|
 Jerry
Baltes’ historic 1960’s vintage Top
Fuel Dragster recently served as the
centerpiece of the East Coast Drag
Racing Hall Of Fame booth at the PRI
Show, December 11-12-13, in Orlando,
Florida. Baltes and his wife Pat
brought the car from their home in
North Carolina and displayed it
during the entire 2008 edition of
the Performance Racing Industry
(PRI) show in Orlando.
Acting as hostess and
representative of the East Coast
Drag Racing Hall of Fame and its
weekend’s activities was Nancy
Wilson, the event’s President and
Director of the Vance County Tourism
Development Authority, headquartered
in Henderson, North Carolina.
“We consider the PRI
Show and its attendees to be the
primary target of our efforts at
expanding our annual East Coast Drag
Racing Hall Of Fame® Weekend and in
our continuing quest to build a drag
racing oriented, motorsports
museum. This was our third PRI Show
and we were extremely pleased with
the response that our booth and
display of Jerry Baltes’ car
produced! Several thousand very
interested folks stopped, looked
carefully at the car and left with
information and literature on our
2009 event. This type of enthusiasm
and interest will be key to the
continuing expansion of our event
and programs”, Ms. Wilson noted.
“I am especially
grateful to Jerry and Pat Baltes. I
sincerely thank them for their
efforts in bringing their beautiful
race car to the PRI Show, and for
their being on hand the entire
weekend to answer questions not only
on the car, but our event too!”,
added Ms. Wilson. Jerry and Pat
Baltes have been both participants
as well as attendees at all of the
East Coast Drag Times Hall Of Fame®
Weekend, and displayed their car
during the last three events.
“It’s amazing how
quickly and how popular the entire
nostalgia drag racing concept has
become. Events such as our Hall of
Fame Weekend continue to grow as
this wave of enthusiasm brings more
and more people back to the true
roots of racing. Perhaps even more
important is the fact that our event
and others like it are attracting
not only the veteran racers and
fans, who were there when it
originally happened, but an amazing
and growing number of young people
who have embraced the nostalgia drag
racing concept and are finding an
entire new field of motorsports
activity in which to participate as
racers and spectators. I’m
particularly proud that our Hall Of
Fame Event Weekend is on the leading
edge of this new motorsports
movement”, she added.
NHRA 1964 Top Fuel Record Holder
Rides Again!
Jerry Baltes’
original Croshier-Baltes-Lovato car
set the Official NHRA AA/Fuel
Dragster record of 193.54 mph in
1964, at Inyokern Drag Strip,
Inyokern, California. Jerry
intended to find his original car
and restore it, but after an
extensive search, Baltes was unable
to locate the original. Undaunted,
Jerry and his wife Pat, now of
Boydton, VA, had an exact duplicate
built as it last raced, in 1965.
Ironically, soon after the
recreation was finished, Baltes
stumbled upon the original, in
Cleveland, Ohio.
“That was a great
example of how ‘Murphy’s Law’ works
in drag racing!”, Jerry laughed.
The owner of the
original car knew something of the
car’s distinguished pedigree and was
unwilling to sell at this time.
“I had given up on
ever finding my old car, thinking it
had been cut up or otherwise
destroyed, so I was fortunate to
secure the services and amazing
memory of Rod Pepmuller, who built
the original C-B-L race car. It
shows how much these cars were loved
by the guys who built them, because
Rod sat down and drew out the plans
from his memory, some 45 years
later! The new car, of course, is
far cleaner than the original,
because in those days we were all
about functionality rather than
looking good. Besides, our budgets
were pretty thin and wouldn’t allow
us to buy anything that wouldn’t
help us go faster or get us to the
next race”, Jerry reflected.
Legendary California
racers Rod Pepmuller and “TV Tommy”
Ivo built and assembled the original
car in 1963. Jerry Baltes and Don
Croshier then bought it from Ivo.
At the time it was state-of-the-art,
built with the finest available
“go-fast goodies”. Baltes drove and
campaigned the car with racing
partners Don Croshier and Billy
Lovato, all from the San Diego, CA
area.
On-Tour & Winning Big Drag Races
“Back East”
1964 was an
especially productive year for the
team. They not only set the
official NHRA speed record, but went
on a national tour with the car,
scheduling and running all the “big
meets back east”. That year they
won the coveted World Series of Drag
Racing title at Cordova, IL,
recording times of 7.82-204.54 mph.
That same year they also set the
track record at 202.24 mph, running
at the fabled Union Grove, Wisconsin
track.
The chassis for the
“new” C-B-L car was re-crafted from
memory by its original builder, Rod
Pepmuller. Bob Sorrell, the noted
California race car body designer
and craftsman built the original
body, but like the original car, it
too was long-gone. Sorrell passed
away many years ago, and that
presented a dilemma in finding
someone with the talent and time to
recreate Sorrell’s original
hand-formed aluminum body. Baltes
knew of only one man with that
capability, the immensely talented
Tom Hanna.
The Return Of “The Tin Man”, Tom
Hanna
Hanna lived in the
San Diego area at the same time
Baltes did, and the two were friends
“from way back when”. Hanna’s
aluminum art graced many of the 60’s
most beautiful and well-known race
cars and several of his creations
are regarded as iconic examples of
the hand-formed aluminum race car
body as art. Tom had abandoned his
body craft decades past and gone on
to a successful entrepreneurial
business career in other
non-automotive industries. The rise
of interest in nostalgia drag racing
rekindled Hanna’s desire to again
create the aluminum bodies he is
famed for. He has since recreated
several notable Top Fuel bodies and
designed and built what many have
called “The Ultimate Front-Engine
Dragster”. After conferring with
Hanna, Jerry was overwhelmed when
Tom agreed to do the body as well as
the fabrication, machining and
assembly needed to complete the
car. The new C-B-L car proudly
displays a nosepiece medallion
inscribed with the legend: “Body By
Bob Sorrell and Tom Hanna”. This is
Hanna’s way of honoring Sorrell’s
own wonderful art. Elsewhere, Hanna
and his crew of machine-wizards did
their magic in creating yet another
piece of drag racing legend.
As was the original,
the new car is powered by a
supercharged, nitro-burning 392
Chrysler Hemi with the long,
sweeping “weedburner” style headers
popularized by nitro racers of the
early 1960’s. The engine was built
by a trio of skilled individuals who
collaborated on the project. These
included: Carl Johnson’s Sterling
Engines; Bob Crietz, of Tulsa; and
the late Steve Carbone, also of
Tulsa, OK. Baltes frequently
participates in “Cacklefest”
displays at nostalgia drag racing
events, giving the fans a taste of
what top-level drag racing was like
in the sport’s golden era, the
1960’s.
The striking paint
work is authentic to a minute degree
obtained from various photos and was
executed to perfection by Chris
Ellis, of South Hill, Virginia.
Not surprisingly,
since its competition, the
Croshier-Baltes-Lovato Top Fuel
dragster has won several awards for
its beautifully stated excellence in
craftsmanship and authenticity.
East Coast Drag Times Hall Of Fame
Weekend
Highlights 2009 Hot Rod Events!
The East Coast Drag
Times Hall of Fame® Weekend
completed its eighth annual event
last October, at its birthplace,
Henderson, NC. What began as an
informal weekend barbeque and drag
racer’s gathering has blossomed into
a major east coast drag racing
happening. The Hall of Fame
induction ceremonies on Sunday
honors east coast drag racing
notables, and keynotes an entire
weekend of festivities. The fun
begins on Friday with a Show, Shine,
Shag & Dine, 1:00-6:00 pm at the
Ambassador Inn, Henderson. This
includes an old fashioned, southern
style barbeque. From 7:00-10:00 pm
there’s a Cruise-In at Raleigh’s
Road Outdoor Drive-In Theatre, and
at the same time, a reception at
four different Henderson hotels:
Hampton Inn; Holiday Inn Express;
Jameson Inn; and Ambassador Inn.
Saturday brings the annual Show &
Shine. This is now a major eastern
car show that attracts more than
1,000 hot rods, race cars, antique
vehicles and musclecars. This phase
of the Hall Of Fame Weekend has
grown to the point that it literally
takes over the entire downtown area
of host city, Henderson, NC.
Attracting tens of thousands of
spectators, the show’s downtown
pedestrian mall allows a leisurely
stroll to enjoy the multitude of
cars on display.
The 2009, Ninth
Annual East Coast Drag Times Hall of
Fame® Weekend with all its
festivities is scheduled for
October 16-17-18, 2009, in
Henderson, NC.
For additional
information on the East Coast Drag
Times Hall of Fame® Weekend contact:
Nancy Wilson, Vance County (NC)
Tourism, 946 T West Andrews Avenue,
Henderson, NC, 27536.
Tel: (252) 438 -2222,
Ext. 21 or E-Mail: vctourism@gloryroad.net
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