Chrysler's Motown Missile: Mopar's Secret Engineering Program at the Dawn of Pro Stock. Geoff Stunkard

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       Young Don and his dad are pictured at a 1974 match race at Milan Dragway. (Photo Courtesy Joe Pappas)

      I was about 15 when he was killed in 1977. Of course, it was very hard on all of us. At my age, I was busy being interested in girls and school, and the shop eventually closed. In the late 1970s, I tried a little drag racing, but since my name is Don Carlton as well, there was a lot of pressure on me at the local tracks to measure up to his reputation. Still, I enjoyed racing, and after I tried circle-track driving once and liked it. I actually did a bunch of Sportsman circle track racing locally. I was never a professional, but I did pretty well with that for some years. By then, however, we no longer had any affiliation with Chrysler, and it eventually became expensive enough that I decided to quit.

      You know, my dad was never a top-hatter. He was cool, but he didn’t have airs, fancy clothes, or flashy stuff. I would probably look like a showboater compared to him, but that was just the way he was. I think that for him, driving a race car was just the thing he did. It was natural. He could work on them too, and that whole Missile team fit together very naturally. Plus, the guys were all friends. Richard Oldfield, Dick’s son, and I were about the same age, and we spent time together. Our parents would get together and play cards sometimes, and we also went on the road with the team to a few of the events in the summer.

      The car my dad was killed in was buried in the landfill on Lick Mountain, right above where Hudson Dragway used to be. The guy who ran the bulldozer there was an old high school drag racing buddy of dad’s, and he told me years ago it would get uncovered every once in a while. He understood what it meant to us, and even with some of the parts left on it, it was never stripped apart. Just buried. I think a few guys might have taken souvenirs from it, but the landfill has been closed due to some of the other nasty stuff people sent there. I think that is just as well.

      I still have the old shop, but it has expanded. I run several businesses out of it, making materials for the local furniture industry and packing business. The old motor room is used as an office by my plant manager, and some of my dad’s trophies are still in his display case, even though that area is used for storage now. Some of the family still lives on the property too, just like always.

      As for me, I often play a round of golf with Stuart McDade, who is still in the area. He doesn’t talk much about those days now. Still, it was really good to see the whole Missile team back together at Henderson for that reunion event a couple of years ago. Looking back, we really did have an amazing time when we raced. The reunion recalled a time that is still very special to all of them, and I think my dad would have loved it.

      Introduction

      The sport of drag racing, once the bane of local law enforcement and the subject of teen exploitation flicks of the 1950s, grew alongside the performance vehicle era of the early 1960s. While running a pair of anything side by side to determine a victor is certainly older than the automobile, it was drag racing that made it possible for anyone to compete, whether his or her vehicle was a bone-stock car fresh off the showroom floor or a contraption of cubic inches, steel tubing, and bravado.

      As the sport segued into more specialized compartmentalization, those promoting it as a spectator sport constantly looked for ways to make certain that there were cars appearing to be stock but were actually modified. They tried Factory Experimental, and things got out of hand with Funny Cars. They tried Super Stock versus pure Stock but found that the need to equalize performances between various designs created racing challenges.

      In 1968, the American Hot Rod Association (AHRA) created a specific heads-up Super Stock class with rules carefully governing appearance but also allowing powerful enhancements. In late 1969, the bellwether organization, the National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) did likewise. The result was Pro Stock, and the book you are reading focuses on a group of Chrysler engineers and associates who determined early on that using science was the way to win.