My Pontiac Story

[Keith Seymore]

Dad had the opportunity, through his connections at Royal, to work a little bit with Roger Huntington. For those not familiar with Roger he was a free-lance author and tinker-er, and fancied himself to be somewhat "forward thinking" in the areas of performance and automotive engineering. He probably was, actually, but was crippled by polio and therefore wheelchair bound; as a result he had to live out these theories through others and the subsequent articles.





Recall that the main issue facing these high horsepower cars back then was the lack of traction. Conventional wisdom called for production rear suspensions, as released by the manufacturer, and the addition of "Atlas Bucrons", or some other "soft" compound tire. There were no wrinklewalls, no "fat" tires, no water burnouts, and traction compounds were for the fledgling professional race categories (if at all).

There had been some thought that "longer" rear control arms were better, perhaps resulting from successes with the Swiss Cheese cars and other big Pontiacs. In fact, some work had already been done installing these longer Catalina lower control arms on the smaller intermediate sized GTO's.

Roger proposed that this thinking could be taken to the extreme: if a lower control arm, or traction bar, could be fabricated to attach all the way up at the car's "center of gravity", then that would be ideal, right? So between he and Dad they devised a scheme to fabricate such a device and install it on our GTO. The sketches you see here are the result of that brainstorming session.

The first order of business would be to locate the CG of the car, in the fore/aft direction. Dad had told me previously about jacking the car up, using a small scissors style jack on each side, and moving them forward and rearward along the car until it "balanced" with the front and rear tires off the ground. This would establish the location for the forward attachment point, at each frame rail. Square tubing was used to fabricate the bars themselves and they were clamped to the rear axle tube to secure the rear of the bar.

In short order the new setup was ready for testing. Arrangements were made to rent one of the local tracks and Dad and Roger met there with high hopes and great expectations. After warming the car, Dad proceeding to the starting line for the first test pass. Equipped with a skinny set of M&H "Racemasters" - a couple short, "dry hops" indicated everything was in order - Dad staged the car and the tree came down. Dad launched the car and BOOM!! it immediately spun end for end, moving only a few feet forward and pointing exactly back the way he came. Shaken, Dad "putt-putted" back toward the bleach box area and shut the car off to regain his composure.

After a short break a second run was attempted. Dad tried "driving" the car out (a much less violent launch), but the car never gained traction down the quarter mile, slipping and sliding until the run was finally aborted. The "traction bar" concept seemed to be a dismal and complete failure, after just these two attempted passes.

Today, in hindsight, we can see why these would not work. Per the "doorslammer" chassis guru's, like Chris Alston or Dave Morgan, the instant center of the 4 link rear suspension is driven rearward and down from the production location, providing more "percentage of rise" when compared to the car's center of gravity. Today we would never consider moving the instant center to go directly "through" the heart of the CG; what they had tried out was completely "directionally incorrect".

As has been said before, you can learn as much from your mistakes as from your successes. The rear suspension was returned to it's "production" configuration (ie, control arms attached at their original locations, reworked bushings*, air bag located in right rear spring), and it is in this condition that the car ran it's best ET and is how it sits today. It is basically the same setup that I have on my bracket/index car today.

Dad had mentioned that some of the bracketry and holes can still be seen under the car; I haven't checked specifically but the next time it's up in the air I will take a look.

K

*an old hot rodder trick is to drive 10 penny nails longitudinally into the bushings. The diameter of the nails take up space inside the bushing, compressing the rubber further and giving the end result of making the rubber appear "harder". Today we would probably simply purchase polyurethane bushings and install those but back then they were not yet available.

[Keith Seymore]

October 2009:

Found this at Mom's house today. I had been looking for it for quite some time (but not in the right spot, apparently):







Some of you might remember that Ubly Dragway was in the mainstream news about a year ago, as a result of this:

[Keith Seymore]

How We Met Jim Wangers

It occurs to me that I haven't yet told you how we first met Jim Wangers, a very long time ago. I hadn't shared this yet because I wanted to make sure I did so in a way that paid him the appropriate amount of respect, as an icon of the era, that he deserves. I think I am ready to do so now.

I may have mentioned that my Dad had started to record his thoughts and recollections in a yellow legal pad. He made it through about 20 pages of handwritten notes, starting with the early 60's up through the end of 1963, before his passing. I was sitting here, re-reading those notes, when it occurred to me: why should I reconstruct and editorialize and summarize when it's already here in front of me? Perhaps I should let "him" tell this story in "his own" words...

So - here we go - "How we met Jim Wangers", as told by Van Seymore:
[my comments are in brackets - K]


"My first encounter with Royal was by accident. They came to Central Michigan Dragway [now Mid Michigan Motorplex, in Stanton Michigan] on the second or third Sunday in September of 1960. Wangers was fresh off his Stock Eliminator win at Detroit Dragway. On this Sunday they had the Maroon car 'Hot Chief 1' (the car that took Stock Eliminator), [Dick] Jesse's white automatic 'Hot Chief #2', and a blue car.



"At this time I was racing a Ford; it was the first 360 HP delivered in Michigan and at this time it had the three Holley two barrel set up on it and was running as a 375 HP (with a letter from Ford).







"Steve French was the Tech Director and flag man at Central and I knew how to read him. As time trials opened Jim brought the Hot Chief #1 to the line and I came up in the left lane in my car. Steve would look at the right lane and then the left, and when the person in the left lane nodded the flag came up. By knowing this I was gone and I don't think I beat Wangers as much as I startled him so bad he couldn't catch me, but he sure sailed by me at the end of the quarter.

"When we returned to the pits Frank [Rediker] and Jesse were laughing so hard they were almost rolling on the ground. Wangers sure didn't see any humor in it and he came over to where I was parked and said 'I bet you can't do that again!' I was feeling kind of cocky so I said 'Sure I can'. We lined up again, in the same lanes, and although I didn't beat him by as much I still got to the end of the quarter first.

"By now Frank and Dick were laughing so hard they could hardly stand it. Jim came back over to where we were parked and said 'You can't beat the blue car!'. He sure was right, it didn't matter if I knew the flagman or not, he beat me that run.

"Later, I asked Frank about the engine in the Blue car and his comment was 'it's not quite stock'. I never did find out what 'not quite stock' meant."

[Keith Seymore]

One more:


"Early in 1961 I saw Royal at Detroit Dragway with the '61 cars. This was probably the sharpest looking race set up ever. The tow cars were red with white racing stripes and the race cars were white with red racing stripes. Wangers was trying to come up with a Royal package and was trying different paint combinations and Frank was working on an engine tune. I think a couple of cars were sold in '61 with body colored aluminum wheels and maybe racing stripes.



"Later in the summer I saw Jesse at a drag strip and he asked me if I was ready to switch to Pontiac. At this time Dave Evans and Dennis Gray from Ford were pretty active in drag racing. I had a crank at Larry Jewell's in Inkster and a block at Jack Conley's in Brighton and was building a 428 ci engine to run. When I told Jesse that I was going to stay with Ford for a while (this is a Chevrolet Die Maker who can't get a thing out of Chevrolet but could race for Ford or Pontiac) he said ok, but that he had sold the car he had been using as a demo and for me to come down the next day to see it.

"So on Monday I made my first trip to Royal Pontiac . When I got there a mechanic named 'Charlie' [Brumfield] had just finished bringing the engine up to 368 HP spec and a guy named Mack was working on the Slim Jim transmission. It was a white Catalina with a white interior and aluminum wheels. Jesse said 'it's ready for delivery, go with Mack to test it'. Being young and innocent I said ok.

"When Mack fired it up it sure did sound good. He drove to Stephenson Highway and stopped at 14 Mile Rd in front of Jim Robbins Co [it's an industrial park now; I drive past it every day ]. I have been on some rides with street racers, Jim Wangers and Dick Jesse included, but never for a ride like this. When we got back to Royal and everyone was laughing and Jesse asked how the ride was, then I knew I had just 'been had' and that racing with Royal would be a lot of fun."

[Keith Seymore]

More recollections by Van Seymore:

"I saw Jesse again about twice before the season ended and again at the Autorama at Cobo Hall in January. He said the '62 program was under way and that it was going to be great. He said that Pontiac had built six Super Duty cars before Christmas.

"I got a phone call the middle of the next week and Jesse was more hyper than usual. Pontiac was trying to get the people at Daytona, especially Smokey Yunick, to run the new 421. The stock car guys didn't believe the Pontiac engineers when they said the 4" stroke would go 500 miles. According to Jesse an agreement was reached: the four cars with the 4 bbl engines were moved to Royal and if the cars would run from Royal Oak to Daytona then Smokey would run the 421 (this was something that everyone except Smokey agreed on). The day Jesse called me he had just turned the cars over to Fireball, Paul Goldsmith (who was still living in the Detroit area) and another two drivers. The cars made it to Daytona, Smokey got more horsepower out of the 421 than anyone thought possible; he and Fireball sat on the Pole, won one of the short races and won the 500".

[Keith Seymore]

Some insights into Dick Jesse:

"One of the drag cars was at Royal at the same time and was being tuned [so that it would be "stock"! ] and painted the way Wangers wanted it to be. It was given a Bobcat paint job and Charlie checked the engine, the lash on the valves, the carb jetting, pulled the fuel filter and replaced the distributor with one Frank had reworked.

"In a conversation with Jesse he said that Gil Kohn was going to let Royal use Detroit Dragway for the test and I came down I could go with him. I remembered it being on a Monday morning but in a conversation with Roger Huntington he said no, we met on a Sunday. I can also remember being in a hurry to get back to Flint to go to work so that would explain that (Sunday was double time!).

"In 1960 Standard Oil came out with the Atlas Bucron and it was better than a lot of the recap slicks were. Vogue had a good tire, too. Jim had Vogue tires on the car for Royal but they changed to the Bucron's at the strip but it was cold and he had traction problems. I stayed to watch a few runs and Roger was making the runs with Wangers and then I left. Jack Watson was still working for Pontiac at this time and had a '61 with a 421 in it and I think he gave me a ride back to Royal Oak.

"The test car was very impressive in looks, too. I thought '...this is a race car?'. Power radio antenna, the interior even the steering wheel was deluxe and with the Royal paint it was a pretty car.




"As pretty as this car was and even the way it ran this was not the car campaigned in 1962. I think this car stayed in the Detroit area in 1962 and Royal had a big display at the Autorama in January of 1963 with a car in it and I think it was this car, the one used the previous January for the road test.

"In 1962 Royal cut back and only campaigned one car, a red 4 speed car. I kidded Jesse and said it was because Pontiac didn't build any automatics so he could drive one. But at one time Royal had a line of Super Duty's that extended the whole length of the north side of the agency and one of them was a red automatic. Jesse and the other salesmen were concerned about what they were going to do with an automatic. Jesse sold this car but the buyer wanted to see it at the strip and Jesse took it to Motor City [Dragway] and again it was a Sunday when I happened to be there. Jesse asked me if I wanted to make a pass and I said 'sure'. Later he told me I sold the car for him because he told the other guy that I was interested and going to buy it."

[Keith Seymore]

Early Bobcats & Super Dutys:

"In this late 1961 early 1962 time frame is when everything began to fall into place for Jim Wangers, Frank Rediker and Royal for the Royal Bobcat package. Wangers came up with a B-O-B from a Bonneville and a C-A-T from a Catalina, a special paint scheme and Frank had a tune-up to raise the horsepower from 348 to 370. The Royal Bobcat had officially arrived and it was one sharp looking automobile.

"This was the summer when I was trying to decide which way to go. Ford said a car would be available and by now my car was 2 years old and becoming very dated. None of the promises they had made were kept.

"When the '63's came out Ford had lightweight cars but they just went to the big name people at the start of the year and again the same promise: '...wait until the middle of the year'. Chevrolets were very limited and went to 'name' drivers only and an off the floor 409 left a little to be desired. So if you wanted to have a competitive car for 1963 it came down to going to your local Dodge/Plymouth dealer or Pontiac was building and selling Super Duty's.

"Pontiac was giving the Swiss Cheese Catalinas and the Tempest Super Duty's to their 'name' drivers but the Super Duty engine was available to everyone in a steel Catalina. Pontiac built a lot of combinations in '63: I saw cars with an aluminum hood only, with an aluminum front bumper and one car with an aluminum front clip but steel inner fenders. There were also Grand Prix's mixed in with Super Duty engines."