I do not like to write blog entries like this but I know there are a lot of people that want to know about my dad, Chet Herbert. My dad was 81 years old when he passed away last week.
 
My dad was a real innovator. He always liked to think of new ideas and better ways to build things. One of my favorite stories about him is one that my Grandma told me. My dad traded his trumpet for an old broke-own Cushman scooter.

My Grandma told him that she couldn't believe he traded a nice trumpet for an old box of parts that he would never be able to put together. The next day she came home from work and my dad was riding the Cushman! He later sold the Cushman and bought a Harley. He said his Harley, nicknamed "The Beast," s the fastest thing on the road in Southern California in the mid-'40s after the war.

In 1949 his buddy had a roadster that he wanted to race and my dad had heard about a Wayne head GMC six-cylinder that was overhead valve and wanted my dad to help him build the engine to go to Bonneville with the roadster. I think it was Ed Pink. My dad agreed to build an engine. When he started working on it he did not understand why the race car engines did not have a roller cam in them like his Harley did. So he decided that he would make a roller cam and lifters to run in this engine.

The car went out and set records and, kind of by accident, my dad had people that wanted to buy cams from him in 1949. So he decided to go into the cam business and he was the only person that made roller cams for many years. All of his ads just said, "Roller cams are better than flat tappet cams." Well... duh! It took almost 10 years before anyone else even caught on and started to make roller cams. Every top race engine still runs roller cams today.

He was also the first to run "Zoomie" headers on his Top Fuel dragsters in the late 1950s with Lefty Mudersbach, Zane Shubert, Gary Cagle, and others at the wheel. Everyone still runs zoomie headers today.

"The Beast" won most of the drag races at Santa Ana drag strip during the first three years of organized drag races. The Beast was billed as the "Drag King of them all" and "the fastest accelerating vehicle devised to ever carry a man."

He was a mechanic for several cars at the Indy 500 in the late 1950s. They allowed engines to run nitro methane at Indy and in the 1950s my dad was considered to be one of the biggest authorities on how to run an engine on nitromethane.

He held several records at the Bonneville Salt Flats, including the fastest single engine car. He also had two and three engine cars that held several records.

He won many drag races. I don't know this for a fact but he told me that his cars won more Top Eliminator races at Lions Dragstrip than any other cars during the '60s. He was inducted into the Drag Racing Hall of Fame with his sister, Doris, in 1993.
 
My dad was my hero. He was put in a wheelchair from polio when he was 20 years old but he never let that slow him down. He told me that he did not want to sit around and feel sorry for himself so he got out and went to work.

When I was about 11 years old he decided that I was big enough to lift him up and carry him around. He was a big guy, about 6’4” and 200 pounds, pretty big for an 11-year-old to carry. I guess I am lucky that I was big, too. I have so many great stories with my dad; it’s hard to nail them all down.

One of the best is from a fishing trip that we took about 10 years ago to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, with my dad and my boy Jon. We went out deep-sea fishing and the seas were really rough. By the time we barely got out of the marina Jon (who was only about 10 years old) got sick and started to toss his cookies. So I tried to help him and make sure that he didn't fall overboard. During this, Jon threw up all over me and that made me sick, so then I started to throw up, too. We went ahead and decided to stay out fishing all day and ended up catching a few good fish.

On the way back in, Jon was still holding his stomach and feeling pretty weak and he asked my dad, "Grandpa, how come my dad and I both got sick and threw up on this boat, and you didn't get sick?" My dad said, "Well Jon, I guess it’s just because I have been fishing for so long and been on so many boats in rough water that it really doesn’t bother me anymore". Jon replied, "Grandpa, you are one tough hombre." I laughed so hard that it just about made me throw up again! I’m really not sure where he came up with that but it sure was funny.

Jon and James went and spent time with my dad in the summer of 2007. They all had a great time. My dad took off work to be able to spend time with them. He took them to Disney, Sea World, Vans skateboard park, and even set up Jon to drive a friend’s nine-second drag race Mustang. They all had a great time. I think that last year, when James and Jon got in the accident, part of my dad died, too. He couldn't get himself to get out of bed for a week from being so depressed.

I thought that doing a race project with my dad would be fun and I tried to talk him into going to some drag races with me last year, but he said that didn't really interest him anymore because all the modern Top Fuel cars look the same. So after some thought, I asked him if he would be interested in helping design a Bonneville streamliner that could set the world land speed record in the Unlimited Streamliner class for a wheel-driven car. This lit him up and gave him a new lease on life, and he actually drew up all of the original diagrams for the car.

Ray Evernham and his engineers were amazed when they saw the plans and asked, "Who did you have draw these up?" When I told Ray that my dad did them, he said, "I can’t wait to meet your dad." My mom said that as soon as we started working on this LSR project that my dad went from being an 80-year-old man in a wheel chair to a 40-year-old man with a purpose and a vision.

My mom, Leanne Herbert, thinks that this LSR project may have saved his life. My mom told me that all he has talked about for the past year was going to Bonneville with this new car and setting the record. We are still working on the car and a bunch of my friends are helping to make sure we accomplish the record that we set out to.

A memorial celebration of my Dad's life will be held at 10:30 a.m., Saturday, May 2, at Covenant Presbyterian Church, 1855 Orange Olive Road, Orange, CA 92865.

Our family has asked that in lieu of flowers, donations be made to B.R.A.K.E.S. (501-c3). Please mail to: B.R.A.K.E.S., In Memory of Chet Herbert, 1443 East Gaston St, Lincolnton, NC 28092 or visit www.putonthebrakes.org.