Dyno Don: The Cars and Career of Dyno Don Nicholson. Doug Boyce
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to going the legal .060-over bore route, and retained the factory-forged pistons. He set main bearing clearance at .003 inch and rod bearings at .0025 inch. The single Carter 4-barrel saw metering rods on the primary side reworked to enrich the mixture. The secondary jets were drilled out .003 inch. The advance curve was reworked an amount Don chose to keep to himself. Jerry Jardine built the Tri-Y headers on the 348 prior to the engine being swapped for the 409.
According to Jardine, the headers were welded up on the floor of Don’s Duarte home garage and fitted by trial and error. Jardine found that the primary tubes that were 1/8-inch smaller in diameter than the 1¾-inch exhaust port gave the best performance. The headers, as crude as they were, were said to be worth an additional 20 hp. Or 5 and 50, as Jardine advertised. That’s 5 mph and a .50 improvement in quarter-mile times compared to the stock exhaust manifolds. Backing the factory-rated 360-hp 409 was a 2.54–first gear BorgWarner and a 4:56 gear rear end. Getting the power to the ground was a set of 8.50x14 Firestone soft-compound Butyl tires or a pair of Casler cheaters.
When he prepared the car, Don raised the front suspension by 1.5 inches and lowered the rear 2 inches. In 1961, these mods were commonly accomplished with the help of heavy-duty springs, spring spacers, and a torch. It was felt that raising the front and lowering the rear helped weight transfer and plant the narrow rear tires. With only a day to go before the Winternationals, final details were buttoned up and the car was tuned. To loosen the new car suspension, Don had Hugh “Putzel” Osterman, who assisted Don on and off well into the decade, take the car out the night before and rack up 400 or 500 highway miles, while he himself caught some much needed z’s.
Les Ritchey’s 390-powered Ford Starliner had recorded a 13.33 at 106 mph, thanks in part to the newly released tri-carb setup. As good as the times were, they weren’t quite good enough for Don’s 409 Impala, which recorded a best of 13.29. (Photo ©TEN: The Enthusiast Network. All Rights Reserved.)
The Winternationals, or the “Big Go West” as it was also called, kicked off at Pomona with time trials on Friday, February 17. Cars to beat included the 389 Pontiac of Mickey Thompson, driven by Pete Petrey; it was the quickest of the Pontiacs in the program. In addition, the Fords of Les Ritchey, Pete McCarroll, and Bud Harris were tough competition. McCarroll was running the recently released 3 x 2-barrel setup, giving the Ford a 375-horse rating. Frank Sanders, in the only other 409 car, proved to be Don’s toughest competition. Sanders defeated Don in Saturday’s final on a holeshot, 13.63 at 105.26 mph.
At the 1961 Winternationals, Don and his Impala took Mr. Stock Eliminator honors by defeating cars such as the 390-powered Ford of Bud Harris. Only two 409s made Pomona, the other being the Biscayne of Frank Sanders. Don had prepped the heads for Sanders’s 409, which won Super Stock class. (Photo ©TEN: The Enthusiast Network. All Rights Reserved.)
The 50 fastest Stockers ran on Sunday for the Mr. Stock Eliminator crown. The cars consisted of S/S stick and automatic as well as A/S and B/S cars. Dyno Don defeated Ritchey in the semifinals before getting around Sanders in the final with a 13.59 at 105.88. Low ET of the meet went to Don, who tripped the clocks with a 13.25 at 107.27 mph.
Don should be recognized as the first of the Stock-class racers to go out on tour. Early in 1961, he was living in Duarte and reading all about the Hot Stockers back East (the Platts, Phil Bonner, Dave Strickler, and others), and he wondered how his Impala would measure up. Well, he’d find out soon enough.
Don’s 1961 was the first Super Stocker to break 110 mph and the first to run consistently in the 12-second zone. Its Carter carb has reworked metering rods and the secondary jets are drilled .003. Tri-Y headers were the work of Jerry Jardine. Don blueprinted the engine. The factory clutch and flywheel were behind the 409. (Photo ©TEN: The Enthusiast Network. All Rights Reserved.)
Don jumped at the chance when offered the opportunity to travel to Indiana for a match then head south to North Carolina. Don hit the road, flat towing his Chevy behind the 1957 Chevy of Ida and Jim Barth, who were Earl Wade’s “adopted” parents. At Henderson, North Carolina, Don drove through the 16-car field that included 13 Fords, 2 Chevrolets, and 1 Pontiac. Ronnie Sox was there but was unable to compete. The final round came down to Don and a local Ford.
Don later recalled, “There were no guard rails and the asphalt ended before the track did. The crowd had gotten so bad they were all over the track. I almost hit some a couple of times and I told the strip operator that I wasn’t going to run again unless he cleared the people off the track. It had gotten so you couldn’t even see the track for all the people. So the operator gets on the PA and tells the guy with the Ford, Dallas Parkinson, to go out there and clear the track off. So he comes out of the pits sideways, kicking up sand. I don’t know how he didn’t kill anyone. On his way back up the track, people were mad and throwing rocks and bottles at his car, breaking the windows out. He gets back to the pits and here come about a thousand people gunning for him. The track operator came out to the middle of the track and started shooting his shotgun in the air to stop them. They finally got them cleared out, and then I almost got ‘home town’ed.’ The guy jumped the flag and almost beat me. I fumbled second gear but still managed to catch him. To make it a big deal, the $600-dollar winnings was all in one-dollar bills in a wheelbarrow.” A wheelbarrow full of cash it was, plus an extra $200 dollars for showing. “Some of the Ford guys said the only reason I beat them was because I had a 4-speed and they didn’t. I told them I’d use first and fourth and they block off either second or third and I’d run them. I still got no takers.”
This photo was shot in early August at Jerry Jardine’s aunt’s home in Ohio. It was an eventful trip east that saw the tow car lose an axle in Virginia and jackknife in a rainstorm in Arizona. At the time the photo was shot, Don was in Detroit visiting with Chevrolet’s Vince Piggins, picking up parts, and hammering out a deal. The gentleman in the photo is Jerry Jardine. The 1955 Chevy tow car was later given to Dave McGrane on his 16th birthday. (Photo Courtesy Jerod Jardine)
It was while towing the Impala (on slicks) back up north for a match at the Detroit Dragway that the tow car lost control on the rain-soaked Virginia turnpike. The cars jackknifed, leading to the tow bar bracket tearing from the Impala’s frame. Don, who was attempting to catch some sleep in the back seat, woke in time to see the Impala leaving the road and rolling over in a shallow ditch, coming to a stop back on its wheels. The incident tore up the left front suspension and bent up the roof and many of the body panels. A wrecker was called to haul the Impala into Beckley, where the suspension was repaired at a Chevy dealer.
At the Nationals, Don is all smiles with helpers Jerry Jardine (left) and Turk after winning Stock. It was a fleeting moment of celebration; once in the tear down barn, the Chevy was disqualified on a technicality. (Photo Courtesy Nicholson Family Collection)
Don called Gil Kohn at Detroit and tried to beg out of the match, but Kohn wouldn’t hear of it. He had Garlits and Ivo lined up but Garlits bailed after getting burned in a fire. Kohn insisted that Don be there, as without him, there was no show. Kohn arranged to have a body shop straighten the Impala, doing what they could before the Sunday match. The car looked like crap but did manage to win the match, defeating the Ace Wilson Royal Pontiac driven by Jim Wangers in convincing fashion.
Back home, the Impala was repaired and repainted in preparation for a planned second trip east early in July to Easy Street Dragstrip near Newton Grove, North Carolina. This time, Jerry Jardine came along to assist Don. The pair borrowed Big John Mazmanian’s stubby trailer and loaded up Don’s