WTF...or HRD?

WTF...or HRD?

I never know what is going to trigger some weird memory segment of mine. Today it was Ardun overhead valve conversions for flathead Fords, and motorcycles.

A few days ago I was at a friend's house and took some quick snapshots of some of his “stuff,” which included a 32 Three window coupe with one of those head conversions. I'm sure at some point there will be more about the builder, but when I e mailed the picture to a couple of other car guys one commented on the head. That led to an internet search about Ardun, which refreshed my aging brain about two items: Don Orosco and Tom Senter...and that of course led back to vintage racing and the Monterey Historics, which is my tie to both of these folks.

Don is a racer from Pacific Grove I have known very casually for many years. While his Monterey rides ranged from both a Scarab sports racer and the F1 car to Lolas, I did know he was also into rods...and the article I found while trying to get something into my e mail about Ardun history brought back the lost fact that Don also was the force behind modern recreations of the head, which was originally created by and named for the “father” of the Corvette...Zora Arkus-Duntov.

Tom Senter, on the other hand, was involved in the evolution of the recreation head, but was known to me as the Ford representative to the Monterey Historics. He handed out the award each year for the “best Ford powered racer” in the event, a role later taken over by his widow after he lost a battle with cancer.

And then there was my scan through the first issue of a Road and Track subscription Gary Winiger gave me recently. I'm not at all sure what car magazines are about anymore, and this one least of all. Beyond the eight pages of Tire Rack ad and four or so of Weathertech plastic goodies to keep the carpets dry in your Belchfire, it seemed to have brief teasers about cars people actually might buy, and page after page of a shootout between supercars so stratospherically priced the mag actually boasted about the total price of the package (they also wrecked a McLaren which might have won the shootout, but at least had the courage to own up to that screwup).

The winner was the new Acura NSX, proving I guess that these days any car company can build a supercar. Whoopie. But what really struck me was one of the performance figures. This beast, which went for just under $300k as tested, reached from zero to 30 mph in exactly...the same time as the $749 250cc motorcycle I had in Grad School!

Wait...that can't be right, can it? Granted, from there the NSX would hit 40 before my bike could hit 35, and it got worse from there, but how'd you like to be equaled by a 250 pound Japanese “popcorn popper” two stroke in the Stoplight Grandprix?

And that, of course, triggered some pretty interesting motorcycle memories.

It was Dick Saltzman's fault. If you looked the photo of my Mark III Sprite in “BRG and the Five Speed Brown Bag” you saw two other vehicles in the photo...one being a rather agricultural looking springless trailer. Though I had no idea what it was for when I first saw it, it is a motorcycle trailer. One that was pulled by that almost new Corvette just in front of it....

Who the hell pulls a trailer with a Corvette?

My roomie Donnie had once again come up with someone to share expenses for our second year in a brand new quadraplex in the northwest part of Gainesville...a 27 year old grad student in engineering from New York.

Dick was a somewhat deranged looking pixie, graced with hooded eyes, one of which never seemed to be looking in the same place the other was at the same time

I don't know what I said,
But I don't want to think about
what he was going to do
with that turkey baster!
Tell me he doesn't look like an elf!

. Normally someone his age would be mature way beyond a couple of 20 year olds, but this guy really was...an elf. I'm sure of it. So we hit it off fine.

He was a landing gear designer for Grumman, who sent him to the university to get his Masters degree. You would think that a company in Long Island could find a college closer to home. I mean, Florida does have a good engineering school, but I'm sure there are many closer to Dick's home which are just as good.

Perhaps Dick selected the school, envisioning sun bleached beaches and babes in bikinis. Surprise! Temps on a winter night in Gainesville could hit the high teens, and walking across campus for a 7AM class could freeze the balls off a brass monkey.

When I asked about the Corvette, Dick said I would likely drive it more than him (really? Can I? Can I? CANIIII????). He preferred “the bike.”

Listen, when I moved from a Cushman to my 57 Bel Aire convertible I thought I was through with two wheeled toys for life. What is wrong with this guy?

So ok, his 64 Corvette had “only” 300hp and a 3.08 rear end, making it the slowest accelerating model...but I was rowing a 57hp skate which hit 60 slow enough to read a couple of pages of “Gone With the Wind” while waiting for it to happen. The Vette was sexy as hell!

“Why do they call it a sports car?” he asked, meaning he could not get a pair of skis into it. OK, so he was smart, but clearly not real bright.

For months I would wash the Corvette for him, my reward being the use of it for a day. I met my first wife by doing a handbrake turn with it in front of her dorm to pick her up. I was a senior, she a freshman, and I was positive the move had raised my sex appeal with her and every other pubescent female who made it to the window in time to see the end of the maneuver after hearing the squeal.

I don't think that included the Dorm Mother though.

Then one day he said if I washed the Vette he would let me take the bike out on my own.

I should explain that I rode in back of him a couple of times and was both scared and unimpressed. I finally figured out that I needed to lean with him and that made it marginally better, but it was small, uncomfortable, and with two aboard, not impressively quick.

Oh, what was it? A 250cc Suzuki X6 “Hustler” two-stroke. For those of you who know what that was, you know what comes next.

And yes, mine too was red
First six speed bike ever
and that was just the start of the fun

There are a number of gently rolling, gently curving back roads around Gainesville, and I tooled the bike out of town to one. Then, making sure no one was around, I stopped...put it in first, wound on the throttle and let out the clutch.

Jeeeeezzzzussss! This thing was a motor and two wheels. The only purpose of the frame seemed to be to keep the wheels from running away from the motor. My hands and feet were winding it out and shifting as fast as I could move them, my ass slid back almost off the end of the seat, and in less than 12 seconds I was zipping past startled cows at eighty miles an hour...from a 250!

A few years later, after a Yamaha 305 “Big Bear” and a rather pathetic Honda 160 “Scrambler” I owned one. From 0-30 no car or bike I ever found could stay with it (1.3 seconds and ask me how I know), and up to 60 not much besides supercars like Ferraris (yeah, right? In Florida? In 1969?) or Corvettes could come close. About 270 pounds and $749 dollars. Who needs a supercar?

Later  Kawasaki gave us the H1 500cc triple..a true "widow maker" if there ever was one, but in 1967 this was the first true Japanese super bike...the well ballyhoo'd Honda CB450 didn't come close. The X6 was .3 seconds faster to 30 and stayed right with the bigger, heavier, and almost 30% more expensive "Black Bomber" to 60.

Over the years I owned five other bikes. All were quick. Hell, the Kawasaki 350 triple was the world's fastest unicycle. Wick it on and nothing could keep the front wheel from pointing at the top of power poles. It also got such bad mileage I once ran dry on the Florida Turnpike because I refused to believe that the reserve tank really was going dry. Within six months every bit of rubber on it had rotted. The thieves who stole it off my parking pad one night actually did me a favor.

But nothing “moved me” like that X6...until I heard a Vincent pull up at Ernie's one day.

Steve Earle trusted Ernie enough to allow him to hold an early tech inspection for cars entered in the Monterey Historics at his house a couple of weeks before the event. It took pressure off both the racers and the event management to have some of the cars “pre-tech'd” this way.

So one day something pulls up next to the car I've got my head buried in and I pop up so quick I smack my head on the hood. And there sits this guy in a leather helmet and chaps on something with “H*R*D” on the side of the tank.

I knew vaguely what a Vincent was but had never seen one. Dave Malloy was then a neighbor of Ernie's, and had stopped by to see the cars. He also had a business repairing and restoring these “two wheeled Ferraris” out of his garage, a shop I was lucky enough to see when the weekend wound down.

Years later I was sitting in a cafe in Colfax with John Lewis (uh oh, there he is again!). We had been chasing and photographing a restored Western Pacific F diesel and had stopped for a bite to eat, when in walks this guy in a leather beret and chaps.

“I bet I know you,” I said.

“Not a chance,” he snarled.

“If I say the name 'Ernie Mendicki' will that change your mind?”

Stunned pause.

“Who the hell are you?” 

Once that ws cleared up Dave graciously allowed John and I to tour his new shop just outside of town. He's still there, and still restoring Vincents, as noted about 40% of the way down this page: http://www.thevincent.com/vin-suppliers.html

The photo below is not one of Dave's or his customers, but wouldn't you like to know where this little beauty is? Be patient...it's one of the other two I've known, and I'm sure more will come to light at some point. The blue fender in front of it is a hint...but I'm not going to ever tell you where it is...the owner knows too many people named "Guido."