Americarna - with Ray Everham / Dragster Diplomacy

[asphaltgambler]

I posted / replied with this in another thread, off the OP topic, but I wanted to have its' own thread as a lot here may have missed it. Please allow me a little indulgence as my story is a spin-off of this segment on Americarna. Hopefully a lot of you will enjoy its historical racing significance and how 3 young country farm boys in Warrenton, Va. ended up with some of the pieces.


The segment of Americarna is titled "Dragster Diplomacy" I'll share it with all here. Until I saw that show last year or so - I never made the connection.

You can find it on U-tube. You should watch it first - then my post will make sense.

I met the last owner of that car who was selling it in pieces. Or more to the point, he was selling the engine but keeping the chassis. This was early 1980's. A buddy of mine heard there was an older guy near where we live (Warrenton Va) who had an old slingshot rail and he was selling the engine / parts. It was reported to us it was a blown / injected SBC intact.

At the time I was looking for a fuel injection unit, possibly a blower for a drag car I had. My friend wanted the long block, another guy needed a blower too. After a few phone calls, the 3 of us headed to this guys house outside of town.

We get there and it's clear to me the guy is older and retired-military. I can tell, he has an air of dignity and authority. He leads us to the garage, opens the door and there in the floor with all of it's glory - 1 blown/injected small block. Alright - cool.

So then we ask, where's the car? We heard he had the whole thing. He said " Look up" - so we do - and hanging in / over the rafters is an old FE slingshot -with blue side panels.

My older friend wanted to buy the whole deal - car and all but he only wanted to sell the engine complete. One of us asked why - he said that car had raced all over the world, set a few records and for now he wanted to hang onto the rolling chassis.

Now - that statement meant nothing to any of us at the time, but later it would have much meaning to me.

So we focused on the engine, he said it was a "Bored / Stroked 283 on gas" which we thought was odd because it's much harder to tune instead of alcohol. He said it was in a top gas class at the time.

Short story is 3 of us agreed to buy the whole engine together. 1 getting the long block, I was supposed to get the Enderle Shotgun injection, the other guy - the blower.

So we loaded it up in the P/U, took it back to the 1 friends garage, then proceeded to part it out as we each wanted.

The long block and ultimately the blower ended up in a T-bucket street car that belonged to a guy in Culpeper, Va. My buddy (same) put it in, installed carbs, tuned it. After a short time, the owner of the T-bucket brought it back and had my friend remove the blower and multiple carbs as he said it was too fast and scared him. So he installed a single plane intake and 780 carb. That was the last time I ever saw that car with the engine.

I used the fuel injection, but could never get it tuned right as I was also running gas.

Fast forward to when I saw that show, it all came back to me when The original builder / owner Bob Keith said he had tried to track down the car, had heard it was in or near Manassas, Va. but never found it after contacting local speed shops and drag-strips.

Prior to the shows airing, the original owners / builders finally gave up trying to find the car and opted to re-create an exact duplicate. At some point after - Ray Everham did find the car (and still has it) but the engine was long gone.

After seeing the show, I contacted Ray and told him I may know where the engine is if he's interested. He initially blew my off. I said OK - but before you do, here's what I know. ................................................

So I told my story with exactly where the car was which was not in Manassas, Va but outside of Warrenton, Va, off of Rt XXX, also that there was an decommissioned Army base near there and that's where the last owner retired from. That 3 of us bought the complete engine with the rest of the story.

He then called me, confirmed what I said was accurate and no one else could have known that. So I started calling - the 1 friend that ended up with the engine had passed about 9 year ago, and after lots of searching, the trail went cold.

So that's the 'rest of the story' as they say - Each of us owned a real piece of drag racing history - but then to us it was just parts.

[wdfifteen]

Cool story! Thanks!