Where is 69 Yenko Camaro 124379N663539

[x Baldwin Motion]

Thank you Gary

[img]<<GRAEMLIN_URL>>/flag.gif[/img] [img]<<GRAEMLIN_URL>>/flag.gif[/img] [img]<<GRAEMLIN_URL>>/flag.gif[/img]

[bigsixman]

Thank you for your posts about your early Yenko ownership.

[mr 707]

love the story on changing the transmission. putting it on your chest and lifting it up and in. Been there done it.

[njsteve]

Me too. I remember barely lifting an M21 back in the day when I was a 145 lb teenaged punk.

That stopped permanently when I got into Mopars with their A833 cast iron case tranmissions! [img]<<GRAEMLIN_URL>>/grin.gif[/img]

[JoeC]

Back in the day, did you ever see the Ed Hedrick 1969 Yenko Camaro drag car who was tied in with Jenkins Competition or the Preston and Lawrence Yenko drag car?
Both were Daytona Yellow 1969 Yenko Camaros

[GM_427_Racer]

Thanks to all that have expressed their kind words regarding my first experiences as a Yenko car owner and getting started in my life long pursuit of drag racing. Pretty much the last 50 years of my life have revolved around cars, including 40 years at General Motors in all types of positions, which without that, none of my racing exploits could have been possible. I always like to say I have been a very lucky, lucky man, because almost all of my life I have been in the right place at the right time and have gotten a lot of good breaks, not only personally, but professionally. I would be remiss if I did not mention my wife and my family. Due to my racing and basically having a &quot;GOOD&quot; time, I did not think about getting married until I was 38 years old. Again, being in the right place at the right time, I met my future wife on a blind date through a relative, the second date could be a chapter all by itself, but I won't bore you with that. Before I got married, although we were engaged, my future wife had gone to several races with me so she knew what she was getting into. The interesting thing she told me before we got married, and these are basically her words, &quot;I know how much you love racing and your cars, so I will never ask you to quit racing and I don't care how fast you decide to go, because I know that you will be in a safe car, but what I will ask you is Please, never bring a motorcycle home.&quot; Well, we are coming up on 30 years together and she has never asked me to quit and I never brought a motorcycle home. We have two wonderful kids that I am extremely proud of and their accomplishments, my son graduated from the University of Cincinnati a year and a half ago as an Industrial Designer and he works for an aeronautical engineering company and my daughter will also be graduating from the University of Cincinnati this coming spring also as an Industrial Designer and she has major plans, and their is no doubt in my mind she will be successful as well.

Sam, made a lot of trips through Canfield to get to Quaker City dragstrip in Salem, Ohio, which is south of Canfield (for those of you that don't know).

Chapter 8

This is the last chapter of, &quot;My Yenko Saga&quot;, and I will begin with why I decided to sell it and where that took me. Back in the those days, the late 60's and very early 70's, a car was just a car (that was my thinking back then) and who knew what would happen that would make these cars so special 50 years later, I sure did not have a clue, but it is definitely a reality now. Maybe because back in the day and I am talking about 1970, and the 7 years prior, around 1964 and the beginning of the GTO in 1964, all we had seen was performance cars getting better and better, not to mention a whole lot faster, but alas, that would take a significant turn in 1971, due to insurance regulations and the new founded EPA.

In 1973, a friend of mine introduced me to a co-worker of his (at GM of course), that was building a a race car. This was just not any race car, but a state of the art door car modeled after the current (at that time) Pro Stock cars. Naturally, at my young age of 23, I always wanted to be involved with something faster and something close to Pro Stock, and that was certainly a dream of mine and maybe I would get to drive it. The car was a 1973 Dodge Dart, (took me a while to get over a Mopar, but not too long), and this guy needed some financial help to do it the way he wanted to do it. The only way I could get involved in this was to sell the YENKO, and like I said at that time, it was just another car that could be replaced at any time, so I sold it.

I am going to tell you a little bit about this car so I can close out this saga and have it all make sense. When I first saw the car, prior to selling the Yenko and to get a feel where this deal was going to go, the car, actually I should say the body shell had just returned from the acid dipping process. The whole body had been dipped in acid to lighten it (that is how it was done back in the day). The HEMI engine was being built by Francis Crider with help from Dave Koffel of Chrysler, the bodywork and paint was then completed by Greg (can't remember his last name) in Akron, Ohio and it was painted just like Don Carlton's Pro Stock car of that era, the car and chassis work was completed by Arlen Vanke. It was going to run in the B/Gas category in NHRA. The HEMI was a 16 spark plug, dual dominators, and it had an experimental Chrysler electronic ignition on it. The front end was removeable fiber glass and everything on the car was either, magnesium, aluminum, or titanium, including a titanium bell housing from Trick Titanium, it had a Liberty Hemi four speed transmission with a RAM clutch and the rear end was a Dana 60 four link and coil over shocks with Summers Brothers spool and axles. It also had Hurst Airehart disc brakes and Cragar Super Tricks all the way around. Too say the car was a work of art would probably be a disservice, it was one &quot;Trickest&quot; cars around, especially in this area. In fact, the guy that owned it was called &quot;Tricky Ricky&quot;, and I would guess that was long before the infamous &quot;Tricky Ricky Smith&quot;, but I guess that could be debated.

I am not going to go into the success of this car, but what I am going to do is write about what happened in January of 1975, because it relates back to the Yenko. During the fall and early winter of 1974, the owner of this car decided he was going to have Dave Koffel of the Chrysler Race Group freshen up the 16 plug HEMI. He also decided that he wanted to race at the 1975 Winternationals in Pomona, California, yup, California. I had just been laid off at GM, so heading to California was not a problem for me. I should probably mention the tow vehicle that was purchased in 1974. This really doesn't have to do with anything, I just thought I would mention it, NO towing accidents in this chapter. It was a new, 1974 Dodge 2-1/2 ton cab and chassis that went to Olenyik body company to have an enclosed, racing box built on the rear of the chassis, just like the Pro's had back then. One of the ways the Chrysler organization would do for their racers back in the day is that they would rent a near by drag strip a week before an NHRA National Event, so that anyone that had a Chrysler race car could test and tune prior to the national race. If memory serves me, I believe Orange County was the site of this test session and we were there for it. Unfortunately, the testing did not go well, the first pass was just a warm-up, no high RPM, just a cruise down the track, on the second pass down, about half track, there was a whole bunch of smoke and no more sweet noise from the HEMI. When we got it back to the pit spot and got the front end off, I looked where the oil was coming from and looking from the passenger side of the engine, I could see the left tire. To say the engine was &quot;BLOWED UP&quot; was an understatement, it was junk, so we decided to stay and watch the races the following week, we figured we were there and Tricky Ricky was such a BSer, he was going to take the time to try and get some sponsorship or money. He was a true John Force of his time, always hyping the deal..

OK, back to how the YENKO ends this story.

We were staying at a motel and back in those days, no-one left their cars at the track, they took them back to the motels where they were staying and worked on them. After the first or second day of the Winternationals, we were back at the motel and I noticed these guys working on a dark green 1973 Super Stock Corvette in the parking lot. Even though the Dodge was cool, my heart was still with Chevrolet. Since I didn't have anything else to do, I decided to go and talk to these guys working on the vette. There was three guys working on it, two on the engine, one in the rear. The car did not have any lettering on it, just an NHRA number and class designation, so I had no clue as to who owned the car. I just watched for a while and then I asked the guy in the back if they had any problems getting through tech, (never forgot about Marty Barrett), he told me, &quot;No, the tech guys all know us, we never have any problem.&quot; So I asked, &quot;Who owns the car?&quot; He looked at me and said &quot;John Lingenfelter&quot; I said, &quot;Really&quot;, and asked if he was working on the engine, he told me, &quot;Yeah, but don't bother him til he is done, he does not like being interrupted.&quot; So I walked up and waited for a while, not saying anything. John finally looked up at me and smiled, &quot;How ya doing?&quot; I said &quot;Great&quot; After some small talk about his car and how it was running (which I believe he was #1 qualifier), I figured it was time to ask &quot;THE&quot; question. I said, &quot;Do you remember a points meet in Saginaw, Michigan about a year and a half ago?&quot; The answer, &quot;Yeah, I remember it, I lost first round!!!!&quot; So I said, &quot;I was the guy in the other lane....&quot; He got that BIG smile on his face and said, &quot;Are you kidding me?&quot; I said, &quot;Nope, that was me.&quot; I went on to tell him, that I knew I did not deserve to win that round and what happened? He told me, that it seemed like almost everyone at that race was running a 1969 Camaro and since it was night, all the cars looked alike. He said he was watching me do a burnout and I didn't really do much of one and he thought I was playing possum and was broke and trying to steal a round. I told him, I did a great burnout and he came back with &quot;I realized that at about half track, when I looked in the mirror, saw you coming fast, then I heard you, and then you blew by me. He said, &quot;at that point (about mid track), I realized that I had been looking at the wrong car in the burnout box.&quot; He said he had taken a leisurely light and that was why I caught him when I did.

That chance meeting led to a friendship that lasted a lot of years and he even had me drive one of his winningest dragsters for a stint in 1999. I dynoed at his shop many, many times and we lost a great racer when he passed on Christmas Eve in 2003.

Well, this has been fun, I hope you all enjoyed it. It was fun for me reliving some of my memories, especially about my DAD........

[GM_427_Racer]

JoeC,

Currently, I have a picture of the yellow Ed Hedrick car hanging in my garage. The picture is it as a SS/E leaving the starting line, with a slight haze coming off of the slicks. I can't say I remember the Preston and Lawrence car.

GM

[Xplantdad]

Thanks again for the trip down your memory lane [img]<<GRAEMLIN_URL>>/headbang.gif[/img] !

[Carleen]

[Astock]

In the late 70's, I saw Arlen build a couple '76 Feather Dusters. He would switch out the k frame and other front end parts and drop in a 440, or a Hemi. An original F-Duster weighed in just under 3000 lbs, and they were granny, low mile cars. Friend still has his, and was always very competitive. Greg you mentioned, was the good painter from the Akron area that painted Knafel Pontiac cars, I think.
Great story, Thanks!