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The SHELBY AMERICAN
About 450 people filled the portion
of the Kahalari’s main ballroom that
wasn’t taken up by cars. It was like
having dinner in a dealer’s showroom.
After the dessert Master of Cere-
monies Ron Richards began the pro-
gram by thanking everyone who had a
part in making the convention hap-
pen. It was a long list because it takes
a lot of volunteers to insure a success-
ful convention.
One of our guest speakers was
Marv Neely. In 1966 he was hired by
Ford and one of his first assignments
was to find buyers for the Hertz cars
that were taken out of rental service
in the northeast. He described finding
a lot full of cars in various condition,
some with flat tires. It was not a scene
anyone who currently owns a Hertz
car could easily imagine. And it was
part of the history of these cars that
not many people were aware of.
The convention perfect attendance
award of Apple watches were pre-
sented to Jeff Burgy and Ken Young.
The story is related on the previous
page. One of our guest speakers, Oscar
Koveleski, had to leave unexpectedly
when his wife became ill. This was a
disappointment because Oscar is a
very entertaining speaker who, at 82
years old, has enough experiences and
stories to fill a book. In fact, it’s a won-
der such a book has not been written.
Koveleski, who lives in Scranton,
Pennsylvania, began racing sports
cars in the 1950s. He co-drove with an-
other Pennsylvanian, Hal Keck, at the
Waktins Glen 500 in 1965 in Keck’s
427 Cobra, CSX3008. They finished
first. Koveleski also purchased a
Cobra Daytona Coupe when Shelby
was selling them off in 1966. He kept
it for three weeks before selling it, con-
vinced it would be a white elephant
and its value would drop like a stone.
He entered the 1972 Cannonball New
York-to-Redondo Beach “race” in a
Chevy van outfitted with six 55-gal.
drums of fuel. The entry was spon-
sored by the Polish Racing Drivers As-
sociation, of which Koleleski was
president. The plan was to eliminate
fuel stops by driving straight through.
They finished second after miscalcu-
lating their mileage and had to stop
for gas in California. These are just
some of the stories we missed hearing.
Koveleski had brought a brand
new slot car set-up (one of the first two
made) that he had just produced. He
was also, by the way, the guy who
started Auto World, a mail order, and
later on line, business dedicated to
scale models of all kinds, slot cars and
radio-controlled kits. We were happy
to present the kit to SAAC member
Tim Kilinski of Smithfield, Virginia,
who had just arrived at SAAC-40 after
driving his ‘66 GT350 out to Los Ange-
les, the NorCal Mini-Nats in Sonoma
and then to the GT350 50th Anniver-
sary in Monterey: over 7,300 miles.
280 Fall 2015