Mopar Heroes of the Past

Words: Roger Meiners

We all know about the big names in Mopar history—high achievers such as “Big Daddy” Don Garlits; Tom Hoover (the Father of the 426 HEMI®); Sox and Martin, Dick Maxwell, and the Ramchargers, to name only a few. But do you know the winners pictured here? Except for Cotton Owens, you might not have heard their names in recent years, but they all had one thing in common. They were integral to Chrysler’s early success in motorsports. We’ll briefly highlight their achievements, and we’ll add thumbnail descriptions of other standouts in future issues.

Early Winners

Cotton Owens. NASCAR Racer, Car Builder/Owner, Crew Chief.

Owens, of Spartanburg, S.C., was a NASCAR standout, first as a driver, from 1950 to 1964. He had nine wins in stock cars and many more in modified-sportsman classes. As a car owner/builder/crew chief (1950 to 1973), he won the championship in 1966 with driver David Pearson in a HEMI-powered Dodge Charger. He had many other drivers during his career, including Mario Andretti, Al Unser Sr., A.J. Foyt Jr., Ralph Earnhardt, Bobby Allison, and Buddy Baker.

Owens burst into the NASCAR spotlight by winning the 1953 Daytona Modified-Sportsman race on the famous beach-road course in a Chrysler-powered 1938 Plymouth. The 331-cid FirePower V-8 had three 2-barrel carburetors. A massive total of 140 cars showed up for straight-line time trials the day before the race. Owens took the pole with a speed of 120.84 mph.

On race day, 136 cars lined up three abreast for the start. When the green flag was dropped, Ralph Moody jumped ahead and led Owens and the thundering pack down the beach to the first turn. Moody, Owens, and a few others made it through, but behind them was a huge traffic jam that led to a giant pileup. Miraculously, no one was hurt as cars went everywhere to get through the melee.

Owens, Moody and Tim Flock battled for most of the race until Owens used the power of his ’51 Chrysler V-8 to go ahead for the final six laps. He averaged 91.5 mph. “Only” 70 cars finished the 25-lap race.

The next year, Owens made it two-in-a-row, beating 120 starters in a HEMI-powered Plymouth he built himself—this time with a 4-carb setup.

Ray Brown. A leading hot rodder on the California dry lakes and Bonneville. Speed shop owner. Seat belt and aluminum wheel pioneer.

Ray Brown was a legend in hot rodding—especially land-speed racing on the California dry lakes and the Bonneville Salt Flats. He set many records using the new Chrysler FirePower hemispherical engine. In August 1952 his Chrysler-powered racer signaled the beginning of the end of the Ford Flathead engine’s dominance of hot rodding. The event was the annual Bonneville Speed Trials, a week-long horsepower love fest organized by the Southern California Timing Association (SCTA). It was then, and still is, the world’s premier land speed event. Brown’s Chrysler-powered “lakester” dueled with a similar flathead-powered car owned by his friend Alex Xydias, owner of the So-Cal Speed Shop. Both cars featured bodies made from World War II fighter aircraft belly tanks. Brown’s HEMI beat the flathead by less than one mile per hour, but the victory is recognized as decisive, because the HEMI was loafing along at the very beginning of its development while the flathead was at the end of its effective life as a racing engine. This was the very beginning of HEMI dominance in hot rodding.

Serop “Setto” Postoian. Pioneer HEMI Drag Racer

Setto Postoian came out of Michigan in the 1950s to run nationally with his nitro-burning Chrysler HEMI-powered dragsters. One of the fastest racers in the quarter mile, he was an early rival of Don Garlits. Postoian was the first to call Don Garlits the “Swamp Rat.” He did not intend to be complimentary. Garlits turned the tables by giving that name to his dragster. It was a “fake rivalry” said Postoian’s widow Christine in a recent interview. She said the two were actually good friends and shared a mission to beat the big names from California.

Postoian defeated Garlits in the finals of the World Series of Drag Racing in 1957 at the Quad Cities Dragway in Cordova, Ill. Postoian was better-known until then, but Garlits had just surprised everyone by beating Californian Emory Cook, who was the quarter mile record holder. Postoian met Garlits in many events over the next few years, winning more than his share of the races. Big Daddy said, “Setto was a wily old fox and a tough competitor. He had fast cars, but he could win even when he didn’t have the fastest car.”

Postoian built three Chrysler-powered dragsters from 1956 to 1960; Mark 1, Mark 2 and Mark 3. They were named after his son, and ran out of Postoian’s gas station at 6 Mile and Oakland in Detroit. Crew included his brother and early partner, Ashod “Harry” Postoian, Jerry Bazin, George Barbat, and a young “gofer” named Conrad “Connie” Kalitta, who would soon go on to everlasting fame as the “Bounty Hunter.” Barbat worked at Chrysler, learned about ram tuning, and once fabricated an innovative aluminum cross ram manifold for Postoian’s dragster. The manifold is on an old Postoian 392 HEMI in the Garlits Museum of Drag Racing in Ocala, Fla.

Postoian’s career ended in a big crash at Detroit Dragway in July, 1960, caused by the Mark 3 dragster’s new wire front wheels. Postoian never raced again, but his accomplishments were among the earliest proof of Chrysler HEMI superiority.

Tommy Thompson. First to win a NASCAR event with a HEMI engine.

Thompson was a top-flight circle track racer from Louisville, Ky. He was a Chrysler enthusiast through and through, driving them on the road and campaigned them on the track. He even installed two Chrysler HEMI engines in his houseboat to blow off the speedboats on the nearby Ohio River.

A successful businessman, Thompson ran stock cars, midgets and sprint cars as a hobby, primarily on local tracks. He also competed in three NASCAR events each year at Darlington, Daytona and Dayton, Ohio.

In 1951 he heard about a big NASCAR 250-mile race scheduled for August 12 in Detroit, Mich., as part of that city’s 250th Birthday Festival. The race was to run on the horse track at the Michigan State Fair on Woodward at 8-mile. The posted purse was $5,000—a big number at the time. With that incentive, Thompson found the time to prepare a car for the race. He bought a brand new 1951 Chrysler New Yorker Club Coupe, powered by the new 331 cu.-in. “hemispherical” engine (HEMI, today), and headed for Detroit.

In the race, the vastly-superior power of the HEMI engine enabled Thompson to run up front all day as challengers dropped by the wayside. On lap 226 he survived a crash with NASCAR legend Curtis Turner that ended an intense duel when Turner’s Oldsmobile had to drop out of the race. The powerful Chrysler then cruised the rest of the way to victory. Thompson’s victory was significant notice that Chrysler now had lots of horsepower, in addition to legendary engineering. The HEMI was on its way to recognition as one of the greatest engines in history.