Pinto Car Club of America

in the engine bay of a Pinto.....

http://www.flatfire.com/engine.htm (http://www.flatfire.com/engine.htm)

That engine was replaced a number of years ago with a GM EcoTec (and millions in assistance).  The car no longer runs.

Ron is now partnered with George Poteet.  Has a really fast door-slammer and the Speed Demon streamliner which just ran 435 mph on 299 cubic inches.

Mike

     Hi Doug!  My stay in Omaha was good.  I am glad to have had the time away from the work aspects of my stay to meet with you and to talk with you.  Lunch was fine.  Next time I buy.

     You can't give up on your project!  As far as comparisons go,Doug, I really can't compare them at all.  You need to remember that Ak had at his disposal help from just about any corner of the automotive universe!  A sharper guy in those times would have been hard to find.

     His Pinto was a light (almost pale) green hatch fueled by propane.  It did haul the mail!  (I think mine was quicker!)

     What was cool about working with and around him was just listening to him think, talk and do.  He was not one to shrink from taking an idea and turning it into something you could put your hands on.  If it didn't work he took what was good and went back to the drawing board.  He was a great teacher.

     I was surrounded by some very intelligent and yet very practical HOT RODDERS.  These guys were in the scene from its' inception.  Guys like Ak, Jack Lufkin, Bill (Big Bill) Edwards, Burke LeSage, Ron Benham, the Iskenderian family and, really, I don't know how many I have met talked with and forgotten.

And what a sense of humor!  If only I could have recorded some of the conversations/jokes etc. 

Bill Edwards as in Top Alcohol Drags?  Only ask because I have an aluminum rod piston clock signed by Bill Edwards JR. hes from my home town...

Different Bill Edwards.  The guy I knew was around in the 40's as an ex navy man turned master machinist working for Cragar & Bell Auto Parts when they first came into being.

Gruff old guy, razor sharp technical mind, machinist extrordinaire

His last race car (only one for years) was a '60 Falcon Ranchero with a twin turbo'd SBC with homemade fuel injection based on some Bosch mechanicals and intercooled

Aww thats when things were done right with new tech we have better parts but the ideas are the same people like that set records we still cant beat