My early Corvette drag-racing daysMy first racing Corvette was not the L88 you see in this issue or even the Grand Sport; it was a simple, blue '60 Corvette with white coving I picked up while working at the Chevrolet dealership in Tampa in the early '60s. The car was turned in after the original owner, Dick Hamilton, a racer, damaged the front end. It needed a front valance and some other fiberglass repairs, which I completed with little effort. As a result, I had my first Corvette.
While Dick Hamilton was a circle track racer and car owner, I liked drag racing and ran the Corvette as much as I could, especially at Tampa Dragway. The engine had dual four-barrel carburetors, which made it different from the '59 Corvettes that were sponsored by our dealership. Those cars ran the fuel-injected engines and had the rare big-brake option. I spent a lot of time making those fuelies run hard, and our team had some great racing successes.
The '60 Corvette I ran was a low-dollar effort. I ran Yukon butyl-rubber, bias-ply tires to comply with the stock class rules; the more worn-out, the better. I went through a lot of those tires, and was fairly successful in getting the car to run up to 100 mph in the quarter-mile. I jetted up the stock carburetors as high as I could, but they still had a tendency to run out of fuel at the top end, especially with the 4.88:1 gears I was running. I learned to turn the sediment bowls upside down, which increased fuel flow and helped me hit the best performance numbers in the quarter-mile. I spent a lot of time working on the suspension, within the rules, and developed a traction bar that helped control wheelhop on those straight-axle cars. With any drag car, the key is getting the traction to the ground, and it took a lot to get that 283ci engine to put the power to the pavement.
At the same time I was running the Corvette, I was working on and driving my Top Fuel car, "Rat Trap." While I never ran the two cars at the same race, I enjoyed both and had plenty of fun. I sold the '60 Corvette when I went into the service, and the car remains with that owner in my hometown in Florida. Although the current owner didn't race it much, I know he had a good time with it.
My '67 L88 (in this issue) is a great car and I've always known the brute force of that engine and car combination. I was reminded of that recently when I raced a C5 Corvette. The challenge was to see how fast the old L88 was against the new-technology C5. The result? In a Second and Third-gear-only race, the brute torque of the old Corvette made it the winner. As with any competition, having tons of power is only half the battle; getting the tires to hook up is another. While the L88 isn't considered the best drag car, it is a great performance machine that's able to run hard when necessary. There will never be another L88 Corvette.
Drag-racing Corvettes was a great time in my life. The little blue-and-white '60 was fun, and I learned a lot about Corvettes, engines, and how to make them go fast. That car will always hold a special place in my memory.