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Like many other young men who came of age
in the late 1950’s and early 60’s, Ken Poffenberger grew up loving the excitement of building
and driving race cars. “Poff” (A
childhood nickname that stuck
throughout his adult lifetime) was
not unlike the character described
in Bruce Springsteen’s classic
anthem to kids and cars, “Born To
Run”. Springsteen and
Poffenberger were kids who were born
to run, and both craved the thrills
that big horsepower could deliver.
“The Boss” Springsteen expressed his
vehicular passion through his music,
while Poffenberger exhibited his in
the race cars and the drag racing
legend he created.
Ken Poffenberger was not like the headliner stars of the
drag racing world in the 60’s and
70’s. Poff never rose to the
heights of a Don “The Snake”
Prudhomme, Tom “Mongoose” McEwen or
Don Schumacher, although he
undoubtedly envied their big-budget
sponsors that allowed them to buy
the best parts and talent money
could buy. That just wasn’t his
style. Instead, he was a true
weekend racer who raced for the
pleasure it brought him. His
succession of race cars were
carefully put together and he always
ran them as close to the edge as his
budget would allow. Although he ran
on a tight budget, Poff’s cars were
always presentable and well detailed
a tribute to his hot rodder’s skills
and pride. If they weren’t always
capable of running Low ET and Top
MPH, they were feared for their
ability to run consistent,
competitive numbers, round after
round, race after race. And when he
wanted to, Poff knew how to push his
equipment a little closer to the
“edge”, just enough to get out front
and stay there, without reducing his
car and motor to splinters.
Perhaps Ken Poffenberger’s greatest accomplishment was his
ability to take whatever he could
obtain and squeeze the maximum from
it, and he managed to field a
competitive racing effort while
raising a family.
Born in Lyndhurst, New Jersey, Ken and his family moved to
Parsippany, NJ when he was a child.
Ken remained in or near Parsippany
for much of his adult life, owning
and operating Ken’s Garage, an
automotive repair center, for more
than 20 years. Poffenberger’s first
exposure to drag racing came at a
converted airstrip drag strip near
Montgomery, NY. He was running his
daily street driver, which at the
time was a ’55 Ford. It didn’t take
him long to discover that the “dual
purpose, street and strip” cross
between race car and daily driver
meant sometimes walking home, or
enlisting the aid of your buddies,
plus a heavy tow rope.
He soon graduated from the ’55 Ford to a ’34 Ford coupe,
running in the Altered class with a
supercharged, small-block Chevy.
The ’34 was considerably faster and
quicker, and Poffenberger became a
regular with the car at the famed
Island Dragway, in Great Meadows,
New Jersey. The ’34 Altered was
better, but in the early 60’s the
real excitement came from running
full-bodied Gassers. A local guy
named Jack Albers had a ’40 Willys
coupe, but no engine and
transmission, so the two got
together and dropped Ken’s blown
small-block Chevy into the Willys.
The result was a B/Gas Supercharged
entry that ran at Island Dragway,
Atco Dragway and any place the pair
could find a drag strip and a race
to enter.
Poff next obtained a 1957 Corvette, with the dual
four-barrel, 270 hp, 283 V-8 engine
option, running in NHRA’s B/Sports
Class. Poffenberger’s natural
tuning and driving abilities took
that car to a class championship at
The Nationals, and gave Poff a taste
of winning on a level outside his
home state and area.
By the middle 1960’s the wild and wooly “A/Factory
Experimental” class had attracted a
national following, and racers
across the country were beginning to
create names for themselves by
running in various match races,
against other similar FX cars. It
was with the FX cars that the
classic Detroit rivalry was spawned,
and every weekend drag strips echoed
with announcer’s cries: “Who’s for
Ford? Who’s for Plymouth? Who’s
for Pontiac? And finally, “Who’s
for Chevy?” the call that always
brought out the biggest roar.
Poffenberger was attracted by the idea of building a car
that was crowd popular, faster than
a Gasser and could be booked into
paying match races. He found a used
’65 Chevelle and went to work,
gutting the car’s interior, adding a
roll cage, altering the stock
wheelbase, mounting lightweight
front-end components, narrowing the
rear axle to accommodate wide
slicks, and dropping in a big-block
Chevy 427 built by Poff and his
brother-in-law, Matt Slowinski.
After carefully sorting out the new
car and increasing the power with
long-tubed, fuel injection and
nitromethane-alcohol fuel mixes,
Poff found himself running low nine,
high eight-second times at 160+
mph. He also began picking up match
race appearance money, especially
when area strips were booking in a
national-name car and needed a
competitive, reliable local racer at
an affordable price. Poff was quick
to accept such offers, and in spite
of being a “local guy” racer,
managed to sometimes upset the
booked-in star, stealing the thunder
and the win while building his own
reputation as a capable driver with
a sneaky-fast race car!
The technology behind Funny Cars was moving rapidly forward,
and Ken’s ’65 Chevelle soon became
obsolete. This forward progress
leap-frogged most notably after Don
Nicholson debuted his new Logghe
tube chassis, lightweight Mercury
Comet Funny Car in 1966.
Nicholson’s hugely advanced race
car, along with similar cars
provided to the other Mercury and
Ford sponsored teams, forever
changed the face of Funny Car
racing. Poffenberger knew his ’65
Chevelle could no longer run with
the cars he had to compete against.
Armed with this knowledge, he set
out to build his own tube-framed,
flip-top Funny Car.
Poffenberger’s new car borrowed much from the Logghe
Chassied Mercury and Ford team cars
that were so dominant in the Funny
Car ranks. He made careful
observations whenever he pitted near
these cars, and incorporated much of
the engineering that Logghe had
built into his own car. Along the
way he also added improvements,
especially in the driver’s cage
area. Taking a shot at auto
industry critic and arch-foe of GM,
Ralph Nader, Poffenberger purchased
a one-piece, fiberglass Corvair body
and mounted it on the chassis.
For power Poffenberger decided to retain his familiar
big-block Chevy 427, but to maintain
his ability to run with the other
Funny Cars, Ken built a brand new,
supercharged, 427 Chevy designed to
run on nitro and alky, with an
Enderle “Big Catcher” injector on
top.
With this car Poffenberger showed his mettle at both match
races as well as open competition
races. He even caused a stir at the
1967 Super Stock Nationals when his
homebuilt Corvair Funny Car cranked
out Low ET, a mark that stood until
improving conditions allowed the
higher horsepower, factory sponsored
cars to lower Poff’s mark. But his
showing at the New York National
Speedway hosted Super Stock
Nationals impressed many. It also
earned Poff several well paying
match race bookings against
headliner cars. Match racing the
Corvair, Poffenberger recorded low
seven-second ET’s at 200+ mph, and
the car was known for its ability to
run consistently.
In spite of his love for the Chevy’s, Poffenberger knew that
the 426 Hemi was an engine design
better suited to the extreme stress
of nitro racing. Rather than risk
destruction of his race car, injury
to himself, and jeopardy to his
already precarious out-of-pocket
racing budget, Poff decided to make
the jump to light speed by buying an
existing Hemi powered Funny Car. He
managed to purchase Don Prudhomme’s
U.S. Army sponsored 1970 Plymouth
‘Cuda. Although the car had been
nationally campaigned by Snake, it
had also been well maintained, and
put Poff behind the wheel of a ride
that was considerably better than
his homemade Corvair. The new car
and new 426 Hemi power provided
Poff’s career with a shot in the arm
and the chance to run with the big
guys. After repainting and
refreshing, the car was christened
“Poff’s Puffer”.
Poffenberger’s new ride was a significant step upwards, and
he ran well enough to at first pay
the race car bills, buy fresh
consumable parts and maintain his
level of competitiveness. But a
series of mechanical failures, in
particular blower explosions and
resulting fires, taxed his resources
to the point where he was forced to
park his beloved Funny Car ride and
sell it and all his parts.
Poffenberger was like many other
racers trying to run high-end, fuel
cars on out-of-pocket budgets. The
sport of drag racing had itself
evolved, and the formerly lucrative
match race circuit had dried up,
except for a chosen few super star
drivers. When that died, the
weekend racer could no longer afford
to field a race car just to run the
open competition, major events.
For a time he worked closely and traveled with close friend
Slammin’ Sammy Miller. Miller had
driven Poff’s cars at times, and
Poffenberger provided his experience
and knowledge when Sammy built and
later campaigned his hydrogen
peroxide fueled, rocket powered
Funny Car, “Vanishing Point”. Ken
was a partner in the rocket powered
car, and it carried Poff’s name on
its sides as a tribute to the
contributions Poffenberger made to
Sammy Miller’s world famed rocket
car until he bowed out of the
agreement in 1978.
He had remarried in 1993, and with the move to Florida,
began a new career and business with
his wife Barbara. An on-again,
off-again winter visitor to Florida
for several years, Poff and Barbara
permanently left the winters of New
Jersey behind, moving to South
Florida in 1996. Their store
featured unique and interesting
lighting products for the home, and
Poff enjoyed the challenge of
operating his own successful
business. Most recently, Ken and
Barbara began selling swimsuits for
the bikini-clad populace of Palm
Beach and Ft. Lauderdale.
In October, 2006, following the completion of the ’06 Hall
of Fame weekend, Ken Poffenberger
was nominated for membership in the
East Coast Drag Racing Hall of
Fame. It was an honor the humble
and well respected, weekend Funny
Car racer accepted with great
enthusiasm and anticipation for the
October, 2007 weekend when he would
be forever enshrined among his peers
in the drag racing world.
“He was like a kid at Christmas, tearing
into the presents under the
Christmas tree. He was so excited
about being inducted into the Hall
of Fame. It was all he talked about
and he told anyone who would listen
that he was going to be an East
Coast Drag Racing Hall of Fame
member. We went to the 2006 Hall of
Fame Weekend and had such a great
time that we planned to return.
Then Ken found out that he was being
inducted in 2007 and that meant we
would be there for an even more
special reason”, recall his wife
Barbara. Scarcely four
days following his nomination
announcement, Ken Poffenberger
passed away without warning after
suffering a massive heart attack.
With tremendous irony, the man who
survived the dangerous days when
Funny Car racing was a
life-threatening Endeavour, passed
quietly while relaxing in his
favorite easy chair, at home. Ken
Poffenberger was 65 years old at the
time of his passing.
Poff’s wife Barbara will be on hand Sunday, October 22,
2007, in Henderson, NC, to
posthumously accept Ken’s induction
plaque. |
