I was born in Hemlock, NY and grew up in an automotive setting. I bought my first car when I was 14, a 1931 Ford Coupe for $50. Found it behind a barn. It was just a shell and a frame with no rear end. I proceeded to buy a 283 Chevy with a three speed and Chevy rear end. George Johnson, who eventually took over my driving chores in the funny cars, put this car together with me.  George Lived in Springwater, which is the next town south of Hemlock. We were both young kids at the time. We eventually totally re-did the coupe into a real nice street rod, with a 327 Chevy, 60 over, Isky Cam, four speed. It was the muscle car era ... 435 horse Corvettes, triple deuces...hemi Road Runner ... was a lot of fun. My coupe weighed only 2100 pounds.

This was 1968.  I took the car to college.

I attended Bryant College in Providence Rhode Island.  At that time I still hadn’t given drag racing much thought, but a classmate friend named Mike Ristuccia changed all of that. Until then I’d done all my racing on the street. We were crazy to think it was safe to race like that. But we always ran in very remote areas ... long straightaways ... back roads. I lived in Farm country. My hometown had around 600 people. 

I would soon learn that there are race tracks that are more dangerous than street racing ... short shutdowns and you have to turn because of a highway behind the end.  But at that time I never thought much about drags ... obviously it all turned around.

My friend Mike’s dad owned Wilmington Ford, in Massachusetts, and Mike spent his summers racing the former Mystery 7 Mustang funny car of Tasca Ford, in Providence.  In the late 60s the car had been one of the most successful in the Northeast. Mike’s racing hobby occupied four or five bays in the shop, plus a lot of the shop’s help to keep the race car going. Mike knew I was into cars because of my street coupe. He called me at the end of 1971 and said, “My dad says everything has to go by this weekend or it’s all going into the dumpster.” The deal involved two funnys: Mystery 7 and another Mustang with the body bolted down, an open trailer, and his entire inventory. He delivered everything to me in Hemlock, NY for $2000. I was in the racing business in a day.

Now I was a Chevy guy with a Ford-powered funny car, so I asked Harry Niles for help. Harry was a long time friend and a Ford person, and he became my crew chief on the car. Nickname: the Bear, which I had lettered on the front fender. He was also known as Mr. Ford. I would leave the car at his shop and he would work on it during the week.  Because it was pretty much a turn key operation, it was a matter of familiarizing ourselves with the pieces and giving the motor a tune up.

That was how I got into drag racing, not with a racing background but the love of speed and cars.  Without this yellow brick road of life and racing, I never would have gotten into the sport. It is all my fault for buying a 1931 Ford coupe body when I was 14, going to Bryant College, meeting Mike, and having my love of cars be known. Funny How Things Work Out

As far as I can remember, first time I went to a drag strip would have been to make some trial runs with my Mystery 7 Mustang at Empire Dragway in Rochester, and Spencer Speedway, a stock car track with a short drag track in the straightaway. What I remember most is that, like with all new drivers, the horse power: they have acceleration more then anything I had driven.  Plus you are strapped in with head gear and goggles ... things you have to get used to at the same time.  For me it was a lot of things since I had never been down a drag strip.

I got my license at Island Dragway in New Jersey and started racing the Mustang with injected nitro and a 427 Ford.  I named the car “Cinders,” after my dog. At this time, George Johnson had left his job at a Chevy dealership to work for me full time in my Shell gas station-repair shop in Rush, NY.  The “Cinders” car was a great way to get my feet wet.  Just trying to find my place in racing.  I did not run the Ford very long.

It was around this time when I met Bert Gronseth, who would be central to our racing efforts over the next decade. I moved in next to him and rented a large shop in the same building. As with all funny car operations, the people around them made things happen. No one wanted to get paid. Everyone loved the sport ... this was the case with Bert. He would always pay for things and that took the pressure off. George would do the same. Great time and great friends.

Installing a 6-71 blower on my street rod helped me prepare to run a blower on my next race car, the former Radici and Wise Camaro, in 1972. I ran the car on gas, with a Crower injector. It was an improvement from the Cinders Mustang in that it was a newer body style and a better chassis. Plus, it fit me ... I was too tall for my first funny car. The Camaro was great, another stepping stone.

My next race car was the ex-Hurri-Cain Bros. Cuda in 1973. I made the switch to blown nitro. The first pass I remember the quickness off the line ... the acceleration pinned you back in the seat ... the excitement to be the show car ... when the body came down and experiencing the excitement for all eyes were on you ... do a long burn and back up, looking at all the fans cheering you on ... it was a thrill of a lifetime. This was also my first dragster style chassis car, and it handled differently than my previous funny cars, which had wider stance, higher center of gravity, and headers on the inside of the chassis. The modern car felt much more stable. Getting to run a Hemi motor was also a big deal, to have access to all the racing parts for the nitro cars.   McCovoy Dodge gave me a red pickup and I bought a new Bock Trailer. We put a large cabinet on the front of it for storage.

In '74 we gave the 'Cuda the John Buttera treatment, with vents in the grille and hood similar to Don Schumacher’s Wonder Wagon Vega. My parents had moved to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, and my dad opened a large store called ‘Myrtle Beach Stereo Tape Center,’ so that went on the side of my race car. By then I was settled into nitro AA/FC and was match racing. Frank LeSeur was our booking agent.

By mid 1974 it was time for another change, and I bought a Mustang from Tom Woodbridge and Jerry Baltes of “Tom and Jerry” FC fame. The car’s Don Long chassis was the big turning point for us. Incidentally, the Mustang came with a beautiful new metallic copper-colored paint job so all I had to do was letter it. Saved a lot of time and money.

At first the Mustang was based out of my tire shop, Macedon Tires. That way we could take care of customers and work on the car. There was no garage at the shop. We changed tires outside on the cement pad and worked on the race car when the weather was fine by rolling it out of the trailer.  The shop’s overhead door was large and when we opened it we were in business. We had a little office in the corner with heat. It was my first retail store. I ran it with George and Bert. By this point I had graduated to an enclosed trailer that I had purchased from Kosty Ivanof. It was a bumper hitch. We painted it blue to match my new blue Dually. Put a sleeper on the truck, which had a large 150 gallon gas tank in the bed. By then we had a handle on running a funny car and this is when we started running more points meets on the East Coast.

We operated out of the Macedon tire shop for a summer and then moved the car to the town of Palmyra, five minutes down the road. A friend of mine named Larry Harloff and his mom let us use their oversized garage.  It would be home base of our racing operation for the next seven years.

We finished 8th in Division 1 points in 1974.

I continued to drive the Mustang through the 1975 season. Competed hard in Divisional points and finished in the middle of the pack. At the end of ‘75 I had a nice fire at Epping, which got us some 'ink’ in the newspapers. The car was not damaged. At that time we were still running a steel block and heads.

I have been self employed my entire life. I always went to the races, but often flew in. I could not be on the road for weeks at a time. I knew that to improve I needed complete focus. Instead I found myself in the seat waiting to fire up and thinking about work. I owned companies. I started Roc Communications in 1974, in Rochester. We sold car electronics and, later on, cell phones. I had up to 100 people working at multiple locations, sold the business in 2000 and it is still going today. I also had a full blown parts store selling Cam 2 gas, Firestone and Goodyear slicks, Amalie oil... race stuff plus normal car parts. It was a happening place that still exists today, too.

By the end of '75 the handwriting was on the wall: it was time to turn the driving duties over to George.  I would miss driving the car, but it was the right decision. I surprised him with the news. He was really excited as you would expect. He deserved it. He knew the car really well mechanically.

George licensed in the car at Atco and went on to run some races at the end of 1975. Before I turned him loose on the road with Bert, I sent him to Al Hanna to brush up on his tuning skills.  Al was a great guy to help other racers ... early on, a large help. He had been racing for a while.  George gained even more knowledge of the fuel system and jetting and just plain tapping Al’s brain.  Back then, anything to save us cash. It is amazing how many dollars we all spent learning by our mistakes in this business.

Over the winter we had Kevin Murray of Frame-Up Engineering mount one of his Mustang II bodies on our Don Long chassis. He also modified the chassis to put the motor and fuel tank further out. We had the car painted locally, at a shop in Manchester, NY. I lined up Heath Kit as a cash sponsor. They were a do-it-yourself very sophisticated kit for people to make radios and amplifiers. Their name went on the rear spoiler of our car.  Amalie was once again on the front spoiler. We were ready for the '76 season.

I found that being outside of the car when it ran was very enjoyable ... as a team member for us to do well was rewarding. The goal was to learn and match race and have the cash to keep the project healthy.

It was a good season. Early on we cracked the NHRA top 10. We raced Cayuga raced a lot ... then we could go through Canada to Detroit to race. Empire was our local track and it was great for testing and the occasional match race. Englishtown and Epping we could race there on Wednesday night and stay in town and also run on Sunday ... double up.  Another double was York Saturday and drive to Epping on Sunday. Connecticut was always fun.  I always liked Lebanon Valley. Atco and Budd’s Creek were always booking. We would sometimes run three match races a week ...Wed, Fri and Sun ... great times for sure for us. The top tracks were Maple Grove, Englishtown, Epping, and Cayuga. We ran these multiple times throughout the year. Other tracks maybe once or twice.

George and Bert often had the car on the road without me for extended periods of time. I would fly in for major events, or travel with the team to races closer to home.

Around this time Joe Jacono named me ‘Wombat.’ The announcers kept screwing up my last name, almost sounding like the word ‘wombat,’ which is an animal that lives in Australia. Jacono started calling me that, he’d have it in his crazy and famous newsletters which promoted his team, and of course, being a marketing guy, I picked up on it right away, with the Snake and Mongoose popularity. That is how the Wombat name came about, though it would be a few more years before it made its way onto my race cars.

We led the Division 1 NHRA points all season until the final WCS race when Pee Wee Wallace finally caught us. It was his fourth divisional crown in a row, he was tough to beat.

For the 1977 season we had Circus paint the car in a bright yellow scheme. Then we headed out to the west coast for the season opening events. At that time there were four different Winternationals and three of them were out west: NHRA at Pomona, AHRA at Tucson, and the PRO Winternationals at Beeline.

The PRO had been around for about five years but it was still a novel concept -- a race organized and run by racers. The idea was to do it for the racers, not for pure profit. It was great ... the sport needed more opportunities without all the controls.

On the way back east we stopped off at Green Valley Race City outside of Ft. Worth for their huge season opener. We raced Tom Hoover in qualifying and recorded the fastest side by side pass in the track’s history.

In '77 we ran a busy schedule of match races and points events across the Northeast, Mid Atlantic and Midwest. The car was racing at least once a week, usually more. We went to the semis at Great Lakes Dragaway’s 16 car Labor Day race.

Once again we were in the hunt to win the Division 1 points title, but again fell just a little short, this time to the Cassidy Bros. We ended up 34th nationally in NHRA points.

Our only incident in 1977 was a large fire in the final round of the MIR points meet, which burned all the paint off the back of the car.  We finished the season with the Mustang’s tail in primer.  So the first order for 1978 was getting the car repainted.

We dropped it off at Circus paint and waited. Bob kept saying he would have it done ... we went to pick it up, it was in primer for the Gators. Not a happy day for sure.

At Gainesville we qualified 13th and lost to Gary Burgin in the opening round.

The car went from there to Shirl Greer’s shop in Warner Robins, Georgia. His son Rusty had painted Shirl’s beautiful Arrow the previous year as well as his brand new Firebird, so we knew he would do a good job with our car. It took him 4 or 5 days. Afterwards we had the car lettered up in Rochester.

Sid Waterman helped us a lot in 1978 and we started qualifying at the big meets on a regular basis. Sid was always there to read plugs and give suggestions. He made an awesome pump.

At Maple Grove’s Eighth Annual Spring All-Pro Series match race we ran a 6.29 for low ET of the meet and barely lost in the final against Gary Burgin. We won a match race at Epping over Pete Hill, again with low ET of the meet. We qualified 14th at the NHRA Summernationals with a 6.24. At this point we were resetting our personal best ETs on a near-monthly basis. Things were going extremely well.  Little did we know that we were in for a rough patch.

Without a doubt the lowest point in my racing career occurred in July at the Maple Grove points meet, when Dodger Glenn crashed. To be right in the middle of the accident itself of a great friend is a terrible thing. It is sad enough to lose a fellow racer and read about it afterwards but to experience the crash firsthand sticks with you forever.

This was under the lights now. We had just run the semi's.  Coming up the return road through the woods.  Next pair ... Dodger won, came through the traps on fire.  I yelled at George to put his fire suit back on. We started running towards him and the car took a right hand turn, up over the guard rail in front of us. We all hit the ground.  The car broke apart sending pieces, parts, the motor flying everywhere. The roll cage with Dodger in it separated, went airborne and flew into the woods and landed in a tree.  Bruce Larson found it. Bert, George and I stayed overnight to see if he was going to pull through instead of driving home. Sad night for all of us.  Bert was especially close to Dodger, yet he took it upon himself to keep our morale up. He was a psychologist by profession.

We soldiered on. Next month at the NHRA Grandnational at Sanair we qualified #2 with a 6.18 and went to the semi finals. It was another best effort for the team and a fun weekend.

Our biggest win of the year came a couple weeks later at Englishtown’s Annual 32 Funny Car Show, the U.S. All Pro Funny Car Championships. After setting low ET of the meet at 6.15 we had a solo run in the final when Jim Adolf couldn’t show. This took place just minutes before the track’s 11:00 PM noise curfew. All was well until the 900' mark when a wheelstand launched our Mustang II body.  It floated for what seemed like forever ... went as high as I have ever seen one go, and landed in the grass.  For a very short moment I thought, ‘Cool!’ Then it was ‘$$$$$$$!’

We repaired the car and returned to Englishtown for their Fall Funny Car Finale and again set low ET of the meet at 6.21.

We finished the season 24th in NHRA points, ten spots better than the previous year. To put this into perspective, in 1978 there were well over a hundred nitro funny cars in the country, so we ranked pretty high up the list. At the Div 1 Annual banquet, George was the recipient of the first annual Dodger Glenn memorial award for outstanding improvement and performance during the ‘78 season. That meant a lot to us.

For the 1979 season we had S and W hang a Corvette body on our chassis. 'Broadway Joe’ Siti painted it at his shop in West Chester, PA. Amalie did a beautiful handout. The story on it goes like this: Amalie called me and said they needed a picture tomorrow or no handout ... outside in the snow it went ... we didn’t have a motor in the car, which is why in the handout photo you don’t see any headers. We propped the blower on top of boxes at the proper height so it peeked up through the opening.  Took the photos and sent the negatives to Amalie via overnight mail. People loved the handout with the car in the snow because we were from up north.

I started calling my car ‘Wombat’ during this time period.

We were in the process buying a trailer and a new truck. I decided to send the car out west for the Winter races and Bill Dee stepped up and offered his rig. George and Bill drove to the AHRA race in Tucson then went on to Pomona, where Bert and I flew out and met up with them.

After the western races we ran Gainesville and then the IHRA Winternationals at Darlington, where we had an ‘incident.’ It was the only time we ever did major damage to the car. During qualifying our blower exploded on the top end and we had a big fire. George was blinded by the oil and flames and crossed over into Roy Harris’ lane and the cars collided. They were slowing down when the hit came. George could not see because of the fire ... the hit probably saved us from who knows. The impact blew our Corvette body off the car and it was destroyed. Roy's Bud Man car had some damage too but nowhere near as bad ... hit the back end-parachute area. No one was hurt. The incident made a three-picture color spread in Popular Hot Rodding magazine.

We left the race and went straight to S&W and put a new Corvette body on it. We had it painted just like the first one. The chassis repairs were minimal.

Around this time Kenny Bernstein was stepping up to tractor trailer and I bought his 42 ft Chaparral ... great rig. George went to Texas to pick it up. It was in Austin, at one of Kenny’s Chelsea King restaurants. I belive he was in the process of selling them at the time. He set George up with wiring and hitch, etc. Very helpful. We had new gray-colored Dually and Joe Siti painted the trailer gray to match the truck.

We went on to have our best season yet, scoring a big win at at E-Town’s Crazy Eddie’s “Night of Thrills,” which was a major match race featuring a tough 10 car field. But the real prize was winning the Division 1 FC points title. Bert really had the clutch dialed in everywhere we ran in 1979 and much of our success can be attributed to him.  But he was much more than the clutch guy, he was DAD to us, and to other teams as well ... that is why we all called him Uncle Bert.

In 1980 I had a major back operation that laid me up for the entire season. Racing took full time to always hustle money to feed the car. My businesses also suffered without me. George was off driving for other teams. Toward the end of the year Tom Anderson called me and said, ‘Let’s go racing!’ I had recovered from the surgery and it seemed like a great opportunity to move up the ladder. I no longer had my race car, but I still had a lot of parts, my dually and my Chaparral Trailer.

At that time Ken Safford was selling his entire operation.  I called and told him Tommy and I wanted to see what he had and we were coming to look. When we got to Chicago we parked the trailer in a shopping plaza near Safford’s shop and arrived in the truck. We didn’t want him to know we had brought the trailer.  We got there ten minutes ahead of him and the first thing he says, ‘Is that your trailer down the street?’ Busted. He knew I was serious.

I brought a lot of cash, and we cleaned out his shop. He sold the entire deal, which included the Mr. Norm’s Arrow funny car, for around $8,500, I believe. I had $10,000 on me, so we bought everything. That is how Tommy and I got back into racing, with updated stuff and extra parts to add to my inventory.

We had the car painted in an all-new Wombat scheme by Buddy Bell of Bell’s Collision in Palmyra. We put everything together and embarked on the 1981 season. Tom proved to be a very focused and determined driver and tuner, always thinking outside the box. We were competitive.

Apart from a body launch wheelstand in Atlanta, Tommy’s driving was perfect. He was always a great leaver ... we won on hole shots more than once.

Our highlight of 1981 was winning the season-long NHRA Eastern Regional funny car points.  This was a pretty big deal, as there were just two regional championships awarded nationally, one in the east the other in the west. It provided the funding for Tom to construct a flow bench, which he built from scratch in our Palmyra shop over the Winter. The bench gave him a great insight on the fuel system. He really understood the barrel valve and made changes.

At the end of 1981 he also suggested that we buy the Speed Racer Omni from Mike Kase. Dale Armstrong had just set a national ET record in the car, a 5.89 at OCIR.

We started the 1982 season at Pomona with the “Speed Racer” paint scheme still on the body, but lettered with my name.  It was a simple but powerful design.

I owned a place in Myrtle Beach at the time so the team could stay there while running Atlanta and IHRA races. A semifinal finish at Darlington was our best effort in eliminations. In mid season Lincoln-Mercury cut us a check to buy a new LN7 shell for the car. It made its debut at Columbus.

One of the ways I financed our racing activities was by buying and reselling equipment. Just as I’d sold some of the stuff we acquired from Kenny Safford the previous year, in the summer of '82 I bought Kosty Ivanof’s complete operation ... a Corvette funny car, motors, tires, blocks, tools, fuel, and a semi trailer which I set aside for future use.  I painted and chromed everything on it, like hinges, etc. I took Kosty's new items like blower belts, extra rims, clutch parts, bearings, rings, etc. for our operation and sold everything else.

Which brings us to the 1982 Big Bud Shootout at Indy. Kenny Bernstein partnered with us that weekend and paid to have our car repainted to look like his, but with our names on it. Otherwise the two cars were identical in appearance. We were representing Budweiser in the Shootout in Kenny’s place, as he had just missed the cut. He let us borrow one of their fuel pumps and and injector as well as some Budweiser team crew uniforms, and we were off and running. In qualifying we ran the first 5.7 FC pass in drag racing history. Unfortunately, a broken brake caliper put us out of action in round 1 of the Shootout.  On Monday’s main event we made it to round 2.

We finished the year 8th in NHRA points.

For the 1983 season we formed a partnership with Alan Aroneck, who had been racing Top Fuel cars out of Auburn, NY for many years. We combined all our parts, doubling our inventory, and we bought a lot of new stuff, too.  We also built a new, larger shop,  located 45 minutes’ drive from my home in Macedon. I hired Paul Cosman from Gary Burgin’s crew, where he had spent the past five years working on the “Orange Baron.” They had trained him well and he was an asset to our team from day one.  Buddy Bell in Palmyra, NY painted our LN-7 in an all new yellow and white paint scheme designed by Tom Migliore from Rochester. Dan DeLaney helped with the lettering and touch up regularly after the races with the grill and headlights etc to keep it updated and fresh.

On our first outing at Pomona we qualified #1 with a 5.88 and went to the final round, narrowly losing to Frank Hawley, 5.93 to 6.02.

We were always looking at ways to go fast on our budget. We were fortunate that Tommy was  great on the reaction times. I will say that in 1983 we were never lacking for parts. Main reason Alan came on board was to make sure between us, we always were prepared. Sure would have been nice to have ten of every thing and not run a part one more run, like blower belts and tires, etc. We ran it hard and always on the edge, but a good edge.

We were in the top five in NHRA points all season. We scored another runner up finish at Denver. At Indy we went to our third final round of the year to face Kenny Bernstein. It was the money run at the biggest race in the world. We were the quickest in the semis, so we had lane choice. But our car chattered the tires and we lost, 5.93 to 6.04.

That was the second lowest point in my racing career. Indy is a potential game-changer for your team and sponsors and future sponsors when you win.

It had been a demanding year, we had run hard and our money was spent. There was no question of attending the two remaining NHRA national events of the season, at Fremont and OCIR. While out of competition, we slid to a 5th place finish in points after ranking as high as 2nd just weeks earlier. Still, it was a personal best finish for all of us. We did one more match race back east to polish off the year.

For the 1984 season I ordered a new Corvette from J. Ed Horton. The idea was to keep racing, but it was not meant to be. The car was built but never run. Never even painted.

As for the semi rig trailer, we never used it. I made a deal with Jody Smart, who was running a funny car at the time. I flew into Cleveland Airport, met there with Jody and flew back home same day. I made a deal for him to lease it at first and then a buy-out price in the agreement. Because he put so much into it, he bought it out.

After I retired from racing my own cars in 1984 I went on to sponsor Jerry Caminito, Al Hofmann, and Tom Hoover. Jerry and Tom did displays at my retail store, and in the mid 1980s I had John Force in to do an autograph session and got him an interview on our local TV station. In recent years I brought a sponsor to Melanie Troxel's Funny Car.

Looking back on it, when I see the photos of all the cars and people, it amazes me how much we were involved in the sport. Wish we’d had some major sponsor money, but did awesome with out smaller budget against the big boys. I’m sure glad I raced in a different time when you could get it free. Just like my LN7 body was free, we had such great sponsors for this time period: Amalie Oil, Pennzoil, Mr Gasket, Rocket Gaskets, Manley, I even got free Goodyear tires at some races, Motorcraft, Champion spark plugs, NGK plugs .... even spark plug cleaner. I got WD-40, CRC, VHT. Centerline gave me all my front and rear wheels every year, Accel plug wires, Fram Filters ,.. Mallory, Crane Cams ... companies that were the true backbone of the sport. I remember getting parachutes once from Simpson. Those were the days when a racer was supported by manufacturers.

I still attend many races each year and communicate through e-mails with fellow racers.  You will see my name on a few more cars real soon.

I want to thank George "Big George" Helsel. B and H Speed Parts, Erie, PA. George had the pre-eminent Speed Shop in the area for decades and serviced racers of all kinds. We had all of our machine work done at B and H Speed Parts -- one of the best speed shops anywhere.