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

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СКАЧАТЬ Technical Committee, which in turn was coupled to the manufacturer’s stated overall weight for each car as released off the assembly line. Weighed without driver, the engine/car package would then fall into a select letter category. For example, “A class” was the highest horsepower/lightest car combination, followed by B, C, D, etc. Automatic and manual transmissions were further broken into their own subgroups in each class to provide additional equality; automatic-equipped models had an A after the class letter.

      At big events, each group of identically classed cars raced each other for a class victory among peers, and winners then advanced to final eliminations. At smaller races, the driver would simply be timed against the index. Once racing among all those classes was underway, the slower-classed car was given a head start by whatever the calculated index difference was.

      During the 1969 season, entries in the Super Stock classes ranged from SS/B (solely the Hurst Hemi cars because no one had built a car in a weight legal in SS/A at that time) through SS/J. A like number of cars were classified in the automatic transmission classes that were identified with an additional A at the end of the classification. So that year, the 10 class letters and 2 transmission choices meant 20 possible classes.

      Originally stated as an NHRA-set minimum elapsed time, the index for each class in 1969 was based on the current class record for that class. No one wanted to beat that record if possible because it left no room for error. In other words, resetting a soft index record might make winning less possible by requiring the maximum effort on every single run. Furthermore, changing the record would affect every driver racing that combination, not just the cars capable of running to that level. As a result, and sometimes at factory direction, the fastest cars were often braking at over 100 mph to prevent this from happening.

      Hemi race car drivers, such as Dick Oldfield in New York and Don Carlton in North Carolina, were familiar with this technique. It was dangerous, and the racers frankly hated it. Pro Stock would eventually solve this problem for many of them.

      So, going into their biggest event of the year, the NHRA decided to catch the racers at their own game. This was when the NHRA stated that at Indy every run down the track could become the index for Monday’s finals. Since only the class winner and runner-up from Saturday afternoon’s class runoffs were allowed to advance to race in Monday’s final eliminations, these new racing indexes would obviously be derived from the fastest runs made during that weekend. This was because the NHRA assumed every driver would have to run flat out to win a class crown. Still, to make it fair, they also agreed that the index would not change again on Monday. For the first time, drivers could run flat out all day and the record rule would not apply until the final. In the final round, the drivers could run as fast as necessary, but that fast time was the new index heading into the following event.

      On Friday morning, the Chrysler racers slowly left town, heading for a little track just over the Ohio state line a couple of hours east. Dave Koffel rented the track with his American Express card, and now each of the three-dozen-plus drivers arriving there would make three passes to see who was truly fastest. The two best in each class would then return to Indy to run for the class win and runner-up slots. Once Chrysler had determined who the fastest guys were fair and square (away from the oversight of NHRA officials), the three chosen duos in SS/B, SS/BA, and SS/CA (all Hemi cars exclusively) returned to Indianapolis and basically cruised downtrack on Saturday for the class battle and “new” records. The predetermined faster car from the so-called “Mini-Nationals” also deliberately ran slower to be the class runner-up, all of which kept the old indexes used before the Nationals completely intact. Meanwhile, the other guys fought each other hard, and most had killed or reset their indexes when clocking their best possible number round after round in taking class victories. For their part, Hoover, Maxwell, and factory race boss Bob Cahill wandered around the Indy pits on Friday morning, shrugging off questions about where all the absent racers had gone.

       This was it, the starting line at Indianapolis Raceway Park, where victory and defeat were a literal split second away. It was this event that had the most attention from the racers, the press, and the factories. (Photo Courtesy Dick Landy Family)

       The staging lanes at Indy in 1969 did not host a lot of Hemi SS entries after the runoffs were done at Tri-City Dragway in Hamilton, Ohio, early in the weekend. Ted Spehar still calls the so-called “Mopar Mini-Nationals” the greatest race in which he was ever involved, as there had never been a true no-holds-barred NHRA Super Stock runoff to the last man standing before that. (Photo Courtesy Dick Landy Family)

      This photo in the Spehar family archive from November 1970 shows the Silver Bullet when it was first completed. This car would be as legendary on the street as the Motown Missile was on the track, which was something Mr. Hoover took pride in. (Photo Courtesy Spehar Family Archive)

      When Monday’s big event arrived, the only thing the Mopar racers from those classes needed to do was make sure they did not redlight at the start. When the smoke cleared from five rounds, Ronnie Sox won, beating a 1964 Hemi Plymouth driven by Dave Wren to basically close out the professional Super Stock era. On that Tuesday morning, NHRA officials, the movers and shakers in Super Stock, and their factory bosses all got together and agreed to formulate new rules that would create a heads-up class for 1970, which they would call Pro Stock. Finalized after the NHRA World Finals in Dallas that October, this was a new challenge, one Mr. Hoover would relish even as factory street performance was increasingly choked by emissions, insurance costs, and other factors.

      Imitating a popular sanctioning body design, this is a North Woodward Timing Association decal.

      By 1969, Hoover’s terrible Coronet was now sitting at home more often than not, as Jimmy Addison and Ted Spehar kept the 1962 Dodge with its Max Wedge powerplant busy making money. They would soon begin converting a former factory-tested 1967 440-ci GTX into perhaps Woodward’s most notorious competitor, the Silver Bullet. That project would come together for the street as the Motown Missile would soon do for the dragstrip. “Crush them like ants,” Mr. Hoover said and smiled.

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      Ted Spehar was quietly contemplating what would come next in his future as he looked over the empty 1,500-square-foot building on Fernlee Avenue near where it intersected West 14 Mile Road in Royal Oak. Perhaps it was a big jump to go into this business of special car fabrication and maintenance, but he had the confidence, the connections, and the work ethic to be successful. He needed room for cars such as The Iron Butterfly and the factory test cars, for this new Pro Stock thing for spare parts, a clean room for engine construction, space for machine tools, and whatever else the new contract from Chrysler required. Most important for everyone involved, it was a secure, quiet place almost invisible to the outside world. After all, ideas that matter could be kept quiet until they were needed, which they certainly were. The commercial space realtor talked softly with Jack Watson, better known as the “Hurst Shifty Doctor” and the person who had arranged the meeting. Giving Ted some personal space to figure it all out, the realtor was expectant, hoping this day spent with the unassuming gentleman who was supposed to be some kind of engine genius would indeed become a successful sale.

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      Ted Spehar, who would play the most primary role as the Motown Missile’s builder and owner, traveled a special road to get to where he was that afternoon. From service station owner to СКАЧАТЬ