Re: Best Pontiac Powered Stockers
 

Yeah, that's the car Mike Morgan raced, before he switched to SS.

Mike won the K/SA class at the 2014 US Nats, before he sold it.

https://www.dragracecentral.com/DRCS...r2014#indextop

Looks like 6 Pontiac powered cars made the 128 car field that year. It took an .882 under to make the field. Bob Michael just missed it.

Qualifiers were Randi Lyn Shipp #56, Scott Burton #70, Michael Brand #78, Mike Morgan #97, Todd Hoven #110, & Tim Gillespie #115.

https://www.dragracecentral.com/DRCS...r2014#indextop

Re: Best Pontiac Powered Stockers
 

I believe that the greatest Pontiac Stock, Super Stock, and Factory Experimental -Altered Wheel Base driver of all time has got to be the Hall of Fame recipient Arnie The Farmer Beswick. He's the one that started it all for Pontiac Drag Racing. He's Pontiac's answer to Babe Ruth.

Re: Best Pontiac Powered Stockers
 

Easy Lovin' ,

I already mentioned this.
Post image .org
It's free and easy
Just copy the third url choice from the bottom, and paste it.

Re: Best Pontiac Powered Stockers
 

Norman Warling from D-5 with the very cool 62 Catalina. One of the coolest Pontiac stockers. Very well put together and has a great look to it.
Greg Meyer SS/GT firebird

Re: Best Pontiac Powered Stockers
 

Yeah, he's posted that he's gonna soon have a 421SD engine to run in it.

Re: Best Pontiac Powered Stockers
 

Here's a pic of Mike Mckinney during one of his runs at the US Nats, which he won. The car still has the "Hard Times" name on it.

As mentioned, that win was over Mick Leiferman. It was Mick's 3rd US Nats RU in a row.

https://competitionplus.com/competit...-amateur-video

"...home state hero Mike McKinney won Stock in a final-round decision over Mick Leiferman, who suffered his third straight U.S. Nationals final-round loss..."

Appears that Mick's car was a record holder from '73 thru '77. Hey ya'll, that ain't too shabby. You're the nat record holder for 5 years in a row & RU at Indy, 3 of those years !

Re: Best Pontiac Powered Stockers
 

So, to many people, the '64 GTO is what started the Musclecar deal. That can be debated. But, for you guys who were involved in serious class racing in the mid '60's what were some of the quickest '64 model GTO Stockers you can remember ? Post pics if you have 'em.

This 1st one has a 2-speed ST-300 trans. The '64-'66 models didn't come with a 3-speed auto. So, I don't suppose there were too many serious '64-'66 auto trans GTO's in competition. I personally never saw a single one. I suppose this is the only pic I've ever seen of one. Don't know how quick it was.

Re: Best Pontiac Powered Stockers
 

Well, no help with the '64 GTO. Let's move on to '65.

I love this Knafel '65. '65 was my favorite body style. My 1st GTO ride was in a '65. But I wasn't able to buy a car, til '69. So, I bought a '69.

Anyhow, according to the writing on this '65, Bill Abraham was the NHRA nat champ in it. And Arlen Vanke set a nat record in it. Must have been a pretty quick B/S car, at the time. That would have been a Tri-Power 389 car, I assume.

I'm sure there were '65's running at local tracks, all over the country. Don't know of any other quick ones, specifically. Maybe you guys can help with that. I did find a pic of a '65 auto. Looks like one that would not have passed tech, at a big race. But local tracks let a lot of stuff slide.

Also found a pic of one that appears to be at a small track. Probably many hundreds of '65's ran at small tracks all over the country.

https://www.mecum.com/lots/SC0509-79...5-pontiac-gto/

Re: Best Pontiac Powered Stockers
 

That Knafel car reminded me of the other quick Knafel cars. In fact, the writing on the side said that Knafel had the " World's Fastest Pontiacs".

One of their '66 GTO's won lots of races. I've already posted a pic, but I'll try to post it again here. I accidentally discovered that I can crop a pic a little & change the title, and post it here, even if I've posted the same pic before. Good to know.

There were several big Pontiac dealers that fielded lots of drag Pontiacs, during the '60's & early '70's. I'll be mentioning many of these, in this thread. There were also probably lots of smaller Pontiac dealers that fielded one or maybe just a few drag cars. And, some dealers probably just let an independent racer put their dealer name on the car, for advertisement. Although we won quite a few races, I was never able to even get any sponsorship help from any Pontiac dealer. By the time we began racing, area dealers were just not interested in racing.

Royal Pontiac had quite a few quick Pontiacs. Here's a Royal '66. I assume they ran the last version of the Pontiac Tri-Power/389.

Knafel even ran a couple of OHC Six powered cars. One was a 'vert.

Re: Best Pontiac Powered Stockers
 

Gonna break in here with a '68 Bird we saw at the World Nationals race, held in Amarillo, TX, back in around '75 or '76. Was RU.

Maybe some of you older guys will remember it. Guys name is Lyndel Warren. Ran B/SA. So, I suppose it had to be one of the round port RAII engines.

He also had an early 2nd gen Formula 455HO. Here's what he said about it.

" I wanted a competitive NHRA car, so i acquired another car from Gary Moore, his factory aided superstocker, a '71 Formula H.O. Firebird.. We built it as a F/SA in 10 days & headed to Pomona. While we were in the tech line, NHRA decided to factor the horsepower & we came out of tech an E/SA. We ran under the F/SA index at Pomona, but couldn't run the E. The next year we returned to the WinterNat'ls at Pomona & was the low qualifer in E/SA, with Rock Running a close 2nd. I ran it a couple of years with some success, but local racing changed to bracket racing...The car was capable of 11.79 @ 114."

The b&w pic is from Laplace, LA. We took our 2 Stockers to a points race at Laplace in '75. But when Wesley saw 'em, he said I'd have to get rid of the clutch fan & cover the radio holes, and then bring 'em back & he'd take a closer look. I was nearly 200 miles from home & did not have the parts or time to fix everything that needed fixin, for Wesley to pass 'em. I had no idea how picky an NHRA tech guy could be. So, we just watched, then went home. Only ran at local tracks after that. And the next year, our local tracks switched over to mostly just bracket racing.