Rocket-Powered GOTRA Race Car

I've known Doug Parry for several years as a car owner at I-70 and Lakeside Speedways in the Kansas City area.  We lost touch after my racing involvment took a different "turn" and I got more involved with SCCA road racing and autocrossing.  When I started working on the fire crew at Lakeside I spotted a car with the GOTRA (Good Ol' Time Racing Association) group that looked like it had a familiar type of engine in it -- an early Olds V-8, to be exact.  Lo and behold, it was Doug himself!  I was correct about the Olds power, and Doug filled me in on the essentials:

Car:

• 1941 Chevy body, sectioned and channeled -- this is s "tribute" car to his dad, who raced one similiar to this years ago.

• Frame: 1941 Chevy

• Axles: 1954 Chevy Truck, front and rear

• Steering: 1954 Chevy Truck

Engine:

• 1953 Olds 303 Cubic Inch V-8 block
• 1954 Olds 324 Cylinder Heads
• Hydraulic Cam (Doug keeps it to a maximum RPM of 5000)
• Six Two-Barrel Carburetors (Ford 94's) on a Weiand Drag Star Manifold

The 303 puts it's power to the dirt track through a GM Saginaw 3-speed transmission, mounted with a custom adapter.

The cars in the GOTRA group are all designed to follow the design of circle-track racers with cars being from 1926 to 1948 -- essentially, the type of cars you would have seen racing in the 1950's when nearly every town had a bullring dirt track for summertime fun.

Doug doesn't race this car too many times a year, so he's rather modest about his ability.  But never the less, he's out there kicking up the dirt with the GOTRA gang in fine style with some really cool Olds Power!  Here's some more pictures of the car and engine.  Be warned, the linked files are huge -- just the way my camera took them:

Full-size file of the picture above (1,472k file)

 Opposite-side shot of Doug's 41 Chevy (1,499k file)

 What's this?  Why, it's Olds Power! (1,497k file)

 That Olds green paint sure shows up nicely under that gold hood (1,467k file)

 A closer view of the engine (1,502k file)

 The Weiand manifold and six Ford 94 carbs (1,475k file)

Want to learn more about this racing group?  Stop by their website at www.gotra.com.  They show a lot of other cars in the group, schedule and rules (not many, they like it that way).

Thanks to Doug for being a wonderful host and letting me snap these shots of a wonderful car.

To return to the top of the page, just click here.

To return to OldsLink, just click here:

Created: 8/23/09.