The 2008 Dick Harrell Drag Racing Hall of Fame Inductees
- Kelly Chadwick
- Mike Garfinkel
- Brooklyn Heavy
- Norm Hickman
- Bill & Pam Porterfield
- Marvin Sutherlin
Norman Hickman Jr.
By Debe Hickman
1960-1963
Member of the 82nd Airborne, 2nd Brigade, 504th Infantry. Served in Cambodia, Thailand, Vietnam, Korea and Germany. Honorable discharge, Specialist E-4.
1963-1967
Eastern Express – Kansas City, Missouri
Journeyman mechanic
1967-1971
Van Chevrolet – Shawnee Mission, Kansas
Service salesman, dispatcher and assistant service manager
1971-1974
ITCO Corporation – Kansas City, Missouri
Franchise Sales Manager
1974-1982
Northwest Motor Welding – Phoenix Arizona/Arvada, Colorado
Started as a machinist in the Phoenix shop. He was transferred to Colorado in 1976 and was promoted to shop foreman two years later. In 1980 he was promoted to full-time outside sales.
1982-1986
Regional Transportation District – Denver, Colorado
Started as a third-shift mechanic at this publicly funded bus company but was quickly promoted to Maintenance Supervisor where he restructured the existing preventive maintenance program to substantially improve equipment reliability and miles driven between road calls.
1986-1999
City and County of Denver – Denver, Colorado
Superintendent of Fleet Maintenance. Designed and implemented a preventive maintenance program for a fleet of 1,750 pieces of equipment. Resulted in a 90% reduction in road calls, an 85% reduction in equipment down-time and increased efficiency of budgetary expenditures (annual budget of $12 million).
1999-2000
Retired – Surprise, Arizona
2000-2007
Golf Cars of America – Sun City, Arizona
Managing partner of three golf car sales and service locations. The 2005 sales even exceeded Columbia ParCar Corp’s factory stores! Golf Cars of America was the only dealer in the country that was given a five year parts and three year labor warranty.
The cars sold weren’t just any golf car, but had options like cloth adjustable bucket seats, high speed gears, evaporative coolers for the summer and custom enclosures for the winter, 13” automobile radial tires and came in colors from Country Club Beige to Kandy Apple Red.
Taken from the notice sent to Columbia ParCar’s employees:
“Norm was a tremendous and vibrant supporter of Columbia and not afraid to speak his mind when he has good ideas – which was frequent! Because of Norm we have become a better company with better products and people. Norm will be missed by us all.”
Norman Paul Hickman, Jr.
08/11/43-10/21/07
Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Marvin Sutherlin
By Michael Sutherlin
MARVIN FOSTER SUTHERLIN
9/22/1929, Sierra Blanca, TX
9/4/2007, Grants, NM
77 years old
Born as twins
Marvin and Margaret, to Grover and Elsie Sutherlin.
Raised in West Texas, around El Paso. Father was a rancher, mother was a teacher. The youngest of three brothers and two sisters.
As a “south-paw”
Marvin mastered football, basketball, tennis, baseball, fishing, drill rigs, mechanics, and welding. His handwriting was “none-too- pretty”, though. He had a big heart, a very pleasant smile, and his dry humor was quick and witty.
As a husband and a father
of three boys and two girls, he taught the ethics of hard work, dedication, sincerity, and honesty.
His work and his family were his life. Marvin and Joyce married in 1948, and raised five children:
Dollie Jean, a mom and Home Schooler. Michael Keith, a father, Shop Teacher, Investigator and Machine operator. Gary Mack, a father and Navy Chief officer- retired. Betty Michelle, a wife and an Executive Secretary and Gregory Foster, a father and an active Navy Master Chief (Gregory Foster) .....all dedicated family members and Christians
Marvin has a rich ancestry:
The Sutherland (spelling) Clan immigrated to America in 1654 from Scotland and settled New Kent County, VA. Fendel Sutherlin, Indiana, braved the Oregon Trail and settled Sutherlin, Oregon, 1851. George Sutherland V, (Cinco) served as a Texican. His son, William , and brother, John (a physician), were
Defenders of The Alamo, 1836. William was killed and burned, there, defending the Alamo. Confederate Major William T. Sutherlin, of Danville, VA provided safe-shelter to President Jefferson Davis before
Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendered, April 3-April 10, 1865. Urilla Sutherland married Wyatt Earp, Jan 10, 1870. She died later that year, childbirth.
Dickie Harrell Professional Drag Racing:
Marvin’s drilling buddy, Bill Allen, introduced him to Dickie Harrell in the early 60’s. Bill and Martha Allen were High School buddies with Dickie and Elaine. Bill and Dickie had “twin Chevy’s” which they raced. Marvin’s garage, in Carlsbad, was well equipped and provided a “safe-haven” for them to test and tune. Many a wrench was turned in that small back-yard shop, and many a late night test runs were done, under the cloak of darkness, on Stand-Pipe Road.
Notables include Bill Allen, Kelly Chadwick, Mack Medley, Buddy Rice, Gary Wise, Jim Elgan, Larry Morrison, Ray Brooks, and many others.
The 2007 Dick Harrell Drag Racing Hall of Fame Inductees
- Don Hardy
- John' Oop' Fensom
- Larry Reyes
- Ray Sullins
- Jack Walker
Drag Racer Don Hardy - The Quiet Man
Don Hardy Before The V-8 Vega
By Ro McGonegal
Let's step back in the alley a little bit. It's the Pre-Vega Era, and our hero Don Hardy is busy winning the NHRA Division IV points race with his B/Gas '32 Ford. Hardy had made recon expeditions to Southern California in search of the right stuff for his hot-off-the-forge 327. He pretty much took the trickest pieces available because he was an engine builder and knew the odds. Jack Engle (camshaft), Joe Reath (rotating assembly), and Stu Hilborn (mechanical fuel injection) gave Don their best based on the parameters of his powertrain combination. He was using a B&M Hydro-Stick transmission, the darling of the Gasser set, which did not feature a torque converter or any other kind of torque multiplier. The stock GM Hydramatic had a fluid coupling with the usual driver-driven vaned structures, but it had no stator--the little aluminum blade wheel that goes in between and multiplies torque until it is overridden.
Hardy put some of the first B&M torque converters to his automatic, thus affording him stall speed when the rest of the fellows he ran against did not have this advantage. There was also an affair with a tube-frame digger that was featured in Phillips 76 TV commercials, but the first Don Hardy customer was still a few years down the pike. Hardy worked his dealership line mechanic job to make the nut and never considered building cars for anyone else.
He was drafted in 1963 and wound up dealing with Alaska for two years. Released, he set up shop near Floydada, Texas, which skirts the southern edge of Panhandle Country. More wind than sunshine, necessarily desolate, the mother bitch of wide-open spaces. A good place to pull your feet out of the clay below (with that righteous sucking sound) and ponder grander things in the sky above. Hardy glimpsed the future (his future, at least) in that great blue void, and he began to build thoughtful versions of the rudimentary Funny Car, circa 1965. At that time, typical Funny Cars were little more than a circus act, a filler when there was a lull in the program.
During his military stint, Detroit had introduced the midsize musclecar. The key to Hardy's grasp of the phenomenon, he says, were the two summers he spent in Detroit under the wings of builder/racers Jay Howell and Pete Seaton. Logghe Stamping was the premier Funny Car chassis-builder at the time, blessed by Ford and therefore the media when it was contracted to construct the first flip-top car (Don Nicholson's SOHC Comet) under the eye of Ford's racing dictator Al Turner. To Hardy, the puffs in this smoke signal went way beyond the ordinary. He formed a partnership with building contractor/racer Kelly Chadwick. As Hardy puts it: "Kelly had the money, I did the labor."
In the midst of all the whimsy and the uncharted course of the neophyte Funny Car, Hardy made damn sure that his creations didn't look funny at all. They were cleanly executed, well presented, and built as intelligently as any car of the day--on the West Coast or anywhere else. In '65, he "moved a lot of wheelbases on Plymouths and Dodges," ostensibly for the factory. His '66 Chevy II was the first of many Chevy-bodied cars actually powered by a Chevrolet engine; though the Hemi was clearly superior, there were plenty who would rather eat lung worms than entertain an Elephant. Hardy was non-denominational and proved it by building the first "Rambunctious," a '66 Hemi-powered Dart for Gene Snow. He hit the big time, so to speak, when he did '67 Camaros for Chadwick and Dick Harrell from factory-supplied bodies in white. The drag racing press was ecstatic. Hardy's cars did well and got the ink they deserved.
"I traveled with Kelley from 1966 to 1968," Hardy said. "We hit something like 33 states. By '69, though, the shop became more important than racing. I needed it to do well there so I could pay the bills." All the while, Hardy had a concern for safety. These stock-bodied cars were going much faster than they were designed to do. SEMA had no rules for Funny Cars, so Hardy and Californians John Buttera and promoter/racer/icon Lou Baney approached the organization with the first rules of construction.
His chassis design was ahead of its time and was greater than the horsepower available. "I followed dragster rules," offered Hardy. "I built my cars with chrome-moly tubing when most others did it with mild steel. The NHRA had no way to check wall thickness then. My idea was to 'build back' using dragster technology to build these new cars. I knew they would be safer." SEMA liked it and instituted the changes.
When asked whether his extraordinary shop produced any young visionaries or worthy proteges, Hardy offered, "We tried to keep our secrets at home. I didn't have many employees. We preferred country living." Don Hardy Race Cars was producing eight to twenty cars a year, which included a rolling chassis and a body reproduction from Fiberglass Limited out of Chicago. By the late '60s, he was commanding $20-22,000 per quarter-mile assassin, and it took approximately 30 working days to weld a pile of tubing into something that resembled a car. Frankly, he didn't make much money at the business until he released a catalog of mail-order goods. "The best years were '70 to '73. We did a crazy amount of mail business, and it told me that we could stay and make it work. I had 14 employees then, and that was a lot of people."
The business was on fire, and the next big thing was about to ignite. As the Funny Car evolved with laser speed, nearly overnight it lost its identity and roots, both of which were still dangling from an altered-wheelbase Dodge. The new Pro Stock Eliminator cars actually looked like something you could buy at a dealership. They had carburetors, stick-shift, Modified Eliminator-size drag slicks, and wheelbases that were in the right place. It was Hardy's take on building a Pro Stocker, but this time he "built down" from the Funny Car, applying technology he had cultivated for years.
Hardy's first Pro Stock example was a Hemi 'Cuda for Oklahoman and factory racer Don Grotheer. Initially, there was some disagreement with the NHRA about retaining the front portion of the factory framerails rather than installing custom tubing, which made the car safer. By '71, that scramble was over, but there was another one looming on the horizon.
It's Hardy's practice and conviction to supply nothing but the best possible product for the money. That was problematic around 1971 when West Coast defense contractor Boeing Aircraft took it in the shorts and there was an army of highly talented metal crafters on the streets. Many joined forces with local builders like John Buttera. In the end, said Hardy with a shrug, "he could build a nicer car than we could."
Then Don sluiced another nugget from the pan. We're not sure who first had the notion of putting a V-8 in a Vega, but we tend to think that the first eyes laid on that nicely laid-out dude could see a small-block squealing between its fenders. Chevrolet engineers did it in 1971 using an all-aluminum 302 for the assignation. We'd supervised the stab of a 350 into a Vega's panties at Dick Harrell's shop in Kansas City, Missouri, circa 1972, and the Feb. '72, issue of HOT ROD ran a feature on a conversion performed by Don Hardy Race Cars in Floydada, Texas. In 1973, we did a two-week test on a Hardy-kit LT-1 Vega built by a Rhode Island dealership. Before the whole thing was kaput, the V-8 Vega craze was enabled by at least seven engine-swappers (some using components supplied by Hardy)!
Where the first two V-8 Vega mutants were one-offs, Hardy wisely capitalized on the conversion factor: He was the first to build and package all the critical components and send them to your door. Shortly after HOT ROD's two-page featurette about the Hardy installation hit the stands, Hardy's business was ascending to its zenith. Hot rodders saw it as a worthy subterfuge against the inevitable legislative death of Detroit high performance. Wittingly or not, Don Hardy made that piece of history happen. He still sells 75 to 100 V-8 Vega swap kits every year.
There are a couple of hyenas he'd rather forget, though. He corrupted an innocent Chevette with a V-6 that scared him enough to be deemed "an accident looking for a place to happen." He also built all of the Vega conversions for Joel Rosen's Motion Performance on Long Island, then pole-vaulted over the sick-and-wrong line when he built a big-block version at Rosen's behest. I remember trucking out Sunrise Highway to Rosen's place sitting next to a Petersen ad stroke who yapped the entire way. I had a date with Frankenstein's daughter and he was making sure I kept it. Even as blase as I was then about matters of my mortality, I couldn't spend more than a few minutes in this wacky Vega without getting The Fear. It felt like a pendulum. There was a ton of weight over the front wheels and the rear tires hung proud on a 12-bolt that had never been narrowed. With the million pounds up front and a basically bound-up rear suspension, I could blow the tires off just by thinking about it. The car was as bouncy and as unpredictable as a Fuel Altered. Having slid sheepishly through one too many stoplights with the brakes on small-block conversions, I was reluctant to even try anything normal with the ones on this car, and all "testing" was done within blocks of the Motion building. And those afterthought sidepipes were a special touch. So freakin' loud they could have pissed off the cops over in Brooklyn.
The Vegas were an anomaly in an insanely busy race car schedule. In off hours, Hardy built the Tijuana Taxi four-door Maverick for Gapp & Roush, Plymouths of every iteration for Sox & Martin (including the infamous Hemi Colts), Don Nicholson's 351 Mavericks, Kelly Chadwick's Vegas, Billy Stepp's Hemi Colt, and Funny Cars for Roland Leong, Jess Tyree, and John Mazmanian. Bob Glidden had 12 Hardy cars along the way, and he wheeled five of them to NHRA Pro Stock World Championships.
Inevitably, the pace became rude and untenable. "It got to be so competitive and political and expensive and there were so few players with real money left that I felt the end was in sight, at least for me it was." He began to offer mail-order chassis and was still getting excellent results, but eventually, high-volume outfits made it unprofitable for Hardy to continue. Even if this had not been the case, Hardy fearfully conceded that the worthy, hard-core car people--the ones he sold stuff to--were quickly riding off into the sunset. "The old-timers like Kenz & Leslie could sell parts, knew where they belonged, and could work on the car, too. It was something they had done all their lives. The newcomers, the people who were in the hot rod parts business who didn't come from an enthusiast background, weren't able to do it or help the customer figure it out. It was bad business."
Don resolutely marched in the Pro Stock wars until 1983. He built his last ride, a mountain-motor IHRA Pro Stock Thunderbird for Rickie Smith. "I was getting tired," said Hardy. "My kids were growing too fast, becoming of age, and I wanted to be there." Now Don's business supplies irrigation-pump engines to a perfect clientele.
2006 Dick Harrell Drag Racing Hall of Fame Inductees|
- Brad Melvin
- Charlie Therwhanger
- Charles Sanders
- Fred Gibb
- Larry Morrison
- Dale Pulde
Charles "Chuck" Sanders
By Chuck's Family
Chuck was born in 1939 in Alamogordo, New Mexico. At the age of ten, his family moved to El Paso, Texas where his love of automobiles and racing began. His dad bought him a motor scooter to get to and from school, but Chuck decided to use the scooter to teach himself the art of auto mechanics by dismantling and rebuilding it. Later, while on a visit to a local car dealership with his dad, Chuck ventured into the service department where he received an ad hoc introductory course on the workings of an actual automobile engine from a professional mechanic. After reading Hot Rod, by Henry Gregor Felsen, there was little doubt what direction his future would take. Chuck’s parents recognized and supported his ambitions, even buying him an acetylene torch for his 12th birthday so he could learn to gas weld hot rod parts. |
Chuck got his driver’s license at age 14 and worked all summer to buy his first car, a 1946 Ford sedan for $125. He then bought a 1930 Ford Model A from a junk yard, which he turned into a roadster by removing the already drastically chopped top. Over the span of his high school years, he added a bored Mercury engine and crankshaft, a set of aluminum heads, and other parts sourced from a local pawn shop, and his first hot rod was born. |
Chuck later upgraded his ride to an early 1950s Henry-J that he modified to accommodate a Pontiac engine sourced from a friend in Carlsbad. It was common in those days for the local drag racing community to trade parts and even cars with each other, helping to build or improve their hot rods. Between Chuck, Dick Harrell, and other friends, these swaps numbered well into the dozens. Chuck first met Dick while they were both living and working in the Las Cruces, NM area. Chuck was attending school at New Mexico College of Agriculture and Mechanical Arts (now New Mexico State University) and working for Buddy Carter at his automotive repair shop. Dick often used Buddy’s shop to service his cars and soon developed a friendship with Chuck that led to a partnership when they opened Harrell and Sanders Automotive in Carlsbad. Dick and Chuck spent as much of their time as possible working on cars or racing. A typical racing weekend for the team would entail a Friday night decision to enter a regional event, towing the car nearly 600 miles each way for the weekend, and returning inspired and exhausted to work in the potash mines Monday morning. Wanting to see the beach for the first time in his life, Chuck eventually moved out of state to take an auto mechanic job for Buddy Carter at a Volkswagen Dealership in Los Angeles, though his friendship with Dick remained strong. When Dick raced on the West Coast, he would often ask Chuck to lend a hand keeping the cars ready for the races. Chuck once helped Dick prepare his 1966 Chevy Nova for a match race in Anaheim against Hayden Proffitt. On another ‘marathon weekend,’ Dick towed his Nova to Bakersfield for technical check-in on Friday for the Sunday race and towed it back to Long Beach to squeeze in a Saturday night East vs. West Top Ten match race before heading back to Bakersfield. Despite breaking three rear ends and having to borrow a fourth from a friend’s Corvette, Dick managed to win three out of five races that Saturday in Long Beach, defending his ranking at #6 in the west. Afterward, Chuck and Dick worked throughout the night building two new rear ends at Bill Thomas’ shop before heading up to Bakersfield where Dick won the BFX competition that Sunday afternoon. When Chuck moved to LA in the early 1960s, he still had the Henry-J that he raced back home in New Mexico. After purchasing a dragster chassis and installing the Pontiac motor from the Henry-J, Chuck was actively racing again. Unfortunately, the old Pontiac motor wasn’t up to the task of nitromethane class racing and blew up about 300 feet into its first run down the track. He acquired a 286 ci DeSoto blown fuel motor that could better withstand the extremes of drag racing. During races at Long Beach and Irwindale, Chuck often ran eight second quarter miles at over 200 MPH in nitromethane class races. Chuck retired from racing his own cars around 1965 and remained active in the following decades as a valued crew member for other teams. He helped his cousins, Bob and Heather Sanders (founders and owners of Titan Speed Engineering), with their Top Alcohol Dragster over the years and was also invited to join the crew of Butch Blair’s Nostalgia Top Fuel Dragster class team. Chuck recalled that during the 2005 Bakersfield March Meet, they had to change out four engines and six crankshafts on Blair’s dragster over the course of three days and they still managed to win the event. In 1990, Chuck switched gears to a new kind of race. Chuck was asked by Ralph Day, the owner of Concord BMW at that time, to ride as navigator for the Interstate Batteries Great American Race in his 1940 BMW Roadster. The 4000-mile, two-week race started in Westchester, New York and finished at Disneyland in California. The goal of the race was not to finish fastest, but to travel the course at exactly the speed indicated along a route outlined on a set of instructions handed out each day. During an interview at the time Chuck stated, “I’ve never done this type of event, so when Mr. Day asked if I would consider being his navigator, I jumped at the chance...all my [previous] challenges with cars were to see how fast they would go.” Chuck worked at Concord BMW in northern California for nearly 30 years as a Master Technician and Shop Forman. Upon retirement from BMW, he harkened back to his early days owning a shop with Dick in Carlsbad and opened All Star Transmission in 1995. His passion to keep cars running efficiently fueled a commitment to quality repairs through 2001, when he closed the shop at age 62. Chuck is now retired and living in Berthoud, Colorado with wife Iris and dog Teddy. While no longer racing, he still finds time to offer expert automotive advice and assistance to his crew of family and friends. |
Larry Morrison
By Larry Morrison
I was born Feb 14, 1942 in Silver City, NM. Mom and dad are NM natives. Lived in that area until about 48 or 49 when we moved to El Paso, TX area. My dad was in water well drilling business for many years. When he sold out we moved bock to Silver City area and then in 57 moved to Albuquerque, NM. Parents had a motel across from a local Hot Rod hang out and that was probably the beginning of my love for hot cars. Every day these guys would come to drive inn in there neat cars, some old some fairly new. All sounded good and some looked good and some were both. I could not get enough of them. I was always asking questions of these guys. Probably some stupid ones too. I heard them talk about Drag Racing and had no idea what they meant. Started buying some magazines to learn more and then one week end in 57 one of our relatives from Carlsbad, NM came to Albuq and stayed with us at the motel to attend the Drag Races in Albuq.
He had a neat Black 56 Chevy 2 dr Ht with a Cadillac engine in it. My dad and I went and watched the next day and that was my first real drag race experience. Of course the 56 cleaned house and I later learned that it always did. By now you know it was Dickie & Elaine that came to visit and race. This was the same guy that worked for my dad when we lived in El Paso, before he went into the military. He had a grin and a way about him I still remembered from the early days.
In late 57 my mom, sister and I moved to Hatch, NM where I graduated from Hi school in 60. I still had a great interest in cars. In 59 we went to Carlsbad to visit and I got to go to the races with Dickie and was I ever hooked on Drag Racing.
In 58 while still in hi school I went to work for the local Chrysler dealer in Hatch first as a mechanic helper and then into the parts dept. After graduation in 60 I had a few jobs but ended in the parts dept of a Ford dealer in southern NM. The good thing was that El Paso, TX had a drag strip and we went every time they were open. In 61 we saw Dick run almost every other weekend in El Paso and I even got to work on his car some. Nothing important but it was fun. In 62 I went to work for my uncle on the Navajo Indian reservation drilling water wells and moved to Gallup, NM. I found some gas stations where nice cars were parked and that is where I hung out. I had a Black 62 Chevy and had installed some S&S headers on it that I got from Dick.
Even in Gallup which is about 8 hours from Carlsbad they had heard of those fast Chevies from Carlsbad.
In 63 I was sort of wandering with no real purpose in mind, just cars so my mom called Dickie and asked him if he could use some help and maybe help me get some idea of what I wanted in life, best phone call ever made. I went to Carlsbad and worked for Moran’s Chevrolet in the Parts Dept during the day and Dick at night. Learned so much from him. Living the dream. In late 63 the US Army decided they wanted me to serve, so I joined the NMNG along with a lot of the racers in Carlsbad.
When I got out I moved back to Las Cruces, NM and started a career of working on farm equipment which is a big industry there. One day a friend of mine that owned an American Parts Store told me I should apply for a job at the warehouse in El Paso, so I did, I was hired and had a 7 year run with them in El Paso, Denver and Albuquerque. At that time a new warehouse was coming into prominence in Albuq and I was offered a job in sales. I worked there 18 years and the last 5 years I was the President of the company. In 91 I went to work for Standard Motor Products as a Factory Rep and was living in El Paso until 96 and then they moved us back to Albuquerque. I retired from them in 2006. Since then I have been working part time as a consultant to the Automotive Industry thanks to a guy I met in 1961 in El Paso, TX at the drag races named Jim Elgan.
My wife and I were married in 65 and raised 2 children Lauri and Terry. Lauri lives in Albuq and is in management at Sam’s Club, and Terry lives in SW Colorado is an electrician and I an Outfitter for Elk and Mule deer hunts. My wife Martha has been in the Grocery business since 65 in many capacities and now works for a Brokerage as a sales rep.
2005 Dick Harrell Drag Racing Hall of Fame Inductees
Sponsored by Bill Kummer of Route 43 Harley-Davidson
- Bill Kummer
- Elaine Harrell, "Mrs. Chevrolet"
- Valerie Harrell
- Jimmy Elgan
- Dave Libby
- Buddy Rice
- James Zeleny
My name is David Libby AKA Dave Libby
By Dave Libby
I was born in 1941 in what is now south Kansas City MO to Ed and Arvilla Libby Both are deceased, my father passed away when I was 15 years old in 1956. I learned then that my Mom was going to need a lot of help to carry on both emotionally
And financially which fell on me. I am proud to say I did that even after I married in 1962. Mom passed away in 1990 at 84 years old.
I had a brother Bill who passed away in 2005 at 79 years old. Bill is the one who painted hoods and other parts for Dick Harrell including a couple of F/C many reading this know who my wife Norma is, Her and I married in 1987 3 years after my first wife Carol passed away of cancer in 1984.
I have a son who carries my name with ll after it. He has 2 children who now are adult age.
I have a step Daughter Amy who has 3 minor children.If you are counting that makes 5 grandchildren.
This is supposed to be about my history with Dick Harrell so I will as they say “Get to it”. Although I had seen Dick race several times at (old) KCTA drag strip (opened 1955 –closed 1966). I saw him match race with the local cars (Sites Brothers mainly) with his 63 Z-11 car and his black Chevelle I had never actually met him.
I met him for the first time in mid 1967 when he was touring with his 67 Camaro f/c. Actually I met Charlie Therwanger before I met Dick. He was at Wes Jerde’s hot rod shop to work on the Camaro. Wes had asked me to help weld up some traction bars he was making to package and sell locally. I had had some surgery and the sitting down welding job to make a few bucks was welcome.
He told me Dick was on his way there and I should meet him as he was going to move his shop to KC that winter and I might be interested in going to work for him. When I did meet him he was very nice to me and talked for a while telling me what he was going to do and what he would need for help in the shop. Was I interested? After we agreed on a salary I told him yes. He wrote my phone number down and said
He would be in touch with me in late Dec. Also told me if he could get it worked out we would be located at the old Town & Country Ford dealership at 11114 Hickman Mills drive.
Dick called me before Christmas 1967 and said “He would see me soon and would need me to help move into the shop before the first of the year.” Well that is how it happened. We worked our butts off that first week sorting all the stuff he brought with him. Headers, manifolds, gaskets, heads, new short blocks, many items. It looked like the whole stock of a speed shop and actually it was.
I worked for Dick from then until about the first quarter of 1970, to put a date on that is beyond my memory as I write this but I do recall the last vehicle I “done” was a dark blue 1970 El Camino which I put a LS6 454 in. That car was bought locally and destroyed in a bad accident at speed. By the way the first car I worked on was Sam Cangelose’s 68 Camaro racer which by most accounts was pretty fast. Sam was the son of legend top fuel owner and driver Lou Cangelose.
I have no regrets at all for my time with Dick Harrell, I guard those memories very carefully. I learned much from him and I guard that carefully to. I could go on and on with this but in the interest of it being too long and boring I will close with this;
I am very grateful to Valerie Harrell for making this possible and selecting me to be one of the first to be inducted into the Dick Harrell Hall of Fame. I am proud to be there and my never to be forgotten jacket that proclaims that wonderful event.
I will never forget that night!
I am proud to call Dale Pulde my friend and will never forget what those two have done for me and with me.
THANK YOU
Dave Libby