Earlier this week we ran an item that highlighted a cool website centered around the history of Oswego Dragway. One of the photos on the site was of Grumpy Jenkins’s Pro Stocker mangled into a pile of shredded steel and rubber. BangShift reader Phil Cooper was not content to leave well enough alone, so he delved into his personal archive of racing awesomness and dug out the actual news story from Jenkins’ unfortunate day at Oswego.
By the late 1970s Jenkins had Larry Lombardo doing the driving for him on the NHRA tour, while he tuned the car up. Lombardo was more than capable and the two made a fearsome combo. Outside of the NHRA tour though, Jenkins still mixed it up. At the time, there was still a burgeoning match race scene for Pro Stocks. All bets were off when the cars were in match race trim. The guys lied through their teeth to one another regarding the weights of their cars, displacement of their engines, etc.
Jenkins wrecked the car at a match race, but not just any match race. Grumpy was testing his mettle against local competitors during a “Beat the Grump” day. The track would pick three competitors to face off against Jenkins, and much like the days of the traveling brawler, he’d take them on one at a time.
We’re pretty sure that he laid the lumber to most of them, unless of course his car was reduced to scrap metal like in the photos below. Scroll down to see the story and a larger photo of the wreckage!
According to the article he was 46 years old when he crashed so that makes him 80 today. Jeez, time flies.
Hello,
I’m the person Bill was racing when he had this accident.
That day Bill was to race three cars.
He beat the first two cars very easily, but he was not really pushing his car very hard. So the promoter of the event asked him to run a little faster to put on a better show. After all the car was believed to be putting out over 900 HP at the time.
I was selected from a class called RTE ( Run Tuff Eliminator).
I respected Bill very much and asked him which lane he wanted to run in. He kind of laughed and said I will beat you in either.
So I kind of laughed to myself knowing he was playing a mind game.
So before we brought the cars to the line, I wrote Grumpy Who on my rear window.
When we did the burn outs Bill had to see what was on the rear window.
I think to this day that got into his head. And believe that it changed his game a little.
During the run I never saw him next to me. I took a look when I hit third gear and saw him start to roll the car to the right side of the track.
Later Bill said he was angry and should have got off the gas, but he kept his foot on it.
So I do believe, I got into his head.
I would have really felt bad about that if it was one of the regular competitors. But since it was Bill Grumpy Jenkins, a driver known for pulling every single trick he could, I simply took the win and smiled on the way home.
Paul,
Great story!!!!
Did you ever have an opportunity to talk with Grumpy about the incident? And what were you running at that time?
Thanks for the input,
PLW