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I drove it everywhere.We’d all pile
into it to drive down to Ocean City
Maryland, a 150-mile round trip, just
to get saltwater taffy and fried
chicken. I drove to the mountains to
travel down Skyline Drive to see the
trees, mountains and vistas. A local
guy named Jimmy Caldwell had a
1967 Mustang fastback with a 289
that he had done a lot of work on, and
he always told everyone how much
faster his was than my car. After hear-
ing his bragging, I did the only thing I
could do: I challenged him to a race.
Things were a little looser back
then. You could get away with a lot of
things and street racing was one of
them. So off we went to the local road
affectionately known as “Triton Beach
Drag-A-Way,” a mile-long, three-lane
road. It wasn’t perfectly straight, but I
had “tuned and tested” enough on it to
know its limits – and mine.
Caldwell had only one arm so he
let loud-mouthed Billy drive it. This
was a serious street race with $100
being wagered – about what I was
earning in a week. But the gauntlet
had been thrown down and pride was
on the line. I couldn’t let the Shelby be
shown up. It was like the TV show
“Street Outlaws,” where almost a hun-
dred people showed up to watch the
race. We both handed the money to a
really big guy to hold and lined up on
the street at the 50mph sign. It served
as the starting line. Somebody had
measured it off and the finish line was
where the road made a slight jog to
the right and dipped down. It was
marked with a white line.
We lined up, both cars were
staged, the flagman looked at each of
us and then, in a blur, he waved us off.
I got a little jump on him but he had a
4.62 rear end and was really winding
up fast. All of a sudden a pair of head-
lights appeared down the road. A car
was coming towards us and common
sense took over. I backed off. Cald-
well’s friends were saying I lost and
my friends were saying it was not a
race. Cooler heads finally prevailed
and it was decide that unless the race
was legit, no one could claim the
money – and the bragging rights. So
we lined up again and were flagged off
again. I got the jump on him again,
and even though he was coming on
quickly, I crossed the finish line a car-
length ahead of him. Mayhem then en-
sued. Side bets had been made and
money was changing hands faster
than at a cockfight in Tijuana.
Later that summer I took the car
to a legitimate track and guess who
was there? That’s right, Jimmy Cald-
well and his driver, Billy. They were
loaded for bear: they had open head-
ers, a narrow set of slicks and they
wanted revenge. I had made several
runs just to see what the car could do
and it was running consistent 15.1-
15.2 elapsed times at about 91-93
mph. I moved through the staging
lanes and who should appear beside
me but that dreaded red ‘67 Mustang.
Little did I know that my friend Dave
was up in the stands sitting next to
Jimmy Caldwell. He asked Dave if he
wanted to bet on a rematch and Dave
said, “
No I don’t want to take your
money again
.”
Billy tended to be a bit of a hot
head and would let his emotions take
over at times, and this was one of
them. We pulled up to the line and I
dropped the car into gear. I held my
foot on the brake and very slightly in-
creased the idle to about 1,000 rpm.
Meanwhile the Mustang was in low
gear and was being torqued up as high
as the convertor stall speed would
allow. The lights flashed down and I
left on the last yellow. I jumped out
several car-lengths, not knowing the
Mustang was just sitting there, spin-
ning the rear tire through that 4.62
open rear. It finally hooked up and
started the run of revenge. Billy
twisted the engine too hard in first
gear and ran it to the red line, floating
the valves. He then slipped it into 2nd
gear and gave chase. By this time I
was ahead about ten car-lengths. Up
in the stands, Dave said he could hear
Jimmy cussing under his breath at
Billy, saying, “
Shift, damn it!
” But it
was too late. I had time and momen-
tum on my side when I hit the first
light and could now hear his car
screaming beside me. I crossed the fin-
ish line ahead of him by about half a
car-length. He passed me in the sec-
ond mph light and he had turned his
best time – 13.98. I had turned my
worst time – 15.31. He was so mad I
thought he would pass out. I had
jumped him off the line by more than
a second and a half. The Shelby had
proven itself a winner – again.
I let all kinds of people drive the
car – probably had more drivers than
when Hertz rented it. The next year I
was ready: Bonneville here I come.
The day before I was going to leave the
headers rusted through at the edge of
the collector where the Tri-Y’s came
together. Jimmy Wilson owned a weld-
ing shop and I drove over to there and
he quickly patched them up for the
trip. I had asked my friend Dave if he
wanted to go, but he said he didn’t
have any money so I headed off alone,
leaving on a Friday after work and
heading west. Little did I know that
minutes after I left, Dave’s father had
offered him the money to go. He
jumped in his car and tried to track
me down. He went north before head-
ing west, but I had taken a more
southern route and he returned disap-
pointed after trying for an hour to
catch me.
I called home from a pay phone
that Saturday evening and my mother
told me to call Dave. He told me his fa-
ther would fly him out to catch up with
me and we could continue to Bon-
neville together, so we decided to meet
Sunday at the Salt Lake City airport.
At the time of the phone call I was in
Kansas, near the center of the state, so
I got up that Sunday and drove like a
madman to get to Salt Lake City.
Across the flat plains of Kansas into
eastern Colorado, the flat land seemed
to run on forever, all the time driving
between 5500 and 6000 rpm, near the
car’s top speed, an indicated 125 mph
or so. About every fifteen minutes I
would have to slow down to around 90
mph to let the car cool down as it was
running hot above 115 mph.
I turned north at Denver, cutting
up over Route 287 into Laramie and
across the expanse of the miles and
miles of miles of miles known as
Wyoming and then down into Salt
Lake City. I made it to the airport just
as Dave was coming out of the build-
The SHELBY AMERICAN
Summer 2016 72