A Few NFR Stories Of Life In The Fast Lane...

[Dave H]

Back in 1970 I decided to take the plunge and either buy or have built a stock car to race at the Oyster River track, as it was then called.
I was single and had a good job as Warehouseman at the logging division in Gold River. As such, I had a few dollars plus a few contacts, so I put the word out I was looking to go racing.
Can't recall who told me to call Digger O'Dell, but I did, and he explained that even though Rick was campaigning their #18 Plymouth Super Stock, they had built a stock car to Victoria/Nanaimo specs in order to go after a trophy being awarded to the points winner in a two-day event at Grandview Bowl called the Ken Cook Memorial Race. Digger told me their families were friends and when they (O'Dell's) heard about this upcoming race they decided to build a car and go after the trophy so they could give it to the Cook family.
Also told me that Ken and his girlfriend (I think) had been victims of carbon monoxide poisoning from sitting in a parked and idling car somehow.

So, the O'Dell's built the car, won the weekend points race and gave the trophy to the Cook family. A week or so after talking with Digger I went down to Victoria for the Stock Car Championship races at Western and Digger and Rick ran the car so I could see how well it went. It went quite nicely' and we agreed on a price and delivery and all that. At the end of that night in 1970 Rick said to Digger that he believed the car had never been worse than second in any race since they built it. Digger thought for a second and agreed.
I can assure you that the car ran lots of races worse than second when I drove it. LOL
Here's a pic of the car with the late Ray Walsh standing by.
When I realized I was not a good racer and Ray was better I let him drive the car.
This was a big relief to my other faithful pit guy, Tom Turner, as Ray didn't tear the car up anywhere near as often as I had.



More to follow......



Take care.

 

[Dave H]

After buying the car from Digger and Rick O’Dell in late 1970, I waited until Spring '71 before having it delivered to Campbell River, whereupon we finished the transaction, unloaded the car from their transport and loaded it onto my newly purchased trailer.

Getting prepared to go racing meant accumulating a crew as well as changing the car from Victoria rules to ORRA rules, which were much more liberal. We ran locked rear-ends with mostly a 390 ratio, any two-barrel carb you could fit on, headers, fewer body parts and bigger tires. We had a standard size bumper rule and the great George Bellavance made those for me after hours in the shop at Gold River.

My crew became Tom Turner and the aforementioned Ray Walsh.
We fumbled around a bit initially and hadn't changed the carb to the Holley 4412 500 CFM that many ran, nor had the tire sizes and staggers figured out when we ran our first race at Oyster River. In fact, the car hadn't been painted yet and was still that pale blue color the O'Dell’s favored and had #2 on it. We used tape to change the number to 72 for that night, I hot lapped with the others and then we timed in.

I knew I was slower than the other A Class cars, because we didn't have the updates they all did plus I'd been hand-timed at around 20 seconds and most of them were in the 19 second range, so I was dismayed when I pulled into the pits just as I heard the announcer call out what sounded like 23.8 as my time.
23.8 I thought. Was I really that slow?
Turns out it was actually 20.38, which was about what we expected. What I hadn't expected was that I would be called out to line-up for the B Trophy Dash, and I was the fast car so started second row outside. There were only three B Class cars that night and I was the slowest A Class car so was placed in the B Dash.

Imagine a rookie driver in his first ever race and in a Trophy Dash to boot.
I sometimes wish I didn't have such a clear memory of the events that transpired just after we took the green flag from starter Keith Temple, but I do, and this is it.

We dove into the first corner and a nice hole appeared between the pole-sitter and the outside front car, so I drove up in it and came out in second place heading down the back straight. I remember thinking how neat it was going to be winning a trophy in my first ever race, especially considering I was much faster than the car I was hounding coming out of corner #3.
I might have even grinned a bit as I pulled outside and sailed by the pole-sitter, clearing him easily under full acceleration.

And right then was when I realized I was way too fast entering the corner, had completely missed my braking point and was totally estranged from any corner apex at all.
Naturally, as a semi-panicked rookie I hit the brakes too hard, and I can still picture the right front tire locked up solid as I slid off the track in a cloud of dust.

And thus began my not-so-illustrious career as a stock car racer in 1971.
Also, the first time the car was ever worse than second in a race, so I’ll always have that.
Several weeks later we completed all the modifications to the car and Rick came up to help us set-up the car a bit.
Sadly, none of his driving skills rubbed off on me so for the rest of my time driving I was easy prey for the likes of George Stuart, Harvey Brown, Doug Birchall and a few others before I got smart enough to hand over the driving to Ray.
It was a competitive car and deserved a better racer than I was, simple as that.
I'm a realist.

Here I am as a shiny 26-year-old, way back then. Ray partly visible on the right.



Take care.

 

[fish brain]

Always love your stories Dave, keep em coming.