New England Dragway
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Greg Reimer
Well Known Member
Q. What was the difference between Grumpy's cigars and Dick Landy's?
A. Grumpy lit his.
A. Grumpy lit his.
Greg Reimer
Well Known Member
One of the biggest surprises of my life came about 20 years ago at the Winternationals here in Pomona. I had a 66 Bel Air 2 door with a 283 and a glide running in Stock Eliminator. it had a little bitty converter and a 6.14 gear, so not much mile per hour, and Mitch Akers came up to go for the day with me. I had a valve cover off, and we were checking some stuff and were fairly well absorbed in what we were doing, when I became aware of two spectators that had walked up behind us. One was tall, one was short, neither said a thing. When I turned around, who was it but Doug Marion, our long time Super Chevy buddy, and Bill Jenkins. We just about didn't know how to act. We shook hands with a real legend that day, Jenkins was an absolute genius. We talked for a few minutes, they left to socialize further, and Doug later asked us what we thought of that surprise encounter. I told him that that was the biggest surprise I never thought could ever happen. He blew us away pretty well, that's for sure. It occurred to us that between Doug Marion,Bill Jenkins, Mitch Akers and myself, we probably had 100 years of 409 experience standing there. I guess its still fun keeping fast company, but that one took the cake!
My father in law grew up in Pennsylvania not far from grumpys shop.He had a dual quad corvette that he raced and said it was 300 dollars to have Jenkins tune your engine.He would say 300 was a lot of money back in the 60’s but by the sound you always could tell the motors he tuned
He also said he was a genius and always the smartest man in the room.
He also said he was a genius and always the smartest man in the room.
Greg Reimer
Well Known Member
Definitely. An absolute genius. There really aren't that many of them. He was one of them.
Cool story
If you take into account everything that is involved in a full blown power tune such as valve adjustment,carb calibration,distributor recurve, timing adjustment in addition to the traditional plugs, points and condenser,cap and rotor, it puts it a little more into perspective and then take into account that he was probably one of the best at it, which also justifies charging more.
Greg Reimer
Well Known Member
Mentioning Mitch, last weekend was the Moon Eyes Reunion and New Years Party at Irwindale Raceway, with lots of nostalgia race cars being run, and Mitch showed up with a nice '63 Dodge 2 door with a 426 Hemi crate engine in it. We had a great day long visit. Dodge looked and ran good except it made a sudden noise in the rear end like a ring gear tooth broke. It has a Dana 60 so gears won't be too hard to find.He's retired too, and doing fine.Nice to see him again!
