Where is 69 Yenko Camaro 124379N663539

[GM_427_Racer]

Well,the election is over. I truly hope everyone voted, no matter who you voted for, voting is the most precious right we, the American people have. Just think about this, since the revolutionary war up until current times today, many, many brave Americans have fought and died to preserve this right and I am so extremely proud of this country and what it stands for. Several of you have Thanked me for my service and I appreciate the sentiment, however, I really do not deserve it, there are so many that have served so proudly and made the ultimate sacrifice, what I did was nothing compared to them and all of the wonderful men and women that continue to serve today.

Ok, Editorial Done, on to more CAR stuff.

Rooster, yup, no damage, I was moving so slow, it just came out gently and fell to the ground....

Chapter 6

Previously, I had introduced you to my friend that I worked with that was the HUGE fan of Grumpy Jenkins, (I must admit I did not know who Grumpy was at that time), and my friend was a huge fan of NHRA and that was my introduction through National Dragster and what NHRA was about and the races around the country. He convinced me that racing at the local track was nice, but I really needed to go to an NHRA divisional event and see how the Yenko stacked up against some really good and smart racers (I must admit, I was neither).

I will tell you about the first NHRA divisional event I went to at National Trail Raceway, just to the east of Columbus, Ohio. Before I do that, I have to tell you about the tow vehicle I used at that time. Since I worked at GM, I had the opportunity to buy (almost new) manufacturer's cars. I struck up a deal with the on-site Chevrolet Resident Engineer to order a 1972 Monte Carlo (this was in 1972), just the way I wanted it, he would drive it for approximately 3000 miles and then it would be taken out of service, sent to a dealer of my choice and then I bought it as a used car. After I got the car, I put air shocks on it and my Dad (what a guy), lined up one of his friends to put a trailer hitch on the frame of the Monte. I could not afford a trailer at this time, but my engine building friend and his brother had one. I have to tell you that this trailer was so heavy, it took three of us to lift it to get it on the ball of the hitch. This thing was so heavy, it could have hauled a small bull dozer (did I mention this trailer was heavy?) You are probably wondering why I bring this up, naturally, there is a towing story mixed in here somewhere.

National Trails at that time was about 3 to 4 hours away, so we got up and got going very early on a Saturday morning so we could be there by 8:00 AM for technical inspection. A little while ago I said I was not a smart racer, and this trip proved it. At 22 years of age, I knew nothing about the rules or what was expected of me and the car, I had a car and a helmet, "What else would I need?" Well, I found out real quick. We waited in line for hours and I am looking at all of these cars that were really cool cars and although the Yenko was cool, there were a lot of cars there and it was just a LeMans Blue 69 Camaro, no-one really cared.

As memory serves me, after we got the tech card (I had never seen one before, all the local tracks around home, you just pulled in, gave them your money,put your name on a post card and they said "That's a car and you can race..&quot. This was quite different, there were a couple tech guys and they went over your car with a fine, tooth comb. I was very unfortunate to draw the "Division 3 Tech Director - Marty Barret". For those of you that did not know Marty, he was a living, breathing encyclopedia of muscle cars, he knew if you had a wrong part number screw in the wrong place. When he started looking at the car, he started shaking his head and writing on the tech card, and writing on the tech card, and writing on the tech card. After about 10 items, he looked at us and said, "You boys need to go home and go to work, cause you are not racing this car on MY racetrack until you fix this stuff and you are definitely not fixing it here." Some of the things that I recall that were on the list, we had removed the radio, to take out weight and left the open hole, he said that have to have either a radio or a radio delete plate, we had taken the driver's door mirror off (remember the one where I saw the axle come out-LOL) and after removal, we did not fill the mounting holes. I really cannot remember all the stuff under the hood, but there was a bunch and as Marty said, too much to fix there. I was in SHOCK, I asked my buddy (who was also in SHOCK), "Is He telling us, we drove all this way and we cannot go down the track?" He said, "Yup, we are done before we started"

We loaded the car back on the trailer, wrapped the chains around the front and back and used the binders to hold it to the trailer (no ratchet straps back then, just big ole chains that you could tie down a bull dozer). Well, I would guess you folks have figured out that this is where the towing story starts.

You would be correct. At 22 years old, I did not know much about anything, especially, tongue weight and its affect on the tow vehicle, I mean I put air shocks on the Monte, what else do I need??????? We were about to find out, when we loaded the Yenko on the trailer we put it as far forward as we could get it (not a good thing), but neither one of us had a clue. That ride home was the longest of my life. I did not drive very far and I was done, I was too tired and could not keep my eyes open. My buddy said, he felt fine and he would drive, so I got in the back seat layed down to take a snooze. Not very far into the trip, I am asleep and we are just cruising down the interstate and I am awakened by my head bouncing back and forth off of the quarter panel trim, the Monte is swaying violently from lane to lane and obviously, the trailer and the Yenko were going in the opposite direction at getting worse with every whip. When I finally get my wits about me and try to pull myself up off of the seat, I realize we are going down a hill. Did I mention that the bull dozer trailer did not have any brakes? My buddy was trying his best to control this thing, but I am thinking that this is not going to end well for all of us. As we near the bottom of the hill, still whipping violently, my buddy puts the Monte to the floor, kind of like a pilot in an airplane, where he is trying to get control of a plane in a steep dive and pulls back on the stick as hard as he can and goes full throttle. Well, since I am typing this I guess you have figured out that when he started going up the other side of the hill under full throttle, the pilot saved us from doom. I will say that this happened a couple more times on the way home, but not near as bad as the first time (he slowed down a lot). Like I said, I was not very smart, so not knowing how to position a car on a trailer was a real learning curve and when I get to the next chapter, we will have a different tow vehicle and a much needed different trailer.

[cook_dw]

I am like a kid around a campfire listening to these stories.. Awesome..

[markinnaples]

Seriously, brilliant stories Sir, and thank you for your service. [img]<<GRAEMLIN_URL>>/flag.gif[/img]

[ne70ss]

Incredible

[GM_427_Racer]

Chapter 7

This saga is drawing to a close, maybe one more chapter after this.

Since the last chapter was such a disaster, I will try and make this one a little better. I mentioned that it was time for an upgrade to a different tow vehicle and a different trailer, again my Dad stepped in and found me a 1964 Chevrolet Suburban with a 283 and a three speed manual transmission, which was geared a lot better and had a lot more stability than the Monte Carlo for towing a trailer with a race car on it. There was also a local racer that in his spare time use to build low cost trailers in his garage. When I say they were low cost, I mean low cost. They were built out of 3x3 thin wall box tubing, with bolt on hubs (another story for another time), wooden 2x10 planks for where the car sat and the front axle had a surge brake set-up on the front hubs, but at least it had brakes. I used this set-up for a while and it worked a lot better, in fact I used this very same trailer to tow all over the eastern part of the country up until 1981 when I moved up to a fifth wheel enclosed set up.

The second NHRA points meet I took the Yenko to was in Saginaw, Michigan in 1973. I made it through Technical inspection without a problem, but believe me I was sweating it through the whole process. Fortunately, I did not have Marty Barrett to pick the car apart as he did the first time in Columbus and in all fairness to Marty, he was doing his job as he always did and pointing out to a novice how things had to be done, if they wanted to race on &quot;HIS&quot; race track. A different friend of mine went with me to this race, actually a neighbor of my parents. The time trials went fine, nothing special other than my neighbor kept telling me I was not leaving at a high enough RPM from the starting line and the car would be quicker if I did raise it. You have to remember that at this time, you did not run off of Class Indexes made by NHRA, your dial-in was the current National Record for your class. At that time, I believe the National Record for SS/D was a 10.93, so when we went into class eliminations, that 10.93 was my dial in and I had not even been within two tenths of that mark ever. I think we had 3 time trials that day and we kept getting progressively faster, but not anywhere near the National Record.

When they called for first round of Super Stock, it was getting to be early evening and the sun was setting. As we were pushing up through the staging lanes, it was pretty much dark (I mention this for the next chapter). My friend and I are pushing up through the lanes two by two and I try to start counting the cars back to see who I am going to line up with for first round. After doing it a couple times, (there were some delays), it kept coming up the same. There was a white 1969 Camaro convertible SS/NA and as I am walking by there are all kinds of decals and lettering and some of the lettering that was really important to me was the fact that on the front fender, it said &quot;NATIONAL RECORD HOLDER&quot;, if that wasn't bad enough, it was also lettered with the name &quot;John Lingenfelter&quot;. I am thinking, Holy Crap, I have to run John Lingenfelter, are you kidding me??????? For some of you OLD guys on this sight, you might remember a car magazine called &quot;SUPER STOCK&quot;, well I had a flash back to one of their covers on one of their recent editions that showed none other than John Lingenfelter doing a hellacious (if that is a word) smokey burnout with this same Camaro convertible and he had this huge grin on his face as he was doing this burnout and I am thinking, YUP, this is the guy, this is the MAN.......... As I mentioned before, it is now dark and everyone has their parking lights on (again, important for next chapter). I think as I am coming out of the water burnout, just do the best you can, REV it up and hit every gear. So we are all staged and his lights start to come down and I am concentrating on my side of the tree as my lights begin. Well, instead of looking at the tach and holding it at a certain point, I thought the hell with it and just put it to the floor just before I let go of the clutch. WOW, the Yenko left like it never had before, front wheels in the air and getting it. I pull second gear and he is way down track, hit third gear and I am gaining on him quickly, pull my BABY into high and I think, DAMN, I am going to catch him. I blow by him at about 1200 feet and ran the fastest I had ever gone to that point in my young racing career, as memory serves me, I could be wrong, but I think it was an 11.03, which was just a tenth off of the record. I cannot believe what just happened and I am thinking, &quot;What just happened?&quot; I get back to my trailer and my buddy is just as happy as I am and he kept telling me, &quot;I told you if you revved it up, it would leave like jack da bear!!&quot; He was right, so we started cooling the Yenko for the second round. Back then, there were no ladders, you just pulled up to whoever you pulled up to and that is who you ran, unlike today where every competition round is run off of qualifying.

We didn't change anything and took the car to the rear of the staging lanes. Just like the first round, there were a bunch of cars ahead of us and I did what I did first round, I walked to the head of the lanes and started pairing cars up as to how it looked like who we would run. As I counted them back and I did it several times, it came out the same. I would have to run a yellow Dodge, now this was not just any yellow Dodge, it was a Super Stock Hemi and it belonged to Ron Mancini from the Detroit area. Now for those of you who do not know Ron Mancini, he was not Ronnie Sox or Herb McCandless, but in the Mopar circles, he was pretty dog gone close, and definitely a legend at a young age in Michigan. I thought, oh well, just do what I did the first round, drive the same way and the Yenko can do what it does and we can move on to third round. Everything went well, the burnout was good, staged shallow just like the first round, revved it up to the moon, just like the first round, the car left with the wheels in the air and I hit every gear just like I wanted. There was only one problem, that big ole nasty HEMI, passed me about the same place that I had passed JL in the first round. My day was over, but I was really proud of how the Yenko ran and as you have just read, I am still telling the story.

In the next and last chapter, I will tell you how I met John Lingenfelter in Pomona, California about a year and a half later and our discussion about that race. Oh yeah, he remembered!!!!!!

[Xplantdad]

Way neat stuff! [img]<<GRAEMLIN_URL>>/headbang.gif[/img]

[Ryan1969Chevelle]

I so hope this car pops up, the stories are awesome!!!

Ryan

[NEW]

Amazing to hear this from you as a original owner of a Yenko. :-)

[mockingbird812]

Great stuff Gary. I grew up a tad south of Austintown in Canfield. Love your story. Keep it coming! THANKS!!!!

[Craig_Maiorana]

WOW .... [img]<<GRAEMLIN_URL>>/headbang.gif[/img]