Jack,

This is a really clumsy way to work a communication. Not sure I'm really adept at the "thread" thing. Anyway, back to Stan Lomelino's salad days.

(By the way, I checked out your very nice 34 3 Window. A sweet ride!)

I think in age I fall between you and Stan. In 56 when I sold him that engine I had worked all winter to build it for my chopped & channeled '30 A Coupe. And then began to get the hots for a Chevy small block. So I sold it complete to Stan and used the money to get a 55 Chevy engine and put it in a street rail job. It was a 39 Ford frame cut to a 100" wheelbase. Steering was 2 turns lock-to-lock, and it had 2 aircraft bucket seats nestled between the frame and driveshaft. Indy tires out of time trials. The whole thing wet weighed 1280 lbs and did a 0-60 of 4 seconds. In 1956 that made me pretty much top dawg on the back streets...and at the strip we were running at Illiopolis. Of course, I had to be careful, because I ran 8 straight pipes on the street and the cops had a problem with the noise. (I liked the flames at night) As you can see, I was at the transition between the outlaw draggers and the more organized NHRA types. Then in Jan '57 the Army claimed my time and I came out, went to college, and haven't done much since. My exciting ride these days is an '06 Miata...

Other memories: There were a couple of brothers named Donaldson who were running some pretty quick Chevvies at the time. You may have heard of them.