there’s been a lot of discussion in this forum about motion I and b&n automotive over the past couple of weeks; some solid history and some not.
but, the one thing that has not been discussed is how much fun it was to be on the “b&n bad guy” crew; even when thrashing on a car there was always the sound of laughter coming from the pit.
in 1971, one year after noel black was killed in motion I, burt peterson became partners with duane cole in a ’53 studebaker that was powered by one of the engines from motion.
we were at the far end of the course between record runs and needed to change the oil in the blown fuel hemi.
because of the engine set back the firewall had to be removed in order to get oil into the engine.
but, getting that firewall out and back in the car was an all day process in itself and this was in the days of qualify on one day and run for record the next morning with an approximate one-hour turnaround in the opposite direction.
so, i made my body as stiff as i could and steve peterson, burt’s son, and frank "jive ass" silva picked me up and stuck me between the right cylinder-bank and the fender well; fortunately for me the headers had cooled enough to facilitate this without being burned.
one-at-a-time a can of oil was placed in my right hand, i brought it into the engine compartment and gingerly passed it to my left hand so i could dump the oil into the engine.
i wish somebody had taken pictures of this process!
i remember somebody (frank??... steve??) saying something like: “just stay down there greg and if you hear the engine start to knock, bang on the firewall so duane knows to back out of it!” which brought about a great amount of laughter from those around us.
duane did set a record that morning, but missed the 200 mph club by just a couple miles per hour when the car spun in the middle mile on the return. the average speed was taken from the third mile on the down run and the first mile on the return run. it’s been a long time but i think the record duane set was 198 mph. maybe gary can clear that up. i don’t remember what the previous record was or who held it until that point.
i can tell you that, after losing noel the previous year, burt was a bag of worms between the time we heard that the car had spun and when we reached duane to learn he was safe and, in b&n bad guy style, laughing hardily.
