Dave & Group,
I am sorry if I was misunderstood! At no time did I intend to imply that
Garlits did not earn his place in the Club, he is one of my heroes, I
only connected his name to my comments to indicate that he thought the
Club was a worth while effort even though he had already attained world
wide fame. It also was not my intent to belittle Unser's membership
either. It is just that "for me" there is more to gaining membership
than driving a car for a two-way average above 200 MPH.
I have known many who have buckled themselves into a proven car and rode
there way into the Club. I'm sure that for them wearing the hat has just
as much meaning as it does for me. I also know some who have spent a
small fortune and not attained membership. Money does not guarantee
success. It just rangles me a bit (maybe I'm just jealous) to see cubic
dollars come into play in our sport. Others of less means to have to
compete against their records.
Many years ago I was offer the loan of a blown Chrysler by the Champion
Rep. , Jones, which I refused because my goal was to do it with an
unblowm "300 incher". That engine ended up in John Simonson's A Altered
C/S and set a record of 208.394 MPH in 1962 getting him into the Club. I
have never regretted my decision even though it required almost another
30 years of work to meet my goal.
Tom, "Doing it my way" Redding CA 10:30AM PST
Marge and/or Dave Thomssen wrote:
>
> Hey Doug and group
>
> Garlits definitely got into the 2club with a lot more effort than $. He
> sponsored the streamliner and we built it here in Lincoln NE and I built the
> blown flathead that got him in the club. He did a lot of the work on the
> salt including maintaining the cylinder heads with a file! My engine was
> strictly a backyard job that took some TLC to make it run, but for a while
> it was the worlds fastest single flathead. He drove on every other pass.
> Our long-time streamliner driver, Don Kehr, drove the other passes and we
> were able to get him into the 2-club after ten years of trying. We couldn't
> get the blown ARDUN to run that year (1988) but in 1990 my son Tim and his
> buddies prepared the car and got it to go 232 with my blown ARDUN and he got
> in the club. I crashed the car in 1991 trying to get in the club. E J
> Kawalski rebuilt the car and drove it at Muroc and the car is now in
> Pennsylvania. It will go to the Garlits museum sometime. I think that
> Garlit's family did not like him driving at high speed on slick surface like
> the salt, or he would be racing there yet.
>
> Dave Thomssen
> The Hayseed
> Lincoln NE
> #322 XXFBSTR
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