Stance and Speed Monograph Series: Cunningham C-4RK
We've posted a new book review...
“The Stance and Speed Monograph Series, has introduced the first in a series of books about important race cars. This one is a collaboration between photographer Peter Harholdt, writer Peter Bodensteiner and noted designer Peter Brock. Together they have written a valuable and affordable book about the Cunningham C-4RK. What a winning combination of talent and subject!” (read the rest of the review...)
Watch Jay Leno's Book Club interview with Peter Harholdt and Peter Bodensteiner
And here's Jay on the Cunningham C-4R that won the 1953 Sebring
Bill Jenkins
Grumpy is dead at 81.
Beating Dodge and Plymouth big block hemi factory teams with his lone small block Chevys made him a “giant killer” and a drag racing legend to Chevy owners.
In the sixties I was covering all kinds of races as part of my job for the Champion Spark Plug Co. My job was to help amateur racers determine the best spark plug for their engine set up. Most pros, like Grumpy Jenkins, knew what they needed and got it directly from the factory. My sole function relating to them was to be certain our decal was on the car, and if they won contingency money, I was to ascertain that they were using our product and ask them to sign a release allowing us to advertise their achievement.
At some point during one weekend I saw Grumpy in the pits working on Chevy II and I stopped by just to introduce myself and offer my services. He had a Champion decal on the car, and while he was using some Champion plugs, he was also running Bosch and Autolite plugs in several spark plug holes.
I asked him what that was about and he took the time to tell me. In the next 15 minutes I learned more about a performance engine than I had learned from our race engineers in three years.
Essentially, he said, he realized that since each cylinder, due to its location in an engine, different intake and exhaust characteristics operated at a different temperature. He also figured out how the different cylinder temperatures affected the “burn” of the intake fuel charge. The more complete the burn, the more the power. Every spark plug is designed to operate in a predetermined temperature range and at the margins of those ranges, it does not performing optimally. While Champion offered many different types and heat ranges of plugs, Grumpy’s experience had taught him that no one company made a single plug that was perfect for every cylinders of a racing engine. He also knew that different plug configurations (retracted gap vs, projected tip) placed the spark at different physical locations in each combustion chamber. That physically affected the timing of the spark which also affected the burn. Through trial and error and intuition, he discovered exactly the right plug configuration and heat range for each hole in that engine and used it, regardless of who made it.
Today’s racers all benefit from innovations which Grumpy Jenkins pioneered.
He was brilliant and I am thrilled that I our paths crossed ever so briefly. RIP Mr. Jenkins.
Time Flies
It was a crisp Fall morning in the pits at Mosport, near Bowmanville, Ontario. Canada.
I was checking out the cars for the feature F1 race with another guy in his early twenties who wrote for the Canadian motorsports magazine, Track & Traffic. His name was Lance Hill. There were no drivers in the pits and we got reasonably close to the cars. We were just two young guys talking about yesterday's practice times and somewhat mystified by what we were looking at. These cars were only familiar to us from magazine pages. I remember him now as a very nice guy, very approachable, and with a good sense of humor.
Time moved on. At some point I was in an airport and picked up a soft cover edition of "King of White Lady" by Lance Hill. The author's description left no doubt that this was the same person I once met. It was a good read and I had it around for years before it somehow disappeared.