[Steve Barcak]

Originally Posted by poison heart

Why did he like those 4 bangers so much?

During the time that the 4cyl Tempest was being manufacturered, Pontiac was officially racing. Mickey Thompson was Pontiacs primary paid aftermarket parts designer, manufacturer, promoter, racer, etc for Pontiac engines and automobiles pertaining to drag racing, land speed records, endurance, etc.
Pontiac also had its own paid group for the NASCAR wars during this time too.
This lasted until Jan 1963 when Pontiac was forbidden to race anymore, that included racing engine development, formal racing and having aftermarket paid hot rodders like M/T. This corporate edict was brought to Pontiac from GM headquarters and was the beginning of what I call "corporate nonsense".
more info on this here- http://pontiacheaven.org/about%20pontiac%20heaven.htm

After Jan 1963 only Ford, Mercury and Chrysler were officially racing (though chev was allowed to get away with some, Pontiac did not). After Jan 63, Pontiac had to redirect to street performance and not racing.

If the ban wouldn't have happened, Pontiac would have been an absolute leader in the HP wars of the 60s and we wouldn't be dicking with round port and tunnel port stuff and trying to play catch up as it ended up. We would have wild, high hp stuff like this Pontiac M/T HEMI (shown below from my collection) that made 760 hp on gas in 1962... and over 1,100 hp on nitro.



And much wilder stuff too like SOHC, DOHC, 3 valve per cyl, etc. Despite all the handicaps and restrictions after Jan 63, Pontiac held its own and still built great cars and great motors. Still, it could have been much better and they were so close.

Steve
Hosting-
Thur-Sun April 8-11, 2010 12th annual Pontiac Heaven Phoenix www.pontiacheaven.org
Sunday April 11, 2010 8th annual Nostalgic Show & Go! Phoenix www.nostalgicshowandgo.org

[Jack Gifford]

Originally Posted by poison heart

Why did he like those 4 bangers so much?

He didn't particularly favor four cylinder engines. He simply used Pontiacs as the basis for the wide variety of engine sizes he needed for various purposes during the '58 - '62 period. V8s of many displacements, 4-cyl, 2-cyl, whatever! The dyno session on the blown 2-cyl (94 c.i.?) was aborted at 5,000 RPM due to excessive vibration- but it still made 257 HP and earned him a couple of international records (FIM) at Bonneville!

[poison heart]

I see thanks

[wreckmastr]

[marks73ta]

65nss4spdGTO, do you know alot about that '63 Medicine Man car? I always tell of a silver '63 that ran at Great Lakes Dragaway in Union Grove WI. "The Grove". I remember it running many different combinations of motors at different times. If this is the Cat did he run a built slant 4 in it one time? I remember a silver Catalina with many different motors on different occasion in the very early '70's. I think this was the car. Would love to know the truth. It seems tha tIremember the 4 cylinder running very low 13s/high 12s and really screaming? This in a full size Catalina. Thanks. Mark L

[Keith Seymore]

69 RA GTO posted this link on another thread:

http://www.vaautoracing.org/Gallery2.html

K

[pont406]

Originally Posted by marks73ta

65nss4spdGTO, do you know alot about that '63 Medicine Man car? I always tell of a silver '63 that ran at Great Lakes Dragaway in Union Grove WI. "The Grove". I remember it running many different combinations of motors at different times. If this is the Cat did he run a built slant 4 in it one time? I remember a silver Catalina with many different motors on different occasion in the very early '70's. I think this was the car. Would love to know the truth. It seems tha tIremember the 4 cylinder running very low 13s/high 12s and really screaming? This in a full size Catalina. Thanks. Mark L

I believe the "Medinice Man" car was Arnie Beswick's old 63 SD Swiss cheese cat, It was owned by Ray Bisig (sp?) at that time.

[65nss4spdGTO]

Originally Posted by marks73ta

65nss4spdGTO, do you know alot about that '63 Medicine Man car? I always tell of a silver '63 that ran at Great Lakes Dragaway in Union Grove WI. "The Grove". I remember it running many different combinations of motors at different times. If this is the Cat did he run a built slant 4 in it one time? I remember a silver Catalina with many different motors on different occasion in the very early '70's. I think this was the car. Would love to know the truth. It seems tha tIremember the 4 cylinder running very low 13s/high 12s and really screaming? This in a full size Catalina. Thanks. Mark L

Mark,

The Medicine Man was owned and raced by Ray Bisig. It was a Swiss Cheese car with an aluminum front end originally raced by Arnie. Ray ran SD engines, RAIV and when he sold the car, was running a RAV topped engine. Ray did run 4cyl engines in his Tempest, not sure if one ever found it's way into the big car. The car sat really high in the front and very low in the back. When retired the car was running in the 11's. Ray's partner, Dave Johnson also ran a silver 63 Catalina called the Rainmaker, not sure of the power plants in that car. Ray and Dave always found a way to get a hold of the rare engine stuff. Ray was so committed to racing without a big budget, he would tell his family to cut out anything the family didn't need as an essential cause he needed money for an upcoming race or special parts. Ray's car was sold to Bill Blair sometime in the 80's.

[poison heart]

I posted that link on the last page of this thread. Cool stuff

[Keith Seymore]

Originally Posted by poison heart

I posted that link on the last page of this thread. Cool stuff

Oops. Sorry - I'm usually pretty careful about dupes but I'm getting lazy...

I thought the photos of Richard Petty's drag car were notable.

K

[poison heart]

Richard Petty's drag car?

[Keith Seymore]

Originally Posted by poison heart

Richard Petty's drag car?

Ya. "43 Jr". It was a very short lived experiment.

They had a crash and killed a couple spectators and pulled the plug on it immediately.

K





Where ever this place was it was pulling in some pretty good cars:





If you squint your eyes, this almost looks like it could be one of those "Turbonetics" '65 GTOs:



The guy in the middle is obviously a motorcycle racer, too (lol):

[pont406]

Originally Posted by poison heart

Richard Petty's drag car?

Yeah King Richard left Nascar for the 65 season, because of the Hemi Ban If i remember right, went drag racing, built this Hemi powered Cuda, like Keith said, the car broke something in the front suspension, caused it to go in the stand at a track in Georgia, killed a young boy, he never drag raced again after that, doesn't even like to talk about the incident to this day. the remains of the car is setting in a Petty family friends back yard! there were pics of it in a Mopar mag a few years back.

[poison heart]

That's good info. I never knew about that

What if they banned HEMIs from sanctioned drag racing too back in the mid 60s?

[Steve Barcak]

Originally Posted by poison heart

That's good info. I never knew about that

What if they banned HEMIs from sanctioned drag racing too back in the mid 60s?

lol. I do not think you understand what drag racing was in the 60s. Sanctioned? That stuff was for the NHRA guys, 3-4 races a year. There was 20-100 times as much unsanctioned racing as there was sanctioned. It would not have made a bit of a difference. There were drag strips open 4-6 days a week running shows. Many of the bigger names, including Garlits, IVO, Karemesines, Beswick, Nicholson and Liberman were booked in for 100-150 dates in a given year. That is a booked in, pre paid match race every 2-3 days for the entire year! Then, you do it over again the next year. Think about just the logistics of that demand.
Those were the days where you- "run what you brung......and hope you brung enough".
Steve

Hosting-
Thur-Sun April 8-11, 2010 12th annual Pontiac Heaven Phoenix www.pontiacheaven.org
Sunday April 11, 2010 8th annual Nostalgic Show & Go! Phoenix www.nostalgicshowandgo.org

[Brian Baker]

Was turned onto this group of pics from a posting on the CFC board. Lots of historic cars and names in here. Check out this rare shot of Bert Straus' Astre.

http://public.fotki.com/mastermodele...801.html#media

[Brian Baker]

Truman Fields will enjoy this shot:

http://public.fotki.com/mastermodele...85a.html#media

[Brian Baker]

Linda Vaughn on the golf cart?

http://public.fotki.com/mastermodele...952.html#media

[Brent Flynn]

Originally Posted by Brian Baker

Truman Fields will enjoy this shot:

http://public.fotki.com/mastermodele...85a.html#media

This is what im talkin about...! Ive looked up to this guy(Truman Fields) all my life. Roy(RIP) and Mike Mckinney ran this car in E/S from 1976-85 roughly, and won all kinds of events. I watched Mike drive this car to Stock Eliminator Final at Columbus, Ohio in 1985 at Spring Nationals.... kicked everybody's ass... ran 11.70's all day. Probably runnin a little slower than normal, but, he drove flawlessly.

[Wareagle]

Originally Posted by Brian Baker

Was turned onto this group of pics from a posting on the CFC board. Lots of historic cars and names in here. Check out this rare shot of Bert Straus' Astre.

http://public.fotki.com/mastermodele...801.html#media

Awesome - one of the Ultimate Pontiac's in Drag racing history .