Thread: How young did you start, and did it result in obsession?

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I also built model cars, but the obsession started around 14 when my Dad bought a "Dividend Bonded" gas station. It was one of those where they gave out coupons you could redeem for iced tea glasses, tools, etc. I kept the coupons the customers didn't want and turned them in for an "Indestro" brand 1/2" drive socket set. I still have it.

When I was 14, two frends and I built go-carts from bed-frame angle irons and lawnmower engines. I put a 5 hp 4-stroke on mine, and we drove them around our small town (yep, in Illinois), until the city passed an ordnance against them.

The first big project was when I was 16 - a 52 Chevy tudor sedan with a 216 six, and my Dad had moved up to a Texaco station. When the 216 blew up, I changed it out for a 235 truck motor, and dug up Fenton headers and a two-carb intake. As I was starting to put the engine together, my Dad walked in with a big grin on his face. He had been at the local auto supply, and when he told his buddy that I was rebuilding the engine, the guy handed him a 6-cyl Corvette cam.

After the engine was installed, I nosed and decked the car, put 55 Pontiac split bumpers on the front, a mesh grille with door pulls (remember those?), a rolled rear pan, and painted it a nice Cadillac blue. From then it was 56 Olds, 55 Chevy convert, 68 GTO, turbo Trans Am, big-block 30 A-bone sedan, big-block 72 Chevy Fleetside, Super Comp 23 T, Corvette, and now the yellow 34 coupe. None of those cars remained stock for more than a couple of days - or until the parts came in.

My home town was also the home town of Stan Lomelino, who often won the Indy Nationls in the F/Dragster class with his flathead digger. We hung around his dirt-floor garage like he was Big Daddy Garlits. I guess he was to us. We followed Stan to Alton one Sunday, and it happened to be April 24, 1960, the Sunday that Chris Karamesines ran 204. I think that day is a little like Woodstock. More people claimed to have been there than the park would hold . . . but I have witnesses.



We discussed The Greek and Stan Lomelino on another thread a few years ago.