Posts: 11086
From: New Castle, Ind
Registered: DEC 2000

posted 02-18-2004 01:36 PM         

---

....found this picture on my desk today....think I know who left it.....
....this guy was possibly the best mechanic I ever knew and one of the best friends a person could ever have....
...flashback to 1978/1979...I owned a business that had quite a few vehicles on the road including large trucks....the head mechanic at the local Chrysler dealership then was Bill...I knew his reputation, but didn't know him personally....I knew when my vehicles went there for repair, they were done correctly the first time, very important to me....
...I knew he had a past racing history, but I knew little about it...In 1980 I purchased a 1969 Dodge Daytona with very few original miles, but it had a tired engine....Bill took me and the Daytona under his wing so to speak....before I knew it the tired old Dodge was at his shop behind his house and the engine was all over the place....scared the crap outta me, I didn't think it would ever go together again....Bills shop was a very used old garage filled literally to the roof with old car parts and my Daytona was right in the middle of the mess....as we worked the long hours on the Daytona, him teaching and me learning, I realized he knew more about engines than anyone I had ever known....He had worked on MOPARs since he was a kid, had been a professional mechanic for many years and was the "high performance" guy at the dealership....he was the guy that kept the HEMI and SIX PAK cars all running in our county, and with a Chrysler plant here in town, there were plenty of these cars to work on....
...I found out Bill had built his own race cars, driven his own race cars and fielded his own race team, had even been a crew chief for Leroy Yarborough for a short time....there was an old picture hanging on the wall in his shop of Bill in a car he had built with his own hands, deep in a corner putting a move on Darrell Waltrip....needless to say, I was impressed....but to him it was just stuff that happened when he was younger...too many kids and a lack of dollars shortened his racing days...he told me several times in secret what he thought he had spent racing thru the years, then would get this wicked smile and say "F*** IT, it was worth EVERY PENNY"...
....The weeks went like cold molasses waiting for the Daytona to emerge with it's rebuilt powerplant....I was hoping for good results, but NEVER expected what I recieved for the paltry sum of dollars he charged me....I now had a "Built by Bill" 440 that had so many tricks up it's sleeve it was unbeatable around these parts....the first nite we dropped the engine back in it's place and fired it up, we drove it into town for a "SHAKEDOWN" cruise....this is a bright green '69 Daytona with the wildest sounding 440 I ever heard, open headers, no hood, trying to sneak into town looking for a some action....WELL, WE GOT BUSTED.....passed a state cop at near hyperspace, open headers blasting......the cop was giving a ticket to a speeder when I crested a hill and saw him.....I coasted for a few miles then just pulled over and waited for the cop to come and shoot us or what ever it is they do in such a case....the cop comes storming up shortly and says "what the hell kind of exhaust do you have on that car"...I meekly said "none officer"...he danced around like he had to take a pi$$ he was so mad....finally after a brief story of the car being down for several weeks etc etc, he let me off with a verbal warning....told me he never wanted to see that car on the streets again without an exhaust system.....Bill and I headed back to the garage, sucked a few more beers, finished assembling the MIGHTY MOPAR....a few weeks later it was Memorial Day and there is always a parade in this town....I am running the Daytona in the parade with the headers wide open again and got to the end of the parade and the traffic cop was the same state cop....he hung his head laughed and motioned me on thru to the highway....the Daytona NEVER ran a closed exhaust for the remaining years I owned it....It would rattle windows in town, it would set off car alarms...sounded like a freight train coming down the street....
Later that same summer the Daytona, Bill and I made our first appearance on Brice Road at the MOPAR Nationals....we raced everything that moved, lost to no one and had a great weekend....just the first of many adventures.....

This message has been edited by tangled up in BLUE on 02-18-2004 at 01:46 PM

Posts: 12017
From: San Diego Area
Registered: JUL 2000

Posts: 36093
From: Mesa, Az
Registered: JUL 2000

posted 02-18-2004 08:08 PM         

---

MEMORIES

One question please? Wasn't Cookie the trophy gal back in those days?

All times are CT (US)