Those bad Clevelands! It's getting harder to find those 4-barrel Clevelands these days. I remember the days helping Dyno Don with a cammer car, a Boss 429 Maverick...and then the Cleveland powered Pinto and Mustang II. Earl wade was the first to work with Don on that engine and it went fast. Those first ones had parts attrtion in the lower end! Jon Kaase came on board and that's when things started to turn around. I remember Kaase when he had hair! Jon was a very meticulous mechanic and machinist with lots of new ideas and Don really trusted him. They got the most out of those Chevy-like cylinder heads, especially when they went from the stainless valves to titanium. The Pinto and the Mustang left the line at 10,000 rpm or better. In the early days with the slick shifted 4-speeds, Don was always one of the best. It got better yet when the Doug Nash 5-speeds came into use and Dyno had no trouble adding that extra shift. Ronnie Sox was also a friend of mine and I raced with Ronnie, Buddy and Jake several times. Ronnie - who is renowned as the best shifter ever - respected Nicholson's shifting ability and spoke highly of him. (He also spoke highly of Butch Leal and Herb McCandless). Next Kaase, ever the inventor/innovator, began machining internals for the 5-speed that made it clutchless. They broke a lot of parts but finally Jon got it right. Dyno became unbeatable and the Chevy camps (read Bill Jenkins) and the Chrysler camps (read S& M et all who were being weight factored to death) cried foul. It wasn't long that the Lenco tranny came to everyone's rescue that had the wallet to step up. With the advent of Bill Jenkins' tube chassis Vega and the Lenco, drag racing in Pro Stock became seriously more expensive. Only the well-financed teams could hang on. NHRA crapped on Chrysler so bad that they pulled out. Don and Ronnie, Landy, Platt and others made their money from match racing and they loved it. They got paid appearance money, win or lose. When Pro Stock started getting breaks using big blocks, it was the end of the road for the Clevelands of Nicholson, Gapp & Roush and Glidden. IHRA Mountain Motors pushed the limits...I remember Ricky Smith had a big Boss somewhere around 800 cubic inches! It is nowhere near as fun today as it used to be. These old racers in the first days usually brought their car to the track on nice flat trailers pulled behind a dually. Factory backed cars had nice hauler trucks, guys like Sox and Billy Stepp. I'd love to see the days of small block Pro Stock return and with conventionally shifted transmisssions. Back in the day, no self respecting Pro Stock racer would be caught dead with an automatic! Once the Cleveland Ford boys solved the oiling problems with a proprietary system, went to Childs & Albert aluminum rods, titanium valves, tremendous valve springs and humongous roller cams, they held together. I'll bet Bob Glidden still has a couple under a bench in his Indiana shop. I know Jack Roush does and probably Kaase and Hubert Platt. Keep them alive!
Pat