-
-
Re: Crane Cams Introduces 350-plus New Camshafts for 2011
wonder if ralph johnson is still working at 77 ?
DAYTONA BEACH ? During more than a half-century in Daytona Beach, Smokey Yunick became an automotive legend. For much of that time, working alongside him at ?The Best Damn Garage in Town? was Ralph Johnson.
Together they built stock cars, Indy-cars and assorted pieces and gadgets that serviced a wide variety of automobiles.
Today, at age 71, Johnson still works as a design engineer at Crane Cams in Daytona Beach, and still puts in about 50 hours a week.
?Engineering is personal satisfaction,? he says.
?I was with Chevrolet, late in 1956. The assistant chief engineer came to me and said, ?You wanna go racing? You?re the only s.o.b. here who knows anything about this fuel injection.?
I?d been working on the Chevy fuel-injection unit for two years. So I said certainly. I was 26 at the time.
We came down here right after the new year in ?57. That?s when I met Smokey. I worked out of Smokey?s place. Smokey ran one car, and Paul Goldsmith drove it. He led most of the beach race that year, but with four laps to go we holed four pistons up in the north turn. Smokey believed it was lean, I believed the spark plugs were too hot. When the track deteriorates, as it always did on the sand track, it just got to lugging more and more rpm.
After the beach race, Smokey left and went to Ford. I went to Atlanta to go to work for Southern Engineering and Development, for General Motors. And we raced out of there until approximately the 26th of May, when the guy who ran General Motors put out an edict that essentially said, ?Thou shalt not race under penalty of death.? All racing ceased.
So I went back to Detroit. Two months later, I left and went to Holley Carburetor and spent roughly the next 15 years there. Well, I liked Smokey, liked his work ethic, liked what I saw, so I just stayed in touch all the time, through all the years. I?d come down, work on projects.
I got along with Smokey. I loved the man, pure and simple. I can get choked up. I loved the man.
There were times when we?d take the race cars out on the street to test different things. We ran on Beach Street, north of Route 40, where Is?s all covered with trees. We were out there with Goldsmith. We clocked him one day...I know he ran 146 miles an hour up there. I was in the car with him, braced against the roll cage on the passenger side.
That was the only way to really set that fuel injection. I put a flow meter in the car -- this measures the gas. As you?re going through the rpm, I know what fuel I want for the power. I would just set it up to have that fuel. They used to let me ride at the tracks too -- I?d wedge myself into the car, hang on. I liked to ride with Jack Smith. I liked him. He died about a year ago.
Coming out of the corner, let?s say it was 3500 rpm, I know what I wanted for the flow meter. Going down the chute, down into the corner, I knew what I wanted for fuel, so I set the fuel injection for the track that way. But as years went by, they wouldn?t let you ride along to set that up.
Sometime in ?67 or ?68, we had done a Z28. Chevrolet did it, and I did the carburetors. I came down here with Smokey, and he had Jim Hall and Bruce McLaren to drive the car in the 24 Hours. There were some problems in the infield with it, so they decided to pull the car out. I went back and thought about it, and that?s when I did the double-pumper. I came down here with two carburetors, and we put them on Smokey?s car. He got ahold of Al Unser and we went to Sebring.
After one lap Al came in and said, ?I don?t know what you?ve got on there, but Is?s the finest thing I ever drove.?
In 1969, Smokey told me he could get me a development contract with Chevrolet. They paid my room and board, and I worked for about a year on carburetors and manifolds. That contract expired after about a year, and Smokey said, ?Why don?t you stay here with me, and you can work for me or with me, depending on how things go, until you find a job.? I said fine, and I spent the next 18 years there.
I worked with Smokey all those years -- in an engineering capacity, in a machine capacity, in a race capacity as mechanic or engineer or whatever.
I probably enjoyed the Indy R&D best. Is?s all interesting, but Is?s like right now, if I had the chance to help someone, I?d rather work with a Formula One team. I?m not knocking yesterday, I like to take trips there myself mentally. But you live today and tomorrow, and that?s where I?d rather play.
When I first met Smokey, there was only that front part to the shop. Then Champion added the north end, and Ford added out back. It was all part of the process there.
The hours? Is?s no secret, we officially started at 8 in the morning, and we officially ended at midnight, but midnight was always 1 or 2 o?clock. And we did that seven days a week. For years. My wife, Evelyn, worked at Ward?s, days and some nights. We were a lot younger then.
All my life, and even today, I require very little sleep. I just seem to be able to get along without it. At night, I have a shop 20 feet from the house that I can walk to. Or I just prop up and read. I read a lot.
Smokey said it best. He said, ?You know, there isn?t time to do what we did.?
You know, Smokey?s address was the best address in the whole world to run a racing business out of. In the ?70s, he got calls all days long from race people. I would say the heads of every car company that I know of were in there. All types of racing people were in there.
All of 1978, I had enough spare time that I built a motorcycle there. I built bicycles for a while. I got interested in that and had some spare time. I always said, Smokey had the best hobby shop in the whole world.
I still drive by there sometimes. I have to go out of the way to go there, but I do. I was over at the shop there recently, and there was a picture there that his daughter had. It was a picture of an old Smokey, but not a sick Smokey. They?re planning on getting prints, and I said, ?I?ve got to have one.?
that?s the best picture of Smokey I?ve seen. I?m not that sentimental, but I am some. I spent a lot of years there. They weren?t all easy years, no, but it was fine. I?ll never say anything bad about Smokey.
I?ll give you an example of how I felt. The year, I believe, was 1962. I was at Kaiser Jeep in Toledo, Ohio...I got a call on Friday afternoon about 3 o?clock. This was in March or April. Smokey said, ?What are you doing?? I told him I was up at Kaiser Jeep. He said, ?I?m going to Indy, why don?t you come down and help me.? I said, ?I?ll be right there.?
We pushed it and worked, and that?s the only way you get it, is to push it and work. There were a lot of things that came out of that shop.? -- Ralph Johnson -
Re: Crane Cams Introduces 350-plus New Camshafts for 2011
I just happend on this site looking for CRANE CAMS, and I read the post from Ralph Johnson.
Hi Ralph how the hell are you? I hope that you are well and glad to read that you are still working on making things go fast.
We met in around 1987ish at Crane Cams, I worked for Rick Neilson in the engine dyno room.
My car was used in the Crane Cams, How to Install a camshaft video.
Because of you I got to meet Grumpy Jenkins when he stopped by to visit you [that was great].
I remember you working on a new intake manifold and how you had one carved out in wood first.
You were an easy man to talk to and always willing to teach a young punk [29-30 yrs old] at the time.
I really liked working at Crane Cams but at the time the pay sucked and I had a growing family.
I live in upstate NY now and I still play at the drag strip with my 1969 Pontiac GTO.
You may not remember me Ralph but I will never forget you.
You along with Harvey Crane whom I have also met will never forget in the world of speed.
Michael Mattiaccio
Comment
Tweet
Comment