May 13, 2004
Hell-o to all you Pony Killers! Tizz the season to reek havoc with the Stangs and Rice burners. Hey, the meeting 4/24/04 brought out six Turbo Cars - was a nice site. We had fourteen attend. Again- were members we had not seen in awhile. Paul Prior won the raffle- a can of Fast Wax - nice stuff. Ken Feind offered to donate the next raffle gift. Thanks Ken- ahhh, just so ya know - try to keep it under $100. I congratulate Paul Cummings on the last Tech Article. He is a soft spoken guy with alot of knowledge about these cars. Bounce your questions off him- he is a good source. Unfortunately, we did not get any dates set for cruising or racing. That will be must for the next meeting 6/13. . So put some thought to what events you would like to attend. Ron Turch is taking orders on T- shirts. The colors are Grey or Black. ORDER NOW- contact Ron direct at .. turch@adelphia.net Our next meeting will be held during our family outing-June 13th. That will be at my house- can't wait! We will eat at 5 pm. Ron Turch will be cooking up a roast pork and beef. Your club will be supplying soft drinks, plates, plastic wear, cups etc. We ask that each of you bring a dish to pass, lawn chairs, bathing suit ( we have a built in pool and I will try to have the water temperature up for you), alcohol ( use your good judgment- if you over indulge I will not let you drive home ). We have a large yard- plenty of room to park on the lawn. We will have games and a camp fire at dusk with marsh mellows on a stick. Please perform a Sun Dance for that day! The Buick Race Event at Norwalk was Great-- ahhhh, no- I lied! It rained and rained. The weather was so bad they canceled all racing and rescheduled the event for Sept 12th. Most of us stayed until Sunday morning. We hung out together talking to our out of state friends and laughed our butts off. We would have like to have seen John, Jerry and Phil get their cars down the track- just was not in the cards. Hopefully, in Sept. we can get even more members attending. If you have never gone- you are missing out on alot of fun. I believe a number of you, including myself, will be attending the 1st annual Buick Performance Group ( BPP) Nationals. This is a 4 day event starting on Thursday August 12th thru Sunday the 15th. It will be very similar the Nationals in Kentucky ,but- alot closer to us, Quaker city raceway in Salem, Ohio. I have a entry form and will have it available at our next meeting. That's all the BS I have for now. I hope this letter finds all of you and your families in good health and spirits. Ahh- Message for Mike Hamilton-- KEEE IE !!!! DOMO AREI GOTTO! Now - here at last a Technical message from a man who can make some sense out of all of this. None other than our own Buss Covert. See ya at the outing-- Larry
I graduated from Riverside High School in 19 ?um? 67, smack dab in the middle of the musclecar era, and what, a couple of miles from Chevy Tonawanda?
Being broke, and not likely to be unbroke anytime soon, I could only dream of the Camaros and Chevelles and Corvettes and Novas and other mostly Chevy musclecars screaming up and down the streets then.
I loved those cars. 427s and 396s and 350s and 327s and 302s. Creeping away from red lights, Rock Crushers howling. Wide Ovals and Tigerpaws ready to be pulverized into thick, black stripes at a moment's notice. Holleys sucking air. Cams thumping. Exhausts belching. Badges and graphics and scoops all over, announcing their identities. Boys and girls, it was American Graffiti, Riverside style. When Riverside was Italian and German and Polish and Irish and Hungarian and Serbian and more. When it was clean and friendly, and a great place to grow up, and to live.
Shift to 1968, and my cousin Bill from Newfane drops by one afternoon in a brand new Roadrunner - metallic green, beige interior, bench seat, dog dish hubcaps, column shifter. Bill was a year or two older than me, and worked at Simons Saw in Lockport, so having a payment book was no big deal. God, I loved cruising in that Roadrunner. One night we picked up a race with a pretty, medium blue metallic GTO, '67 vintage or so. We took the Goat by a car length or two on the Sheridan Extension, Roadrunner wailing, gas pedal matted, Bill shifting the Torqueflite manually, lousy front tires of the day dribbling like basketballs.
Well, the guy follows us back to Ross Avenue, where I lived, challenges us to a rematch, goes under his hood, plays around a bit, takes us back to the Sheridan Extension, and spanks us like little babies. To this day, I theorize he was running on the center 2 barrels of a tri-power set-up when we first encountered him, trying to save a few bucks on gas. No matter - Bill and I laughed about that spanking at least a dozen times over the years.
Those were days when Murt's and Pat's and Schime's were the places to be. When high school girls brushed their hair and wore proper clothes and were respectable. When bad guys smoked and skipped school. When you could buy a mint, 427 Biscayne with a 3/4 race cam or just about any other musclecar you pleased from Delaware Motors. When your best buddy's neighbor cruised up and down his driveway in his son's '67 Hemi Belvedere while the kid was in Viet Nam, so it'd be nice for him when he got back.
Well, shift to 1980, and I meet Karen at Airport Lanes. Where else would you expect to meet a nice girl in Buffalo? I go over to her house for a "first date", and she's got this sort of greenish, sort of goldish Volare with fat tires on the rear, which she's changing in the driveway, and she's putting the lug nuts on with the tapers out! Needless to say, it was love at first sight. We were engaged within a few weeks.
Shift to 1987, and I tell Karen I've got the bug for a TR.
"Why do you want one of those", Karen asks?
"Whaddayamean", I reply?
"It's a old man's car with a motor", Karen decrees.
Well, 4 TRs later, and Karen long since converted, here we are.
Oh, let me tell you a little story about the T. I bought the T from a gentleman named Andy Vallee. Andy and his significant other Laverne live in Ottawa - great folks! Anyway, Andy has a buddy named Ray who has a collection of Hemi cars, a half dozen or so, always changing, plus some 440+6 cars, some 340+6 cars, you get the idea. So why aren't YOU a beer distributor?
One night, Karen and I are visiting Andy and Laverne, and Andy decides to take us over to one of Ray's garages. So we go over to this garage and there are 5 or so incredible cars spread around, some being restored, some done. I mean, the place is a museum. Anyway, Ray lets Andy drive his cars whenever (!!!), so we hop into this jet black, '69 Hemi Roadrunner and go for a cruise.
Now, Andy knows TRs, and knows that I know at least a little bit about TRs, and that getting them to run 12s on the street, 11s at the track is no big deal. So we're cruising in this beautiful Roadrunner, the living legend, the Elephant, Motor Trend Car of the Year, one of the baddest musclecars ever made, and Andy gets on it. And the front end rises and the thing starts pulling and the AFBs are wailing and the solid lifters are clacking and the exhaust is growling and Andy's rowing the ridiculous shifter Mopar inflicted on those cars. And we get up to 110 MPH or so and he backs off and looks over and says something like "Pretty quick, eh"?
"Not bad", I reply.
Then he looks me in the eyes and says, "The GN would kill this thing, wouldn't it"?
We laughed our azzes off.
Peace.