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Re: Pierson Coupe and other Trivia from the "Old-Days"

To: saltracer@awwwsome.com, land-speed@autox.team.net
Subject: Re: Pierson Coupe and other Trivia from the "Old-Days"
From: ARDUNDOUG@aol.com
Date: Wed, 24 Nov 1999 21:00:08 EST
Tom,
    Great story. When I was a teenager in the 50's the Pierson coupe was on 
the cutting edge and appearing in HRM and some of the "small-books" on 
performance. I met you and had the pleasure of seeing the car run at 
Bonneville in the late 80's when my LSR career was just starting. I have a 
video of you and your wife at the starting line trying to fire a balky SBC. 
She was really giving the effort a lot of "body-english" and was very happy 
and excited when it finally lit.
    As a side story, 10 years or so back I bought a set of early Hilborns for 
a Flatty from a trader in the Santa Rosa, CA area named Vern Tardel (the guy 
who made and sold the coffee mugs shaped like a Stromberg 97 Flatty carb). 
Sometime later a Flatty dragster racer named Tony Lloyd asked to borrow the 
injectors for a little gas motor he wanted to install in his rail to license 
his young son. Before running the injectors we sent them to Hilborn to be 
"freshened-up". Stu Hilborn got to checking the serial numbers against his 
records and found that they were originally purchased by Dawson Hadley, one 
of the early Pomona Valley Timing Assn. "PVTA Choppers" and the driver of 
their old 1950's Chrysler powered dragster that looked like it was made from 
an old Indy-type car. Tony Lloys said that he had one helluva time getting 
them back. Stu reportedly wanted them for his collection and was VERY 
reluctant to part with them.
    I noted with interest that Dawson Hadley was involved in your old Pierson 
Coupe in the past. Do you have any idea of what happened to him? He, along 
with the likes of Calvin Rice, Jazzy Nelson, and Art Chrisman is one of the 
real icons of the roots of drag racing. Did I see his name associated with 
early LSR racing too?
    You mentioned Bob Joehnck. He was another unsung icon of early 
performance. When I attended college in San Luis Obispo from 1955-59 Joehnck 
had a performance shop in nearby Santa Barbara and really worked some amazing 
 tricks with early OHV V8's. Patterson Ford, a dealer in Santa Maria, had 
Joehnk massage a 312 "Y" block powered 56 sedan. It had a very long Dachund 
(sp?) painted down the entire side of the car with the words "Patterson Ford, 
The Longest Deal In Town". It didn't take too long before the car was dubbed 
"The Long Dog". They had the exhausts coming out of the fenders opposite the 
exhaust ports and ran about 100-105 with the thing in "C" Gas. Needless to 
say they had no competition in the class. To make things interesting they 
would match-race the "A" Gas and "B" Gas winners after eliminations, usually 
winning.
    During those days, Fred Dannenfelzer(sp) was running a altered coupe and 
I was campaigning a slingshot fuel Flatty powered dragster. At the last El 
Mirage meet "Fast Freddy" turned 305 in his blown Chrysler lakester while I'm 
still trying to get into the "Two-Clubs". My, how things do 
change........Ardun Doug King in CA
    

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