October 2003 DTA Newsletter

Dick Surratt joined the Denver Timing Association member during the reorganization in late 1998.  He has served as the club’s Vice President.

Dick’s most memorable experiences are the early years of drag racing.  In 1958 he owned a relatively new ’56 Ford Victoria with a 312 cubic inch Police Interceptor engine running a four barrel carburetor and an automatic transmission.  This was his only car and he drove it daily and took it regularly to the drag strip at Continental Divide Raceways (CDR).  After racing it, he’d drive it home.  He remembers his speeds were in the 80’s.  He never was able to run good enough to win a trophy, but he says he still had great times.

The drag racing bug had indeed bitten him…… he wanted to go faster.  In 1959 he located a yellow full fendered Model A coupe for sale in Southern California .  The seller delivered it to Dick, in Denver , for the princely sum of $550!  The coupe had a new ’59 Olds J-2 engine.  The J-2 designation was for three two-barrel carburetors running progressively.  It had a four speed transmission and an Olds rear end.  Tires sizes were 8.90X15 rear and 5.00X15 front (went down hill for better gas mileage).  The Olds engine was a performer, and, coupled with the car’s light weight, ran very hard.  When the seller delivered it in Denver , he had forgotten the title, but promised to mail it to Dick the minute he got back home.  Dick took him at his word and paid him (suppose Dick might be interested in buying some slightly damp land in Florida ?).

Dick had sold the ’56 Victoria to acquire the rod and the hot rod became his sole transportation.  During 1959, Dick raced it at Continental Divide Raceways whenever there were drag races.  He drove it daily the remainder of the year using the California plates.  During the winter, Dick decided it was time to make thing legal and get a Colorado title and plates.  A minor problem surfaced.  Dick had never received the title from the California seller!  And Dick was unable to locate him or anyone who had every heard of him!  Nothing left to do but post the mandatory bond of three times the $550 value of the rod ($1650) in order to get a Colorado title.  The form required serial numbers from both the engine and chassis.  He, as a lawful abiding citizen, dutifully supplied all needed information on the form.  The state ran their normal nationwide check.  Guess what….. the engine was from a stolen car in California !  Colorado threatened to confiscate the engine and put Dick on trial for receiving stolen goods.  Dick pulled the engine for the state.  Dick called the owner of the stolen Olds in California .  The man said he had settled with the insurance company sometime previously and had no interest in the engine.  He sent Dick a notarized letter stating this.  With this paper clutched in his hot hand, Dick was able to proceed with getting the title.  And, he even got to keep the engine!

Since the engine and transmission were already out of the rod, Dick decided it would be an ideal time to make some modifications.  Another minor problem or two surfaced….. seems Dick had never built an engine and had very few tools.  He went to the library and read several books on engine building and hot rodding engines.  He rebuilt it in a small single car garage, with a dirt floor, using what few wrenches he had.   He re-did the engine without any outside help whatsoever.  He had it bored out to 4” and used Jahn’s racing pistons in the punched out cylinders.  In went an Engle 95 cam and six Stromberg 97 carbs (if one does some good, six must be six times better… at least that’s what we t thought when we first started out) on an Offenhauser intake manifold.  He changed the four speed over to a B&M hydamatic transmission. At that time, a B&M hydramatic was the hot setup.  He finally finished gluing everything together.  Like everyone in this zany hobby, he was quite apprehensive when it came time to fire it the first time.  He hadn’t yet put in the floorboards and still had open headers (no mufflers).  With fingers crossed, he hit the starter button.  It turned over about twice and fired.  Needless to say, Dick was elated.

He couldn’t wait to show off his handiwork to his buddies.  He was only a few blocks from the Country Kitchen at 45th and Filmore Street where he and his friends hung out.  Dick fired his hot rod and started towards the Country Kitchen.  About two blocks from home he looked down through the open floor at his headers.  They were extremely hot!  How hot?  He could nearly see through them!  A quick check of the temperature gauge showed the engine was running hot enough to melt!  He shut it down, but it was too late.  The excessive temperature had ruined his freshly built engine.  Later inspection would show Dick had way too much spark advance.  It would also reveal a cracked head in addition to burned rings and bearings.  Now remember, Dick and Betty hadn’t been married long.  They were expecting their first child and Dick was making the princely sum of $1.25 per hour!  He had used their entire year’s savings to b uild the engine.  Somehow, they managed to find the funds to re-do it again in time for the 1960 racing season..  It consistently ran about 110 mph in C/Gas class.  C/Gas was dominated by Dick Montoya and his Chevy powered duece coupe.  His Model A never beat Montoya’s coupe.  Dick would find out where Montoya was going drag racing and go elsewhere.  If Montoya was going to race a Julesburg, Dick would go to CDR…. or vice versa.

One fine Sunday morning Dick was on his way to CDR.  By now the car sported about seven different colors of primer. (racing colors, we called them).  Whatever primer friends had left over Dick would use on his coupe.  Pretty colorful for sure.  He spotted a police cruiser and quickly braked to get somewhere close to the posted speed limit.  The cruiser followed him a distance before lighting up his light bar and pulling Dick over.  Seems the cop just wanted to look over his rod.  The cop said “This thing looks like it’ll really run.”  Dick proudly went over some of the modifications.  The cop was very interested and friendly and asked him how fast it accelerated.  He asked if Dick thought it was faster than his patrol car.  Dick said he was certain it was.  The cop asked if Dick would mind if they ran off a short distance to verify which was faster.  No sweat.  They drove side by side about 10 -15 mph and nailed them.   Dick easily pulled away.  The patrol car’s red lights came on.  You guessed it….. Dick received a $35 ticket for “Contest of speed”!

Dick needed bigger transportation due to his growing family.  He sold the coupe in 1965 for the whopping sum of $1200.  He couldn’t believe the coupe would ever bring that much money!  He hooked up with Swede Ehrlich and his Chevy powered dragster.  The Chevy displaced 327 inches, with fuel injection, and ran nitro.  It turned consistent speeds in the 135 mph range which was fast in those early years.

Dick had always been interested in roundy-round racing and became very active at Lakeside Speedway in both stock cars and midgets.  His fascination with midgets soon won out over the stockers.  He, like so many other midget drivers, started midget racing behind Ford V8-60 flathead engines.  Dick had a ride (drove the car for a season or length of time) with a midget running a 4 cylinder Willys engine.  Eventually he changed to the newer hot midget engine….. a highly modified VW engine.

He still races midgets today.  His present car is one he built completely himself.  He acquired a complete and detailed set of plans.  He used tubing in fabricating the chassis.   Not much of a problem since he’s a very accomplished welder.  He built the race car from scratch.  Pretty talented to say the least.  He acquired a SESCo (Speed Engineering Service COmpany) 4 cylinder engine for the power.  A SESCO is essentially one-half of a 350 inch Chev V8 (cut in half lengthwise).  They make a ton of power and are the current engine of choice for many serious midget racers.  His particular engine features an aluminum block and head.  Aluminum SESCO Chevy blocks are extremely rare.  It’s injected and runs on straight methanol (alcohol).  Horsepower developed is unknown, but it would appear it’s in the neighborhood of somewhere around 300 hp.

Dick has recently completed building his new garage and is moving his machinery and equipment into the new diggin’s.  He’s begun learning the intricacies of his Bridge Port.   This knowledge will be needed quite soon because he’s begun building a sprint car with a loaded Pontiac V8…… some gear heads never grow up.

(See the next article concerning when things go bad…. really bad!)