TONY SMRTIC….The Storm King SAGA

[dinoKeymaster]

sure!

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[storm-king-2]

This has to be one of the first times out with the car. That’s my partner Richie Walsh under the car adjusting the wheelie bars. We had aluminum discs screwed to the wheels, with the screws that kept the wheels from spinning inside the tires. The idea was to reduce the drag from those deep rims. NHRA made us remove them the first meet we went to. Also had the grill blocked from behind, made us take that out too.
Great to see these photo’s. I notice that there are cameras up in some of the other photo’s, so there ‘s probably some more out there.
Had a guy I worked with come to Conn Dragway to watch us run. He was really excited to see it pull the wheels, but he didn’t take a picture. He didn’t take one on the second pass either ’cause he didn’t think it would do it again, duh.
Bill

[dinoKeymaster]

Starting to ‘mesh Storm King & Black Arrow Stories. Heres what I found from 1965.Sorry Paul called it the Storm Cloud….but relates Doc winning an A/MP at Sunmmernationals and then soon hacked the wheelwheels and went match racing .This must have been a spur of the moment “Match Race” that day.What Class was the Storm King here?

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[storm-king-2]

I think I was running SS/A then. We ran Super Stock/Automatic until the Hemi’s came out in “64”. Then NHRA created AA/Stock for the max wedge cars ( also 427 Galaxies ). Just before I got drafted in Sept. of 65, we found the car was still supposed to be in SS/Auto, & run heads up against the Hemi’s. Fortunately for us, not many showed up week to week. Doc asked me to run a best 2 out of 3 with him. I don’t know if he had a no show for a match race, or it was spur of the moment. I got the spot, don’t remember how we determined how much the spot was. He caught me first round, second round I wiped the cam & slowed to 14 something.
The worst part is, my Dad & I were both working construction. If we tore the engine down we would probably miss a couple of weeks of racing. We pulled the intake off, pulled the cam & lifters, & flushed the block out with diesel fuel ( this is dumb, don’t ever do this ). The following week we ruined the crankshaft, there was still a lot of cam shavings up in the block. It’s amazing how fast a cam can lose 3 lobes & just turn it to powdered metal. Luckily it didn’t hurt the block. By the time the new crank came in I was in Basic Training down at Ft. Dix, NJ. Dad took the engine down to Gasoline Alley & had it balanced, this was the first time anyone else ever touched it. We had only added headers & gears & tires. Dad did the tranny mod to reverse patern manual shift, & welded up the plate in the distributor to change the initial timing. Everything else was just the way it came from the factory. I got home on leave from Basic just in time to deliver the car to Ray Bunora, the new owner, that lived in Newburgh, NY. Hope to have more info on that part of the story soon.
Bill

[storm-king]

Those jokers at Drag News could never get anything right about us.
In this pic, they call the car “Storm Cloud”. In another issue that is making the rounds these days, they list Bill as “Milo”.
The story behind this is that just about every guy named Bill back then was trying to call himself “Wild”; “Wild” Bill Flynn, “Wild” Bill Rubin (Northest Speed Hemi), “Wild” Bill Shrewsberry (O.K., maybe HE desrved it!). Anyway, almost as a joke, I think Mom or Dad suggested we use “MILD”, as in “MIld” Bill Smrtic; but the perceptive, always alert crew at EDN messed that up, and the joke got totally lost in translation.

[bobby-s]

A Hi to the storm King racers

from Terry Kulisek,

he was at my suprise retirement party my
bosses at work (PNW BOCES)had for me friday,

I told him I would put a HI to ya’s from him
on the forum,,

Bobby S.

[storm-king]

Cool! Say hi back!
I can’t believe this post has been on this thread for so long and I’ve not noticed it!
Been very busy.

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