Ventura Motors

3 Day Wonder

Bullington — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 01:23:07 +0000

This is the first race the car ever participated in. Spring of 1958 in Santa Maria. We called it the 3-day wonder as a bunch of us put it together the weekend before from a pile of parts I had in my garage. I had a 400″ Olds with 6 Stromberg 97’s with a Caddie LaSalle trans, saved from my 49 Ford coupe, and a Columbia two speed rear end. A 28 Chevy body and a 34 Ford chassis. Raced against a altered roadster from Santa Barbara with, I think, a supercharged GMC 6 cylinder. I actually won the race at around 112 and in the high 11’s or low 12’s. That was a frightening ride. Worse than when it went 155 at Lions.

Check out all the cool old cars in the parking area and the girls with the skirts. Those were the days. BTW, no tattoos on the girls. A pack of cigarettes rolled up in your tee shirt sleeve. Gas was 20 cents a gallon.

These photos taken by Bud Hammer, Oxnard

Towing back from a run

Bullington — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 07:30:18 +0000

This has to be after February since the lettering on the door “Tucker & Stoll” was removed following the Winternationals. I need to check photos taken at Bakersfield Smokers meet which was in March to see if the door lettering was there at that time, Yea, I know, who cares?

Staging Lanes

Bullington — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 23:55:45 +0000

Who, L to R: (foot on tire)Ted Wingate, Mass. Ty-Rods, two other guys, I think they were part of the Ty-Rods, Mass., me sitting in car, & far right- Dave Stoll. Check out the arms on Ted and Dave, made me feel like the skinny guy who always got sand kicked in his face.

Wheels Up!

Bullington — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 23:07:13 +0000

Racing against Jr Thompson driving C&O’s Chrysler “T” pickup roadster. The olds is getting tired and about ready to get parked until the wallet gets more green stuff in it. But the Olds had enough to win this one. In the same time period it also put Norm Cowdry’s AA/SP blown Chevy Austin Healy away in a match race in two straight. That was fun racing.

476″ 1960 Oldsmobile engine

Bullington — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 23:01:27 +0000

This is the basic engine that powered the roadster from late 61 through late 65. It was a 394” bored and stroked 5/8” to 476 cubic inches. Dave Stoll originally built the engine for a boat and he put all the right stuff in it. He owned the engine and the B&M hydro with which we won the 62 Winternationals “Little Eliminator” and A/SR at the 62 Indy Nationals. In the fall of 62 the car was really running poorly and we got beat by a little Chevy powered roadster in Fresno at a “nothing” race. Dave got frustrated with the poor performance and sold his interest to me planning to build another Olds to put in the car. Since I was then the sole owner of the entire project I took a couple of weeks alone and started from scratch with my dial indicators and went back to basic engine building 101 and found an error that once corrected the car gained 10 mph and dropped ½ of a second of elapsed time. It was the first Street Roadster in the 9’s.

Before Dave got a chance to build another engine we won the 63 Winternationals A/SR class and “Middle Eliminator”. Then we had a disagreement over something really petty and it split us up. That was too bad as he was a great guy and fun to go racing with. I’m sure I would have done better if we would have worked it out and remained together. Too soon I get old and too late I get smart. No hard feelings and I have nothing but good to say about Dave Stoll.

In this photo the Olds is sitting on the engine stand in my work shop. Note: my wife’s end table lamps hanging on the wall and my J-head Bridgeport mill right behind the engine. Not long after this photo was taken a guy from L.A. with an altered purchased the engine and got it out of my way. I did keep the Hilborn injector scoop and the Vertex magneto which are both part of the Chrysler in the roadster today. The Olds had about 8 ½ to 1 compression ratio and the guy with the altered put a HUGE load of nitro in the tank (against my advise) and blew the thing into a thousand pieces on the first or second run. She was a sweetie, R.I.P. old trusty Oldsmobile.

Run at Lions, Long Beach

Bullington — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 22:57:06 +0000

At the 1964 Indy Nationals while I was driving for Mazmanian, I had Dick Gazan in the seat of the roadster and he won AA/SR. After I got bumped out of my Willys ride I got back in the roadster and we changed the roadster configuration which included removing the moon fuel tank which was mounted out in front and put a bigger tank in the rear for better weight distribution.

I also changed to a the full roll bar that is in the car today and had removable headrests that held some lead slugs that weighed about 36 pounds per headrest. The top foot of the roll bar was also filled with lead for a higher center of gravity and is still that way today.

That’s when the severe wheel stand problems started to happen, especially when the starting lines and tires started getting better. The speed fell off for no apparent reason and I tried going back to a front mounted gas tank a couple of times to see if there was a problem associated with fuel line length. That’s the test tank you see in the photo.

Mazmanian Willys at AMT

Bullington — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 22:50:43 +0000

What: Photo session after AMT signed a contract with John Mazmanian to build the model of this car.

Who: My lovely wife Charlene, me, & Jimmy Spar (younger brother to Bob & Don Spar, owners of B&M). Jimmy went on to become a very accomplished psychiatrist, something like the head of the UCLA psychiatric department?

This car was my first real experience with a Chrysler. I defeated this car, driven by Bones Balough, with my Olds powered 28 roadster at the Bakersfield Smokers meet in March of 64. (see photos) Bones built the engines and did a great job at it, he worked for Isky and ran the dyno. He had a lot of Gasser experience. One of those guys I have a lot of respect for. A week or two following the Bakersfield meet Bones and John parted company and I got hired as the driver and trailer builder. I was strictly an Oldsmobile, Engle cam guy, and knew very little, strike that, nothing about Chryslers. Dave Zeuschel was hired to build the engines with Dick Harryman as the tuner. Dave Zeuschel was a great engine builder, especially for Top Fuel and Top Gas dragsters, and this was one of his first attempts at a gasser engine. Let the learning curve begin, for all of us.

We were in Detroit for a match race at Detroit Dragway (don’t remember who with, possibly K.S. Pittman). The week following the match race we installed a brand spanking new 467” engine built by Dave for John and trucked to Detroit, getting ready for the Indy Nationals. The car didn’t run good enough at Indy and I got beat by Doug Cook so Dave & I got fired shortly after with Dick Harryman taking over driving and tuning. He didn’t last very long and was replaced by Dick Bourgeois. I drove for John from six months, learned a lot, but never did get the Willys in the winners circle at a major event.

I have a great story about a couple of dinners in Detroit but need a lot of space and time to cover it. (stay tuned as I’ll update this later)