Feb 11 2010                                                

                                                                Taking you Back with                                                                 
                                                                  KevinTriplett                                                                                            

                                                                        

                                                                 Kevin Triplett 
                                                              Walnut Creek, CA
                                                             OWR3 Contributor


                                   John Buttera- Indy’s last Hot Rodder

The long history of the Indianapolis 500 is filled with the stories of innovative hot rodders using stock block engines.  Most fans know the stories of the Granatelli brothers in 1946 with a Ford flathead in a cast-off 1935 Miller-Ford V-8 chassis, or Mickey Thompson, who shocked the Indy establishment with rear engine cars powered with Buick stock block engines in 1962, and a 3-valve per cylinder small block Chevrolet front-wheel drive car in 1967, or Barney Navarro, with his self-developed turbocharged Rambler inline 6 mounted in a 1964 Watson RE chassis.  Not as widely known to the open wheel racing community are the efforts of John Buttera- he competed at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway three times in the decade of the 1980’s, making him one of the last of the hot rodders to try to conquer the speedway with a stock block engine.  Before getting into the details of his Indy 500 efforts, a little background about the man himself is in order.

John Buttera is best known for his drag racing and hot rod building in a career marked by extraordinary creativity.  John was born in Kenosha, Wisconsin in 1939, and as a young man there established the R&B Chassis Co., a successful drag chassis building business in partnership with Dennis Rollain. At the 1968 U.S. Nationals Buttera met Mickey Thompson and agreed to relocate to California and work for Thompson. While working at Mickey’s shop, John built Thompson’s ground-breaking 1969 ‘blue’ Mustang Funny Car, using a dragster style chassis beneath a hinged replica fiberglass body. After a few years working for Thompson, Buttera left to start his own company, called “Lil’ John’s Place,” building countless cars for such drag racing legends as Don Prudhomme, Tom McEwen, and Don Schumacher. Buttera’s imagination was truly on display when he built a streamlined magnesium monocoque dragster for Barry Setzer in 1972, with help from Nye Frank, another former Mickey Thompson employee.  Even though it used advanced Indy Car concepts, the car’s performance never met expectations, due to the high rigidity of its’ monocoque chassis. The ground-breaking monocoque car has been restored and is on display in the Garlits Museum of Drag Racing in Ocala, Florida.  John Buttera is also credited with being the first to carve parts from a solid block of billet aluminum for race car parts. In 1976, Buttera stepped away from race car construction and built a ground-breaking Model A hot rod using many unique machined aluminum billet parts. The response to this car led to Buttera’s eventual partnership with Boyd Coddington building three-piece billet aluminum wheels the birth of the billet aluminum parts industry.

In 1982, Buttera, with his son-in-law Ronnie Capps and Bob Varnburgas as partners, formed a team to challenge Indianapolis, known as BCV Racing, using a Chevrolet stock block engine in a 1981 Eagle chassis. Ronnie Capps, who had served as the mechanic on the 1974 NHRA World Champion Beck & Peets ‘Export A’ top fuel dragster, built the engine. Capps used mostly drag racing vendors, such as the then newly-developed aluminum Milodon block, a Bruce Crower crank, Lozano Brothers ported cylinder heads, and Ed Iskenderian camshafts. 

     Buttera and Capps purchased Eagle chassis number 8106 from All American Racers Shown below completly restored
                         They completed the original assembly at AAR headquarters.
  
                                  Above pictures by Gene Ingram of New Castle indiana  

    John Ward, AAR designer recalls Buttera and Capps working at the Santa Ana, California AAR shop for many days, replacing many of the standard Eagle parts with lightweight billet aluminum parts that John would create in his Cerritos shop at night. Ward says that the aluminum parts the pair substituted “made for a good looking car, maybe more ‘hot rod’ than race car,” with the finished car weighing 60 pounds less than a standard Eagle. For a driver, BCV Racing enlisted the services of a fellow Southern Californian, Dennis Firestone, the 1976 SCCA Formula Ford National Champion and who had dominated the 1979 USAC Super Vee championship before moving up to CART and Indianapolis 500 in 1980. By 1982, Dennis already had two Indianapolis 500 starts to his credit. 

The team began the 1982 season with a shake-down run at the 150 mile race at Phoenix, where the car qualified well in 9th place, but the engine burned a piston on lap 17 and finished a disappointing 20th.  A month later, upon arrival in Indianapolis, the small under-funded team attracted offers of help from Indy veteran Eldon Rasmussen, engine builder Earl Gaerte, and Jackie Howerton, all who allowed the under-funded team the free use of their shops.  

For John Buttera competing at Indianapolis was an emotional experience;  years later he would tell an interviewer with the Orange County Register that “the first time I saw my car come out of Turn Four, I had goose bumps all over me.“  The bright red un-sponsored #75 BCV Racing Eagle qualified 21st, at an average speed for the four laps of 197.217 MPH, then the fastest qualifying speed for a small block Chevrolet powered car.  For the race, Ronnie Capps had designed and built a special low/high fuel delivery system with built in stops designed to allow the engine to run leaner during caution periods, to avoid the common stock block problem of fouling the spark plugs during yellow flag running. Unfortunately, after only 37 laps, the BCV Eagle was out, eliminated when the flywheel bolts sheared at the flange, and credited with a 27th  place finish. 

Buttera and Ronnie Capps returned in 1984 with two cars owned and sponsored from Centerline Wheels, an outgrowth of John’s design of “Champ 500” wheels.  For cars they had a 1983 Eagle and the original #8106 Eagle with the updated aerodynamics package as a backup. Since the first race of the year was virtually in their backyard, the team enlisted sports car driver John Morton as their driver for the Long Beach Grand Prix. Problems during qualifying meant only a 23rd place starting position, though in the end the team recorded an excellent ninth place finish. After a brief test at Phoenix with Mike Mosley, the team arrived ready for the Speedway, with veteran Steve Krisiloff as the assigned driver.  During the morning practice session before qualifying, while turning laps at an average speed of 205 MPH, plenty fast enough to make the field, Krisiloff crashed heavily in turn four, destroying the #87 primary car and more importantly, breaking a small bone in his leg. The team withdrew rather than continue with another driver; 1984 at Indianapolis marked Krisiloff’s final appearance in a championship car. Team partner and engine builder Ronnie Capps recalls Krisiloff as an extremely talented veteran driver, very mechanically oriented, who liked to run the car with a loose setup.

By 1987, when John Buttera made his final attempt at the Speedway, many things had changed. This time the car was an updated 1986 March lent to John Buttera by Andy Kenopenske and the Machinist Union Racing Team. Instead of the tried and true Milodon block power plant used in the previous attempts, the team used a “Hawk” aluminum block with NASCAR-sourced Pontiac heads. Buttera was helping to develop the ‘Hawk’ in partnership with Joe Hrudka’s Mr. Gasket Company, and Mr. Gasket supplemented the carryover Centerline Wheels sponsorship. The ‘Hawk’ block used small block Chevrolet architecture, but with improvements for racing applications, such as larger water capacity, all external accessories and splayed main caps. Another change was Buttera’s choice of noted Northern California engine builder ‘Cub’ Barnett as the primary engine builder.  In order to adapt the stock-block to the March, Buttera designed and built the billet aluminum mid-engine bell housing adapter plate as well as the accessory drives.   For a driver, the team selected the well known World of Outlaws sprint car driver, Sammy Swindell, who although he had run in three Championship races, was a rookie at Indy.

The team struggled with engine problems all month.  During one practice session, the gauges signaled a loss of engine oil pressure, and Swindell shut the engine down and coasted into the pits. Once there, Buttera and his volunteer crew put the car up on jack stands and dropped the oil pan to check for bearing damage. Roger Penske stopped by and advised John not to waste time on pit lane, just take the car back to the garage and put in another engine. John Buttera replied that the engine Penske was looking at was the team’s only engine. On the final day of qualifying, Swindell’s 201.840 MPH qualifying average proved not to be fast enough, with the red #59 being the last car bumped from the field.  Even though his car did not make the starting field, John received the inaugural Clint Brawner Mechanical Excellence award by exemplifying Brawner’s “mechanical and scientific creativity, ingenuity, perseverance, dedication, enthusiasm and expertise.

Although 1987 signaled the end of Buttera’s Indy entries, he often visited the Speedway during May in the years in the years that followed.  John Buttera returned to Southern California and to building ground-breaking hot rods at his shop, “Lil’ John’s Place.” One of the Milodon engines from the Indy effort wound up being used John's son Chris' custom 1964 Chevy Nova “No Vette,” featured in Hot Rod magazine. John Buttera passed away from complications associated with brain cancer on March 2, 2008. John Buttera is survived by his son, Chris, daughter Leigh, son-in-law Ronnie Capps, and two grandchildren. Although John Buttera is gone, he lives on through the appreciation of his automotive creations. Several of John’s creations, including the Eagle #8106, were part of a special display dedicated to his memory at the 2009 Grand National Roadster Show. The attached photograph of the Eagle #8106 was taken by and provided by Gene Ingram. The author is indebted to John’s family, All American Racers,
and his long-time friend Bill Simpson for their assistance with this article. 



                                  Taking you Back with
                                        Kevin Triplett
                                        
                                                                Kevin Triplett
                                                             Walnut Creek, CA
                                                             OWR3 Contributor

                          Howard Gilbert

     Howard Gilbert had a remarkable 40+ year career in open wheel racing, spanning from front drive cars to modern carbon fiber rear engine cars- this is his story.

Gordon Howard Gilbert was born in the small north central Indiana town of Wabash, Indiana in 1921, and several years later his family moved to Whittier, California, where Howard’s lifelong love of automobile mechanics was first ignited. During World War II, Howard enlisted in the Army Air Corps, hoping to become an aircraft mechanic, but Uncle Sam had other ideas, and Howard spent the war years on Cape Cod as a Meteorologist. After the war, Howard returned to Whittier and began his career as an auto mechanic, and building engines for local racers, as well as participating as a mechanic at the Indianapolis 500 for the first time in 1947.
   Only a few years after arriving at Indianapolis, Howard served on his first Indy winner, as a member of the crew of the Lou Moore–owned, Bill Holland-driven Blue Crown Spark Plug Special 1949 winner. 
During the winter of 1956-57, Howard, together with fellow Indy mechanic and Whittier neighbor, George Salih, crafted a new car in Salih’s home garage on Milliken Avenue.

                                                                     
Salih and Gilbert had studied the 1952 pole-winning Cummins Diesel and thought that laying an Offenhauser engine on its side would pay benefits at the Speedway by lowering the center of gravity.
                                                                       
                                                                                                 
Salih, a foreman at Meyer & Drake, convinced his bosses to allow the pair to obtain cosmetically flawed parts to use on their project on credit. Together, the pair overcame the engineering obstacles to properly oil an Offenhauser engine laid over 18 degrees from horizontal, the extreme angle required to make their design succeed. Salih and Gilbert, who also shared the same birthday, worked nights and weekends on their new creation, mortgaging everything they owned, even their homes, to complete the car. After completing the chassis, and out of money, they convinced Quin Epperly to build the sleek aluminum body in exchange for part ownership, and Salih was able to sell exhaust manufacturer Sandy Belond on a $2500 sponsorship deal. Champion Spark Plug offered no financial help to the project, so in exchange for $1000 in contingency money Salih and Gilbert used Lodge Spark Plugs from England, the only car in the race so equipped. Sam Hanks, who had driven the Jones & Maley KK500C for crew chief George Salih in 1956, agreed to drive the new ‘laydown’ creation. The team’s hard work and financial gamble paid off, with Hanks winning the 1957 Indianapolis 500 at the then-record average speed of 135 MPH.

   After Hanks announced his retirement in Victory Lane, George Salih and Howard Gilbert were in the envious position of dealing with a flood of offers from eager drivers and equipment suppliers. Jimmy Bryan took over the seat in 1958, and repeated the 1957 victory.  The team returned with the same car in 1959 in hopes of a third straight win, but the car retired after one lap with broken camshaft housing. Howard continued to serve with George Salih as co-crew chiefs on the next generation Salih ‘laydown,’ 18 inches shorter than the original, from 1960 through 1963. Salih and Howard continued as co-crew chiefs on the car even after it was sold to a new owner for 1964.

   In 1965, Salih and Howard joined the ‘rear engine revolution,’ going to work for mail order magnate’s George R. Bryant team using BRP (British Racing Partnership) built cars. In addition to Bryant’s stepson, Masten Gregory, as the lead driver, the pair were reunited with their ‘laydown’ driver of 1961-1963, Fresno’s Johnny Boyd. After several seasons of disappointing results, during the winter of 1967-68, Howard Gilbert built a pair of cars for George Bryant to replace the aging BRP cars, using a set of Brabham ‘blueprints’ and adding his own ideas to create the new car he christened the “Cheetah.”

   After George Bryant’s passing in early 1968, Gilbert sold one of the completed cars to Bill Simpson and the other to George Follmer, with Howard serving as Follmer’s crew chief.  In 1968 Follmer’s car was equipped with turbocharged Ford engine, but switched to stock-block Chevrolet engines for 1969, except at Indianapolis. 

   The highlight for the Gilbert-Follmer team was their shocking victory in the Jimmy Bryan 150, held at Phoenix International Raceway on March 30, 1969. That day, Follmer, in the Cheetah chassis equipped with a Howard Gilbert-built Chevrolet engine, was an even match for field of turbocharged Fords and Offenhausers; Follmer ran a conservative race and let the desert heat work on the leaders’ machines. After Bobby Unser’s Offy engine broke a piston, Follmer’s Cheetah led the final 28 laps, finishing at a then-record average speed of 109 MPH, marking Chevrolet’s historic first Championship victory.     

   Howard Gilbert was best known to contemporary racing fans as AJ Foyt’s engine builder from 1970 to 1990.  During his Howard’s tenure at AJ Foyt Racing, AJ Foyt scored 25 Championship race wins, including Foyt’s (and Howard Gilbert’s) fourth Indianapolis 500 victory.  Using Howard Gilbert built power plants, Foyt also won the USAC Championship series in 1975 and 1979, and the USAC Stock Car championship in 1978 and 1979.

   Howard was a member of the USAC delegation that traveled to Germany to evaluate the engine for the planned 1980 Porsche Indy car.  Gilbert said later, "We took one look at the restrictive exhaust system on it and knew that one slight modification would make much more horsepower than any engine currently running the Indy 500.”

After the After the 1990 season, Howard Gilbert retired to Payson, Arizona, where he lived until his passing on
Februar     Februaryy 4, 2008 at age 87. 

After the