Wow Penguin! Congrats! Ummmm, do you have to swear you're a Liberal to get a University position these days?

BTW, I won't bore 99% of the dufes around this joint with a Thump post, but I spent many, MANY hours (including long nights) in Smokey's "Best Damn Garage in Town"! (it burned down 5-6 years ago). A LOT of history there. I really miss those days and wish I'd been old enough to really appreciate the things (and conversations) I witnessed. Ol' Smokey was a real character ... one of the nicest guys you could ever know ... one of the grumpiest guys you could ever know ... and BOY could he drink!

We were running late-model roundy-round cars on Friday and Saturday nights ... '56 and '57 Fords. My dad was also racing a (Paxton) blown '57 Ford (312 cid) drag racer on Sundays when Smokey was "with" Ford. At that time nobody in the field really knew much about superchargers, but dad filled the house with trophies in those days. He ran the stock class since the Paxton Blower was an option on the '57 T-birds. In the early 60's, dad became the Service Manager at the local Pontiac dealer in Orlando. Ha! It just so happens, Smokey had left Ford and hooked up with Pontiac around that time. I can remember Fireball Roberts sitting in our living room one afternoon and dad mentioned running over to Daytona to Smokey's garage. I can STILL hear those magic words like it was just yesterday ... "Jimmy! You wanna run over to Smokey's with us?" I think I beat dad and Glen out the door! Dad later talked the dealer into sponsoring a Pontiac for the NASCAR races and it was quite the neighborhood draw as it was many times on the trailer in our driveway before heading out for the next race.

A guy named Dick Joslin and Fireball were very close friends and Dick was Fireball's best man at his wedding. Dick was also a very close friend of my dad's, so a lot of time was spent around them when I was a kid. Here's a pic of the first car of Dick's that I remember as a kid. (he went on to run NASCAR races, including the old beach course before the speedway was built) Again, the Ford 312 came into play, but this one was injected instead of blown. That Central Florida Speed Parts was my dad's shop ... the first speed shop in Orlando. The image there was called "Lil Pogo" (not sure why, Pogo was a 'possum' while Albert was the alligator). To get his opening inventory, Dad and Dick drove out to Southern California to buy speed parts. I remember Dad put a new set of tires on his Ford F-100 to make the trip. Then they had to put ANOTHER new set of tires on the truck to make it back home! I LOVED hearing their stories about that trip ... especially the one about Dick hanging out the window shooting jack rabbits with a pistol! Note: That's me feeling the temp of the RR tire after the car came into the pits after a practice run)


Joslin71mod.jpg


Does any of this stuff sound like it may be Smokey Yunick influenced? (caption for the pic)

Joslin ran this neat '37 Ford coupe on both pavement and dirt in the late 50s. Built by Roy Jones,
long time car builder for Fireball Roberts, the car featured a 312 cubic inch fuel injected
Y-block Ford engine and offset driveline. The engine was set well back in the frame and the
body was moved aft as well.

But back to Smokey ... he was a true genius ... a self taught genius, and his biggest advantage was thinking "outside the box". I remember him telling my dad once (and I've read this many times since), that the best tool in the garage was the NASCAR rule book. Learn ALL the rules, because you can't break the rules in the book, but in his opinion, you can do any damn thing you want that's NOT in the book! And he was the best in the world for "innovation".