As the coincidence of racing Jon Thorne adds to the story the irony of Art Reno breaking down in our front yard really adds to the direction of the next chapter. Art was an airline pilot drawn to racing for the need for speed. Art at best was an adrenaline junkie that chased every adventure that would take his breath, on the other side of the coin he was a libertarian conservative, that over thought every possible solution to not paying for the obvious things while throwing $100 bills out the window. The desire to race at the national level was the drug, he was totally convinced that he could create a business model that funded two of his addictions, his lifestyle and the need for speed. Art had no boundaries, it was nothing to fly from Jacksonville to San Antonio to eat breakfast, or to Atlanta for a haircut, or Detroit for parts. This relationship matured quickly with my dad, both were pilots, curmudgeons and political/ economic theorists. I just wanted to race, the dream of being a racer at the Grand National level was always in my mind. Art bought an old, crashed Julie Dunlevy car that Bobby Isaac wrecked at Rockingham in 1973. The car originally was a 1972 Ford Grand Torino fast back was one of the first Hutcherson-Pagan cars built, 90% of the chassis parts were Holman Moody parts, the car was a tank at best but competitive at the time. Again, this story has a few twists like a script from a Quentin Tarantino movie, Art was living in Dahlonega, Ga flying out of Atlanta. This adventure included the George Elliot Cartel from Dawsonville, Ga, Bills dad jumped to help Art get his team going, the crashed Junie Car was rebodied in the Elliot Racing school house shop. Art was friends with The Crawford brothers – Jimmy and Peter of Toccoa all were pilots for Eastern Airlines at the time – the brothers took a car prepared in their parents’ basement in College Park, hired a journeyman driver named Dick Brooks, another close friend of Arts and astounded the racing world by winning the Talladega 500. Art was totally convinced that there was a romantic rhythm in the way the Crawford’s won. He always wanted to race that way. George Elliot was looking for a funded source to start a family team, to put young Bill in the seat, Dan and Ernie in control. Art looked like an easter bunny but was really a Scrooge McDuck in Eastern Airline pilot’s disguise. Several things came from this relationship, the Elliot’s got to get their hands dirty, George realized just how much money and support it was going to take to race Grand National, and that Art wasn’t trading his fantasy for George’s. Art realized George was not Santa Clause, he also realized that he/ Art was a wannabe driver, not a racer, team owner maybe, and that as much as he discounted the Elliot’s, they were racers, and as a collective would teach themselves to win. Art surrounded himself with folks that shared his vision and did business with folks that told him he could do this outside the Charlotte LaLa crowd, John Reed from Reed Cams was one and Mario Rossi that often worked out of Reeds shop in Atlanta was another. The engine in the 76 Grand Torino had a Rossi engine in it, the backup was freshened by Track Masters. The Rossi connection was tied to Richard Brooks, Art and Mario were close friends. In the 1977 race Art killed a clutch during the 125 qualifying races at Daytona, on the way back to Atlanta broke a motor mount in a 1963 U-Haul truck he put a junkyard 429 cu in T-Bird engine in. My dad told Art he could us our storage shop to house the rig till he got ready to go again. This was a 5-year adventure that I learned a great deal about human nature and what defined racers. As my team’s racing program was maturing in 1977 & 1978, Arts program was on hold, needless to say a divorce, hiding assets, flying all over, Art, the love of his life, Linda, he always told us he met selling flowers in the San Antonio airport, moved in Arts motorhome to my dad’s vacant lot in an effort to chase the program and get to hell out of GA. This gave us time to talk, plan, review what Art owned, what he needed, and what had to be purged from his fantasies about racing. By then I was winning races, we had a sharp team, always looked good, we started to carry this over to Arts team, painted all his equipment, trucks, trailers, started dressing the 76 up for the 1979 season. After the track closing in 1978, I went all in on the Grand National car, studied what we had, mapped the suspension, reached out to Junie for set ups, it was obvious that Art went to Daytona with the Rockingham components / spring set up was random at best/ Banjo Coils, they had a diameter to length ratio, example: .750 diameter wire, 10 inches tall, 850lbs. Art had probably 50 random cut springs, 200 Monroe Regal Ride shocks. I called Hutcherson-Pagan for my first encounter with Dick Hutcherson, the car was built early in 1972 as a 72 Grand Torino, half frame car, fabricated Ford style rear steer front frame, GM truck arms, 9” Grand National rearend, all Holman Moody superspeedway components. While on the phone with Dick, he reminded me that NASCAR was had a four-year body rule that 1980 was the last year for the 76 body, he said rumors are that NASCAR was downsizing to 110 wheelbase cars for 1981. As I chased the knowledge, I started comparing notebooks, I started comparing my notebook on the 64 Chevelle front steer suspension/ geometry to the rear steer Ford. I was sold on the Bobby Allison, Tom Hamilton Stockcar Products, Frank Deiny Speedway Engineering approach to stockcars. The Holman Moody / Ford components were at best was antiquated and somewhat protected by the rules, but with the 1981 downsize GM and Ford started to lobby for a scaled approach, Bobby Allison pushed for the Chevelle clone sportsman style tube chassis Mike Laughlin was building. It was approved. Art’s divorce was carrying on, so our focus spilled over into 1980, Art’s focus was scattered, flying second seat, he flew deadhead from Jax to Miami to LA, back to Atlanta, deadhead back to Jax, two days a week, $130,000.00 a year. Just as we were trying to establish a racing budget, Art and a group of pilots decided that paying income taxes was voluntary, he refused to volunteer, Eastern and the IRS had different opinions, that was a 6-month battle. He had an appointment with Marvin Paunch to get some brake parts at Daytona, Playboy was shooting an ad for a 1980 Harley-Davidson FLH-80 Electra Glide, Art asked the Harley Folks what was going to happen to the bike, one executive said we sell them 50 cents on the dollar, Art said $5000 and its mine, dude said yep. Art shot across the road to Sun Trust Bank got $5000 out of the racing money, parked his truck in the mall parking lot and back to Macclenny he came, second to ride it, but first with his clothes on! As with many of Arts adventures the Harley leaked like a sift, he later traded it in on a Gold Wing! As the end of 1980 was coming, I convinced Art to order an oddity at the time a Laughlin front steer, 1981 T-Bird, $7500 with the front suspension, I ordered the rear housing/ hubs, front spindles/ hubs from speedway engineering, about $1550, with everything to roll it a $10000 investment. With the new season coming we got an invitation to go to the Laughlin test at Daytona, the center of focus was Richard Petty with an amazing Marauder, and a Buick, Lake Speed was there with the 66 car, Bobby Allison, Mike Laughlin, and a few others were there.
I got to meet a few folks I would get to work with later in my career Larry Mac was there. I got the opportunity to study the front steer suspension and talked to Richard at length about the feel, he said that the last years rear steer cars were more stable but heavier in feel, the Mirada was just junk, 10 miles off the Buick.
Everybody felt the cars were extremely loose, it was funny knowing what I did then and what I know now, our aero game as an industry was junk, the rear steer cars had a number of inherited issues, bump steer, Ackerman, toe from dynamic loading, speedways pushed each of these envelops, but they gave the driver a loaded wheel, some related it to stability, in truth it was parasitic drag. The front steer cars had the ability to address the issues at hand with the simple location of the components. In a typical rear steer car toe accumulates as the car is in motion always as toe out. In the typical front steer car toe is a driver feel deal, the motion is timed, toe in is darty steering off one than the other wheel, as you increase toe out the driver gains stability without drag. Toe drag is pure horsepower, most rear steer teams need 100 more horsepower to outperform
a front steer. We will chase that rabbit later. The day at Daytona convinced my dad and I that I was ready to do this, it also confirmed to my dad my deepest concerns that Art just wanted to drive and had no other commitment to the project. Art decided to go on a motorcycle trip instead of participating in the testing program. I quickly understood the Elliot’s frustration with Art. A combination of factors affected our direction from here, Mike Laughlin was walking a tightrope with NASCAR getting the front steer GM into the Winston Cup ranks, having the Petty’s and Allison’s invested was important. Art Reno not so much, we ordered our chassis in August, Mike called to bump us back, history was in the making, our original chassis ended up being a Grand Am, a glitch in the rules allowed a proven sportsman body style with a number of aero advantages. We ended up getting bumped until after Daytona, this spurred a personality tick in Art. Art always felt that his program was as strong as Richard Petty’s, in the big scheme of things Art was not financially committed to racing early in 1981. Art was bumped at work to low seniority captain from high seniority 2nd which meant he had to fly the same 20 hrs. a week but in short trips and time-consuming layovers. Art as 2nd captain was gone 2 out of 7 days, as captain 5 out of 7. Art also had an issue with work schedules, the team worked 7am to 5pm, Art as team leader showed up at 5 pm and wanted team to work to 12am. I was crew chief and as with the team, a family that adhered to normal life schedules. Art’s interest in a conventional business model was random at best, and in midstream he started building a composite airplane. The Eastern business model was being challenged, union strikes, pilots, air traffic controllers, Arts fairy tale life unraveled. In 1982 he was working a deal with Will Cronkite in Fort Mill, SC for 1983, he wanted me to move to SC to watch over his interest. At the time fall of 1982 it couldn’t happen, Art connections with Mario Rossi resurfaced and the Will Cronkite program would include Rossi as engine builder, that all disappeared with Mario’s “crash”. Art knew way too much about the Mario disappearance, and I wanted to know nothing. The Art Reno chapter closed for me in 1983, but my “want to” would ramp up at the end of 1984 and the next chapter leads straight to the game!