Except for the last page of entries I just lost 10 minutes of my life I'll never get back!!!!
Thanks Monty!
BTW interesting read at the end. Thanks for sharing.
About the spring everyone forgot the MAGIC FAIRY dust that was sprinkled on them before leaving Direct Connection!
The whole spring thing is a reminder that some still don't want to accept there are better solutions out there.
Reminds me of an episode of Family Guy, when the tooth fairy get to his apartment after a night of work and rolls in all the teeth. Same with some and SS springs.
Matt

Fixed it for you Matt.

Interesting story, Monty. Cool to have had a dad like that with all that history. But sad that he got out and you all couldn't share the experience.

Funny that madscientist mentioned drugs.

I had a particularly bad season over 25 years ago and went through 3 breakages by mid-year. I was "done" for the season. After not racing for several months, I was watching American Sports Cavalcade, or one of those shows, which happen to be showing the NHRA Division 2 ET Finals in Gainesville. I qualified for it on a regular basis, many times as a track champ. They were showing all the action and the many people that I always raced against. While watching it intently, the girl I was dating was watching me and blurted out "What's the matter with you??? After not racing for months, not going to the track or working on the car, I had broken out in an obvious cold sweat while watching. I responded "Dammit, I should be there!".

Not meaning to take any addictions lightly, I developed a new respect for any type of addiction because that had to be some degree of withdrawal. Out of sight, out of mind, until I watched that show. I didn't realize my "addiction" was that bad until then. (But I always did pay the bills, etc.)

Monty, thanks for starting the thread it is good reading. Please have patience with us all.

I cannot believe I read all of this...

Damo

This thread has been like a Nitro F/C run...Shot out of the hole, gets out of shape sideways but then storms through the traps on the top end. Thanks Monty for the piece on you and your Dad.

Moving and yet strangely tranquil story.

[quote=Monte_Smith]Not that I know of Myron. I asked my mom about it one time, because I was rather hurt that he never seemed interested in MY racing career. She said that was in his past and he had put it away, because he knew that if he went with me or started reliving his own glory days, he would want to get back into it. He was an all or nothing kind of guy and knew it would cost big bucks to race like he would have wanted. He hated bracket racing, nor did he really care for the Super Stock Eliminator portion of the show. We never went to a race that didn't have class runoffs, because THAT was what he liked. Being faster than the other guy in the same class. When the tracks that we frequented dropped class racing and went to brackets, he totally quit racing at home. We went to NHRA and IHRA races for about another year to run class runoffs, but when class runoffs became very infrequent, except at places like INDY and the Dutch classic, he parked the car and it never ran again. When they moved from the city, to their house in the country, which is on 40 acres, he basically went back to his childhood. He grew up on a farm and THEIR new farm was what he enjoyed. He built a big metal building, parked all the cars in it, basically never touched them again and slowly sold them off. He got back into guns and farming and never seemed to care about cars again.

Reminds me of Days of Thunder. "When I grew up, all I wanted to do is work on race cars. Now all I want to do is make enough money to work on a farm."

We all have aspirations growing up but as we gain a little age, on some level, many of us yearn to get back to something we experienced in our past.

At least some of you guys have some family interested in what you did. In all the years, maybe 50, not a family member, I'm talking wife's side too have ever been interested in what I did let alone go to the races with me. They would all be perfect in the driverless cars. Got close with mom and dad going one time when Garlits was to be at the track to race, it rained 1/2 hour before we got there, history. Thank goodness for friends.

Yes, I know of very successful racers that when they quit they won't even go to the track, scared that the needle will hit the vein again.

So far I havent been back in 3 years.. but
I do plan on returning.. maybe this spring..
and I MIGHT put my 395ci back in the race car
to play around with... if I do get back into
it it will be just for fun and maybe chase the
ET to a point... no more 8s... maybe get the
chassis re-certed... dont know yet... ever since
my stroke the brain doesnt work the way I would
like and the reactions are all over the place
EDIT
I want to start playing with the Rampage to see
if I can get it sorted out and make it launch hard

I started going back to the track about 3 yrs ago after retiring in 1990 when life happened, wouldn't want to do it again though today, I'm a been there and done it sort of guy, different breed of racers today, fast doesn't mean what it did back in the day to me now, everything is brkts/index racing, fall asleep stuff to me apart from PM, and the top stuff is virtually non existant here...just lucky I got an old mate who's got his new Pro-Mod car out and I can hang with them for some "proper" racing, now if my 2 grown up boys were into it perhaps it would be a different story, ironic really as now I got the money to do it!!

Thread veered off course, here are some pics to bump it back toward cutting edge leaf spring technology

Essentially a 4 link with leaf springs. That will allow you to get the IC in a much better location.

That is one version of the leaf link.. the
earlier version used the stock spring location
and had the upper link attached to the frame
rail which didnt have any adjustment

So in 1970 (47 years ago) it was realized within the Mopar community that there were better options than a super stock spring? BLASPHEMY

power levels upended anything remotely 2 years old by 1970. Plus, when you are talking Pro-stock, you are in a different game. End game at every round, so the parts had to be mad advanced.

A couple of things of note in above leaf link post if you read it. It says that if the springs bend, you need a thicker leaf. Also says that first SS springs were .250 thick, which was the same as pass cars for the most part. Says that 002 and 003 springs were .290 thick to prevent bending behind eye, which is basically a C body spring. A .350 segment is also mentioned. Those are truck springs people. So for all those that think the SS spring was specially engineered with some special material and built especially for racing, well that's not exactly true. What happened is that some engineers or factory racers were SMART enough to figure out "if we use this main leaf" we can have a stiffer spring. So SS springs were configured from stuff they ALREADY had, but fit the application better. Which as I said pages ago, you COULD do yourself if you KNEW what you needed and where to get it, but was shot down with "no way you could do what the factory did in your garage" and that Mopar spent millions developing that.........yeah, whatever. Even though my dad WAS a mechanical engineer, it didn't take one to figure out if you were bending main springs, you needed a thicker one. Nor to figure out that if you needed a stiffer front segment, you added some half leafs and clamped it solid. All this stuff is suspension 1o1. Same then as now, you have to understand suspension, what it does and what you NEED it to do.

Then when the car doesn't go straight and you want to lose the one side air bag that most ran, you also deduce that if we stiffen THIS side, we don't need this bag. Racers used to have to figure things out for themselves instead of look on the internet or call somebody

I never did figure where it took a million dollars to research a spring. A type of spring that has been around for well over a century.


It goes back to racers wanting to learn, or take the easy way. The easy way is to use SS springs etc. I bought my first 4 link in 1986 and every single person I talked to except 1, told me to run a ladder bar. The 4 link is too complicated, don't need it...all the regular bullcrap.

Glad I bought the 4 link. I had to learn. And most of what I was told back then was wrong.