Dyno Don: The Cars and Career of Dyno Don Nicholson. Doug Boyce

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       One of Don’s fondest memories was winning his first national event, the Winternationals in 1961. He recalled the thrill of coming down the return road that passes by the Pomona grandstands and seeing everyone standing and cheering him. Rather than towing the car to the track (as his competition did), Don drove his Impala as a way to heat the oil in the driveline to create less friction. (Photo ©TEN: The Enthusiast Network. All Rights Reserved.)

      Although Dyno Don has been claimed by Ford and Mercury fans as one of their own, his roots were firmly planted in Chevrolets. Yes, his greatest success came while running Fords and Mercurys, but he ran Chevys for a longer period. There’s a good chance that if General Motors hadn’t ceased all racing activity in 1963, Don would have stuck with Chevrolet. In the period between 1961 and 1963, few enjoyed the same level of success as Don, regardless of the brand they drove or the category they raced. Even Patty got in on the action, racing her Chevy Corvair and winning more than a dozen races.

       1961

      Don established his reputation nationally by taking Stock Eliminator at the 1961 NHRA Winternationals. He managed the feat in his 409-powered 1961 Impala that was built in a marathon three days. Don received the engine even before he had a car lined up. Bill Thomas, who had worked at Meads as the service manager before contracting with Chevrolet (and opening Bill Thomas Race Cars), arranged a pair of 409s to be shipped from Daytona where NASCAR’s Speedweek was being held. The second 409 went into the Roman Red Biscayne that Frank Sanders was preparing. Even though Service Chevrolet in Pasadena employed Don, it was Don Steves Chevrolet in La Habra that provided him with a 348 Impala to build on. Service Chevrolet wasn’t prepared to cough up a car. “They weren’t interested. Don Steves was kind of into performance at the time.”

      As described in an old Motor Life magazine article, Don built his Chevy to the strict rules of the day; he honed the block, as opposed to going the legal .060-over bore route, and retained the factory-forged pistons. He set main bearing clearance at .003 inch and rod bearings at .0025 inch. The single Carter 4-barrel saw metering rods on the primary side reworked to enrich the mixture. The secondary jets were drilled out .003 inch. The advance curve was reworked an amount Don chose to keep to himself. Jerry Jardine built the Tri-Y headers on the 348 prior to the engine being swapped for the 409.

      According to Jardine, the headers were welded up on the floor of Don’s Duarte home garage and fitted by trial and error. Jardine found that the primary tubes that were 1/8-inch smaller in diameter than the 1¾-inch exhaust port gave the best performance. The headers, as crude as they were, were said to be worth an additional 20 hp. Or 5 and 50, as Jardine advertised. That’s 5 mph and a .50 improvement in quarter-mile times compared to the stock exhaust manifolds. Backing the factory-rated 360-hp 409 was a 2.54–first gear BorgWarner and a 4:56 gear rear end. Getting the power to the ground was a set of 8.50x14 Firestone soft-compound Butyl tires or a pair of Casler cheaters.

      When he prepared the car, Don raised the front suspension by 1.5 inches and lowered the rear 2 inches. In 1961, these mods were commonly accomplished with the help of heavy-duty springs, spring spacers, and a torch. It was felt that raising the front and lowering the rear helped weight transfer and plant the narrow rear tires. With only a day to go before the Winternationals, final details were buttoned up and the car was tuned. To loosen the new car suspension, Don had Hugh “Putzel” Osterman, who assisted Don on and off well into the decade, take the car out the night before and rack up 400 or 500 highway miles, while he himself caught some much needed z’s.

       Les Ritchey’s 390-powered Ford Starliner had recorded a 13.33 at 106 mph, thanks in part to the newly released tri-carb setup. As good as the times were, they weren’t quite good enough for Don’s 409 Impala, which recorded a best of 13.29. (Photo ©TEN: The Enthusiast Network. All Rights Reserved.)

      The Winternationals, or the “Big Go West” as it was also called, kicked off at Pomona with time trials on Friday, February 17. Cars to beat included the 389 Pontiac of Mickey Thompson, driven by Pete Petrey; it was the quickest of the Pontiacs in the program. In addition, the Fords of Les Ritchey, Pete McCarroll, and Bud Harris were tough competition. McCarroll was running the recently released 3 x 2-barrel setup, giving the Ford a 375-horse rating. Frank Sanders, in the only other 409 car, proved to be Don’s toughest competition. Sanders defeated Don in Saturday’s final on a holeshot, 13.63 at 105.26 mph.

       At the 1961 Winternationals, Don and his Impala took Mr. Stock Eliminator honors by defeating cars such as the 390-powered Ford of Bud Harris. Only two 409s made Pomona, the other being the Biscayne of Frank Sanders. Don had prepped the heads for Sanders’s 409, which won Super Stock class. (Photo ©TEN: The Enthusiast Network. All Rights Reserved.)

      The 50 fastest Stockers ran on Sunday for the Mr. Stock Eliminator crown. The cars consisted of S/S stick and automatic as well as A/S and B/S cars. Dyno Don defeated Ritchey in the semifinals before getting around Sanders in the final with a 13.59 at 105.88. Low ET of the meet went to Don, who tripped the clocks with a 13.25 at 107.27 mph.

      Don should be recognized as the first of the Stock-class racers to go out on tour. Early in 1961, he was living in Duarte and reading all about the Hot Stockers back East (the Platts, Phil Bonner, Dave Strickler, and others), and he wondered how his Impala would measure up. Well, he’d find out soon enough.

       Don’s 1961 was the first Super Stocker to break 110 mph and the first to run consistently in the 12-second zone. Its Carter carb has reworked metering rods and the secondary jets are drilled .003. Tri-Y headers were the work of Jerry Jardine. Don blueprinted the engine. The factory clutch and flywheel were behind the 409. (Photo ©TEN: The Enthusiast Network. All Rights Reserved.)

      Don jumped at the chance when offered the opportunity to travel to Indiana for a match then head south to North Carolina. Don hit the road, flat towing his Chevy behind the 1957 Chevy of Ida and Jim Barth, who were Earl Wade’s “adopted” parents. At Henderson, North Carolina, Don drove through the 16-car field that included 13 Fords, 2 Chevrolets, and 1 Pontiac. Ronnie Sox was there but was unable to compete. The final round came down to Don and a local Ford.

      Don later recalled, “There were no guard rails and the asphalt ended before the track did. The crowd had gotten so bad they were all over the track. I almost hit some a couple of times and I told the strip operator that I wasn’t going to run again unless he cleared the people off the track. It had gotten so you couldn’t even see the track for all the people. So the operator gets on the PA and tells the guy with the Ford, Dallas Parkinson, to go out there and clear the track off. So he comes out of the pits sideways, kicking up sand. I don’t know how he didn’t kill anyone. On his way back up the track, people were mad and throwing rocks and bottles at his car, breaking the windows out. He gets back to the pits and here come about a thousand people gunning for him. The track operator came out to the middle of the track and started shooting his shotgun in the air to stop them. They finally got them cleared out, and then I almost got ‘home town’ed.’ The guy jumped the flag and almost beat me. I fumbled second gear but still managed to catch him. To make it a big deal, the $600-dollar winnings was all in one-dollar bills in a wheelbarrow.” A wheelbarrow full of cash it was, plus an extra $200 dollars for showing. “Some of the Ford guys said the only reason I beat them was because I had a 4-speed and they didn’t. I told them I’d use first and fourth and they block off either second or third and I’d run them. I still got no takers.”

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