Anyone from MO or IL remember this car?

[Stefano]

That Tach magazine article does a good job of reporting what was going on at Nickey Chevrolet regarding the first Super Camaros.

Chevrolet was playing catch up to the Mustang and many enthusiasts had been long anticipating the Camaro.

Nickey Chevrolet had planned to offer a big block Nickey Camaro before the first Camaro was ever delivered to the dealership.

Nickey had Don Swiatek as their Hi-Performance Cars and Parts Manager. He ran the Nickey Chicago Speed Shop as well as a team of 4 Master technicians, who were assigned to the Nickey Super Car conversion program.

Dick Harrell was the "hired gun" celebrity drag race super star. His job was to win races and help promote the Hi-Performance Cars and parts sales, in any way he could.

Dick worked directly for Nickey Chevrolet and lived in Skokie, then Glenview, while he was at Nickey Chevrolet.

Both Dick and Don reported to Nickey's VP, Al Seilig. Al managed parts and service, including all of the sponsored and authorized Hi-Performance and racing activities.

One of Harrell's main objectives was to get 50 Nickey 427 Camaros built so that they could be homologated for drag racing.

This is also one of the main reasons that Bill Thomas Race Cars, in Anaheim California was enlisted to help with the build, as well as distribution, directly to racers, as well as into the retail customers hands.

Harrell started blueprinting L72 427 engine assemblies, before the first Camaros hit the ground at Nickey Chevrolet.

Harrell maintained many national and influential racing contacts and immediately found THREE racers (we know of two for certain; Bill Hielscher and Mike Garfinkle) to jump aboard the Nickey Super Camaro program. These Camaros did not have direct Nickey sponsorship and were not campaigned as such, but they were built at Nickey Chevrolet in Chicago as part of thhe Nickey Camaro program.

Dick built these first Camaro race cars (Three Red Rally Sports)seperate of the Don Swiatek / Dream Team. Don's crew was also busy converting Camaros, but these initial cars were not blueprinted and were geared towards the street / weekend warrior crowd.

The first Nickey Camaros which Dick had built were dedicated race cars. He even brought in outsiders like Guy Tipton (One of Hielscher's guys) to help get the Camaros done ASAP. There were also other Nickey emplyees which helped build the first race cars.

The 'Tach' article was a result of Dick's direct efforts. The objective was to get the word out and sell as many "Production Versions" as possible for Drag Racing Homologation purposes.

Nickey Boss' found the Dick Harrell darg racing program too costly and he was informed by Al Seilig that his contract would not be renewed.

Dick had become aquatinted with Don Yenko through Nickey Chevrolet during his tenure because Nickey/Seilig had signed on to be one of the Yenko Sports Cars network Dealers for Yenko Stingers.

Once the Nickey relationship came to an end Dick contacted Yenko and formed a business alliance with Yenko Sports Cars to build Yenko Super Camaros.

So long story short,we have been informed by more than one Nickey employee that the race cars were worked on Day and Night and completed first.

[markjohnson]

Don Swiatek may have worked for Nickey, but wasn't he pretty involved with drag racing some rare Pontiacs?

[Stefano]

Your probably thinking of Larry Swiatek. He raced some very cool Pontiacs.

Don was/is a diehard Chevy guy. He favored circle tracks and drag racing.

[markjohnson]

I'm sorry. That's right though, it was Larry Swiatek. Both from Chicago though, right? There's gotta be a relation there. What were they to each other, if anything?

[Atuckman]

i spoke to one of Rich Thomas's grandsons today. thought some of you from the MO area might appreciate the tribute he set up to honor his grandfather. goto youtube.com then type in "7bRWPvQpuxM" in the search box

[ANDY M]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bRWPvQpuxM

[396L35]

Thanks Andy for posting the link to Rich's tribute. You either loved him or hated him, but the man could build a machine that would fly and he will be missed dearly.

[miket1]

I remember watching Dick Harrell race several times at the 1/8 mile dragstrip in Nashville,IL.,before Gateway International Raceway was built, in his bright red Camaro,he would come to run match races against a Hemi Dodge,or a Ford ,the car was beautiful and very fast, I talked to him many times ,he was a great man,great personality,always took time to talk .