Hemmings e news: Ex-racer Chevelle rakes in $1.2

[Musclecarkid]

I think I know who's spreading the LS5 rumor, but he has been silenced.

The build sheet is in fact the one for this car, which was delivered in late May of 70. The Vin and sequence numbers suggest a build date around the second week of May 1970. The dealer zone 35-027 is Briggs Chevrolet. Zip of 08897 is South Amboy NJ.

I believe the car was ordered late because Truppi-Kling wanted to race an LS6 Vette first, and orderd one, but when Chevy cancelled that RPO, they ordered the LS6 Chevelle convertible instead. The car was perfect fit in SS/EA due to its additional weight.

The car's first National Event was York Pa (July 70), where it qualified and went only two rounds. The car got its first "Natioal ink" in (August 70) with a Division One All-Star S/S win or two at Maple Grove Pa. Next was the Indy Nationals in (Sept 70), where it won SS/EA Class, then went two rounds of eliminations. Allen had a few Division One wins and finished forth in WCS points. This allowed the car to be eligble for the World Finals in Dallas (Oct 70), where it defeated Chrysler, Ford and AMC taking the win in Super Stock Eliminator. A few weeks later, (Nov 70) the Briggs-T/K-Allen team did it again at the Supernationals in Ontario Calif taking the Wally and earning $17,000 in less than four weeks time.

As far as I know the car had no National Wins in 1971 as the Chrysler camp got much stronger and won most of the events that year.

Ray moved to a Pro Stock Vega in 72 and Claude Urevig ran the Chevelle in SS/EA for a few years after. Urevig ran very low 11's and even set a record of !0.97 ET I believe.

[StealthBird]

Interesting history. Also interesting to note that during the auction, B-J announced that the car NEVER lost a race, insinuating that it won every single round during its brief racing history in 1970.

With so many clones and rebodied cars with questionable history being sold at B-J, pretty soon we'll need DNA testing, matched to the original owner, along with the ink used on the original title being carbon dated back to year sold, and a metallurgy test on the frame matched back to the day/date the car was assembled.

Now about that 69 Trans Am RAIV column shift car....