71 Harrell F/C anyone know of its whereabouts

[benesesso]

"The Clyde Morgan car had a Fletcher chassis. It was stolen and never seen again."

I can add something here (my first post, too!) Back in 1971 I was the co-owner of a 1971 Camaro AA/FC. How I got involved is a long story but I'll try to keep it short. I was working at a facility that rebuilt the hot section (turbine blades) of jet engines. We used plasma spray to protect certain areas, and I had the tops of the pistons sprayed--way back in early 1971. Those were 427 BBC slugs, and AA/FC and TF engines were going thru a lean/meltdown problem with the pistons-which could easily make all that nitro-laden 70 wt. Kendall turn into a napalm bomb.

Anyway, I somehow hooked up with a guy who apparently was a cousin of DH's crew chief or at least a crewmember (I don't know which). We ended up buying a complete AA/FC from DH for $5k-a real bargain back then. My two partners knew what I didn't--that the car was Clyde Morgans!

The story I finally got, after I found CM's name etched on either the alum. fuel tank or water tank and some other place, was that CM had been racing under DH's "group", with DH apparently footing some big $$$ bills. I was told that CM wasn't doing a good job of maintaining the car, and after CM took it to his home in CA DH sent his crew out there in the Quaker State semi to get it-apparently to settle up on the $$$ issues. The crew waited nearly all weekend for CM to leave his house, which he did late on Sunday nite (IIRC). The crew broke into his garage and had the car inside the semi in about 2 minutes, and then headed back to the midwest.

DH had his crew deliver the car to us in northern NJ. While dumb me wanted to check it over and go racing and license-getting, my partners had other ideas. We took that car completely apart and sandblasted the beautiful candy-apple red frame down to bare metal, then painted it orange. I couldn't get a straight answer on why all this was necessary.



Here are some photos-To be continued!

Continuing, when we received the car it had been primed dark grey by DH's crew. We sanded/stripped it down to the bare and painted it white. We also changed the trans, from a torque-conv. to a Crowerglide/TH400, built (reluctantly) by Fairbanks in CT. Back then Fairbanks was owned/run (?) by a nice guy named Joe something, and he had a German guy as his engineer. Joe told us the combo of nitro + blower would make more HP than what the TH400 could handle (how right he was!), but we knew we needed that low first gear to have any chance against elephant HP. After thinking about it Joe agreed to use us as a test-bed for his street-car trans's. He flat did NOT want us to put a Fairbanks decal on the car, and told us that he was only going to build it because we were complete unknowns and also didn't have much money. A Lenco was way beyond what we could afford back then, as was a hemi. We hoped that with the lower gear and my piston coating that we might be able to get the car to run halfway decent. But Joe was right, the trans. was unable to put up with what must have been about 1500 HP back then. It couldn't pull the revs down on the shifts, and after every few runs we'd pull it out, drain the stinking burned fluid out and drive up to see Joe. He'd open it up and shake his head, rebuild it and try new ideas, tell us not to bring it back, and send us away without charging a dime! We did this routine for 6 months.

But after 6 months we were just about broke so we sold the car. SO, where is it now? No idea, but we sold it to a guy who's father owned the/a flying school at Teterboro airport in NJ. He had a lot more $$$ and brains than we did, and took the blower off to just run on fuel. I guess he changed my pistons to get some squeeze back, and I was there when he made his first runs. The trans. would pull the revs down instantly on each shift--DUH! He later ran it on alky with the blower--same good trans. performance. That was the last I saw or heard about the car.

His crew chief was a sharp guy named Tom Wooden (sp-?) who later worked for Wild Wilfred Boutilier of Canada.

[benesesso]

Hmmm, last photo didn't attach. Here's another attempt.

Benesesso

[benesesso]

Here's the last photo. I scanned these from slides I took back in 1971. If anyone's interested I can probably find some more and scan them. My Nikon slide scanner is a real POS--the slides are REAL sharp.

[JChlupsa]

WOW, I can say all here would love to see more of the car and hear more of the history.

Aloha and welcome.

[benesesso]

More photos of the car will have to wait-I have to get a new SCSI card for my computer-the slide scanner only works w/SCSI.

I had always thought the car had a Hardy chassis, but I see an earlier post here that said it had a Fletcher. I've never heard of Fletcher, so maybe someone can check out my photos and let me know.

Right after we *finally* got the car back together with different colors and a few other minor changes, and against my strong advice to just run it on alky for a while to get used to it, my partners decided to haul it out to NY National Speedway for our first runs. Because I didn't have the most money invested I was supposed to get my passes after the no.1 guy (another guy named Dick). He was a pretty cool guy, but none of us had any real experience with anything over ~500 HP. NY National didn't care about any fuel/NHRA licenses-just see if the crowd likes it.

Our first run found us paired with "Broadway" Freddy DeName, but our throttle wouldn't return all the way to idle so we couldn't stage the car. I did manage to get my eyes full of burned nitro fumes, and it doesn't feel good at all!

The next week at some NHRA strip in NJ we just did a burnout while being watched by some fuel-license holder (forget who) and blew the big Olds rear. The driveshaft slammed up and smacked the seat hard, giving my partner a sore rear for a while-I couldn't understand why he didn't climb out of the car for a while after we towed it away.<g>

After that we managed a few license-passes, but the iron heads were cracking around the big valves and forcing water out some of the sand-core/freeze plugs in the block. On the last run we made the water was getting bad, and dumping right in front of the right slick. The car ran arrow-straight w/o the water problem, but it was jumping sideways as the slick spun. Dick was on and off the throttle, with the car snapping around every time until the water was gone. It was something to watch, because it would snap right back where it belonged every time he lifted his foot. After about 4 of these cycles it was halfway down the strip, still in the low TH400 first gear, and Dick was so mad he forgot to shift. He went thru the lights at 110 MPH as it backfired thru the blower and sent the belt into the air. I later calculated the revs at something like 11,000 (4.11 gears), and all of the big Howards alum. rods were stretched a little. That was the end for us.

Here's a photo of the Beebe and Mulligan car before Mulligan was killed when the clutch exploded-the Nationals when Garlits shut off at the tree knowing what John was going thru.

[Xplantdad]

Some great memories and a cool story.

By the way, welcome to the coolest site on the net...and keep the photos and the stories coming!

Also, I noticed that you're from Arizona. Are you located in the Phoenix metro area? I'm on my way to Pavillions and the cruise at 83rd Ave. and Union Hills in a few...then home for some cool

[Mr70]

WELCOME!

[ORIGLS6]

[ QUOTE ]
Here's a photo of the Beebe and Mulligan car before Mulligan was killed when the clutch exploded-the Nationals when Garlits shut off at the tree knowing what John was going thru.

[/ QUOTE ]

Tim Beebe and Johnny Mulligan; my all time favorite TF team and car, followed closely by "Kansas John Wiebe."
We were at Indy the day Johnny Mulligan was killed. Speculation that he was running Hydrazine when the engine grenaded. As I recall he lived a day or two in an Indianapolis hospital before he passed away from the burns he suffered in the crash. We knew it was bad when we saw it.
That was a bad year at Indy. One of our local guys was running a TF car also. He lost a clutch at mid-track and one of the disks hit a 16 year old kid in the forehead. He was sitting four rows in front of our group. I was standing at the fence next to the return road trying to get a picture of Jim Paoli's car (from Springfield, IL) when it happened. Evidently the disk went directly over my head and struck David Strawn from Athens, Ohio. Everyone else was standing, and he was sitting. I don't think I'll EVER forget that kid's name, age and hometown. The EMT's wrapped him in the blanket we were sitting on and loaded him in an ambulance. The speed of those EMT's, or whatever they were called back then, was amazing. They had that boy out of the park and headed to the hospital in less than five minutes. I heard he survived.
I'm thinking that was 1968 or '69?

[Salvatore]

WOW, What a story! Keep it coming.