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

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СКАЧАТЬ NASCAR for 1965 freed up resources to experiment in drag racing, which resulted in cars such as the altered-wheelbase Dodge the Ramchargers campaigned that year, which was both fuel-injected and running nitromethane when this photo was taken. (Photo Courtesy Tom Hoover Archive)

      In fact, Mr. Hoover bought one of these cars as soon as they arrived for 1966—a green Dodge Coronet. He once recalled that the car had a brand-new Hemi installed that had been built incorrectly from day one at Chrysler Marine & Engineering, which was where all the code A102 street Hemi engines came together for the street models. Once sorted out, he did some drag tests with it and drove it for fun on the street, sometimes turning it over to Spehar, a man he trusted, for tune-up care and feeding.

      Starting in 1965, several factory-associated cars were often under the care of Spehar, who owned a Texaco service center and later a Gulf gas station franchise in the area. On that note, on some occasions, Mr. Hoover made sure he was attending a company or social function in the evening, because Spehar’s mechanic Jimmy Addison was covertly taking the Hoover green meanie out near Woodward to uphold company honor against the other guys. He usually did, too.

      Tom Hoover’s factory crew was not huge. His first guys in the Race group were Dante “Dan” Mancini and Jim “B.B.” Thornton, both trusted associates from the Ramchargers team. Indeed, other Race Engineering guys would include fuel systems specialist Tom Coddington, nicknamed “The Ghost,” Ramchargers driver and engine specialist Hartford “Mike” Buckel, and several others, all of whom understood the passion that drove the projects.

      Members of the Ramchargers worked throughout other areas of the Chrysler Corporation, where they were called on to do special race-focused projects when their production-associated work was completed. Not commonly recalled is that the Ramchargers (and a sister factory-member team named the Golden Commandos that raced Plymouths) were nearly independent from the corporate offices. Other than what little money could be had from dealership sponsorship and professional access to the factory development tools, it was pretty much an out-of-pocket proposition for both groups, and neither team ever had big factory dollars to live lavishly. The teams relied on member dues and winning real races to stay viable financially. It was ingenuity and dedication that would often spell the difference in that regard.

       Science Class

      Though professional cars often made racing news headlines, it was the everyman’s stock-class drag racing divisions that remained more important to the factory for promoting new car sales, and the Race Engineering group stayed busy with projects and research related to that during the 1960s. Indeed, many in the team’s cadre of engineers formally dropped out of actual competition in late 1967, retiring their ever-evolving Funny Car and turning the Top Fuel car over to a mostly outside crew. After all, the exploding muscle car business had grown into a big part of vehicle marketing, which was further spurred on in 1967 when the NHRA divided its raced stock cars between a Junior Stock–style lower division simply named “Stock” and a new standalone Super Stock division to showcase the best factory cars and drivers.

      Ever scientific in approach, Hoover knew testing was paramount to this division’s success. As a result, select factory-associated cars and drivers began showing up one day a week at Motor City Dragway near Mt. Clemons, Detroit Dragway at Sibley, Dix south of downtown, Milan Dragway west of the city, or even a faraway location such as a track in California when the racing season started. Rented by the company for private use to experiment with new ideas such as hood scoop shapes, special tires, or promising cam designs, these test sessions became part of the legend of Chrysler Engineering “doing so much with so little.” By 1969, Al Adam, yet another Ramcharger alumni, was managing that aspect of real-world testing with Spehar doing the engine prep; both men were meticulous at record-keeping. Edited notes on successful experiments were forwarded to Chrysler racers across the nation.

      Some tests were done with cars recently prototyped in an offsite-from-Engineering location simply known as the Woodward Garage. Located in a former Pontiac dealership at the corner of Woodward and Buena Vista in Highland Park, this small private shop served as the skunkworks for ideas that Hoover or his compatriots dreamed up for racing under factory authorization or for special projects done on existing cars. UAW shop steward and top mechanic Larry Knowlton was the unofficial manager at the garage.

      During late 1967 and early 1968, at Mr. Hoover’s request, Knowlton and a brilliant, somewhat flamboyant young engineer named Robert “Turk” Tarozzi reworked a Race Hemi into the small Plymouth Barracuda. Once they put it all together, the result was one of the most notorious drag racing combinations ever authorized by Detroit. That spring under contract for Chrysler, shifter-company-turned-vehicle-constructor Hurst Industries converted approximately 160 of these A-Body models (both Barracudas and Dodge Darts) into Hemi-powered drag-race-only machines in a Detroit-area facility. They came to conquer under the tutelage of factory-favored drivers, such as Ronnie Sox, Arlen Vanke, Don Grotheer, and Dick Landy. By then, Dave Koffel, a trained metallurgist who had been racing himself for many years, handled the deals with the racers.

       Development in the 1967–1968 era resulted in what many still consider the ultimate Chrysler race package: the Hurst Hemi package cars. This is the first Sox & Martin 1968 Barracuda, seen here at its initial drag test session at Cecil County Dragway in Maryland in April 1968. (Photo Courtesy Tom Hoover Archive)

      Again, the rule makers were stymied. Reams of correspondence from Hoover, Koffel, Product Planning’s Dick Maxwell (yet another former Ramcharger), and others were sent out to NHRA officials in California, asking pointed questions about the factored horsepower the NHRA had placed on Chrysler engines, why Ford was allowed to run a combination no one in Detroit had seen except in the hands of that company’s best-known drivers, or why the new Six Pack Road Runners and Super Bees had no owner lists because they were actually sold as “street cars.”

       This signed letter to the NHRA was among many that went back and forth between the factories and the NHRA in those days. Tom Hoover was always looking for an advantage, although he later admitted that the NHRA never forgave Chrysler for some of the things it did, such as the 1969 Mini-Nationals. (Photo Courtesy QMP Research Files)

      Though perhaps frustrating, Mr. Hoover was always all-in on this game, figuring out the rule book, finding scarce racing combinations that had an advantage, and pushing the envelope. At times, those creative solutions likely had NHRA president Wally Parks cursing quietly at the sheer genius of it. At the same time, one of his angry division directors called NHRA tech boss Bill “Farmer” Dismuke at the organization’s North Hollywood offices to complain about what “them Chryslers” had done to the record book the past weekend. Hoover would laugh for a moment, then go right back to work to “crush them like ants,” as he was prone to state in private company.

      It all came to head at the 1969 NHRA Nationals held in Indianapolis over Labor Day weekend. The NHRA knew that the best drivers in Super Stock (a very popular class by that time with factory attention) were hitting the brakes well before the finish line to keep from showing their top performances. At that time, if your car went too fast, you lost. Basically, any performance made during eliminations that exceeded the current NHRA elapsed time index broke out, going beyond its established performance. When that happened, the car was disqualified from advancing to the next round.

       Super Stock: Racing on the Brakes

      Each Super Stock car had a set elapsed time index. This was derived from the possible performance of that combination based on an NHRA-factored horsepower-to-weight ratio. Each engine was СКАЧАТЬ