Re: Where is 69 Yenko Camaro 124379N663539
 

I love your stories and writing style. The fact that they are true is icing on the cake!

Keep them coming.....please.


Thanks,


Jason

Re: Where is 69 Yenko Camaro 124379N663539
 

Great story.

Re: Where is 69 Yenko Camaro 124379N663539
 

HAHA I played the statute of limitations game with my folks ... Hell my brothers even pulled it on me after I lent him my 85 t type

Re: Where is 69 Yenko Camaro 124379N663539
 

All,

Thanks for the kind words regarding my stories. Actually, I really enjoy writing them, it brings a lot of good memories back from a long time ago. When I start thinking about how all these things happened, usually a couple little more tid bits come to mind and I include them.

I have some stories to write about the Yenko when it was on the street, so I will put them up soon.

GM

Re: Where is 69 Yenko Camaro 124379N663539
 

Good to hear!

Re: Where is 69 Yenko Camaro 124379N663539
 

Keep the awesome stories coming!


Jason

Well, lets go back to the fall of 1969.

I was in Fort Lee, finishing my Adavanced Individual Training, which was just outside of Petersburg, Virginia, and for the last few weeks of me being there I had the Yenko with me. I had a lot more free time and also freedom at the end of the days, so I would cruise a lot of the local hang outs with the Yenko. The folks there really did not know what it was, but the 427 emblem on the hood and the sound it projected deemed respect as a Bad Ass street car. I really did not street race all that much because I had a lot of problems with the original HURST shifter in the car. On multiple occasions, the shifter would lock in second gear when the shift rods going to the shift arms on the transmission would entangle themselves and no matter how hard you tried to move the shifter (inside the car) out of second gear, the transmission would not respond. The first time it happened I found a local gas station that allowed me to put the car up on the lift and untangle the rods and it shifted perfectly for a while. I just did not know when it was going to happen, so after it happened more regularly, and a friendly gas station was not around, I found a way where I could slide under the car while it was still on the ground and untangle those shift rods with a long screw driver. After I got home, I think I mentioned in an earlier post that the original shifter was one of the first things to go and got a competition model Hurst shifter that had the reinforced shift arms with a piece of thicker material welded over, so they were impossible to bend and entangle themselves. I still had a lot of fun with the car for those couple of weeks before returning home.

After returning home and getting back to work and hooking up with my friends, I was pleasantly surprised that while I was gone one of my childhood buddies had bought a used 1968 Z28. He told me the previous owner had put an aftermarket cam in it, not only did it sound good, it was proven that it was one of the fastest Z28's on the street. It was that medium brown or bronze, whatever they called it and it had black stripes on the hood and deck lid with black interior (not that any of this makes any difference, just thought it was good for the story) and it also had an M22 which you could hear coming for blocks, it was a really cool car. When we would line up from a standing start, he would kick my butt every time, since he was really good at driving and he could get his Z off the line with barely any tire spin and be gone. The Yenko and I on the other hand which had Goodyear White Letter E70x15 tires on 7" rally wheels which really looked good, but wouldn't hook worth a hoot and I would just smoke em. In 1969, they were building Interstate 80 across Ohio and Pennsylvania and would open small sections as they completed them maybe 5 to 10 miles at a time, but not necessarily all connected, at the same time. We had a section of about 5 miles, because the other two sides were not finished, this was just a small portion, and only two access points at the beginning and the end, but eventually, it would be all connected. My buddy and I would take advantage of this stretch of highway because there was very limited traffic and also very limited Ohio State Highway patrolling.

Ok, here is where the story starts, one night we decided to go up on the Interstate and do a 50 MPH roll and run em out. We both had 4.10 rear gears, so we were both in second gear when we took off, now the speedometer in the Yenko went to 140 MPH at approximately the 5:00 position. Well, that particular evening, when we went Hammer Down and I went to 3rd gear I jumped by about a car length and 4th gear about an additional half car length. As the speedometer cleared 140 we were about a car and a half apart and it stayed that way when the speedo started coming back around towards zero. I have no idea how fast we were going, but we were HAULIN!!! Both cars were very stable, so it was not scary at all, well, I didn't think so, but then again I just loved the SPEED. Back to the story, I could see in the distance, some taillights in front of me, which we were coming up on quickly (I assume he was going 70, cause that was the speed limit) and since that car was in my lane, I decided to ease up a little on the throttle, my buddy went by me and I went right in behind him probably two feet off of his bumper and we went by that car like he was standing still. After clearing him, I looked in the mirror and he had pulled off to the side, I don't know if he thought his car stalled or we scared the HELL out of him. Anyway, the exit was coming up in the next mile, I got a hand signal from my buddy and we started slowing down. After we exited, we were going into a little burg that my buddy frequented quite often, in fact his parents had just moved there, so we went to his favorite watering hole "The Castaways" and parked around back and went in for a liquid refreshment.

There is definitely more to the story..... Since it was already after midnight, we did not stay long and since he lived not to far from there, we decided to go through town. As you entered this town, there were two sets of railroad tracks. As usual, my friend was in front of me and the tracks were not all that far from the Castaway, so he went rather slowly in first gear across the first set of tracks, I was right behind him and since both sets were very uneven, it was a slow first gear movement. As he cleared the second set of tracks I knew what was coming and he did not disappoint, cause he took off hard and as I was just clearing the tracks, I was getting ready to close the distance, but before I could hit the gas pedal, I heard this "BOOOOWHAAAA" sound and a silver fender slowly going past my driver's window. Well, I figure you all know what this means, the local Barney Fife was going after the Brown Z and about that time the lights and siren (Yes, Edith lights and siren), so I just shifted to second gear and followed them very slowly. My buddy had already gone down a side street with the police cruiser in hot pursuit, well as hot as a 1968 Ford could go (no offense meant to the FORD fans). Much to my surprise when I made the turn, my buddy had pulled over and the cruiser was pulling up behind him. I just pulled over, quite a ways back, turned out my lights and watched from a distance. To make a long story short, my buddy was told to follow the police cruiser to the police station, so I followed also, but again, from a considerable distance. By the time I got to the station, they had already gone inside, so I decided to wait. It wasn't long before my buddy came out of the station and walked over to me to tell me the 'rest of the story'. As it turned out, he knew the officer and the officer would have probably let him go when he pulled him over initially, but as it turned out he had a trainee with him, so he had to take him to the station and read him the riot act, the good news, no ticket.

Well, most of you would think the story ends here, but nope, not to be.

Since it was probably after two am, my buddy went one way and I went the other towards the interstate since I could get home a lot quicker that way. As I got up on the interstate, naturally, I decided to let the Yenko stretch its legs a little bit, since there was ZERO traffic. As I was running it up through the gears, the alternator light came on. Now this was not an unusual occurrence, since it happened all the time when I would run the car at high RPM, the belt would come off the pulleys, but usually the belt would just land behind the water pump. I always carried a wrench with me (after the first time experience), so I could loosen the alternator, put the belt back on the pulleys, use my "SHIFTER" screw driver, tension the alternator and re-tighten the alternator. Now since I am telling all of you this and I have told you how prepared I am for this situation, I assume you have figured out that this is not the way it would go. Ding, Ding, Ding, you would be correct, guess what, the belt is GONE, did I mention it is after 2:00 AM on a deserted couple of miles of Interstate and the belt that drives the water pump is GONE!!! Well, this is an "AW SHIT" moment. I decide I am not going to take the chance of overheating and screwing up the engine without a moving water pump. As I am sitting there with the four way flashers on thinking about what to do, and the good ole Ohio State Highway Patrol makes an appearance. I walk back to him and tell him about the belt falling off and gone, so he offers to get dispatch to get a tow truck to help me out. I said, well rather than have dispatch call a wrecker, could you have them call my Dad and he will come and get me. The trooper looks at me and says you really want to call your Dad at this hour of the night, I said Yup, he will come. The trooper calls dispatch and makes the request, the dispatcher replies that Dad has said he will be on his way. The trooper leaves, and I guess it was probably ten to fifteen minutes, I see a set of headlights on the other side of the interstate and as they get closer, the headlights start flashing and the horn gives a couple toots and there is my DAD in the 64 Suburban coming to get me. Within, a couple minutes, he has gotten off the interstate and got back on coming towards me and pulls up in front of me. He gets out and with a smile on his face, he says, the chain is in the back, hook it up and lets go. I think I mentioned before how much I LOVED that guy........

I have another couple stories, stay tuned..............

For some reason this part of the story gave me goose bumps. I felt like I just watched it happen.

Way cool!

.... Sooooo...... Where is 69 Yenko Camaro 124379N663539 ?

Good -good stuff! Thank you!

Great photo Peter.

It sure is....probably from Doug's book and good likelihood it might Carl Rubrecht's picture. I know Doug uses Carl for a lot of the stuff in his books.
I was looking for a Fram filter on Hedrick's car........" I use them on the street, and I use them on the strip".... GM_427_Racer any leads or luck???

If you look on the inside of the rr !/4 glass you can see a "Super Sock Owner's Association" sticker. Darwin Doll, ex-Division tech director used to run a series for the Super Stockers independent of NHRA series. There is a sticker on therr1/4 glass of my Camaro when Bill Izykowski owned it the '69 season. There was a "Pro Stock" type series NOT PRO STOCK that started at Pamona, anyway Bill won that local "Pro Stock" and in Stock Eliminator in 1968 and was Car Craft's Driver of the Year for 1968. Now let's see if I can get those pictures to appear here.......anybody wanna give me odds?

Here goes.

Rear spoiler reads NED "Pro Stock" Champ

Cool Pictures, I did not do a lot of traveling to races in my younger years, so I did not start seeing a lot of the legends until the mid 1970's.

I do have a picture in my garage of the yellow 1969 Yenko Hedrick Camaro leaving the starting line with the slicks smoking and it had SS/E 929 on the window.

GM

2017 Racing Season is Over
 

I realize this thread started out as looking for my original 1969 Yenko, VIN 124379N663539, and I assume no one has found it or I would hope they would have updated this thread with its whereabouts. With that being said and since my 2017 racing season has ended as of October, and I have some time on my hands I thought I would do an update on the 1970 Baldwin Motion Camaro clone that I race as a B/SA, in NHRA Stock Eliminator. As you can see in the pictures, the car leaves the starting line very well, with a best of a 1.28 sixty foot time, which is really excellent for an almost 3600 lb all steel car on 9 inch slicks with a 402 cid engine rated at 375 HP (NHRA rated at 400 HP).

I would like to give credit where credit is due, Davey Summa, of Summa Performance in Enon Valley, Pennsylvania did the roll cage and chassis work and deserves to be acknowledged for his fine effort. If you would like to see what it feels like to go for a ride in this car, I have uploaded a video on You Tube, go in the search bar once you get on You Tube and type in; "2017 Maple Grove Raceway", look for a file that is 2 and a half minutes, it starts out doing the burnout and takes you all the way to the scales after the run is completed. Make sure you make it "Full Screen" in the lower right hand corner and watch for the WIN light on the wall, just past the finish line. Hope you enjoy it and if you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask. Here are a few still pictures.

Nice launch - good looking Camaro!!

Hi Gary, Here's the YouTube video!:biggthumpup:

Hey Bruce,

Thanks for posting the You Tube video, sure makes it a lot easier.

Gary

You are welcome, Gary!

That was a fun quick ride! Thanks! :beers:

Fall of 1969
 

Well, I haven't done a Yenko story in a while, this episode was in the fall of 1969 and I was back at work at the GM Assembly plant.

I ran into one of my cousins (also a motorhead) at work and we started talking about the previous weekend activities. I should mention that he was enrolled at General Motors Institute (I believe it is called Kettering now) in Flint, Michigan. He would work for a semester at the GM assembly plant and then go to GMI for a semester of studies. My cousin was telling me about one of his buddies (who was also at GMI) that was coming back from Flint on the Ohio Turnpike and how his friend had been driving along and came up on the back of this Camaro and as it turned out it was a Yenko Camaro. My cousin said his friend (who was driving an Opel) was riding on this Camaro's bumper for a while only a couple feet away trying to get a closer look at the car and the guy in the Yenko took off and ran away, obviously, the Opel could not keep up. He was telling me the guy in the Yenko slowed back to the speed limit and the little Opel caught up to him again and did the same maneuver of riding on the Yenko's bumper. My cousin said that his buddy figured the guy in the Yenko must have gotten a little upset, cause this time, he could see the Yenko driver, downshift to third gear and put it to the floor and not too long thereafter, the Yenko driver shifted to high gear and the Yenko disappeared into the horizon and his buddy never saw it again. My cousin told me his buddy who was an amateur road racer never saw a car disappear so fast and his buddy wanted him to tell me the story since my cousin had told him about my Yenko and that I would appreciate the story. We were both laughing and I asked my cousin if his buddy told him what color the Yenko was, he said that it was LeMans blue, so I asked my cousin what color my car was, he said it was LeMans blue. He looked at me and said "Are you kidding me, that was you?" I said YUP, that was me. Small World!!!! I met his buddy not too long after that and we also had a Good Laugh.....

Awesome

This is exactly why we do this -- great!

Just read thru this, such a cool story

great stories!!!

Has this car be found?

Could this be his car?.

https://www.yenko.net/forum/showthread.php?t=146583

Both cars in the same state!

Both Blue both White interior both Ohio area? Strong possibilty.

Mine was black standard interior, but it could have been changed. Only way to know for sure is to look at the VIN on the dash and the hidden VIN. Mine was 124379N663539.

Thanks,
Gary Merrick

Black interior throws my suspect detective skills out the window. I would doubt that interior has been touched but you never know. There are a couple of 1st gen. Camaro's in a similar state of disenigration close to me. It's amazing the difference of what happens to a car in a field and one in a garage.

After looking at those pictures for a long time, that could be the my old car. The fuel pressure regulator is where we use to put them (although so did a lot of other people put them in that location at that time). The one thing that really intrigues me is that I had heard that all the Yenko badging and stripes had been removed and the car was painted green, but I never saw it, so who is to say, but that car sure looks green below the stripes, of course, it could be green mold.

If I can get a location, I will definitely go look at this car.

GM

Anyway for someone to get the VIN?

Well, I guess the saga will continue. I just returned from south eastern Ohio and the car that Whitetop took pictures of in the thread, "Where COPO's go to die", is not my car. The VIN is not on Yenko registry and appears to me to have been a manual shift car with a twelve bolt, 120 MPH speedo and no factory tachometer. The interesting thing was that it did only have 17000+ miles, so it must have been a racecar for a long time. After checking the VIN, the air went out of the balloon rather quickly, so my buddy and I did not spend a lot of time there, nor did I take a lot of pictures.

The good thing is that you never know what you will find and it was a great adventure while it lasted.

Thanks to Whitetop and Chevyman0429 for trying to help. Maybe better luck next time.

GM

Well that’s a bummer! Well maybe it’s out there still and hopefully being better cared for.

My wife, who is a really good organizer, decided it was time to go through a ton of photos, National Dragster articles, and anything else that had to do with my racing career. One of the photos that we came across was a May of 1972 photo of my original Yenko leaving the starting line at Quaker City, in Salem, Ohio. This picture shows smoke coming off the slicks, so I would guess it was not a good pass, no rev limiters back then (just your right foot). Looks like a 10.90 on the windshield which was probably the NHRA record, which would have been the dial-in back then. The big 23 on the side glass was probably when I came through the gate.

GM