Hey, here at the Hot Rod reunion you never know what you're going to find, we came across
this car, a 51 Henry J and I got to talking to this gentle man, and had an interesting
story, he just finished this car in time to bring it here and that was the intent.
So people are thrashing to get there cars done to come to the Hot Rod reunion and first
off give me your name and give me the story behind the nickname of the car too.
My name is Rich I'm from Florida and it's named after my grand son, he's bad Nicky.
Now the saying on the back of the car, says don't push me woman, and evidently bad Nicky
said that when he was 4 years old to, his mom I take it.
She was strapping him into a car and she said "hurry up Nicky we're going to be late" and
he said "don't push me woman".
Well I've got a feeling one of these days bad Nicky is going to want to drive this beast
and we're nearing getting it on the track here.
We're almost there, we've got a few more options to put on it and then we'll take it and shake
it down and test it out and then we'll go do a little nostalgia racing with it.
Good deal, continue to have fun and say hi to bad Nicky for me.
Will do, thank you very much.
Thanks for bringing it out.
Hey we're back, and we had other factory race teams from other makes in the past but this
year we've got the original Ford race team and I'm here with Dick Brannan, he is the
original guy that got the Ford racing team going around 62' right?
Yeah in 1962, May 1962 yes.
He's from South Bend Indiana and a quick story to get you to feed off here is he went off
to Detroit one night and wound up beating about 60 other superstock race cars with a
Ford and the track protested him because they said no Ford's have won here yet and it's
just Chevy's with some Ford engineers and Mopars, some Ford engineers were there at
the race and they said we need to hire this cat.
That's exactly right, I was back home after that event, they tore my car down, declared
it legal, I got back into South Bend and I was back, I guess 3 or 4 days when I received
a call from Dave Evans in the special vehicles department at Ford and it kind of grew from
there, they had me up for several interviews, offered me a job, checked my background, I
had a engineering background so they checked all that and decided that I would be somebody
that they would want to work there and as soon as I started, I selected a couple of
other guys that I had been working with that were really helpful to me at least 6-8 moths
before that, Gas Ronda and Les Richey, I think everyone knows who they are today we have
one of Gas Ronda's cars here, his 65' Mustang and Gas himself is here signing autographs.
How many guys are here signing autographs today and what does it mean to have all your
guys back together?
Well we don't have all of them because some of them have passed away, but we have enough
here that it makes an exciting show for Holley because, you know Holley is a big name in
Ford and I worked a lot with Holley engineers in developing some of the engines we developed,
so it means a lot to me to have these guys that are left that are willing to come, were
willing to come and take part in this show, this is a nice event.
You know it's a one of a kind deal here and I hate to keep bragging on our own event but
you're not going to come to many other events in the country and find guys like you that
can get together and bring out the original Ford race team, how many cars we got here
today from the original group?
We have about 12 cars total here, some of them are original, some are tribute, were
built in tribute to some of the guys on the team.
Well we certainly appreciate you guys coming out and spending time, there's a long line
over there in the autograph line and there's always something going on here at the reunion
each year like this that you know, unique guys, special guys that were a special part
of building the motor sports and drag racing history, and I just want to come over and
say thanks and capture a little bit of this on tape and I know Ford and Holley like you
said were a great relationship and I'd say Holley powered most of the important powerful
Fords over the years.
They really have and I want to thank Holley and you as well, so appreciate you guys and
what you've done.
We do appreciate it and make sure your here next year to catch guys like this in action.
Thanks a lot.
Well hey, we've been out wondering around the pits here at the Hot Rod reunion and I
found a guy that's one of our honorees this year and he's a crew chief, past crew chief
right, 5 decades for the one and only.
Over 40 years.
Over 40 years for the one and only Don Garlits right.
Right.
Give me a good story about Mr. Garlits there and I'll get out of your way.
Well just look around you, here's the story, after all these years he's still here, got
this car and his wife was sick and she couldn't come so he drove the whole rig, the truck
and the trailer with his dog and brought it up here because he told them he would be here
with his car.
He stuck to his word.
And he's here.
Well we wish his wife all the best and really appreciate him coming and appreciate you being
here, your an icon yourself and getting these old cars to go down the track back in the
day was a little different.
Yeah it was a lot simpler, we didn't have the parts but it was a lot cheaper.
Well you probably had to have more ingenuity.
Well a lot of the stuff was home made, but right now the problem they're having right
now is cars are so expensive and complex and everything they can't fill up a 16 car field
and almost every race we ran was at least a 32 car field.
It was a feat to get in back then wasn't it.
Yes you always really had to run good to qualify.
well we appreciate you being here and doing what you've done for our industry and this
sport and glad to see you.
Well thank you very much.