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So I met this older gentleman that has been coming to the shop that I recently started running for the past few years. His name is Jimmy Olson and he has been friends with the owner of the shop since clear back in the early 70's. They both worked at several of the metro area Chevrolet dealerships as mechanics (not techs like nowadays) together.
Jimmy and I have now struck up a friendship, and with recent discussion lately of The Winter Nationals, he starts telling me about his days in the fuel wars. Over the course of about three weeks, he takes me from the mid fifties, all the way until he hung up racing for good in the early seventies.
Jimmy is from Fanning Kansas and moved to Denver in the early 50's as a teenager. He hung out at all the area speedshops of the day, building several different hotrods and race cars along the way. We have literally talked for days about his hotrods and specifically the A/Fuel dragster he built and raced with Dave Scholz doing the driving. He brought me an old photo album filled with hundreds of photos, racetrack programs, divisional records and general memorabilia that I'm sure has never been seen before. He is the real deal...he tears up thinking of the good old days.
As I get time, I'll be removing the photos from the album and scanning them into my computer to preserve and be able to share this small piece of history. The flip side is that I want to reorganize and preserve the originals for Jimmy and his family for the future. I'll post them up as I get time, for everyone here to see FIRST....
Here's a few I've scanned so far:
This is his A/Fuel car (Mark Williams Chassis) that he built in the mid to late 50's. Mark Williams at the time was located at 919 Decatur St in Denver Colorado.
This is the same car with driver Dave Scholz behind the wheel. Jimmy is pretty sure this photo was taken at Great Bend Kansas. The car was powered by a 364 cubic inch small block chevy and ran on 100% nitro with a whiff of benzahydrine(?), someone correct me on that, I'm sure I got the spelling wrong.
*** EDIT....This isn't the same car as Jimmy's, this is actually Mark Williams' personal "top eliminator" car with blown hemi power.***
This is one of his last hotrods that he finished in the late 60's to early 70's. He has 50 to 60 snapshots, as he calls them, of his T bucket, that document the build.......
Stay tuned.....
Jimmy and I have now struck up a friendship, and with recent discussion lately of The Winter Nationals, he starts telling me about his days in the fuel wars. Over the course of about three weeks, he takes me from the mid fifties, all the way until he hung up racing for good in the early seventies.
Jimmy is from Fanning Kansas and moved to Denver in the early 50's as a teenager. He hung out at all the area speedshops of the day, building several different hotrods and race cars along the way. We have literally talked for days about his hotrods and specifically the A/Fuel dragster he built and raced with Dave Scholz doing the driving. He brought me an old photo album filled with hundreds of photos, racetrack programs, divisional records and general memorabilia that I'm sure has never been seen before. He is the real deal...he tears up thinking of the good old days.
As I get time, I'll be removing the photos from the album and scanning them into my computer to preserve and be able to share this small piece of history. The flip side is that I want to reorganize and preserve the originals for Jimmy and his family for the future. I'll post them up as I get time, for everyone here to see FIRST....
Here's a few I've scanned so far:
This is his A/Fuel car (Mark Williams Chassis) that he built in the mid to late 50's. Mark Williams at the time was located at 919 Decatur St in Denver Colorado.
This is the same car with driver Dave Scholz behind the wheel. Jimmy is pretty sure this photo was taken at Great Bend Kansas. The car was powered by a 364 cubic inch small block chevy and ran on 100% nitro with a whiff of benzahydrine(?), someone correct me on that, I'm sure I got the spelling wrong.
*** EDIT....This isn't the same car as Jimmy's, this is actually Mark Williams' personal "top eliminator" car with blown hemi power.***
This is one of his last hotrods that he finished in the late 60's to early 70's. He has 50 to 60 snapshots, as he calls them, of his T bucket, that document the build.......
Stay tuned.....
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