A lot of people ask me what I drove before I got into a nitro Funny Car. Since our printer at home just recently died, my wife went out and bought a new model. This one came with a scanner as well as a bunch of other options, so I figured now was the time to go through the “Arend photo archives” and scan in a few pics from the past; so here we go.
The first pic is of the car that I drove to high school and also was the first car that I helped build a motor for. It was nothing special, but it got me on the road to where I am today. It was a ’72 Monte Carlo with a 350 small-block Chevrolet. By the time I sold it, it covered the quarter mile in the low 14-second range, which was pretty fast at the time (1979). After a few more years and a few cars, including a ’75 Corvette, I sold that Vette and bought another ’vette … a ’84 Chevette S. I worked at a GM dealership then, and it was my first new car. Why sell a Corvette to get a Chevette you may ask? So I could take the rest of the money and buy a ’70 Chevelle SS with a 396 and a 4 speed!
The white Chevelle with the trademark black stripes is the next pic. Now that I had a reliable first car, I could have some fun with this one. The motor already had a few upgrades, and it had a 4.56 gear in it. My first trip to the track with no slicks wasn't very exciting. I found a pair of 10.5 x 29 slicks for it, and the next time I went back, it ran a high 12. That was about the last time I took the slicks off. The pic is a little small but there are slicks on the back, and that’s the way I drove it on the street the majority of the time. Once you feel how a car hooks with slicks on, it’s hard to put the street tires back on. Remember back then most street tires were like hockey pucks! I ended up with a tunnel ram and 2- 750 Holleys on it as well as some new motor upgrades and actually got it to run a high 11-second quarter-mile. Over the next winter with a bunch of money I had saved up from working, I decided to put a rear frame kit in it. A good friend of mine had just opened an Alston Chassis place and offered to do the job for his cost. So in went an 8-point roll cage, rear frame kit, shortened rear with a 5.38 gear, and a 4-link suspension. Back then I bought the biggest street tire I could find (a 16x33 Pro Trac) and told my buddy to make sure they would fit! Over the next year or so we also ended up building a supercharged 427 ( that's the next pic … and yes that’s me with the “big” hair) for it and got all new body panels, a ’glass front end, and a custom paint job. I only ever took it to the track once, but it ran a 10.33 at 133 mph. Remember that was in 1985, and you barely saw any 9-second race cars at your local track. It was definitely one of the fastest street cars in Toronto, Canada, but that came with a price. Every time I drove it, I was probably going to get pulled over. The exhaust was loud, the blower whined a lot, and the police officers liked to check it out. That got old after a while, and I wanted to race at the track more. A friend of mine wanted to buy the car but didn't have the money for the engine. So I sold it to him as a roller and bought my first real race car.
Another friend of mine had started building a full tube chassis ’27 Ford roadster. It was about 70-percent done but still needed a lot of work. The price was right, and I bought it. Over the next year, I plumbed and wired it and got all the finishing pieces done. Almost instantly I learned how much weight made a difference in how a car runs. With the same engine out of my street car and a 2-speed Powerglide, I was able to get the car to run consistent 8.80s at over 155mph. It was a great learning experience for me as I learned not only how to tune the engine to run consistently but also learned a lot about chassis setup. I won my first bracket race with that car and had a lot of fun. Just about that time, though, our local tracks were getting into the Quick 8 and 16 series that got very popular. My car would barely make it into that field as the competition was getting faster and faster. So I sold that car, and with the help of one of Canada's fastest crew chiefs back then, John Rossitter, embarked on my next venture.
I had always liked the Fiat Topolino bodies and decided to build one for myself. I bought an Alcohol Funny Car chassis and engine through John and a body from A-1 fiberglass. A good friend of mine, Eddy Bryck from The Chassis Shop, went to work mounting the body. John taught me how to build an alcohol engine, and the rest was history. My “Bad to the Bone” Fiat was number one qualifier at every race we went to for the next 3 years. I won many races and even earned a half decent paycheck from match racing — something that was basically unheard of at the time. I learned about engine and clutch tuning and did almost all of the maintenance on the car myself. The car had a blown 526 Hemi with some outdated parts on it as well as a Crower pedal clutch and a 3-speed Lenco. It was fun racing the guys with the 8-second Powerglide cars with the delay boxes and transbrakes. My car ran mid-6s at over 200 mph, so you were waiting at the Tree for a long time before you could leave. Eventually I sold my whole racing operation and went to work for another Canadian legend, Al Billes.
When Al decided to change from Pro Modifieds to an Alcohol Funny Car he called me to see if I would be interested in coming to work for him. Of course that was a no-brainer, and in 1994 we did very well with Al's car. He won both IHRA and NHRA events and finished high in the points standings. It was through racing with Al that I met Paul Smith. The “driving” part definitely was still in my system, and it was a lifelong dream of mine to drive a nitro Funny Car. Paul and I eventually worked out a deal for me to get my license at the end of 1994. I showed up at Paul’s shop and “school” was in session. In November of 1994 I got my license in the minimum number of runs and even set the track record (5.57 at 266 mph) at Moroso Motorsports Park in the process of doing it. Paul and Jerry Gwynn (Darryl’s father) signed my license. A few months later, Paul wanted to know if I wanted to “rent” his car for a national event. For the 1995 Gatornationals we finally worked out a deal. We ended up qualifying No. 10 there, and I was hooked. The next race, in Englishtown, we ran low e.t. of eliminations and beat Mark Oswald in the In-N-Out car in the first round. After that Paul and I went to many more races. We even ended up racing in 1996 at one of my home tracks, London Motorsports Park, up in Canada. The next pic is of me and John racing. The pic after that is me and my “mullet” hairstyle, John Force, Todd Paton, and a younger and still skinny Bob Frey. There was John Force, Chuck Etchells, Tom Hoover, and myself booked in for this match race. Not only did we win the event, we beat John Force and took the track record away from him in front of all my friends! I didn’t think life could get any better.
Less than a couple of months later I went to watch Paul Smith drive at the 1996 NHRA Keystone Nationals in Reading, Pa. When we got there Paul said that his ankle hurt and asked if I had any money to drive… gotta love Old Paul! After I told him I was broke, he said, and I quote, “F it, you can drive.” For those of you that don’t know, we ended up winning the race. Paul had the car running great, and I left on everybody I ran. All of the races were within a tenth of a second with no tire smoke, so we earned our first win. Here is a pic of a younger looking Paul Smith and myself celebrating. Actually I think we celebrated so much, we missed the next race! Later that year at the World Finals, Paul tuned me to my first two "0s:" A 5.07 e.t. and a run over 300mph. That run made me the first Canadian to run over 300 mph.
The next pic is of the car I drove for Al Hoffman. After Al crashed at the Gators in 1997, they asked if I wanted to drive his car for the next few races. I ran four races with Al, and even qualified No. 2 in his car at the Rockingham Invitational race. We had a few ups and downs, but I learned a valuable lesson while I was there: Don't drive a car that you are not comfortable with and always lift when in doubt. Luckily nothing really bad happened, but it was a learning experience. Next pic is a car that I drove a few times for local California racer, Chuck Beal. Chuck is a great guy, and we had lots of fun. The car ran well, and in 2000, we even were the first car to get picked for the Winston 100k No Bull Challenge.
That gets you up to speed for what I did from 1979-2000. I’ll scrounge around a post some more pics of the cars I drove from then up until present time. Hope you enjoyed this blog, and we’ll see you at the races!
Jeff