1-2-b-67L89

Was looking at some archives of drag racing this evening (Dan got me on this with his recent thread) with the intention of looking for a few particular cars and ran across this photo from the June 62 Winternationals. It states it is a C modified Sports race with two Corvettes and one has Earl Wade and Don Nicolson on the front fender. I got into drag racing while in High School so I equate Don mostly with his funny cars and read a lot about his earlier 409 days but never knew about this. Does anybody know anything about this car? It is cool looking at some of these ol' car, drag, etc. pictures. We should set up a C1/C2 archive of old pictures
Chick

http://public.fotki.com/Keith__Shann...a-2.html#media

67pete

"Dyno" Don got his nickname from being one of the first engine builders/tuners to use the engine dyno for setting up engines before they went to the strip.

Metal/corvette

Thanks for sharing brings back a lot of good memories.

gbvette62

I don't recall Nicolson racing the Vette. He may have been the "tuner" on it, much like Dave Strickler driven Grumpy Jenkins tuned cars.

I think the 61 in the other lane may be "Big John" Mazmaniam, before he added the blower and parachute.

I think the 409 made "Dyno Don" famous. He had one of the first 61 409s and took it and won the first ever Winternationals with it. After that win he started towing that car to race tracks all over the country. Prior to that, most drag racers just raced locally. He used to flat tow the 61 behind an old Chevy pick-up (no trailer back then). The mind doesn't work as well as it once did, but I believe the car was totalled coming back from a race in the south someplace, when he was involved in an accident.

midyearvette

yeah boy those were the days, hayden profitt also comes to mind with me when i hear "DYNO DON" mentioned....

Dan Hampton

Dyno Don. What a guy. Too bad that he transitioned to Ford from Chevy as he will always be remembered as the one of the first A/FX campaigners and his experience with the Ford "Cammer" engines, along with teammate, "Fast Eddie" Schartman, ruled the day back in '66 in their Mercury Comet.

GCD1962

I don't think it's Mazmanian in the other lane. It appears (or is headlined) as a C/msp run between two cars. Big John never ran the Vette (as far as I can recall) in that class. Even if not a c/msp (which usually meant either a 283 or 301 ci engine) I don't recall ever seeing the car with those wheels. Big John's nephew Rick Zaronian drove the vette.

w1ctc

This is good also, from 1958.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqCm7YO2GOI&feature=fvw

1-2-b-67L89

Those two had a heads up (technology) on the other funny cars and as you noted, they cleaned up. Both of them came to York US30 quite often as just about every other week there was a funny car duo battle. A shame we lost Dyno Don and Ronnie Sox year before last. Dyno Don faired pretty good in Pro Stock after he stopped the funny car campaign, and believe Earl Wade wrenched for Dyno for many years?

Ironcross

Earl Wade was Don`s right hand or helper for years...

Jim Dillon

I believe the car in the far lane is Mazmanians car as it ran in both CM/SP and BM/SP although most of the pics you will see will have BM/SP. The car in the near lane is Dick Taylor's Fuel injected 57 Vette which he also ran at the 63 Winternats and ended up winning in CM/SP. In this particular race he lost to Rich Siroonian (Mazmanian's nephew). Siroonian went on to win the class CM/SP as you can see in the stats I have attached.

Nicholson may have driven these cars occasionally but he had his own cars to drive. In 61 and 62 I believe he drove both 409 Chevrolets running in SS and he also had FX cars as well (the 62 car had the Z11 option engine for at least part of the year-what he had in his 61FX I am not sure). There are a number of stories on "Dyno Don" but I believe he earned the nickname from his chassis dyno as opposed to an engine dyno. The best story I have read is that he bought a WWII surplus Clayton chassis dyno(a floor mounted, water-braked monstrosity used originally for army tanks) that he hooked up in his garage in the late 50s. The story goes when he went to work for Service Chevrolet in Pasadena in 1960 he dragged the dyno down there and started prepping cars out of the Chevrolet dealer. He also had a reputation as quite a carb tuner and allegedly was one of the best on the West Coast at tuning the Corvette fuel injection and so anyone with a FI Corvette on the west coast brought their cars to him (don't know how much was legend and how much fact but if you note the cars with Nicholson and Wade on the panels they all appear to be injected).

Nicholson's right hand man was Earl Wade and like Nicholson he was quite the driver as well as great mechanic. Both prepped the cars and worked with the chassis dyno. Right after the 62 Winternats Nicholson packed his bags and moved to Atlanta to take advantage of the match race circuit that paid better in that part of the country. At Indy in 62 Nicholson was sponsored by Nalley Chevrolet out of Atlanta (as was Hubert Platt with his 409 and probably 427 Z11). Nicholson had some allegiance to Chevrolet but when they instituted the 63 racing ban he went with Ford Mercury and ran the Comets very successfully. I believe Earl Wade stayed in the LA area and opened a shop with Dick Bougeois but when Nicholson started campaigning his flip top funny car in 66 Wade acted as his crew chief. In the meantime Earl Wade drove a number of cars including Corvettes and moved on too others such as a Z11.

In the 62 Winternationals there were a number of strong running Corvettes besides the two in the picture. You will notice the Grassman B/SP and Earl Wade in the A/SP. The Grassman Osterman Nicholson Wade 61 Vette is owned by forum member Bert Brown and I am sure he could add some great information to this thread. This fuel injected 61 was tuned by Nicholson and Wade and not only won class at the 62 Winternationals but also beat Hayden Proffitt 421 AFX Tempest in street eliminator. Earl Wade (fuel injected -of course Nicholson Wade prepped Corvette) ended up winning his class A/SP but also went on to win street eliminator beating a C/G 58 Chev.

Hopefully Bert will have a few more pics and/or more info on this important day for his car-Jim

62 Winternationals stats


Mazmanian -1961 note #s on window and crude B in BM/SP-could be easily be changed- driven at this time by Earl Wade.


Mazmanian's car in 1963 when Bones Balogh was driving at the 63 Winternats I believe.


Osterman racing Proffitt at the 62 WinterNats in street eliminator-winning


Earl Wade in what I believe is 62 Winternats holding class trophy in A/SP

bertbrown

Jim,
You pretty much have the story the same way I remember it, Jim! That 57 is the Dick Taylor car, seem to remember he was a dentist in Pasadena. The other car is Mazmanian's car. You can even see the chute.

The Maz car came from Ernie Porter Chevrolet in Pasadena. John drove it straight over to Service Chevrolet and told Earl and Don to make it go faster. They were the guys to go to. (A little known fact is that a certain line mechanic with the name of Dave McDonald also worked at Service Chevrolet.) The rest is history.

Dyno Don drove a lot of other cars, depending on his schedule. He drove my Corvette on occasion (the Grassman car) as well as others. Earl Wade was probably more known for his Corvette driving than Don. You posted a Champion Spark Plugs advertising picture of him standing in front of Reggie Nelson's C/SP winning car. That is NOT the car he won Street Eliminator in, maybe Champion didn't know any better!

I think the real story of the '62 Winternationals is the Earl Wade story. He took Mike Lenke's A/SP 62 Corvette all the way through the gassers to be crowned Street Eliminator! Mike's car was a beautiful black 62. It was stock, not modified. Not many pictures of it around. Mike eventually bought a Z-11 that Earl drove. He did pretty well with it the spring and summer of '63, before the Mopars came on strong.

You can view some current day photos of the Grassman Corvette at my son's website: http://www.kenbrownart.com/corvette/

BTW, the Mazmanian car's vin is 100093, the Grassman vin is 100095. Guess the cars were cousins!

Jim Dillon

Bert thanks for the reply, I had seen that picture of Wade at the 62 Winternats and figured that must be his car. Here is another picture I have of Wade (allegedly) driving a 62, is this the Mike Lenke's 62? I realize this car is not stock but figure maybe it was transformed a bit in 1962 before he went on to drive Lenke's 63 Z11. Also it is great to hear that his stock 62 could work its way through all of the big boys to win street eliminator. With all of the Corvettes at that meet it must have been a treat to watch for all of the Corvette guys. I have a pic somewhere of him driving Lenkes 63 Z11. Thanks-Jim

sub006

Hard to tell for sure, but in the color pic, Mazmanian's car appears to have six tail lights. If so he would have been one of the first to join that club.

Jim Dillon

Bert Now that sub006 mentions the 6 tail lights I looked closer at this picture (below) which I have labeled (mislabeled?)1961. There is a black 62 just behind Mazmanians car with 6 tail lights. In blowing this picture up it appears to have A/Sp on the window. I wonder if this is the 62 Wintenats instead, as Mazmanian has the same #36 on the window, albeit with B instead of C on the window. He could have changed it to C for the race. Maybe that is Lenke's black 62? I still wonder what the other 62 is with the wheels up if that is in fact Wade. It appears to be M/SP.-Jim

bertbrown

Jim,

I have asked the same question about the black car in that picture. When I first saw it posted on this forum I sent a copy to Terry Prince, who was running a Nicholson prepared 60 Chevy 348 in B/S in 1961 and 1962. Terry won B/S class at the 62 Winternats and I figured he would know.

Terry thought was that the black car belonged to Bob Mandel rather than Lenke. Bob was a local Chevy salesman who specialized in Corvette sales. He worked for CS Mead, Service, Ernie Porter, and Harry Mann at various times. He was very active in Corvettes at the local drags. But, since Bob was a "salesman", I'm wondering out loud if that car eventually made it's way to Mike Lenke. I'll give Earl a call and see if he remembers. Could be interesting to follow up.

Also according to Terry, (who spent ALOT of time at the Service Chev dyno) the 6 tail lights were very common in the Pasadena area. Dave McDonald was the specialist who installed many additional tail lights in Service Chevrolet Corvettes.

Terry did agree that the picture was taken at Pomona. However the Mazmanian car doesn't have the correct hood treatment that was used at the 62 Winternats. I was going to post a picture of the car, but the little forum rules box says I can't post pictures. Anyone know why I can't???

62Jeff

You can't upload attachments without being a paying member, however you can readily include photos in your forum post by following these instructions:
http://forums.corvetteforum.com/1573414586-post2.html

bertbrown

thanks 62Jeff, not very websavvy here.

Here is the Mazmanian car from the 62 Winternats:



Note the hood scoop and compare it to the color picture above.

Here is a real crummy shot of the Lenke Corvette in the background. This is an elimination round in Street Eliminator where Wade is running against the Shimzer C/G car. Not really much of a race as the gasser was only a 105 mph car, while Earl ran 112mph.



Earl was very happy about beating KS Pittman's C/GS (C Gas Supercharged) ****** on his way to the Street Eliminator title.

My avatar shows Hugh Osterman holding the 62 Winternationals class trophy for B/SP.
Credit the pictures above to Hot Rod Magazine, May 62, and the trophy pic to Petersen Publishing.

GCD1962

Jim - Thanks for the additional info on Mazmanians car. I didn't realize he intitially he ran in the C/ Msp, B/msp etc. I most remember the A classes and, of course, the class when he ran the blower.

You mentioned about Nicholson running a Z-11 set-up in '62. Wasn't the first year for the Z-11 option in '63? , the 427 and the alumium front end?

BertBrown - In the early years the "run-offs" for Street Eliminator and other classes pitted one class against another by "spotting" the slower class a lead in the eliminations. This was based on the national e.t. record at the time. If the record for the slower car was say 12.70 and the car he was running in a class that had a record of 12.50, the slower car was allowed to start .20 second sooner. The control for sandbagging was that the the winner could not run faster than 2/10ths of a second (I think) under the national record. If you had a car that could run well under the record (as we did back then) the trick was to judge when to slow down enough so that you didn't run under the record, but still beat the person you were running against.

bertbrown

And to come back to a point made by Jim further back concerning the Nicholson Wade combo when it came to tuning fuel injected Corvettes.........

Both Earl and Don were well known for their tuning abilities. The way Brendan Grassman told me, Earl worked quite extensively on the FI unit and the cylinder heads. Don tuned ignitions, was good with injection, and was good on the dyno. The shortblock in the Grassman car was never taken apart, all the time it was raced (1960-1963). But the cylinder heads were off all the time to get the valves touched up. Brendan spoke of times Earl would have his injector apart on his kitchen table, subtlely working the diaphragms. (think about how well that would go over today!) Brendan also told me the fuel injection units of all the Nicholson and Wade Corvettes would get traded back and forth on a regular basis as they searched for reasons why one car may be faster than another.

I think Earl and Don had a way of working well together, each complimenting one another and adding to their overall success. In talking to Brendan, if I had a comment or question about either Don or Earl, Brendan would quickly correct me to include the other, putting equal emphasis on each of them as a team.

So to come back to the original reason for this thread, one of equating Dyno Don's name with funny cars and 409s, I can certainly understand the connection. However, to someone who grew up in Pasadena and loved going to the drags, Don's name will be forever connected with stockers, including Corvettes. Those Corvettes include the names like Lockwood, Mazmanian, Mitchell, Jantze, Boggio, Nelson, Edie, Lenke, Taylor, and Grassman. If you wanted to win, there was only one shop to take your car back in early '62. But, I am prejudiced.