Lone
Wolf
Chapter 8 - "YES, YOU CAN PUT A SPRINT CAR ON A DIET"
Bob Trostle and I had now been together for a full season, and had done
very well together, but we weren’t satisfied. I think both of us wanted to win
more races, have more success, and so forth. You always strive to be all you can
be, and that’s where we were. Winning 21 races in 1976 was great, but for 1977
we wanted to win…well, more than 21. Naturally, that’s how all racers think.
Our first season together had taken me to many new tracks, and we had
raced against arguably the best drivers and best cars in the country. It was a
valuable learning experience, because I noticed other cars, and saw what other
people were doing with engines, setup, wheels, and so forth. Everybody was
searching for an advantage, like it’s always been.
I’m the driver, so naturally the first thing I’m wanting is more
horsepower. Gotta have more power, Bob. One thing I distinctly remember is
hearing the engine in Karl Kinser’s car, with Dick Gaines at the wheel. Boy,
that motor breathed fire. You could hear it, and you could see it. It was
obvious that other guys were getting ahead of us in terms of horsepower. Very
obvious.
I knew Karl was getting some of his engine stuff from Earl Gaerte, an
engine builder from Rochester, Indiana. Earl wasn’t well known at this time, although his sprint car engines would
eventually make him famous from coast-to-coast. I told Bob he ought to have Earl
Gaerte build us one of those kick-ass engines, and we’d probably go better.
But Bob was the car owner, and he paid the bills. It wasn’t just a
matter of getting more horsepower; it was a matter of getting something we could
afford. Big horsepower was going to cost big money, and we couldn’t afford
what it would take for an engine like that.
So buying a hot new motor was out. We were back to the drawing board.
Somehow in our conversations we got to kicking around the idea that if we
couldn’t buy more horsepower, then maybe we ought to build a car that was
lighter, because the most amount of power pulling the least amount of weight
would go from Point A to Point B faster. If we had the same power as last year,
but pulling less weight, we’d be faster, right?
That conversation was the genesis of our kick-ass 1977 season. Right
there. Almost by default; we didn’t have the funds to buy a new engine, so we
did the next best thing: we lightened the race car.
It was already late February, so we had to get rolling on it pretty
quickly. We decided to look at every single component on the car, from top to
bottom, front to back. You weren’t going to downsize any one piece and make it
happen. We started at the front bumper and went to the rear, from the top of the
roll cage to the belly pan and suspension. Our goal was to look at every single
element of the car and use a lighter piece that would still do the job.
We studied the rear end, the driveline, the in/out box, the engine, the
radiator, fuel lines, filters, everything. We tried to make it as simple and
light as we could. For example, everybody had been using steel wheels; we found
some spun aluminum wheels and made them work. Nobody had aluminum cylinder
heads, but we got some aluminum heads from Brodix that had been used in other
types of racing and made them work on our sprint car.
It wasn’t any one thing. We tried to look at the big picture, and do a
little bit on everything. Of course since Bob built the cars, one of our
advantages was that we could build a lighter frame ourselves, a frame nobody
else had. I know Bob struggled with the idea that it might be all right for
some, but not all right for everybody. He hadn’t built anything like this yet.
So it wasn’t like we just started drilling holes in everything. We tried to be
more scientific.
Believe me, the scientific approach of 1977 was nothing like the
scientific approach of 2007. For example, metallurgy was not nearly as advanced,
because people had not yet developed the exotic lightweight metals available
today. We were using pieces and parts that didn’t cost much more than the
traditional parts, whereas today they’ll spend $5,000 to save eight pounds. We
were barely into aluminum and magnesium, and there was no titanium. If there
was, we didn’t know about it.
We had weighed our 1976 car when we started the project, and we would use
that number to gauge how much progress we made with our new car. We weighed the
old car with tires and wheels and 20 gallons of fuel, and all the fluids, just
like we would race it. It tipped the scales at 1,920 pounds, ready to race.
We continued to make progress with the new car. We got the frame
together, and slowly but steadily began installing the new pieces and parts.
Soon we dropped in the engine, got everything plumbed, chased the niggling
little things to finish up, and bolted on our new aluminum wheels. We poured 20
gallons of fuel in the tank, added the proper amount of fluids, filled the
radiator, and put the cap in place. We wiped down the finished product with a
cloth and pushed the car to the scales.
The car was rolled into place and we stared at the gauge. The number said
1,480.
We were stunned. We had shaved nearly 500 pounds—almost 25 percent of
the mass—from the car.
It was an amazing thing. What we were able to do, with limited knowledge
and certainly limited funds, was mind-boggling. Our approach was antique, and
simple. Actually, our way—antique, simple—was just us; we didn’t know any
other way to approach it. We did the best we could with what we had.
The whole project was not a top-secret ordeal. We just built it quick. I
don’t think anybody knew what we were up to, but not because we kept it a
secret. Maybe Bob did, I don’t know. But I don’t remember anything being
hush-hush, and us being worried somebody might find out. We honestly didn’t
think it was a big deal, but then again I know we didn’t expect to cut 500
pounds. No way were we that optimistic.
Our first race was at Bloomington, Indiana, on a Sunday afternoon. The car had just been finished, and hadn’t even been
painted yet. We arrived late because we forgot about the time zone difference,
and missed qualifying. We started last in the B-main and transferred, then
started last in the feature and got to fifth or something like that. Even though
it was dry-slick, we were going forward. It was actually pretty encouraging. Not
spectacular, but all right.
We discovered that we didn’t have the proper amount of gusseting in the
rear torsion tubes, and both tubes broke out during the course of the race. We
got back home and fixed that problem, and painted the car. We then traveled to Lincoln,
Nebraska, where we won. A week later we won the opener at Knoxville. Things were definitely starting out the way we hoped.
It wasn’t difficult to figure out what we were doing. I mean, Stevie
Wonder could have seen it: Our car looked different than any other car. We had
aluminum torsion arms and stops, and we had a lightweight front axle. You could
see these things; no big secret. We used Ford 5-degree spindles with home-made
aluminum steering arms, while they were using big, heavy International steering
arms and those spindles weighed much more. We had aluminum hubs instead of steel
hubs. Instead of steel rear bearing carriers, steel arms, steel radius rods,
steel nerf bars, everything was aluminum. Today all this is common, but ours was
the first car that had aluminum arms.
I’m sure people believed it wasn’t safe. I didn’t think much about
it, but then again I had already convinced myself years earlier that I was
willing to die in order to win. That’s stupid, isn’t it? I wasn’t trying
to do anything reckless, but I was willing to take the risk in order to gain the
advantage.
Actually, Bob took a great deal of time and effort to understand how to
make things as strong—and safe—as possible. He discovered that there are
several kinds of aluminum, for example. What type you could bend, what type you
could weld, what you couldn’t, what was the stiffest, the hardest, the
strongest, and so forth. Most of the things we built on that car, they
eventually made much lighter. As we—I’m saying “we” as the entire sport,
not just Bob and I—learned more, we applied it and continued to progress.
But we were definitely overkill with that first car, compared to what
everybody else was running.
How quickly did they react? I don’t really know. Bob was the car
builder, so he would probably know more than I would. But suddenly we were
winning everything. Everything! I know everybody else certainly noticed that.
Probably the guy who figured it out quickest was Karl Kinser. In no time
he had a light car, too. Hey, he was a helluva thinker. You had to get up damned
early in the morning to get an advantage over Karl. And he had Dick Gaines, a
helluva driver. They were a force to contend with, anywhere they went.
But the lightweight concept was not without its faults. In the summer of
1977 Gaines was badly hurt at
See, the lightweight car was real tippy, especially early in the night
when the track was tacky. It was stuck real hard, all the time. Stuck down like
a nail. This was something we hadn’t experienced before. But if you think
about it, it made sense. If you’re Paul Bunyon, standing in the infield with a
fishing line hooked to a race car, and 
you’re
slinging it down the straightaway, then through the corner and back to the other
straightaway, which car will slide out farther? The heavier car or the lighter
car? The heavier car, of course. But we didn’t understand the basics. This car
accelerated faster, stopped quicker, and didn’t slide out as much in the
corners. It was instantly stuck down harder on the race track.
Yet, we ran our setup like everybody else: Wheels in, and rear axles
narrowed up. We didn’t understand, not right away. They’re much wider today,
but at the time we were using 50, 51-inch rear axles, and 47, 48-inch front
axles. Our wheels and tires were narrower, too. When the track was sticky, I’d
go into the corner and the car would just stick like glue, lift the inside
tires, and roll over. Just like that. This happened to me probably seven or
eight times that year. Big time. At first we didn’t know what was causing it.
And I was still a young kid, and I didn’t understand that if I would just calm
down I could win against almost any competition, from 24th starting
spot in the feature. That’s how much faster we were. Plus, the track
conditions worked to our advantage; as the night went on, it went from being
tacky to being slick. The heavier cars pushed like a pig when it got slick,
because you’re trying to turn that much more mass. It’s just basic physics,
really. All I had to do was wait, because when it got slick, God, we had them
handled. When they slid out I would just turn to the inside and pass ’em,
because my car was stuck while theirs slid out. I’d drive right by ’em.
But I was a kid, and I wanted to win everything, including hot laps. Not
on lap three, either; I’m thinking more like before we take the green flag.
I didn’t have the knowledge yet to understand what to do when the track
was tacky, and the car wanted to tip over. See, I knew something wasn’t cool.
Listen, when you whistle down into the corner on some big half-mile and the left
rear gets up and you start to tip over, that gets your attention real damned
quick. I remember being scared to absolute death at Devil’s Bowl Speedway in
If I could just be patient, and hang around until the feature, we were in
good shape. It took me a long time to understand this. I didn’t know why, but
I knew the car felt a lot more comfortable when the track slicked off a little.
When it got slick our car just went forward, every time.
When we tallied up the numbers at the end of the year, we had raced 90
times, and won 45, including my first Knoxville Nationals in August. That’s an
incredible season, one that the sport had never before seen. No team had ever
won 45 main events against national competition.
And you know what? I hardly remember any of it. I can’t really explain
it, other than to say it makes me sad that I can’t remember. Of all those
races we won, I have almost no recall. I can look at a detailed list, and our
wins are just a list of dates and tracks, that’s all. I just don’t remember,
not even
See, things were happening real fast, and I think it messed with my mind.
Remember, I thought all this was just a tune-up for getting to
At the same time, just to show you how touched I am, I won the Knoxville
Nationals and 44 other races that I don’t remember, but I distinctly remember
four races—or at least four laps from four different races—from that season,
remember them vividly in Technicolor with sound effects and all the bells and
whistles. Why those four races? Because I got my ass beat, that’s why.
In every one of those races, we were coming down for the checkered flag
and I’m leading, but somebody passed me and I got beat.
Three days after
I don’t think this race paid $500 to win, and three days earlier I had
won the Knoxville Nationals. Yet I remember this race vividly, and can’t
remember winning
Two other races I vividly remember were at North Star Speedway in
Minnesota, when Bob Geldner had the nerve—the
nerve!—to beat me off the last corner, not once, but TWICE! Actually, when
I was growing up around Jackson Speedway, Bob was as good as there was in our
area, driving for Loren Woodke. But the fact that he was very good didn’t put
any salve on the idea of losing two different races in the last corner.
That’s the kind of thing that stays with you, haunts you and dogs you
and makes your stomach hurt. It could drive a guy to drink, but I wasn’t much
of a drinker.
Bob Trostle and I won 45 races in 1977, and 21 races the year previous.
That’s 66 wins in two years. Incredible.
And then what happened? Why, I quit him, of course. Nothing in
racing—not winning, not success, not failure, not anything—is forever. A guy
named
<Back to top>