Found a few more old pictures. The one with the car on the trailer is kind of special, it was taken on a Sunday morning before I went to a local 1/8 mile track, called Sunset, which was located just to the east of Sharon, Pa. You can see my Mother at the back of the trailer, kicking the tire and saying to me that it look like it needed air. LOL My Mother hated that car whenever I started it at home with the open headers, the noise really bothered her, God Bless her.

Great pics!

Love the pics, Gary!

Was the Duster the tow vehicle?

Ryan W31

Hi Ryan,

Yup, the Duster was my first tow car. Another deal that my Dad was at the front of since the 60 Chevy with a straight six and a powerglide did not have the ability to tow anything, it barely had enough power to move itself. If you recall, I mentioned the 60 Chevy in one of the earlier stories when the Yenko was turned into a full time race car. Funny story about the 60 Chevy, I always knew when it needed oil, the valve train would start squeaking, so I always carried a big screw driver and I would pull the valve cover off, dump the full quart of oil all over the rocker arms, push rods and springs, put the valve cover back on and be on my way, although, sometimes it needed two quarts. That car had a lot of problems, but it was always dependable and pretty much indestructable. Back to the Duster, Dad thought it would be a good idea to get the Duster since it was a little over $2000.00 out the door brand new. I worked every available minute of overtime I was offered to pay for all this stuff. The Duster had a 318 with a 3 speed manual with bucket seats and was a nice little car till it got rear ended one night on my way home from college. I got hit so hard, it pushed me into the car in front of me and the MOPAR folded up like an accordian, (but no polka playing that night), did I mention my parents loved polkas? Oh well, a different story for a different time. Shortly after I got the Duster back (didn't "TOTAL" too many cars back in those days), I decided to move on to the 72 Monte Carlo for a tow vehicle since it had a real frame under it. And then as I mentioned before, Dad worked a deal for the 64 Chevy Suburban to replace the Monte as the tow vehicle, but the Monte would continue to be my daily driver until 1973. Good Times for sure....

GM

GM thank you for all the stories. Can’t really add much except I love the Marty B references. In 1981 I had my run in with him at Indianapolis Raceway Park. The day I hit the N2O button on my 67 Camaro for the first time and my 10.90 car went 9.85/138 and I had no competition license. He was waiting for me in the staging lanes and just about ran me off, but I guess in a weak moment and me feigning total surprise and being youthfully ignorant, he let me stay, provided I spent the rest of the day under supervised license runs. :)

Now that's funny!! I am surprised he allowed you to stay. I never saw him cut anyone any slack.

I will give you a "Marty" story. For those of you that didn't know Marty, he was a rather "rotund and not too tall gentleman". When I took my new "Super Stock" car to Indy, I think it was 1977, (not the Yenko), I had borrowed a friend of mine's Dodge D5500 car hauler with an Olenyik enclosed body on the truck to make the trip. The floor of truck where the car was located was probably close to four feet off the ground and when you opened the side door, you had to climb up a couple steps on the side of the body to get in. These really weren't steps, just cut outs in the side of body where your feet went and it wasn't all that easy to make it in. For technical inspection, I should also mention that they had us parked on the circle track and the truck was parked on an angle pointing downward, which made it even harder to get in the truck box. Anyway, I was standing there with my tech card in hand with the side door open when Marty walked up and I got this sick feeling in my stomach. I was thinking, "Oh crap, he's going to throw me out again before I get to even unload the car." Marty took the card out of my hand, looked at me, looked at the car from the ground, looked back at me and without even attempting to get in the truck, stamped the card that I passed tech and told me to have a "Nice Day and Good Luck". I was stunned, I thanked him and got the hell out of there before he changed his mind. Good Times for sure!!!

GM

Wow, what a great thread! Just read through it all. Being just west of Cleveland, alittle partial to these Ohio stories. Your first pass down the strip, yup.

Mine was at a Super Chevy meet at Norwalk. Bleachers packed. I had lots of "street time", but none on a prepped track with slicks...plus the 302 was safetly out of the Z, and in it's place a pretty healthy 400. Nervous as hell, burnout, staged, stoked, revving to about 6 grand. Was gonna put this guy to my left in the weeds. Pop! Clunk!!! Maybe made it just past the tree. Wiped out half a ring gear. You have a couple of birthdays on me, mine was 30 years ago,,,22, just out of the Air Force. Like it was last summer lol. Oh, and the kid's tuition, whew. He's a young welding engineer at Lincoln. Loves his job, met a great girl there, engineer, getting married. Money well spent.

Walked over this enough. Anybody find his Yenko yet??

I really hope it's some 7 second,tube chassis monster,past maybe forgot. Versus dying in some eccentric's field.

'

Awesome updates Gary and please keep 'em coming!
The Duster story w/ your folks and polka dancing reminded me of this Nester Shydlowsky Album as pic below, note the modified Beep-A-Beep sign also cool shoes!:headbang:
:beers:
~ Pete

.

Gary, thanks for all of the old stories. This is probably my favorite thread on the internet. Hope you share more if you can, thanks again.

Thanks Pete,

I apologize in advance, sorry car guys, not a car story here, but definitely about my youth and my Mom, gotta give her some Love since I always talk about my Dad (what a guy).

Sometimes a word will jog this old memory. When I said it folded like an accordion, (it really did look like that), the word accordion made me think of my Mom's side of the family and it also makes me think of hearing polka music (really don't hear that type of music much anymore). She was one of eight children, 4 older sisters, and 3 younger brothers and her parents came here from Yugoslavia and she was very proud of her Slovenian heritage, even though she was born in this country in 1921. Whenever I think of her and all of her siblings, polka music always has to come to mind because their mother and father were very old school and they had dual citizenship. When I was growing up, the siblings would have parties all the time and that meant my two uncles would pull out the squeeze boxes (their father, my grandfather, had these made in the old country) and the dancing would begin, it didn't matter if it was outside on a concrete driveway, in the basement, in a living room, the hooting and hollering and dancing was something to watch. It was a very, very HAPPY time and my MOM was always at the center of it. Once the music started, she would dance for hours and hours til the music stopped, which sometimes was in the very early morning. As you can see in the picture above, standing by the Yenko on the trailer she was only 4'10", but she was a fireball and usually the life of those parties. As they all grew older, the parties were less frequent, but when they did get together, the music and the dancing would start, just didn't last as long. They are all gone now, but when my last Uncle passed a couple years ago, I thought that now the Polka Party could really start since they are all back together and he was the youngest and I'm guessing the squeeze box came out as soon as he arrived.

For those of you that have never heard polka music, it will kind of all sound the same, but it has great rhythm, well I always enjoyed it and like I said above it is "HAPPY" music.

Great times!!

GM

Thanks markinnaples for the kind words. Thinking about the ole Duster kind of jogged my memory a little about an earlier tow vehicle that didn't happen and of course my Dad was involved and probably a larger degree my Mother had a say in what happened.

I should preface this by telling a little bit more about my Dad. I'm pretty sure I explained about how strong my Dad was (even in his later years) in one of the earlier stories (installing the transmission), but I didn't say how he came by having those muscles. Dad worked for a burial vault company for about 40 years, this company actually made concrete burial vaults for single caskets and Dad not only made them, but he was usually the main installer. The burial vault system consisted of a base, which was about 7 feet long, about 30" wide and about 2-1/2" thick concrete. The upper portion which I called the dome again was made out of concrete and was made by using molds, just a lot bigger than what was used for the base and they made probably 5-6 systems a day. This was back in the 1950's, so other than chain blocks and trollies, there was not any automated equipment, it was all done by hand. When I was a little guy, again back in the 50's, sometimes if Dad had a Saturday installation, I would get to go with him. I always knew if I went, Dad would always stop for ice cream somewhere during the day, so if he asked me, there was no hesitation cause I was going (what a treat). Watching this installation is when I realized how strong Dad was. When he would get to the cemetery, the hole was already done, so before the funeral procession would arrive, it was Dad's job to get everything prepped for the interment. They used one ton trucks with a utility body on them and this is the amazing part (well at least I think it is amazing). Dad would take a 2x12 and lay it down in the hole diagonally with one end at ground level, he would go back to the truck, pull the base (look above for the dimensions of the base - solid concrete) off of the truck and stand it up against the truck. He would put is back to the base, grab it with a hand on each side lean it on his back and walk over to the grave site with this 7 feet long of concrete (I have no idea how much it weighed), but he would always tell me to stay out of his way when he was carrying it. He would get it over to hole, slide it down the board, and then pull the board out. The dome portion of the vault was on a 4 wheeled buggie that he would again put boards against the truck and he would pull the buggie to the boards and then bring it down the board ramps using two other boards, one between two of the wheels and the other one he would use as a wedge to put pressure on the first board and that was the brakes on the buggie coming off the truck. That's how the "Greatest Generation" worked every day, just get out of their way and they would get the job done.

I really didn't have to tell you folks all this information about Dad, but he was the BEST.

The reason I told the story is that Dad use to travel all over northeastern Ohio and he met a lot of people (living ones), and he dealt with a lot of funeral directors. Ok, now to the tow vehicle story (that didn't happen), Dad got the idea that a used hearse would make a really good tow vehicle (basically a Cadillac station wagon). He told me, think about it, it has a big V8, a full frame so we could put a nice hitch on it, tons of space to haul spare parts and tools, not to mention it would have air conditioning. I said OK, so he started looking and found a couple of nice ones (low mileage - LOL). He was getting ready to pull the trigger and I made the mistake of bringing it up at the dinner table one night. In my last post about my Mom I mentioned that she was only 4'10", but I gotta say she ruled the roost and what she said was the way it was. She looked at Dad and flat out said, "NO Hearse is going to be parked in MY driveway." Well, that's how I ended up with a DUSTER for a tow vehicle!!

GM

Love the continuing stories, Gary! :biggthumpup:

Speaking of the Barratt family from Indy. Marty Barratt brother Rick ran a gold 69 yenko camaro in NHRA Division 3 SS/D class. Do you remember his camaro? It competed at the US Nationals in 1970 with the car.

The first time I went to Indy was in 1974 as a crew guy. I remember the name Rick Barratt but I think that was from seeing him race the Pinto in a gas class I believe. In fact I never realized that he and Marty were related. I don’t remember the gold 69 Camaro, but then again I didn’t really start running NHRA divisional races until 1977.

Probably everyone has seen this thread, but for the record I'll add the link here where Rick's Gold car is being discussed.


https://www.yenko.net/forum/showthread.php?t=157880

A little smoker from back in the day..

Found Another Picture
 

An original picture from back in the day.

That shot is awesome. Thanks for sharing!

Good grief that was a great looking Camaro.

Just went through this thread and read ALL the stories.......what a ride that was. I cant thank you enough for sharing these stories and pictures.

Yenko Clone Picture
 

Hi All,

I hope everyone is staying healthy during this pandemic. So far so good in northeastern Ohio, but only time will tell.

2BFast, I am glad you enjoyed my stories, I enjoyed writing them. Its hard to believe that this saga started over 50 years ago, but it did and was a really fun ride.

I was going through the pictures on my phone and thought you all might like to see a picture of the Yenko clone that I built a few years ago. This picture was taken last August at the US Nationals in Indianapolis with the current owner and his Dad. Note the pup at the bottom of the picture, it belongs to the brother of the owner of the car and much to my surprise, she just followed him up through the staging lanes, the noise didn't bother her and she just walked along with the rest of us.

Awesome car and story..

Man that car is cleannnnnnnnnnnnn


....and I bet it runs cleannnnnnnnnnnn

'

Checking back, it's been almost a year since any updates on this awesome thread/car/OO so thought it best bop it back to the top.
:beers:
~ Pete

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Thanks Pete for resurrecting. I had forgotten about this thread and went back and re-read it. Priceless stories and pictures. Would be great to hear about any updates and hope the OP is doing well.

'

Yep, one of the best threads here ever and well worth cruising for those who haven't yet.
:beers:
~ Pete

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I just read this whole thread. Wow Gary! Thank you for sharing these incredible stories and thank you for your service.

Still Kicking....
 

Thanks Pete for bringing my little bit of YENKO history back to life.

You're welcome Dave Dykstra, I enjoyed writing my short episodes and as you can tell even though the stories were about my experiences with the Yenko, they are really about my Dad and what a great guy he was.

Last year, I was contacted by a fellow Registry member that thought he had found my Yenko about 60-70 miles from where I live. A widow has it and it is in a locked garage, so it took a while for him to get a look at this car since he had to go through a third party that knows this lady. It was a drag car that hasn't been raced in a while and he did get some pictures, but the VIN plate was missing and he wasn't able to get a look at the hidden VIN. This was also when COVID was really kicking into high gear, so I don't know if he was ever able to get back to take another look or not.

I hope everyone is doing well and please stay safe.....

Gary Merrick

Hi Gary, glad to see you are back posting! Let's hope for some good news about the Camaro!!

'

Great you're back in town Gary also cool to hear you're onto what may be your original Yenko.
Best of luck w/ this and other leads also great the full Vin is posted here to catch anyone out there ever Googling it.
Otherwise, please feel free to share more of your great Supercar stories whenever you can as especially after this last year and all going on, everyone here is long overdue for a few hits of the good old world!
:beers:
~ Pete

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Hi Everyone, long time not being on this site. No word on my old Yenko, but I thought I would let you all know that I have posted my 1970 Baldwin Motion Clone Camaro for sale on the Muscle car section.

Thanks,
GM

Maybe
 

https://www.facebook.com/groups/Ramc...ibextid=6ojiHh

It does have a 12 bolt. I know its a long shot but as soon as I seen it this thread popped in my head!

I know the seller and he’s very knowledgable when it comes to older muscle cars. BTW, the car has an AC firewall so it can’t be a COPO.