As part of today's research project, I came across the 4/57 issue of
Motor Guide, which has a cover-bannered feature article : EXCLUSIVE:
Kiekaefer's story:" Why I quit Racing".
Inside, the article is 5 pages long, and has a lot of rarely seen
photographs, and was written by Kermit Moreland.
Carl's racing team is referred to as :"Scuderia
Kiekaefer".
While I'm not going to quote the entire article (thank you very much) ,
some of the relevant points are: "His secret for getting maximum
performance without modification lies in improving the car, not the
engine".
...just a few days before the opening of Speed Week [this would be early
FEB] and the kickoff of the big NASCAR Grand National season, K [as I
shall call him, herewith] abruptly announced that he was withdrawing
completely from racing automobiles. At the time, no reason was given and
the racing world was baffled.
So, MG contacted K....
K, himself, at first refused comment. On the surface, it appeared that
he would remain completely silent.After much persuaaion, he finally
agreed to make a statement. When released (after much controversial
editing), it actually said nothing, as follows:
"That particular phase of our activity that caused us to race, which
incidentally resulted in three successive championships, has passed.
With due credit to President Coolidge, we did not choose to run this
year. As always, our No. 1 activity is building Mercury outboard
motors."
MG didn't quite, fully, buy-into that "Bill Belicheck"-type explanation,
of saying nothing.
The article, then, goes into a nice biography of K, upthru 1939, when he
was able to buy an "old" factory, and to found his outboard engine
producing company.
Then, the article gets back on track, with a follow-up interview with K.
And, altho he was expected to have 'exploded', or clammed-up, he did
proffer the following information, to MG:
"From the outset of his venture into stock car racing, K was a stormy
petrel. He argued with NASCAR, openly, and in private. His finely tuned
cars were often suspected of concealing secret modifications, but no one
could prove it."
Bill France is quoted as saying that NASCAR never found any infractions
in/on the cars :" And, brother, did we try!"
K also became irritated with his highly-paid drivers fraternizing with
other drivers & pit crews
[probably, rightfully, worrying about giving away trade secrets] .
Ah HA: [please recall my supposition, on why Dodge didn't support the
1957 D501 effort! ]
" Because he exploited Chrysler products, the Chrysler Corp. was able
to more or less remain aloof from the factory team stock car
activities.. Fart & Chubbie worked frantically to beat him and couldn't
make the grade."
"However, internal pressure became too great. There are many facets to
auto racing and much behind-the-scenes activity takes place.
"It was from these sources [ feuding/team- organization
hassles/corporate non-assistance/
advertising-successes ] that K received the death blow. In short, he was
forced to quit."
K then goes on to describe the various, legal, modifications that he/his
team had made to his cars.
"Proof of the superior set up is the fact that the cars were never
disqualified, and that they never turned-over and never injured a driver
or anyone else, a real tribute to the close co-ordination of driver,
equipment and crew."
"No modifications were made to the Chrysler engines [nothing said, about
the D-500-1's]
but they were very carefully rebuilt and put into tiptop shape and tuned
for maximum performance."
K credits a lot of his team's successes to K's development of the "dry
type air cleaner", installing oversize tires on the lighter [Dodge]
cars, and creating wider wheel rims for the heavier [CHRY] cars.
Nice article.
Neil Vedder--oh, and no mentioning of fans' "booing" the team; I guess,
because they never ran, on Halloween.
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