I wonder what ever happened to him, if he's still around. I know he was from the Northwest, and was one of the best Mopar racers around. Remember when he busted a driveshaft in his Hemi 64 Plymouth at Indy, I think in '69? He had the field covered, too, if memory serves me right.

He was such a great racer, it would be great to see him at some of these Nostalgia shows, if he's still able.

I heard he was bracket racing his SS/AA 68 Cuda at Mission this year. I haven't seen him at a local track in quite some time. He was at the Hemi Shootout at Mission as a spectator in 2005. He mentioned that his doctor wouldn't sign off on his license to run his car. Someone recently posted a link to a video that shows him in the final with Ronnie Sox when the driveshaft broke. He was the Northwest Super Stock Hemi King back in the 60's and 70's.

I was wondering. He was such a good racer.

Frito, were you guys racing the old "Mountain Hemi", the one Richard Griffin drove before going to Bagwell?

Didn't you guys also have one of the Leal 65 Plymouths at one time? I thought I remember it being there that night we picked up that motor.

I just saw the man last month, he was at Mission Drag Strip (B.C. Canada) running his 68 Hemi AA/A Cuda. We spoke briefly, he was busy tuning his car for the next round. It's sort of crazy. He had heart problems a while back and didn't update his medical cert, nor the cage in his race car so they wouldn't allow him to race for a while. This time he showed up, still no med cert, still no updates to the car, and they let him run! Only catch was he had to keep the car above 10 seconds (no easy feat in that car!). He was blasting it off the line and HAMMERING the foot brakes at the 1,000 foot mark. He pulled it off for a few rounds before he guessed wrong and went too slow losing to a slower car. It was cool to watch as I was standing at the fence at that part of the track watching. Weird to see a AA Hemi go through the traps at 10.03 and like 87mph....And WIN!



*That's Dave on the left

We owned Dave Wren's '63 Plymouth wedge car back in 1968-1971. Sold it to a Fellow by the name of Jim Isherwood who now campaigns a '67 Belvedere SS car out of Mission BC.Jim sold it back to Dave quite some time ago. I know Jim keeps in constant contact with Dave and when I talked to Jim a little while back, Dave still was kicking and still had a pile of Mopars on his spread.
Around Missoula Montana I beleive.
Don't have contact info for Jim, but someone on this board from the North west should know him if you want some info!

He won this round

*I'm pretty sure most of his cars & parts hoard (ALLOT of stuff!) is located at his place in NW Washington State now.

He lives in Lynden from what I've heard. Apparently he still has a lot of parts but of course most of it is used racer type stuff.

Sheldon

Never met him but was always in awe of his max wedge cars in the late 60s and early 70s.

long winded story.......

While living in Homestead Florida in the early 70s, I called about an ad for a 426 HEMI($1000) and a 426 max wedge($325) for sale. The guy had already sold the HEMI but still had the wedge. I went over to look at it even though I wasn't looking to buy one. The max wedge engine was sitting in the bed of an early 60s Ford pickup covered up with a tarp. He said he had moved from Seattle a few years earlier...and the Hemi had been in the Ford as a parts getter at his body shop. He asked me if I had heard of Dave Wren and I told him sure..He was a friend of Dave and got the maxie motor from him. It was supposed to have came out of a '63 330 Dodge. The seller raced the Max Wedge in a '39 Chevy gasser. I tried to get him to come down on the price but he wouldn't budge. I went ahead and bought it plus he threw in a set wild looking headers that were made for the gasser. It turned out to be a StageII motor(11-1cr).



I had the engine in a couple '63 Plymouths but the last one was a lite weight '63 Savoy before selling it to one of Bob Marshal's employees. This is my old car today...

http://www.classicmusclecars.com/cgi-bin/swrm/det.cgi?id=283616242

Maybe some of you old geezers remember the gasser in Washington or the motor in the Columbus/ Reynoldsburg area... and if you talk to Dave ask him if he remembers the max wedge gasser guy.

I see him from time to time. I was actually bugging him about an OLDDDDD trailer he brought to Mission a couple years ago.... did anybody see the trailer he brought?

Cool stuff.
As always....

He is just over the border. If I see him at Mission next year I'll tell him to get on MoParts right AFTER I pry his trailer outta him...




OK, I don't think he's a computer kinda guy...

Dave is a close friend of mine and he is doing fine. He is either working on a project or traveling some where to pick up another. He has not run too many events in the last few years but in 2008 he won both of the old time drags he went to in his 62 plymouth. He is still the master on the light. The 68 cuda has a 347" hemi and does quick well all things considered. If you want to get ahold of him send me a pm.

Quote:

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did anybody see the trailer he brought?

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If it's an older faded white with even more faded graphics on the sides, yes, I saw it. I thought it was sort of cool looking in a nostalgic sense.

I was just googling Dave Wren and this thread came up - here’s a pic I came across.

Dave became known as the NHRA SS bridesmaid, runner up many, many times at NHRA national but never won one that I can remember now.
I met him at the Mopar warm ups at the old Irwindale 1/4 dragstrip in 1974 when Mopar made all of its Pro Stock sponsored drag racer go back and run NHRA SS that year, Dave had a 1968 or 1969 Hemi Roadrunner (CRS) running in SS/CA that had the cold air option through the hood, he found out that day that car ran faster with those vents taped off underneath the hood than it did with them opened
That made me think the factory engineers didn't do much track testing on that option back then

When I last saw Wren he was racing a 63 Max Wedge car, thinking it was 2006. His “nostalgia” trailer was mostly green (those of you who’ve lived in the PNW know all about that), best sounding car I’ve ever heard, and it didn’t even have a roll bar so he was lifting early so they’d keep letting him run. Amazing guy.