kladd
Member
As some of you know I am planning to bring the #59 car to Saratoga Springs next weekend. And I plan to include Jack's old trailer as part of the display. I find it amazing how "unpretentious" auto racing was in the 1970's and think it will be fun to kind of recreate what the pits looked like back then.
I gave Jack a call to see if he was interested in attending, and to see if he had any interesting props to include in the display. I was a bit apprehensive since I hadn't spoken with him in over a year, and he is 90 years old after all!
Jack, though very hard of hearing, was in great spirits and immediately excited to attend. The conversation soon turned to the state of the #59 car and I admitted I was having trouble getting it to start. It was definitely a fuel problem as the injectors weren't squirting but if I squirted fuel directly into the intake trumpets the car would momentarily bark. Jack wanted me to bring the car to him but Maine to Carbondale PA is a long slog so instead I decided to fly him to me for a 3 day "vacation". This was a month ago.
We picked up Jack and his lady friend Sarah at the airport, and after a nice dinner, went straight to my garage. What a beautiful moment. I turned on the lights and there was the 59 car under the awning attached to his old trailer with his old tool boxes, tools, spare wheels and tires, an m49 engine block, etc. etc. I even had his old plastic chairs with his, his wife Terri, and Jerry Woody's names hand written on the backs.
For a full 10 minutes he just walked around saying "wow wow wow". At one point he opened a small portable toolbox and pulled out a 12mm wrench which he apparently heavily modified by grinding much of it away. He said "hey that's my wrench"!
to be continued, with pictures....
I gave Jack a call to see if he was interested in attending, and to see if he had any interesting props to include in the display. I was a bit apprehensive since I hadn't spoken with him in over a year, and he is 90 years old after all!
Jack, though very hard of hearing, was in great spirits and immediately excited to attend. The conversation soon turned to the state of the #59 car and I admitted I was having trouble getting it to start. It was definitely a fuel problem as the injectors weren't squirting but if I squirted fuel directly into the intake trumpets the car would momentarily bark. Jack wanted me to bring the car to him but Maine to Carbondale PA is a long slog so instead I decided to fly him to me for a 3 day "vacation". This was a month ago.
We picked up Jack and his lady friend Sarah at the airport, and after a nice dinner, went straight to my garage. What a beautiful moment. I turned on the lights and there was the 59 car under the awning attached to his old trailer with his old tool boxes, tools, spare wheels and tires, an m49 engine block, etc. etc. I even had his old plastic chairs with his, his wife Terri, and Jerry Woody's names hand written on the backs.
For a full 10 minutes he just walked around saying "wow wow wow". At one point he opened a small portable toolbox and pulled out a 12mm wrench which he apparently heavily modified by grinding much of it away. He said "hey that's my wrench"!
to be continued, with pictures....
