4. Of course it made a huge impression on me, seeing these guys sliding these cool looking cars around a dirt track, and getting wiffs of the methanol they were burning. I was hooked! Thanks a bunch for sharing your memories and photos with all of us, and please keep them coming! Troy

[bluffman]

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

t-dub, the midget was built in 1979. I have a "soft spot" for midgets also. My father ran them for a while before switching over to the "Roaring Roadsters" in 1949 or so. The smell of the methanol fuel was cool, and also the castor oil that many of them aded to the fuel.

Larry

[t-dub]

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

Larry, I thought you might enjoy seeing some of my favorite midget shots I've taken over the last couple of years. #1 is a young Matt Mitchell pounding the cushion in Quincy Ca. during a USAC event. #2 and #3 are Rick Faeth and Glenn Carson respectively, during a BCRA event at Reno-Fernley Raceway.(I love the rear view shots) And #4 is Ron Dunn and his Chevy II powered "Bayshore Bandit" vintage midget during the same event in Reno. Troy

[bluffman]

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

We continued working on the Chevrons, and Mustangs, and Shoen had been paying the bills as we went along, per our agreement. He and I had a disagreement regarding the radius of the rear fender cutout for tire clearance. He had brought me a photo of how it was supposed to be, and we made it like that. After this was done, he brought another couple of photos that showed different radiuses, none the same. I asked him to specify which one he wanted, and he said that he didn’t know…..DUH! I called Phil Remington to find out what the shape was, and did he have a template? His response was, “which car, on which day”? When they would test the cars, they would cut a piece out if a tire was rubbing, depending on which springs, shocks, wheels, tires, ride height, and driver who was doing the test. Whatever worked was what the radius was, there was no “template”. We settled on something that Shoen approved of, and moved on. He said that he was going to be out of town for a couple of weeks, but he would settle up on the bill as progress went on while he was gone, when he got back. I didn’t feel right about this, but I had employees to consider, I didn’t want to lay them of for the period that Shoen was gone, I had not taken any other work in that would keep them all busy, because I wanted to get his stuff done, and out of the shop first, because they took up a lot of workspace. I could see that Sandy was disturbed about something, and after Shoen left she told me that she had caught him going through her purse in the office. I asked her why she didn’t say something before Shoen left, and she said that she was afraid of what I might have done, had she told me!

I had the guys keep working on the cars, and about a week later someone came to the shop, and were looking at the cars, and said that they were really looking good, and mentioned that he had seen Shoen a couple of days before. I told him that as far as I knew Shoen was out of town. This guy said that Shoen had not gone anywhere, he had seen him regularly. I smelled a rat, and tried to locate Shoen, but had no luck.

I think it was a week or so later, that Shoen showed up with some trucks, trailers, and several “goons”, and said that he was going to take his cars. I told him that he wasn’t taking anything until the bill was paid. I immediately called my lawyer to find out what I needed to do to hold the cars for payment of the bill, which was $24K. He asked what the cars were worth, and I told him probably at least a half a million. He asked me who the owner was, and I told him, his response was that if I tried to impound the cars, it would cost me a hell of a lot more than $24K to store and insure them, Shoen was a lawyer, and he would play a waiting game, knowing that I could not afford to impound the cars. He suggested that I cut my losses and move on. I told my guys what was going on, and not to interfere, just let him take the cars. One of the “goons” came over to me and asked what was going on, so I told him, and he got mad as hell, and said that for $1,000.00 he would blow the bastards head off. I told him that I sure as hell didn’t want to get involved in anything like that. So Shoen got his cars, and I got the shaft, Burton Racing Service was shut down. I would do as my lawyer said, move on. I learned later that I was not the first one that Shoen had done this to, or the last.

[bluffman]

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

During the time at STB and BRS, brother Joe and I decided that we wanted to get into radio control model airplanes. I don’t recall what prompted us to engage in this endeavor, but we went to a hobby shop and each bought the best radio that they had, Futaba Contest 7, with more bells and whistles than we needed. We each bought a kit to build, mine was a Sig Commander, sort of a trainer, and for some reason Joe bought a Pica T-28, must have had over 4 foot wingspan, definitely not for a beginner. There were lots of airplanes hanging from the ceiling in the hobby shop, so I decided that I would also buy something that I could fly while building my kit. I picked out one that looked like a Cessna, with tricycle gear, but it had no motor, so I bought a .60 size engine, figuring horsepower was probably the way to go. The old boy that owned the hobby shop saw an opportunity to sell lots of stuff, and he took full advantage of it, sold us electric starters, fuel, batteries, and many other things that we didn’t need at this stage of the game.

There was a new tract of homes going to be built not far from where we lived, and the streets were paved already, but there were no homes being built at the time. This was “our” flying field, nothing around for several hundred yards. Joe, Vivian, Sandy and I set up a pit area, and after some discussion, I decided that we had this all figured out, flying one of these things couldn’t be all that hard. We fired that .60 engine up, then I gave it full throttle, and away she went, going like a bat out of hell, and it was going every which direction, I wasn’t flying it, I was chasing it, moving those sticks on the radio like crazy. Just as I got it going in a direction that I wanted, both wings sheared off, I still had full throttle, forgot to pull it back after take-off. What was left of the airplane came straight down, still at full power and slammed into the paved street. We were all laughing like crazy, and Sandy said, “It don’t take you long to have fun, does it?” I think that that airplane was designed for maybe a .35 size motor.

This incident didn’t deter us though, I put my Commander together, but bought a K&B .40 for it. My idea that horsepower was the key to flying these things went out the window, it wasn’t power that was needed, it was control. I still crashed a lot, but they didn’t hit the ground so hard, I even managed to repair some for yet another crash. Sandy had a big wicker basket that we took with us to haul the debris home. We decided that we would go to a regular flying field, and get some tutoring as soon as I got another airplane built.

Larry

[tuffer]

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

Larry,

Thought you might enjoy the attached picture. It was taken at the CRA race at Perris Speedway last month. John Redican on the left, Jimmy Oskie in the middle.


Tom Barnes

[bluffman]

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

We found out about a group that flew RC airplanes at an abandoned Air Force base just south of Tempe, so we loaded up my latest aircraft, and went to have a look-see. There were a dozen or so guys there flying all kinds of models, and one in particular had some nice stuff, WW2 war birds. I went over to look at his airplanes, and watch him fly. This guy was good, no doubt in my mind that this was the guy that I wanted to help me learn to fly my model. I introduced myself, and told him that I was new at this, and asked if he would mind giving me some advice and lessons. He said that his name was Joe Biritz, and he would be glad to help. I told Joe that I had brought my airplane, and I would like him to check it out and give it a test flight. I unloaded it, and after a short preflight check, I fired it up, and away it went, Joe did some trim checks, then began doing rolls, loops, and all of that stuff, and did a few touch and go landings, then landed it and taxied it over to where we were. We looked it over to make sure everything that needed to be tight was, and refueled it, and then he took off, got some altitude, and handed me the radio. Needless to say, I was nervous as hell, but he had me try a turn, then fly straight and level, all the time telling me to be gentle on the sticks, and said to make it do what I wanted it to do, not just let it go, and chase it. If it kind of got away from me, in a very calm voice, he would tell me what to do to correct my mistake. I was starting to feel pretty comfortable with the way I was doing, and I got it going straight, then I couldn’t help myself, I gave her some left aileron, and did a roll. Joe said that that was enough for today, and took the radio from me and landed it. He said that he came to the field every Sunday, and if I was there he would help me, but there were other things he wanted me to learn before doing rolls and other tricks. He made me promise that I wouldn’t try to do any flying on my own, just wait for Sunday when he was there. This was the beginning of a long friendship, as you will see as time goes by.

Larry

[bluffman]

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

Enjoyed the photos of the midgets, and the photo of John Redican and Jimmy Oskie, of course John worked with me several times, and I built his first sprint car engine when he decided he wanted to be a driver. He was a good mechanic, and I told him that you could find a driver on any street corner, but a good mechanic was hard to find. He decided to be a driver anyway, and a pretty good one.

Short post tonight, busted butt all day on Cassutt F1 getting ready for Reno. Just wanted to check in.

Larry

[tuffer]

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

He was a good mechanic, and I told him that you could find a driver on any street corner, but a good mechanic was hard to find.

Larry

As most crew chiefs say "a driver is only good for tearing up a perfectly good race car." My problem was always that the driver was also the owner.

[bluffman]

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

Joe Biritz got me flying pretty good, so I was pretty much on my own at the field after that. Brother Joe never quite got the hang of it, and gave it up after crashing his T-28. JoeBiritz had a guy named Lou who built airplanes for him, and they were always nice, and flew great, but one Sunday, a airplane Joe was flying just came apart in mid-air. He made a comment to Lou that maybe he should use more glue when building airplanes for him. The next Sunday, Biritz was flying another plane, and it flew apart like the previous one had, and in just a few minutes another fellow had his airplane come apart. There were always three or four guys flying at the same time, so it was pretty noisy, but after these models had come apart, everybody stopped flying, and were looking their airplanes over trying to figure out what was going on. I wasn’t concerned with this, and launched my bird, and made a few circuits, and I decided that I wanted to see how slow I could go before stalling. I cut the throttle to idle, and it got real quiet, except for the gunshot just as my airplane blew apart. A couple of the guys spotted some kids off in the distance, and headed in that direction, only to see two young Native American “braves” from the reservation running away, one of them carrying a rifle. If the same one fired all of the shots, I reckon he had become an “Ace”.

I was looking for something to do since shutting down Burton Racing Services after the Shoen caper, and Biritz asked me if I would build him a couple of RC models. I figured, why not, this would give me something to do while I was looking for another opportunity in racing. I had been building model airplanes since I was a kid, so I was pretty good at it, so I built a Martin-Baker MB-5, and a P-38 for Joe, flaps, retracts, and all of the bells and whistles. I did a lot of research for the MB-5, I wanted it to be as correct as possible, and what I discovered was very interesting. Too bad they didn’t build a bunch of them, I reckon it would have been a force to be reckoned with as a Reno Air Racer.

I don’t have a clue why, but for some reason I decided to go to Las Vegas to go to “slot machine” school. I remember telling Sandy that this would give me something to fall back on when I got too old to work on race cars. Sandy’s son Mike lived in Vegas and worked as a dealer in a casino, and I think he had said something about slot machine mechanics making good money, during a family get together the previous Christmas.

Sandy and I figured a change of scenery might be good, so we packed up, and moved to Las Vegas. I enrolled in the school, and on the first day there were 46 “students”. The instructor made a remark that if anyone was there to learn how to cheat the slot machines, they were wasting their time, the next day there were 12 “students” that showed up. “Welcome to Las Vegas”!


Larry

[bluffman]

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

The school was pretty easy since I had electronics, and mechanical experience, and they offered me an after class job to restore antique slot machines, and also trouble-shoot new designs. Normally slot machines are very predictable, but now and then they would run across a “rogue” that would pay out more than the norm, no matter what was done to “fix” them and these were destroyed. Some of the antique machines were from cruise ships, and most of them had been “rigged” so that it was impossible to win on them. These had to be “legalized” before sold to the public. After I finished the “school”, I began dropping off resumes at several casinos.

When Sandy and I had moved into our apartment, I could hear model airplanes flying nearby, and I went to investigate this, and I was very surprised, just two blocks from where we lived was the “Stardust Raceway”, where Charlie Hayes had crashed the Can-Am car back in 1966. It had been closed for many years, and now was a popular RC flying site. I met a fellow there, Bob Pickens, who said that he would be glad to teach me more about flying RCs. I had brought one of my airplanes with me, so this gave me something to do when not in school, and waiting for a job opportunity at a casino. Pickens liked my workmanship on my bird, and asked me if I would build a couple for him. He said that he would pay me for doing this, so of course I agreed, a few bucks would help out while I was in school and waiting for a response from my resumes. I “set up shop” in our apartment for building models, and soon I was swamped with “orders” to build them.

I got some calls for job interviews, and they sounded pretty good, but when I went to these places for an interview, the first thing that came up every time was that I had not disclosed that I was in a wheelchair. I was told that they couldn’t possibly hire me to work on slot machines, because it wouldn’t look good to their “gambling customers”. I continued pursuing this line of work, figuring that sooner or later someone would hire me. Thankfully, I had airplanes to build to keep some cash flow going. One day while at the flying field, I mentioned to a guy that I had raced there years ago. He asked if I knew that Roger Ward, Indy 500 winner worked for the “Circus-Circus” casino. I told him that I didn’t, but would check it out.

The following Monday, I went to the “Circus-Circus” to find Roger Ward, he knew me from Indy, and also the Paul Newman movie thing, thinking that he might have some “pull” getting a job. I had no problem finding Roger, he was “Director of Special Events” or something like that. I was told to go to a certain office, and not only was Ward there, the guy who ran the casino, Mel Larson was also there. I had met Mel many years previously, when I was in the Air Force in Lincoln, Nebraska at Speedway Motors, where I was “moonlighting”, working on a Pontiac for Tiny Lund to race in NASCAR. After some “bench racing”, and B-S ing, they took me to an office to meet the “Slot Manager”, and told him that they were going to hire me to work for him. This guy was blunt and to the point, saying that he didn’t want someone in a wheelchair working for him, and said that he had been working there for 15 years, and it was their choice, if they hired me, he was gone! Obviously they didn’t want this bozo to quit, so they took me back to the other office, then said that they had a better position for me.

Circus-Circus ran those big Unlimited Hydroplane boats, with the Merlins or Allisons in them, and had designed a new revolutionary hull for the turbine powered boat they were testing. They had built a ¼ scale model of this boat, and tested it at Lake Mead, radio controlled, and it seemed to perform as hoped. Unfortunately, the full sized version wanted to be a submarine instead of a hydroplane, and the person in charge was let go. They offered me that position, and the salary was astronomical, with lots of “perks” as well. I’m thinking, man, this could be interesting, and a lot of fun. Their boats were always pink and white, and I was envisioning one of those, screaming across the lake, at about 200 miles per hour, turbine roaring, throwing a big rooster-tail behind, totally awesome! Then I thought about this for a couple of seconds, and said, “If I’m not good enough to work on your damned slot machines, I’m not good enough to work on your damned boats”, and spun around and wheeled out of the office, and the “Circus-Circus, and drove home. Sandy asked me how it went with Roger Ward, and I began telling her about the boat deal, and she was getting a big smile on her face, then I told her the “punch line”, and I thought she was going to faint. Then she said, “tell me you’re joking”!

Had they offered me the position on the boats before bothering to take me to meet the slot manager, and be offended by his remarks, I would have yet another wild tale to tell.

Larry

[bluffman]

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

I don't know how this clipping will turn out, maybe I will need to cut it out of the newspaper.

Larry

[bluffman]

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

After the boat fiasco, someone told me that I should go to the “equal employment opportunities office, and explain my situation regarding discrimination in being hired to do slot machine work. I didn’t really want to pursue this for myself, but maybe it would help other people who had problems getting jobs. I had already had enough of Vegas, and was going back to Arizona. I met with the director of this office, and was informed that if I made waves in Las Vegas, they would find my body in the bottom of Lake Mead. Interestingly, a short time later he was charged with improper use of his position and authority, and was jailed. I had not filed a complaint, but apparently many others had.

I had five airplanes that I was building, and I would finish them before leaving. One was a P-47 Thunderbolt, for Scale Contests, and had all of the bells and whistles, and was fully documented, and I would net $3,500.00, the others were not so fancy, but still would bring in quite a few bucks. One of them was a “Quickie 500” that I built for Bob Pickens that was marginally legal, in that fuzzy area of the rules that I always had fun with, and set a new speed record at 156 miles per hour.

I got everything completed, and Sandy and I drove back to the Phoenix area, to see what I could find to do there, yet again. We leased a house in Tempe, for some reason, don’t have a clue why, but it would turn out to be the right choice. At the first opportunity, Sandy and I went out to the RC flying field, just to have something to do, and Joe Biritz was there, so I told him about my flying in Vegas with Pickens. He let me fly one of his airplanes, and commented that Pickens had taught me well. Joe asked me where I was working, and I told him that I was sniffing around to find something interesting to do. He said that he wanted some planes built, he was getting into twin engine stuff in a big way, and wanted a B-25, and another P-38, he had crashed the one I had built for him previously, and he said that he would put me on the payroll at his manufacturing facility. I could just build for him, and come in each Friday for a paycheck. This sounded like a hell of a deal to me, he was going to pay me well. I did this for about four months, and one day he called, and asked me to meet him at his office. Funny, all of the time I had known him, I had only gone in the front office to pick up a check, and had never been in the shop area. I had no idea that the entire big building was his, just figured that he leased part of it or something. The place was huge, lots of machinery, and about 50 employees. They did a lot of sheet metal forming, and machine work, some prototype parts for Garrett Turbine engines. The more he showed me around, the more impressed I was. He took me through the shop, and out back where there was a patio area, a roof, but no walls. There were some big “tumbling” machines that deburred parts, some bead blasters, and other things that were not suitable to be inside the “squeaky clean” shop. I was looking around, and spotted what looked like some kind of car body laying out in the dirt, and asked him what it was, and he said that it was a “Cobra” body and he had it for some time, but couldn’t find anyone to build it for him. I asked him what other parts he had, and he said that he had a frame, a 351 Cleveland Ford NASCAR engine, a transmission, a Jaguar rear end, and a few other parts. So, I said, Joe, I will build it for you, right here in your shop, you have everything I need to put it together, all I would want is access to the machines to make what parts I need. The “Cobra Caper” is about to begin, with a vengeance! Our leasing the house in Tempe did prove to be the right choice, it was only about two miles from Joe’s shop.

Larry

[bluffman]

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

I asked Biritz where he had got the Cobra body, and frame, and he said he had bought it from a shop in Tempe, called Unique Motors, or something like that, so I went there to investigate what they were up to. They had a very accurate body mold, but they built the frame using rectangular steel tubing instead or the round tubing as in the original Cobras. This was much easier to do, and was much more rigid, or so they said. I didn’t want to build an exact replica anyway, so this didn’t concern me. I was planning on building more of a “hot rod” with a Cobra body. My Cobra was going to be a driver, not a show car, but outwardly it would look like the real thing.

As luck would have it Unique was assembling a Cobra for the Emir, ( sort of the king) of Kuwait, and they needed some help to get it finished and shipped there, so I had a chance to help build one of these, and learn what to do and what not to do when building Joe’s car. They were really anxious to get this car finished because if the Emir liked it he wanted 15 more for his nephews. Lots of bucks involved in this project. The strange thing about this caper was that the King, or whatever he was, wanted a Chevy engine instead of a Ford, because he was an Arab, and was convinced that the Ford Motor Company was owned by some Jewish people.

I’ll jump ahead a bit here, and then get back to Joe’s Cobra. Shortly after the Emir’s Cobra was delivered, he had been driving it, and somehow blew the transmission. He wanted someone to go over there and repair the car, and the guys at Unique didn’t want any part of that, so they called me to see if I would go to Kuwait, and fix it. Iran had 52 Americans hostage at the time, so it would be pretty risky to go to that part of the world, although the Kuwaities said that they could provide security for whoever went there to repair the Cobra. I was seriously considering participating in this adventure, but was getting a lot of flack from Sandy, and many friends. I wondered how I would fit into the culture there, being physically challenged, and in a wheelchair. I submitted a proposal, and it was going to cost them a lot of money, but money was not a problem for them, and if I pulled this off, I would have a great story to tell, as well as a healthy bank account. The government of Kuwait was a hereditary system, ran by the ruling family, and the Emir could only be replaced by a member of that family, a nephew or whatever, who was a crown prince. Everything fell apart, I was told that one of the nephews had killed the Emir, so now he was in charge, and had no desire to have a Cobra. I have no idea if that information was accurate, but Unique lost the deal for 15 more Cobras, and I am still around to at least spin this yarn.

Larry