Just doing some research and wondered if there’s anyone out there who has information on the John Demmer’s early racing exploits.

Driven by Tom “Blake” Blankenship, who was an Olds engineer…John Demmer fielded some early class racers from (at least 64-66).
They seemed to be a bit of a back door for some early Olds speed parts in need of testing.
The article is a very cool read if you’re into this kinda thing.

If anyone has any pics, or links to info- I’d love to find out more.
Thank you!

 

I wonder what size wheels he was running, 17 inch?

 

 

Very cool. I vaguely remember reading that mag when I was 15 years old! Cars was a popular mag back in the day.

 

I believe I saw this car referenced on a…Studebaker maybe website claiming they were 15”?

 

Hairy Olds! That is an amazing picture that I’ve never see before! ThNk you!

 

I was kinda surprised to see this.

 

The 350 HP would indicate the car was a 4 barrel unit to start with. With the tri carb availability begining in Dec of 65 I would assume the car was raced early in it's life as a 4 barrel unit.. Any info on that Paul?

 

Thank you for sharing. Its interesting to see what was tried back then and what has proven to work and is used now.

 

Read page 73, bottom of column 1 and top of column 2. 14's and 15's.

 

In the article, he describes 150-170 as "hot" and icing down the intake manifold. My experience has been to keep the engine temp at 160 or above between rounds. I wanted the temp to be at 180 when I was in the staging lights and ready to go. I think what was actually happening was that he lost .2 to .4 if it got too cold. A cold engine will "stumble".
.....Just my two cents.

 

I missed there was a full article to be read. They sure look tall to me, especially for a drag car, maybe it is just the tall stance all around that made me think that...

 

My high school buddy's Dad worked at Demmer in Lansing as a machinist. Later after he graduated buddy also worked at Demmer. This was in '74-75, so after the Olds race cars and the Hurst Olds deals of 68-69. I remember him talking about all the Oldsmobile connections. I think Dad knew Blankenship. I think Demmer Engineering is still there in same location at the entrance of the Capitol City Airport. What great memories- thanks for posting!!

 

One of the reasons for running a very tall front tire is that it blocks more of the staging beams.
It essentially gives you a running start as the beams will be blocked a touch longer as the car starts to move.

 

Thanks for the info.

 

Yes I understand, but on the rear as well? It was just my error in perception thinking they were taller than they were.

 

Fronts were 7.60 by 15 and rears 9.00 by 15. There are 3 or 4 spacer blocks in the front springs.

 

Probably just playing with the gear ratio...bigger contact patch as well.
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Taller tires on the front block the starting line beams longer to give you more "roll out" without red lighting. The 7.60 X 15 tires mounted on 4" wide wheels running 40 PSI reduced rolling resistance. The taller rear tires on the rear gave a bigger contact patch between tire and track surface which helped traction. .
Taller tires along with different springs raised the car body higher which changed the center of gravity and made it easier for weight transfer from from to rear to increase traction when the clutch was dumped. "Back in the day" you were limited to 7" wide tread on rear tires for stock classes. Many serious racers carried a "bondo rasp" for shaving the corner of the tread to under 7".

From the article, I noticed he tried steel bushings in place of the rubber in the control arms. Some people used greased brass bushings.
I saw someone try two shocks on the right rear of the axle. Most used "Air Lift" air bags with a separate hose for each side. Air pressure in the right air bag was always higher than the left. The tire pressure spread from right to left varied from team to team. I used 5 to 7 PSI on my cars. The better the traction, the higher both bags were pumped up.

I also noticed that he changed gears and tires (diameter) to suit track conditions. Berejik Olds used several different weight flywheels to compensate for different tracks. They had a light aluminum, to a heavy 40 pounder and a couple in between. I assume they put in the flywheel that worked best for the tracks they were going to that week end.

It was kinda important to have the car sit lever to keep from having carb float levels thrown off. Nose in the air or rear higher would affect carburetor float levels.
.....Just my two cents worth.

 

Thnaks for the technical info, much of it was new to me. Now to consider all the additional things racers are able to (have to) be concerned over because of electronics now like air fuel ratio for different weather conditions etc it is ridiculous for anyone to make the claim that drag racing is a "hillbilly" backwoods sport. There is so much physics involved racers actually must have a good command of mathmatics.

 

Another trick class racers used was slightly different wheelbase from one side to the other. With one tire slightly further ahead than the other it also increased rollout.

Im not sure how it was done, maybe custom machined spindle? I’m also guessing that would create some funny handling with the tires turning in different arcs. Probably not much of a concern with a strictly straight line car.

 

I heard those stories of one front wheel ahead of the other, but never saw it. A tape measure would easily find a difference of one inch from side to side. Remember, wheelbase length is a published number.
I used to line up slightly at an angle before "staging", then ease ahead until I was "staged". You can get into the argument about driving a slightly longer distance down the track vs. the slight amount of extra "roll out".

One notable story I heard was '56 Chevy out of Illinois, that held the national record for several years. No one could run as quick as he did. The tech inspectors checked wheel base and any other numbers they could. They knew he was cheating but just couldn't figure out how. Some years later, it came out that he had set the body, engine and transmission back exactly 1 inch.

 

Great thread

 

while I’m not a NASCAR fanatic, I do enjoy reading about or watching videos on some of the things they did to gain a little advantage. Smokey yunick was definitely pretty creative and innovative.


I’m not all that familiar with Nova or Fbodys, but I recall reading somewhere there was a factory engine mount combination that could be used to position the engine a little further back on the chassis, helping weight transfer.

Or a coil spring that provided s little more front end lift at the start of a race, different bushings in the control arms to help deflection under load, all kinds of little tricks.

 

Smokey was one of several "innovative" people. Junior Johnson and several others contributed. I believe it was Smokey that said, "it ain't cheatin' unless you get caught". Bill Jenkins and several others were innovators in drag racing. Sometimes the engine innovations were able to be used between NASCAR and drag racing.
There was the old story about tech inspectors checking bore and stroke only on number 1 cylinder..........someone inadvertently discovered #3 was way over sized. A further inspection revealed that #2,3,4,5,6,7, and 8 were over the bore limits. I know thats the reason the NHRA tech inspector chose which head was pulled and what cylinder was measured. Those were the good days when you have Ford, Mercury, Pontiac, Oldsmobile, Dodge, Plymouth and Chevrolet competing.

From Oldsmobile: