Two Engines And No Chance: The Indy 500s Most Incredible Home Built Entry

As we all know, the 1960s were a wild era for experimentation, innovation and auto racing, and no place captured this spirit more enthusiastically than the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. The mid-1960s saw some of the wildest creations ever attempting the difficult task of making their way into the world. 33 fields of cars that have defined the Indianapolis 500 for nearly a century. This is the story of one such car conceived by a racing legend whose driving days had passed, but his burning desire to compete in the N500 if not. It's a story of friendship ideas from a tougher Sho leather racer and what could well be the last truly

home

garage-

built

engineering exercise in the long and storied history of that race.

The main actor in this saga is a guy named Al Stein. The late 1920s and early 1930s saw the creation. and the explosion and popularity of small car racing that screamed around short 1-mile ovals in California became an attraction for drivers seeking speed and thrills, as well as spectators who loved the cheap tickets and the action. In 1933 Alstein of Oakland California participated in The first truly organized race in California. Stein was a bright young man and a talented manufacturer, it did not take long to add Champion to that list of accolades and he also dominated the competition in the Association events.

Short track automobile racing in California, racking up titles in 1935. 36 and 1937 his name was constantly in the newspapers and his winds attracted enough attention that he began building not only his own cars, but also machines for competitors who also wanted run at the front of the pack. His career continued for years, but by this time in the late 1940s, Stein had grown up, married, and, after seeing many friends maimed and even killed in the racing game, abandoned his seat to pursue more pursuits. calm. It is worth mentioning that his wife Patricia had also bred cars and she herself was a promotional attraction for track owners, these owners organized Powderpuff style races for female competitors and Patricia's name was in some ways as big as owls when the race arrived.

Second World War. Stein's skills as a machinist, tool and die maker, and fabricator saw him work in those capacities in a shipyard building and repairing the ships that would help the Allies win the war after the war. Stein opened a small tool and die shop and continued building cars for any customer who walked through the door and wanted one, the business was successful enough. who hired a young man named Joe Huffaker to help on the manufacturing side, took this kid under his wing and taught him the finer points of welding and fabulous work as he saw them now, this is a big name, an important fact to remember, Indianapolis. 500 was the ultimate goal for anyone in this time period who had raced in circles,

built

cars, or idolized the brave drivers who attacked the legendary Speedway each and every May.

Alstein was not absolved of this, he harbored these thoughts and ideas for a long, long time. Over the years, he laid out plans for several cars that he thought could compete and win at that high level. The other thing that Alstein did very smart was save money year after year. This is where Stein's friend and brilliant engineer named Jay lives. itel goes into history they had run together for years in the ranks they both lived in the Oakland area and were very close friends itel has an interesting place in American history he is the guy who invented the quote cherrypicker or like a lot of people We call it today a bucket truck.

We know them as the vehicles we see every day working on power and telephone lines around the world, but back then the initial cause for Tell's design was, as its nickname suggests, that it had to Picking cherries on his family's farm and was annoyed by how often he had to move his ladder because of this, he invented a platform that would be self-propelled and operated by simple hand controls and could raise the man to any height he wanted to do any job. that I needed. He invented it in 1944 and the business grew slowly, but in 1954 he struck gold, the Bell Telephone Company commissioned him to build a series of these trucks for their line workers and soon after many other companies in many other fields of business followed his example.

He was suddenly a wealthy man who spent a lot of time traveling around the country promoting and growing his business. He may have been bouncing around the country a lot, but he took an annual period to mix business and pleasure, which was an annual extended stay in Indianapolis each May, for trial qualifying in the IND 500 race, as it happened. that Allison Transmission, which is based in Indianapolis, was one of his suppliers for the truck chassis he purchased to build the Cherry Pickers, so Allison always took care of it. With excellent access and all the passes he wanted or needed based on his own recorded memories, he was telling Stein how fantastic his experiences at the track had been around 1964, prompting Stein to ask to accompany him on the next trip.

Itel made it possible. and stein found himself in pig heaven the two men had full access to the garages the drivers all the shooting on the way

home

after that trip alstein silently made some commitment to himself he was going to build an independent car now before continue we have To talk about the Indie 500 machines at this point in history, for starters, the rear-engine takeover of the track was in full swing. Cars with their

engines

behind them, drivers began to appear in the early 1960s with characters such as Mickey Thompson and others. but it wouldn't be until 1965 that one would win, you can argue they should have won in 63 and they should have won in 64, but when Jim Clark took the checkered flag and 1965 the headlines were definitive, the dinosaurs like the traditional independent roadsters. those referred to were dead there was a problem with this logic; in some ways they weren't sure in a technological and competitive sense whether they could have been, but the fact is that roadsters had been so popular for so long that there were still tons of them running around to make up for the technological gap they had with cars. more modern rear-engined models, there was a common strategy among Roadster owners and drivers.

Houser-powered cars,

most

ly common, began to appear with turbochargers, root blowers, and, in one case, a shaft turbine engine. replaced a piston engine entirely, more on that car shortly, but even with the horsepower that later cost them in fuel consumption and reliability, the roadsters were no match for their more modern adversaries, knowing that Stein was not he was planning a roadster instead of his The concept would be based on a rumor he and iel had heard that year on Indie while walking through garages. The rumor was that the

engines

would be limited to 180 cubics on display, but this never happened. iel he had mentioned to Stein that if so.

If it happened, engines would be a rare commodity. Things on the track at the time were not equipped to drastically reduce their size from 255 or 270 cubic to 180. This rumor was based on F1 rules at the time which allowed a 3. l displacement engine officials were rumored to have They wanted to attract more European teams to the Indy500. The final seed of thought planted by Itel was the fact that he knew Porsche had a small 1.5 four-cylinder that made good power, they were virtually indestructible and two of them would produce exactly 180 cubic inches or 3 liters, this was all Stein needed to hear to tell it.

He was surprised the next time he saw him, a few weeks or maybe even a couple of months later, Stein had informed him that he was working on ordering three engines. from Porsche, but instead of the four-cylinder, he was trying to get the 6-cylinder 911 engines that had just been introduced after being rejected outright by Porsche. He went to a dealership and purchased three factory new air cooled Flat 6 engines before purchasing these. Steiner engines consulted with the Lukes and Shoran workshop. Now that this was a German auto repair and racing shop in California that were leaders in their time when it came to Porsche performance, the men in the shop implored him to use the four-cylinder engines that were commodities and virtually indestructible attracted by the greater number of cylinders and the novelty of the Flat 6 Stein ignored that advice when the engines arrived they went directly to the Lukes and Sherman workshop, which was Lo's local to Stein's own workshop in California. sent there for rotten upgrades upon arrival, more compression up to 11 1/2 to 1, the cylinders were boarded for greater displacement and all engines were overhauled from top to bottom, these flat sixes displaced a mere 2L a piece and were He projected that with methanol and some Nitro they would make around 200 to 210 horsepower, this would be enough for the car to qualify for the Indianapolis 500, the car itself was another story, remember that kid Stein had working on his workshop years ago.

His name was Joe Haaker and Joe had graduated from that position to evolve into one of the country's great racing minds. He could and did build anything over a career that spanned decades and none of it was boring at the time. Huffaker was heading BMC's competition division for Kajel Cavala, who had masterminded the idea of ​​importing the BMC brands from England to the United States. Huffaker would become an incredibly decorated racing engineer, a car builder, an innovator. and more, but at this time he was being called to do a favor for an old friend and Mentor Huffaker agreed to build the car, but it wouldn't be his first priority since he built Stein's car.

He was also completing the construction of the special mg liquid suspensions for the Indie 500 and because Those were real work projects and got first priority. Huffaker built the chassis to Stein's design and well, he didn't fully understand the concept. He did produce a nice product made apparently from miles of chrome tubing and incorporated the two motors and trans axles. It was a strange looking piece, but it was built to exacting standards. Apparently he didn't really like looking at it either because as soon as it was finished, Stein had to pick it up and build the car in his garage, a talented team.

Friends were gathered to serve as the actual racing team, along with it came crew chief SKS Jones who was another champion of the time, Byron feldhacker Bert trody Ken crra Tom Manning and Hines hamster to serve as chief mechanic made up the rest of the team. The crew now certainly had some challenges to solve in this twin-engine four-wheel drive car, things like connecting the engines to a single oil tank, making a single shifter operate two transmissions, configuring the hydraulic throttle to work correctly on both engines at the same time. At the same time and the general tasks that come with assembling a unique race car that no one else on the planet had ever conceived, there was no assembly manual for this thing and certainly no instruction booklet to help either the group of friends or the volunteers.

He worked nights and weekends while Stein devoted all of his waking hours to this car and its completion. He had spoken to Al Stein about his concerns regarding the weight of the car before leaving for another business trip and he suggested they use a gearbox and tie both engines together. When he returned, he was a little dismayed to find double of everything in the car. car, I knew it would be heavy and I would soon find out just how heavy it was now, in the winter of early 1966 and while I was behind. In the scenes where the thrash was delayed, the world got a hint of something they didn't really know was coming.

Arizona Daily Star headline March 15, 1966 Bill Cheeseburg enters Brian 500 Miler Phoenix Associated Press Bill Cheeseburg of Tucson, a veteran of seven Indianapolis 500 races is among the recent entries in the second annual Jimmy Bryan race in Phoenix 150 miles will be run on March 20 at the Phoenix International Raceway, the 30-year-old cheeseburger will drive a twin-engine Porsche with four-wheel drive, one motor drives the front wheels and the other, Cheeseburg's best rear result in the Indie 500 was in 1958, when he placed tenth entering the race with Cheeseburg, were Carl Williams, Larry Dixon, John Hollinsworth and Gary Conden. The brief description of the car may have received a couple of second glances. but the headline referred toless to the car and more to the driver, the pick bill hand-selected by alin cheeseburg cheeseburg was an Arizona native who as a young man won a famous Soapbox Derby which in turn led him to one of the

most

important during his careers in the United States .

Racing just wasn't one of the most decorated, nicknamed cheese, he was the kind of journeyman driver who defined the world of American racing in the 1950s and 1960s, winning and rising through the ranks in jalopy and midget, graduating to cars stock and even more. powerful machines and finally began appearing at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in 1956 every year from 1956 to 1968. Cheeseburg tried to run the Indianapolis 500 and most of the time he didn't and when he did, it was usually not at the level superior. Aside from a couple of occasions that indicated he was not without brilliant moments on the track, in 1957 he qualified 23rd in the 33c car field and set a record that still stands today by passing 17 cars in the first lap of the race more often than Not Cheeseburg would arrive at the track without a dedicated assignment or with multiple cars to drive and attempt to qualify on nine occasions.

He drove more than one car in qualifying, according to records, as he tried to make his way. 1962 was his most prolific year driving an Andy. Granatelli Novi, a rear-engine car by Mickey Thompson, a turbine car by John Zinc and a machine by Pierre Devil which, along with the car with which the M&W Racing Roadster qualified, started that year in 20th place and he finished 27th in 1961. He had his best car in the form of Al. In Deen's Dean Van Line special, he started ninth and finished 28th that year. He also turned laps in the zinc track burner turbine car John, one of the first of its kind on the track, that car did not qualify or his best finish came in 1958 driving the famously temperamental Novi or he finished tenth, so, Why was Cheeseburg chosen to drive this car?

In my opinion, he was chosen due to the fact that he had a lot of experience responsibly driving extravagant and different cars around the track. He may not have been the fastest, but he was reliable and people trusted him with their equipment. Cheeseburg had a very solid reputation. He did not crash in the Indianapolis 500. He didn't even take unnecessary risks in qualifying, even if it meant missing the field, as we will see in 1966, he was never afraid to jump into the seat of a long shot or even multiples to try to make it work as best as possible.

It was nowhere near ready for the Phoenix race announced by the newspaper, but it was ready for some headlines here is an Associated Press story that ran nationally officially announcing the car's existence on April 6, 1966 title automobile twin-engine dream come true orrenda California Al Stein has put together a car that will be the first twin-engine car to participate in the Indianapolis 500 m in 20 years. Stein has doodled and dreamed for 15 years about participating in and winning the Memorial Day classic. Half of that dream comes true on Sunday when he presents a $1,300

entry

fee for that very day. The day he plans to take his $30,000 race car out of the family garage for his first test.

Laiol entered a Houser twin engine in 1946. He was the second fastest qualifier and was running second in the race when a crankshaft and engine broke. froze sending him into the wall on lap 17 caption in the garage Stein, 55, does his work in a workshop in the back of his Suburban garage but the resemblance to a home hobbyist ends up fueled by his vision of victory in Indianapolis Stein saved his money to retire from his tool making job 10 years early, almost every spare penny and every extra minute has gone into pricing this car for 15 years. "I've been dreaming about it and making designs," said Stein's quote.

I have designed everything. Myself, the design was approved, the chassis and running gear built by Joe Huffaker, who runs a competitive auto racing manufacturing plant for San Francisco. Athlete Kelli Cavali Stein took it home and installed the engines and transmissions in his garage and did the metal and machine work himself. Stein had the body built elsewhere. Cheeseburg driver Bill Cheeseburg of Tucson, Arizona, a 38-year 6500m ERS veteran agreed to drive Stein's special ski. Jones, an engineer for an electronics company, will be the head of the eight-man team Jones and Stein met about 30 years ago, when they both participated in auto races.

The car is powered by two upgraded Porsche 911 6-cylinder engines that deliver around 215 horsepower each and are capable of turning 9,000 revolutions per minute. The motors are synchronized and located in the front. and behind the driver, but what Stein hopes will take the car to victory is the four-wheel drive system that he believes will allow it to go 5 hours faster through the corners than any other

entry

that will give us 5 miles in those curves. and we'll be happy to finish the quote, Stein says in italics, he writes that he's talking about 150 mph in the curves and the speeds are over 190 down the stretch of the quote and then the national news really picked up when the list of registered for the race and people could see exactly who would enact the drama of qualifying for the Indianapolis 500 The Cooko Morning Times April 19, 1966 Title 500 Close and Changing Entries Begins by Dick Ralston This is a taste of the history that begins approximately in the middle of the event scattered among the 78 cars entered, which is the largest number since the 84 in 1953, there are 46 new and spectacular racing cars, with only 33 fastest qualifiers that will be able to start the 500 miles on December 30.

May, there will be at least 13 disgruntled owners of spectacular new race cars, to no one's surprise, Ford and Houser currently dominate the engines that power the 78 cars. Ford engines will sit in the rear of 33 of the cars. Currently Houser will have 15 non-supercharged and 13 supercharged entries trying to make it to the starting field, this represents 61 engines and will leave 17 for the individualist to work with and what group of individualists is there this year, five cars are powered by Chevrolet engines, two 16-cylinder fives had no engine at all in their blank entry, of course, one of the remaining entries has the crowd-pleasing noi. under the hood and this year it will be driven by Young Greg Weld, this leaves four cars and each of them deserves a special mention.

Porter enters a car powered by a Houser turbocharged engine. This is where the exhaust gases are used to drive the blower. Instead of using a belt or gear drive motor to spin the fan, Harry Blum is going to test a supercharged Rambler six in the driveway. This should be left as a big question mark, no one knows what to expect. Norm demler is going the turbine route with his input and this could be a sleeper, the only drawback a turbine power plant has had was the time lag between the time the throttle is opened and the engine responds , but the engineers say they have solved this problem and yes So you can expect a car that will go like hell, but Albert Stein of Arenda California gets the award for originality.

Stein has devised a car that has two engines, one with front wheels and one with rear wheels. This idea is not new to the track, remember the L fil double coach special of 1946, it was one of the fastest cars in the race that year and also had one of the worst handling characteristics; in fact, driver Paul Russo put him in front with excellent qualifying speed and then put him against the wall at the beginning of the race Stein has two Porsche engines powering his dream and Bill Cheeseburg driving it there is no doubt about Cheeseburg's ability as a driver or mechanic and there is no doubt about a Porsche engine the question will be whether it is the handling and durability of the car itself, the final quote, so consider that 79 people paid the registration fee of $1,300, which today is more than $122,000 just to try to qualify.

Of those 79, 70 cars actually showed up and accompanied the cars, 57 different drivers. He would try to qualify for the field of 33 cars, some bouncing between multiple cars, some just hoping to get a seat in one, but for Alstein his name was on the list and it was all very real now and time was running out in a very real way. . A few weeks after this story was published on the weekend of April 16-17, 1966, Cheeseburg Stein and the entire group transported their barely finished unpainted car to Vaka Valley Raceway in California. They did this to let Cheese do his thing and to see if any of his theories were proven correct about the effectiveness of his race car.

The results were very encouraging. The car reportedly reached speeds of 140 mph in V of Valley and exhibited fairly solid handling characteristics. This Oakland Tribune story published April 2, 1966 tells the story. headline Orinda Indi entry gets the final touch quote if you pass by AL Stein's house in Arenda or pass him on the street, keep it short, he's a very busy man. Stein has fulfilled a dream, the dream of designing a car with superpowers that he can compete in. In Indianapolis now he has little time in what he calls the final assembly phase to add the finishing touches before leaving for the Indie 500 on April 27. "I'm way behind," Stein said.

There is a final paint job on the body and some safety precautions to install beforehand. "We can go," he spoke from the garage of his home last night, where the hum of equipment and voices made Stein and Bill Cheeseburg barely distinguishable, the 38-year-old Tucson veteran who was named earlier this month to drive the radical Porsche. twin engine. The four-wheel drive car is due at Indie on May 1st. Cheeseburg has run seven Memorial Day 500 races since 1957 and has a best performance of 10th place in 1958. In a Novi Special, Stein's brainchild, a pair of Porsche 911 2 L Flat 6 engines is actually the first large car built by the former short track champion who held the title from 1936 to 1938, in addition to being a driver at the now defunct East Oakland mile oval, created a car with narrower tires and less wind resistance, to quote, that us provides more speed. corners cite the car is in excellent running shape, he emphasized, we had some very impressive times on Sunday at Vacaville Cheeseburg in the last tune up before leaving, he loaded the car up to 140 mph on the 1 and A3 mile track, what is its maximum speed?

I don't think I should say it honestly, but I'll tell you one thing: we won't be back by the end of the trip. Cita Stein said the car with days to spare needed to be painted before being strapped to a pallet and released by air to Indianapolis. The window and the risk of towing the thing had been closed as the machine needed to be on the track in a few days from the time it entered the paint booth, but something was stuck with Stein these days, he thought the car needed more power, the only The biggest change they could make to the engine would be a camshaft swap and since these are new engines for us, Shore performance stuff was in short supply, he sent a set of cams to modify with plans to install them on the track if necessary.

He required thrust talking about thrust when the car arrived at the airport for shipment. He was with him during the process. He noticed that the car was being weighed on its shipping platform. He asked the guy on the scale how much he weighed and the guy said 2500 lbs. Upon asking how much the paddle weighed, he received a punch of information. The paddle had been zeroed on the scale before the car was added. The car was 500 to 1,000 pounds heavier than almost anything else on the Indianapolis track. at the time they were in serious trouble, the car arrived in Indianapolis on May 8th and was an immediate curiosity in Gasoline Alley Stein was not known to any of the circuit regulars, none of the team members were known to the normal crowd and cheeseburg was the only known quantity in the entire group, the team had initial problems with the shifter linkage not wanting to keep all the transaxles in gear and to keep both engines happy at the same time, the engines were not connected directly each other off the hydraulic throttle and shifter, so getting things synchronized was a job that kept guys like Tom Manning awake for days on end.

Handling that seemed fine at Vacaville was now pretty suspect on the track and the job of fixing that fell on Jit Tell's shoulders in a recorded interview. itel said the car's initial geometry was a nightmare on the track and he spent days and over a week adjusting, disassembling and shiming the suspension to correct it when they were done, cheeseburg could run the car at full throttle around the track and never lift it and this was aImportant problem. Cheeseburg loved the way the car handled, but it didn't have enough power. The little motors were meant to rev to 9,000 RPM, but he only had the guts to push the car fast enough to turn 7500.

It was basically running at 150 M per hour at full speed and this was 15 miles per hour off the pace set by leaders like Mario Andreti at 8 miles per hour from the number 33 qualifier at the time Ronnie Duman Alstein saw one last option as he watched his funds dwindle to zero and his

chance

s of qualifying fade by the day and it wasn't even mid- month, but decided to hastily install the modified camshafts into the engine in an attempt to make more power and speed, so you may ask when. All this work is underway. What did Bill Cheeseburg do while he waited?

He began to execute his own plan B and this was P Cheeseburg while the Stein Valene special was down, he boarded the Jack Adams special plane owned by Norm Demler. What was so special about this? It was a Roadster apparently built that had an overall electric shaft turbine driving the wheels. It wasn't the first turbine car at Bonville and not even the first one driven in the Jack Adams Aircraft Special generated some of the most dubiously ridiculous headlines at This or any other Indie 500 has ever been held, but more on that in a second With the new cams installed, the car warmed up and Cheeseburg hit the track around May 16 or 17, the results were disastrous on a lap two, cam modified. the axles began to fail sending all kinds of metal into the shared oil tank the engines used and then circulating that metal through both engines killing them both at the same time the porsche engines were dead alin's dream was dead his wallet was broken and the Stein Valene special would not enter the field of the 1966 nd500 quickly turning his attention to the turbine Roadster cheeseburg was circling apparently just minutes from the failed Stein Adventure the results made headlines in a story that is so farcical that it is almost

incredible

that someone published it in Memphis press Scimitar Wednesday May 18, 1966 headline Adams entrance clocks 230 mph by Bill Eber quote if we get everything right our only problem will be which side we want to go over and that's it said Bill cheeseburg cheeseburg a veteran 20-year-old racing driver from Tucson Arizona will be behind the wheel of the special Jack Adams aircraft, the only jet-powered entrant in this year's Indianapolis 500.

Mario andred has already rocked the crowd by setting a new qualifying record of 166k per hour. Cheeseburg hopes to qualify on Saturday. If we can get all the details together by then, the first time the car, which has a general electric turbine shaft motor, hit the track for the first time yesterday and Cheeseburg said it hit 230 mph at the end of the straight. quote, how about the question mark curves we're getting that worked? He said it will just be a matter of adjusting with this, he has to slow down the throttle a little faster when entering the corners, the car can make 1250 horsepower, but for the Memorial Day race it was reduced to 900 horsepower Of course, it's a lot of horsepower, but that's not the only answer, said Cheeseburg, you have to adapt the car to the track and that's what we're trying to do.

Now the assembly job falls to Bill Henderson, the head of mechanics, who oversees a nearly continuous effort to prepare the car for the big race. Henderson's team has been working since 8:00 a.m. m. until 3:30 a.m. m. every day trying to solve problems like fumes in the cabin and excess heat coming back, we feel like we have a wonderful opportunity here this year, said Adams of Tickle Town, who is making the second effort to take the Indie 500 trophy. to Memphis last year driven by Paul Goldsmith couldn't qualify on the last day, the people from General Electric and Bell Helicopter were here checking our progress and they are pleased with it, said Adams, a used airplane dealer, we had to relocate the throttle and the brakes to better fit Cheeseburg once it is. adjusted to the cabin we look for better results the car that has a Watson Roadster chassis is not the first jet of the n500 a few years ago there was another similar car that developed 340 horsepower and cheeseburg 2 is behind the wheel of that car how do they compare ?

There is no comparison. He said one had a throttle lag. You went to the floor with it and there was a three, four, five second delay before they developed full power with this thing. You stomp on it and you have all the power. There, this sudden burst of power caused some problems that one midnight named Memphis solved when Chees B fell on the pedal, the car taking off with such forward thrust that his head hit back against the roll bar. I remembered we had a contoured headrest on a bonanza of beach boats at Twinkletown Airport near Wallace Mississippi, Adams said.

I called Jack Wall and got him out of bed at midnight on Monday. He went to Twinkl Town. He pulled the headrest out of the plane. I went to the Metropolitan airport and put him on a plane. to Indianapolis we had it in the car the next morning, it worked great. Final quote: The car was probably powerful and probably accelerated well, but claims of 230 mph on the backstretch are downright dubious; In later years people would say he was going 260 mph on the backstretch and in later years Bill Cheeseburg was still quoted as saying he was going 275 mph on the backstretch, it's a great fish story but ultimately it was a car that also had its fair share of problems.

Arizona Daily Star headline from May 22, 1966. Cheeseburg Still Has Trouble Indianapolis Bill Cheeseburg of Tucson spent the day waiting for practice sessions here to figure out how to harness the turbine power of Norm Demler's special Jack Adams airplane, that turbine engine has power to burn if we could figure out how to use it. ends "Cheeseburg commented that the Tucson driver has been under contract with the turbine team since Al Stein, owner of the twin-engine Porsche, released him last week. The Porsche is definitely out of the race due to an engine problem. Cheeseburg says his contract with Demler ended yesterday and he indicated he will look for another ride on the final day of qualifying.

There are several cars capable of entering the field today that have no drivers Roger mclusky's other independent driver Tucson qualified as a GC Murphy special. last week and spent most of the day yesterday observing that he hopes to get some practice laps in today end of the date Alstein and the guys loaded up and headed to California. I have to imagine that Stein was heartbroken, was financially ruined and had a. Quite a long line of people looking for payment, including the engine guys who had invested their time and machine work into the car, if you can believe it, this story goes crazy the year and Bill Cheeseburg gets the toughest end to anyone's trip. outside of Indianapolis, he never got a ride to qualify in the first place and stayed to watch the event he had.

He made plans to fly to Milwaukee for the next USAC race with Lloyd Ruby, his friend and racing partner. Ruby had an amazing Indianapolis 500. He qualified in the middle of the second row LED lap 65 to 75 and then 87 to 132 and then 133 to 139 and then had a horrible pit stop, lost laps, had a mechanical problem and parked early. Ruby led the most laps in the 1966 race, but had nothing to show for it on June 3. Ruby Cheeseburg and some friends boarded Ruby's plane at the small Speedway airport and prepared for the short hop to Milwaukee, took off, rose about 100 feet into the air, and quickly crashed into a cornfield.

I missed driving a GT40 for a long time that year with Ken Miles. We all know how that story ended and the passengers were also mistreated. This, of course, was a very tough end to what had been a pretty tough month for Cheeseburg on the other side of the Country Alstein remained silent for months, managing one more run with his car, although he repaired the engines and took the car to season-ending event in Phoenix, the place where he missed the first race date when he was trying to build. the car in first place Bill Cheeseburg drove one more time now some say the car qualified and ran a few laps during the race before retiring but all the records and research I have done suggests they tried to qualify the car in the field but came in summary, he didn't actually start the race in any way, it can be definitely said that this was the second and last race in the life of the Stein Valene special who returned home.

Alstein and his car disappeared into history, the car itself never existed. seen again and no one knows what happened to it now several pieces were found, like the nose that is actually hanging on the wall of a body shop in California, but the chassis, the engines, all those things disappeared and were never found. Bill Cheeseburg will continue for a long time. career in hardcore racing into the 1980s, his Indie 500 career would close in 1968, but he continued racing stock cars into the 1980s with success in Arizona and remains a legend that is talked about loudly at that time. part of the world I would live in. until he was 90 years old and despite everything he was an inveterate Roder and Craftsman, his company survives today and the product he invented is something we all see every day in our lives in one way or another.

We build some of the most

incredible

cars you've ever seen. Have you ever seen it in your life, but my personal favorite, yeah, that's his Corv. This is a car he bought new. He kept it basically his entire life and one day he decided he wanted to take a Hot Rod with a Jaguar V12 engine and put it on the nose. The Cor, which of course had an air-cooled Flat 6 in its trunk from the factory, did this job with such care and precision that it was even heralded by Corvair fans and is truly one of the most elegant hot rods you will ever see. seen.

Stein's lifelong independent venture was not a failure, he was one of more than 30 car owners who had a machine that wasn't fast enough for the 1966 Indie 500, if anything, this is a story amazing life dream that the Indie 500 realized very quickly afterwards. 1966 became a place where the man with an idea was sidelined by the big team with an idea, the big budget with an idea, etc., it's the nature of professional auto racing, albeit in terms of a concept of 100% original content built locally. and then assembled in a home garage, this car was magnificent in every way. Would the story have been better if the car had qualified?

Actually I suspect not, thanks for watching. Like and subscribe for more historic races and Gearhead content.