Forum: Racing From The Past (go)
Moderators: Racing From The Past

Note:

I will be in and out on this post as I would like to tell it in a comprehensive way without mising details and give a chance for those closer to history to give necessary corrections.

Thes three cars are related by reason of thier frontend makeup. The common thread is Jan Opperman who utilized the first two cars to extend his legend in the dirt car world.

The first car is a B-C Craft(now known as a Heintzelman),  the next car is a Maxwell(Built by John Singer), and the last car is a Parson. I'm not entirely sure the first car has the identical frontend geometry as the front arms seem a little short. Yet Heintzelman replied in the last ten years that todays cars were very close to his original measurements. When Jan Opperman(Opp) first saw the 99 he thought it was a practical joke. He soon learned there was no joke intended.

Opp was recruited by Jack Gunn to run the Central Pennsylvania circuit in 1970 or '71. He was brought in to compete against many power hitters on the dirt. The largest at this time was none other than a Kansas City boy with Indianapolis connections. His name was Kenny Weld. I may provide a little background on Weld later but the issue was Gunn was concerned the crowd would get tired of Weld winning so much. Opp came in and for the first year he ran with several teams and did very well. It's been said he made his bones one night when he nearly won in an Edmunds sprinter. The drivers of this time in Pennsy didn't like the Edmunds for they couldn't get them to work right. The owner this night was a Doctor(can't remember the name) and he was known for having very stout motors ,but they were in an Edmunds thus getting elite and available drivers could be a chore. In some cases drivers would rather sit out instead of hurting their property values by driving what they considered a penalty box. Opp jumped in not knowing any better and nearly won his first night out! Typical fashion. He was then surrounded by others who wanted to know what he'd done to make this sled move. He informed them of his background with such cars on the west coast and impressed those in the area enough to get him in some better rides. He soon found he like the Pennsy cars better.

Another shot of #67 Parson from Kim Parson. I think this car is called Grampa. It still exists in as good a shape as you see here only a different color.

When the new season was in the planning('71 or '72) Opp was approached by Dick Bogar and Barry Camp to drive for them and basically advertise their new house car. Opp was on board but with his own contention that a Bobby Allen Chassis would be his primary car. Allen Chassis were considered the Cadillacs of sprinters in the day and only about five were built each year. The idea was he would run the Allen while they studied it's workings and maybe they could come up with a car just as good. Bogar and Camp didn't really want to do that but they figured that was a solid way to go and keep their driver so they got on Allens list.

When the Florida Speedweeks came around there was a problem, the Allen Chassis was not ready and they had to relate this to Opp and let him know that they would instead send the backup car they were getting prepared. The whole time Opp was waiting on his Allen sprinter and for the winter to end, there was a shop worker named Ralph Heintzelman at B-C Craft who only had a tubing bender and a cracker box arc-welder. In a very simple fashion he laid out the car and welded it up. On a steady pace and I'm sure a last minute thrash he got it ready to go to Florida.

The early part of the season is always mentally a tough one for some drivers. New cars and sponsors as well as ambitious plans. Opp was wandering around (East Bay raceway?) and looking at his competition. Everybody asked where his car was and he said it would arrive shortly. He waited, and waited, and.......waited. About the time everyone thought he was out for the night a truck with an icebox white car lined up in the pit entrance lane. Opp recognized the truck but the car looked funny. Sure enough it was that guy from his team and the car looked worse up close! To the relief of the other drivers they all joked with Opp about his new rocketship. Convinced he was nothing to worry about they left one by one leaving Opp with Heintzelman. With a twisted smile and a "I hope this is a joke" look on his face he put his arm around the Heinz and said "Do you really expect me to drive this $#!+box?". Ralph humbly replied "Just give 'er a try, I think you'll like it."

Opp then went out in hot laps and was beaming when he came back. Then he went to throwing orders about shocks and gears and bars etc. He then went out and scared the rest of the field with his new ROCKETSHIP! The car still had a few new car issues and reliability to finish was hard to come by. Yet there was no question this arc welded $#!+box was the car to have.

Many tried to buy the car after the speedweeks were over. One in particular was Chuck Amati. Chuck had shown up with a car that had so many chrome pieces, you might have had an easier time counting the painted pieces! He wished to trade straight across and could be persuaded to throw in some boot. Yet there was no deal. The trip back to Pennsylvania was a pleasant one.

If you've followed any of the Opperman-Weld feud, you know they were enemies in the Penn area. Methinks the real spark for this was a rainy night at the beginning of Opps first year there.

Jay Opperman had followed his brother up the ladder and had made it to Knoxville to drive a Trostle. He couldn't get the ride Opp had for Bob Trostle had another driver at the time. There was however a sister car another owner close to Bob that was open. Seems to me Jay died before the first lap of the first heat was finished.

Word got back to Pennsylvania and yet few knew where Opp was staying. Opp was fairly mobile and he preferred the country, usually a pasture where there was no running water or electricity. For some reason, you can guess why, Kenny Weld was the only one available at the moment who knew where Jan was at. One young lion keeping an eye on the other? I don't know.

Kenny drove out there and it was raining in sheets. A normal person would have waited it out yet Kenny kept going. He had to stop short of Opps trailer for the road was washing out. Getting in would be no problem, getting out would be. He walked through the rain, in the dark. To be fair, kenny had lost his oldest brother and maybe he felt he could help as good as anyone.

Imagine, you are sitting out in the boondocks, nobody around, with a kerosene lamp and a water jug to get you by. The wife is willing to cook over a fire when the weather is good. Still, you are hidden to the world especially if it is raining felines and K-9s.

Then you have a knock at the door........This can scare the hell out of anybody in the middle of the night. Opp opens the door and guess who's standing

there, Kenny Weld. The moment starts off awkward but only gets worse when Kenny lowers the boom about Jans brother.

In retrospect, Kenny may have had sympathy for Opp, but I think Opp thought Kenny was trying to shake him up enough to throw him off his game. Opp blamed himself enough about his brothers death so much he wore Jays hat, a brown hat tied together with rawhide strips to honor Jay, and proceeded to quietly declare war on Kenny Weld. After this, the feud was hot and heavy and it could only get more intense. Oppermans idea of war was to outrun, outdrive and outsmart his opponent to the point of humiliation. Sometimes he would even rub nerf bars for no reason other than to get under Welds skin. Other times it might be a comment that could be taken several ways. It definitely didn't help when Jan would win with a small-block Chevy versus Kennys big-block. All the while, Jan Opperman would act laid back and smile as if he had no cares in the world. He had plenty.

The Bogar 99 was ugly yet it did the job. Opp was so in tune with its tendencies he could tell if there was a spacer added or taken away at any corner. He didn't just want to win, he wanted to smoke 'em! Thus he did in such fashion on many occasions.

After a couple of years Jan was ready to revert to his original plan on leaving California. He was ready to race in the Midwest and maybe run a few USAC shows.

Somewhere he hooked up with John Singer. They were the difinitive "Outlaw Racers". Sneaking into other peoples home tracks and taking the loot. They didn't win every night, they didn't finish every time. Sometimes John stayed behind to get other things ready while Jan drove other cars.--During their travels though I would imagine they talked about what they had seen and what they liked in a sprint car. Eventually a plan was hatched out: Singer would approach Don Maxwell about building ten cars the way HE wanted to, and use his shop and equipment to do so. 9 cars to pay for the one Jan would drive. They sold quickly and John was busy. They would be known as Maxwells and as there was no patent involved, Maxwell would benefit from the information, as well as the advertising. The car Opp drove became the 4x, Eventually bought by Speedy Bill Smith of Speedway Motors.

Jan drove a lot of dirt miles in this car. On several occasions he ventured into USAC shows to upset the regulars. USAC regulars were slow to change their cars especially after the paint and chrome bills came in. The attitude of the outlaw driver and crew was to do anything to the car to win. Paint and chrome didn't seem to make the car faster so they were relegated to the backburner. Things got more intense when Pancho Carter decided Opp was a threat to his status. Bettenhausen and Dickson had eased up on sprint cars, Tom Bigelow was tough but Pancho was on the move to get to Indy. Now they had to deal with this hippy with the plain car. All of the noise from the outlaw boys eventually landed Jan Opperman into an Indy car with a haircut.

Next, how this relates to us.

First, I'll go back up the timeline a bit. In the late sixties or very early seventies LaVerne Nance employed two young guys who like many others, wanted to someday build their own race cars and win with them. Don Maxwell was one of these gearheads and DALE PARSON was the other. Dale was known for being astute towards what made a car work. If a car was running well, he would like many racers, ask questions that may or may not have been welcome. One crewman who worked for Jim Harkness and the Prather 97 commented that every time they ran well, Parson would come up and start asking questions and want to take measurements. It made sense. it was a Nance car, yet Dale was trying to unlock the mystery of the good cars regardless of make. AJ Watson did this very same thing in his quest to dominate Indy, it's just the way things were and are done.

Dale eventually settled in Oklahoma City and started building cars. Fast cars. He had a system that was the usual springer front, torsion rear configuration. Yet with an open mind, he was trying things that were different in terms of measurements than anyone else was. He wondered about a four-bar car but the idea just never took hold in supermodified land. There had been 4-bar cars before,(John Zink-Buddy Cagle twice in the late '60s), there had even been a 4 wheel independant suspension car Evard Humphries drove to several wins and an Enid championship.

Still, the 4-bar car was not the standard car because parts could be hard to get, understanding them was a whole new issue, and what everybody had seemed to win anyway.

Dale wanted to use something more fluid to carry the car faster through the turns. He had already built the NCRA championship car that Frankie Lies scored with. Still, it seemed something new was in order.

He was in touch with Don Maxwell and they devised that since the Speedway Motors 4x was built in Maxwells shop, they could plot the cars points as long as Speedy Bill said it was okay. He did, and so Dale, Roy Scott, and Gene Jones in early 1974(?) went and measured the 4x while it was still one of the top cars in the nation. Of specific interest was the frontend on this car. It made a real strong case for the 4-bar idea. Dale came back and went to work on his own car, already a springer front, transforming it into a 4-bar car.

The season rolls around, and in between getting other cars ready for his regular customers, sometimes doing shakedown races. he went to running his own car when he had the chance. Once she laid into the turns he knew he had something and he worked with it until he started raising eyebrows.

Much of this comes from Kim Parson, the next part also does. "Dad, Roy Scott, and Gene Jones went to Speedway Motors , Lincoln, Nebraska in early 1974 and visited with Don Maxwell (Don and Dad had worked together for Nance) and got specs from the front end of Jan Opperman's Speedway Motors sprint car...Dad built two 4-bar cars for the '74 season. His and Roland Brunson's from Amarillo using those front end specs and using his own rear end specs from his spring front, torsion rear cars. In 1974 Dale Parson was the only driver in the Oklahoma City area with a four bar car... In fact Dad recalls one of the guys who worked for him back in those days was at Walkers shop one Saturday morning after a race on Friday night and the general talk was that they were all betting that Dale Parson had a big motor. Finally Jack Walker himself stopped all that talk by saying 'Dale is as fast in the corners as he is on the straightaways.' He's not much if any faster on the straightaways than some of the others, but he's just killing them in the corners!' Then Jack concluded by saying 'I guarantee you guys that Dale Parson is NOT running a big motor.' That was all in 1974 and there were no other four bar cars in Oklahoma City at that time"

Please note, many went to 4-bar cars in and after 1975. Dale Parson, Larry Holman with Tommy Sampsons car(4-Bar Parson) led the way.

On a spring night in 1978, Jan Opperman arrived at Tulsa to try to restart his career in the Jerry Wilson 25. He won. Little did he know that many of the cars in that field had gotten their edge back by following the lead left behind by Ralph Heintzelman, John Singer, and Dale Parson.

Dale Parson could design, build, drive and win with his cars. This he did several times. In the late '70s he sold to some guy down south by the name of Smiley Sitton. Smiley sold to Tom Lorenz(?). Smiley still sells for the store that bears his name. I once asked him jokingly if he had any Halibrands on the shelf. He replied "You and I know what they are, but these kids today with the money wouldn't have a clue.

Thank you,

I am open for corrections to this story.

Brian26

Funny note about this car. If Jan were to come around today and had always been around, and if he wanted to take this car to a vintage meet, Speedy Bill would want to take the Halibrands off of this car. Jan liked Halibrands and he liked to win too. Sometimes winning got in the way of the welfare of a magnesium wheel and regardless of how expensive they were (and still are), they busted with no apparent means to have them welded back up satisfaction wise. Jan borrowed a set off of Bill and promised to bring them back when he could. Yet somewhere during the '74 season Bill Smith called in his wheels! Jan noted to Singer there were only two left that weren't busted. I'm sure Opp charmed his way out of this one somehow.

This car went on to be owned by Clinton Herring and was renumbered 10. A.J. Little won several times with this car. I was once looking at buying it in the '80s and asked A.J. what he thought of it. Remember, these were the early days of the 4-bars when A.J. was still learning about them as he drove the #10, he replied "There was little room for error. It had to be RIGHT ON. If you were off a little bit it was hard to get anywhere. But, if it was right on, NO ONE, and I mean NO ONE could catch you".

This car was found in the late '80s in a field in Pennsylvania. Treated like junk for years, it was picked up and restored to it's current form. All frame repairs were made using a TIG but they were then finished with an arc welder to help keep the look it was known for. As recently as 5-7 years ago it was for sale at around 25-30,000 dollars. Seems cheap for it's history.