 Going Places |
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In the 1960's Stock an Super Stock drag racing was the rage of the age. "Win on Sunday sell on Monday"
was no joke and if you couldn't afford a GTO a Tempest with a 326 and a 4-speed would be considered close enough
if that was all your wallet could swing. Ford and Chrysler were chest deep in factory backed teams who drag raced,
match raced and put on clinics to help the racers who had day-jobs get the most out of their cars.In order to run a particular drive line combination in a Stock or Super Stock class, that combination had to be available in factory production car. At that time, to be legal for class racing, 50 cars was the magic number. So,Dodge and Plymouth built a few dozen Hemi A-body cars for Factory-backed drag racers to campaign. Now, I know that by now any musclecar guy worth is salt is saying "Uh Dan,we know this, where are you going with this?" Well, I'm going to Salem, Ohio and Quaker City Raceway to the All Hemi Reunion! When Tim Hennessey told me about this gathering I fully expecting to see about fifteen, maybe twenty of the Old Hemi Super Stockers there and I would have been satisfied to see that many because I was thinking,"How many of them could there be left.Really?" To my pleasant surprise there had to be at least 50 survivor and fully restored Hemi race cars in the tent area. Before I even got to the tent there was a car hauler with two Sox & Martin cars sitting out side just to ease you in so that the shock of what you were about to see inside wouldn't kill ya! Inside I saw cars that were campaigned by Ronnie Sox, Dandy Dick Landy, Herb McCandless, Richard Petty,s '71 NASCAR, Don Grotheer, Akron Arlen Vanke and Dave Srickler. There Altered Wheelbase cars, Hemi Under Glass, Little Red Wagon, Motown Missle, Rod Shop Dodge, Mr.5 and 50, Red Light Bandit and The Yankee Peddler. I even got to speak with Arlen Vanke, Herb McCandless, Don Grotheer and The Boss' wife, Diane Sox who was doing some great work in Ronnies name for St. Judes Childen's Hospital. I even got to chat with Don Fezell for a few moments. After that little dose of Hemi overload I ventured out to the show field where the street Hemi cars were being displayed and there were some pretty nice examples of how Mopar got it done back in the day but that wasn't all, as part of their regular race program, they threw in a Hemi shootout that was won by a street driven '68 Dart that was dialing (and running) 10-0's! On Sunday, they did out door photos of the Tent cars complete with parade runs (slow) down the track so that people could see and take pictures of them running.All in all, it was a slice of Hemi Heaven. I waffled back and forth as to whether or not I was going to go to this event and finally decided that I would cruise out and see the cars.It turned out to be the right move because I know that I have never seen that many Hemi Super and Pro Stockers all in one place before and I feel that it's quite likely that I will never get the opportunity to see an event like this ever again. - Dan Davis |