Chrysler's Motown Missile: Mopar's Secret Engineering Program at the Dawn of Pro Stock. Geoff Stunkard
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so at each of those tracks on the weekends, which was more than he made during a week in the factory. He would often come back home between the races to sleep and would also pull the pan down and put fresh bearings in the Hemi. He worked in the furniture industry back then, and he also did mechanical work on other hot rods, helping people get ready for the races that weekend. I just thought that was the way every racer lived.
When he began doing the Motown Missile program in Detroit, Michigan, I didn’t travel much yet, but our family eventually moved up there. I wanted to be part of it and came over to the shop sometimes. They would let me help clean up, wash parts, and sweep the floor. Joe Pappas and Dick Oldfield were always kind to me, and I was in awe of the factory guys who would come by and talk. When I was a little older, I was more involved and could help take a Lenco transmission out, handle some tools, and sometimes mix our special gas. Back then, we had our own blend of Sunoco and AV gas, and I would take the proportions from each barrel and mix a batch up. That was a pretty important job.
At the same time, Clyde Hodges ran the shop that was in our old house. My dad grew up right on this property, and it had been in the family a long time. Clyde was a real country backwoods sort of guy, but he could weld and knew how to build engines. People said the engines he built were as good as Ted Spehar’s stuff. I admit right now, that was a matter of opinion, but it was his reputation. Anyhow, my dad had already started building the new concrete-block 100 × 40-foot building here even before the factory backing went away. When it was over, he and Clyde did it all and even built whole cars here, including the Colt that Dad was killed in. When the operation moved back here, we received a huge amount of parts and lots of titanium stuff, plus cylinder heads, blocks—you name it. We had a warehouse full of parts.
Young Don and his dad are pictured at a 1974 match race at Milan Dragway. (Photo Courtesy Joe Pappas)
I was about 15 when he was killed in 1977. Of course, it was very hard on all of us. At my age, I was busy being interested in girls and school, and the shop eventually closed. In the late 1970s, I tried a little drag racing, but since my name is Don Carlton as well, there was a lot of pressure on me at the local tracks to measure up to his reputation. Still, I enjoyed racing, and after I tried circle-track driving once and liked it. I actually did a bunch of Sportsman circle track racing locally. I was never a professional, but I did pretty well with that for some years. By then, however, we no longer had any affiliation with Chrysler, and it eventually became expensive enough that I decided to quit.
You know, my dad was never a top-hatter. He was cool, but he didn’t have airs, fancy clothes, or flashy stuff. I would probably look like a showboater compared to him, but that was just the way he was. I think that for him, driving a race car was just the thing he did. It was natural. He could work on them too, and that whole Missile team fit together very naturally. Plus, the guys were all friends. Richard Oldfield, Dick’s son, and I were about the same age, and we spent time together. Our parents would get together and play cards sometimes, and we also went on the road with the team to a few of the events in the summer.
The car my dad was killed in was buried in the landfill on Lick Mountain, right above where Hudson Dragway used to be. The guy who ran the bulldozer there was an old high school drag racing buddy of dad’s, and he told me years ago it would get uncovered every once in a while. He understood what it meant to us, and even with some of the parts left on it, it was never stripped apart. Just buried. I think a few guys might have taken souvenirs from it, but the landfill has been closed due to some of the other nasty stuff people sent there. I think that is just as well.
I still have the old shop, but it has expanded. I run several businesses out of it, making materials for the local furniture industry and packing business. The old motor room is used as an office by my plant manager, and some of my dad’s trophies are still in his display case, even though that area is used for storage now. Some of the family still lives on the property too, just like always.
As for me, I often play a round of golf with Stuart McDade, who is still in the area. He doesn’t talk much about those days now. Still, it was really good to see the whole Missile team back together at Henderson for that reunion event a couple of years ago. Looking back, we really did have an amazing time when we raced. The reunion recalled a time that is still very special to all of them, and I think my dad would have loved it.
Introduction
The sport of drag racing, once the bane of local law enforcement and the subject of teen exploitation flicks of the 1950s, grew alongside the performance vehicle era of the early 1960s. While running a pair of anything side by side to determine a victor is certainly older than the automobile, it was drag racing that made it possible for anyone to compete, whether his or her vehicle was a bone-stock car fresh off the showroom floor or a contraption of cubic inches, steel tubing, and bravado.
As the sport segued into more specialized compartmentalization, those promoting it as a spectator sport constantly looked for ways to make certain that there were cars appearing to be stock but were actually modified. They tried Factory Experimental, and things got out of hand with Funny Cars. They tried Super Stock versus pure Stock but found that the need to equalize performances between various designs created racing challenges.
In 1968, the American Hot Rod Association (AHRA) created a specific heads-up Super Stock class with rules carefully governing appearance but also allowing powerful enhancements. In late 1969, the bellwether organization, the National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) did likewise. The result was Pro Stock, and the book you are reading focuses on a group of Chrysler engineers and associates who determined early on that using science was the way to win.
Dick Oldfield and one of the Spar brothers from B&M get ready for work on the transmission in the pits at Indy in 1970. Tom “The Ghost” Coddington is in the background. (Photo Courtesy Tom Hoover Family)
Let’s begin by introducing three of the main participants: Chrysler engineer Tom Hoover, engine builder Ted Spehar, and driver Don Carlton. Each of them established a reputation as an expert in his respective field. All three had a certain drive not often found in any discipline, the type of drive that can only lead to success over the long run if everything is on a level playing field. And the three of them functioning in harmony was a beautiful thing.
That stated, not a single one of them would have taken sole credit for what happened in the era that the Motown (and later Mopar) Missile program began. The team was surrounded by people who valued hard work and had a passion to win.
For Hoover, leading the factory development program, it was his fellow engineering cabal, many of them former members of a drag racing team called the Ramchargers. By the late 1960s at the height of the Detroit performance era, they remained strategically placed in Chrysler Corporation management, marketing, and development. Dave Koffel, liaison for the racers who began working for the firm in mid-1968, once noted they worked for a number of bosses over the years, but the focus never wavered. Whatever was needed to succeed was done. You will meet many of them on these pages.
For Spehar, it was the crew of guys who worked with him at his engine shop. Car builder and driver Dick Oldfield, engine-building associate Leonard Bartush, and shop manager Mike Koran shared in that effort. Ted himself was always in close association with factory boss Tom, who is reverently referred to as “Mr. Hoover” to this day. In his role of developing pieces for the racing environment, Spehar did relentless and thorough testing, finding solutions to problems that had never been seen before. Sometimes shown in the periodicals of the day working on an engine-based challenge during a long race weekend, Ted was typical of the mechanical geniuses the sport attracted, and the machine spoke for his effort.
Carlton, also bespeckled in black rims like the other two, was perhaps the person least expected to be the image of a drag racer. In an age of Aquarius and toughguy drivers, Don was not someone normally showing up in beefcake photos. However, put him in a 4-speed race car, and he was quickly a hero to the fans. Indeed, his competency as a driver quickly