I'm curious as to why this car only ever did that one race at the Glen in 71? Why was it built, since Jim Hall was the "official" GM camaro T/A guy in 70? Was it supposed to be a "back-up" effort?
Robert Barg
That car was run at Watkins Glen by Goodyear. It was the first car Swede had driven after his Indy car crash. After the crash, he didn't remember he was a race car driver, he thought he'd been hurt in a football game. Swede was a Goodyear driver and they used the race as a test for Swede's driving ability before he got back in an Eagle.
Smokey, Snake, Emory, and Ralph Johnson were the crew. Ralph was the Holley Carb expert.
Ralph told me how to talk to Smokey on his left side so he could hear because an exploding shell in the cockpit had blown out his right ear drum in a B-17 that he flew during WW2.
Also, Smokey had just finished blueprinting the engine for his GMC Astro 95 transporter so they used the trip to Watkins Glen to break it in. That was the first and only time I've heard about a blueprinted transporter engine. They seemed extremely proud of their truck's performance.
He also used the practice sessions to try different engines. He had numerous test engines packed in the truck, this was back when he was developing the Smoke Ram intake manifold with Ralph.
I got involved with swapping some of the engines in the old Kendall Garage with them that weekend. They had flat cranks and a 9200 rpm redline. The Smoke Ram manifolds were hand fabricated and welded pieces, one of the back runners was too close to the distributor so the cap had a notch cut out of the side of it to clear the manifold. I was sitting in the car when we first started one of the engines and thought the car was going to jump off the jackstands it shook so hard.
During the race Swede was running in second place I believe and just before the start of the pits the harmonic balancer exploded. That's what the fire was from. Parts of the bottom end blew a few hundred feet high and then rained down trailing blue oil smoke trails all over the track. Not a good situation for tires and everybody freaked out, especially Goodyear! The alternator landed nearby me.
One of the things I noticed about that car was the roof was lower than the Logghe Stamping / Chaparral Camaros. The car stalls in the old garage were divided by plywood walls, which were all uniform in height. You could just see the roofs of all the cars over these walls except for Smokey's. Smokey was in the stall next to Bud's car which I think George Follmer was driving.
Now for that car to actually be correct again it would need a Smokey Yunick engine which he didn't even bother to paint if it doesn't have one.
Edited by Tom Smith, 05 July 2011 - 02:02.
