70s Super Vee documentary

[CARSHouston]

I don't know if this has been posted before, but was fun to watch,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NbeeBXLBG54

[marchsv]

Howdee Holmes says there are 400 to 600 super vees out there now in 1970?

[Peter Olivola]

Howdee Holmes says there are 400 to 600 super vees of there now in 1970?

He always was a promoter.

[Marty Nygard]

As I recall, he was the heir to the Jiffy Cake family. His racing career was not spectacular but he was once instrumented at Indy to measure heart rate and managed to spin out at qualifying and his heart rate never increased! Dedication??

[E1pix]

Howdee Holmes says there are 400 to 600 super vees out there now in 1970?

The video shows the ‘77 season, regardless Howdy’s quote is a bit high. I’d guess 200-300 existed in the US by this point, as the 8th year of the class.

I posted this video here a couple years ago, and was shocked it existed — especially in it interviewing four near-lifetime friends who’ve all passed from 2016 to 2021. Thanks, CARSHouston for re-posting it.

RIP to Eddie, Bob, Bill, and Herm. I’m taking the liberty of re-posting my tribute to the former, though it includes all four:
https://www.apexspeed.com/forums/sho...ler-Really-Was

[Mark_Silverberg]

As I recall, he was the heir to the Jiffy Cake family. His racing career was not spectacular but he was once instrumented at Indy to measure heart rate and managed to spin out at qualifying and his heart rate never increased! Dedication??

Howdy Holmes' family started Chelsea Milling company in Chelsea, Michigan. Their primary retail product is the Jiffy mix box items found in most grocery stores. Howdy certainly was successful in Formula Atlantic and did reasonably well in Indycar. He "joined" Chelsea milling in 1997 and now is CEO and chairman of the board. His son is now president and will likely serve as next CEO.

[Spengo]

Crazy to see so many spectators at Pacific Raceway just hanging out there on top of the hill in the back section.

[S Lathrop]

That brings back memories. Those cars were great fun to drive and handled beautifully.

[Steve Demeter]

Amen to Steve's comment above. The cars and drivers were nothing short of spectacular.

[Phil Creighton]

We shared PBIR with Doug Shierson and his driver Howdy holmes in early 78. They had the new March 78B and we had the first Van Diemen FFs with Bruce McInness and Tom Davy testing. Great bunch of guys.
Good to see Stuart Moore and others in the video. Lost touch with him in the early 90's.Brings back some memories and you realise how difficult it is to keep up with folks in this business
Phil

[avt]

That brings back a few memories. I lived in Adrian, Michigan in those days. I stopped in to Shierson racing without an invite in 1978 as a snot nosed punk who had just gotten out of high school. They were really friendly and tolerated my numerous visits. I believe the wrench turners were Graham Donaldson, Ken Findlay and Stephan Dwornik. Great guys and my first exposure to something other than stock car racing.

[Phil Creighton]

I was trying to remember Grahams last name as he was at PBIR for that first 78B test. Lost track of him a few years ago - maybe he went home...... Stephans still large as life and working in Formula Cars still.
Phil

[2fast2stop]

Watched this many times. There are also two other you tube videos, ''The Day that changed Super Vee Racing Forever'' and ''The Day that changed Super Vee Racing Forever'', Part 2. These are the stories about the water cooled revolution. Well worth the watch....

[Purple Frog]

In the 70s everyone in my family and a lot of friends were driving air cooled VWs. We went to spectate the Runoffs in either bugs or split window vans. So it was natural to gravitate to being SuperVee fans. There was nothing else like it at that time. No FM, no FE...a few FBs... they were the affordable small bore "wings and things". They had that "boxer sound", and seemed to just skip through T3 at Road Atlanta. Wowza!

I always thought the class fell apart because the engines were just too fragile. And as that class dissolved, during the same period, my friends and family all migrated to more dependable water cooled power in all their street vehicles.

[RussMcB]

<snip> I always thought the class fell apart because the engines were just too fragile. And as that class dissolved, during the same period, my friends and family all migrated to more dependable water cooled power in all their street vehicles.

The water-cooled engines were also (IMO) pretty stressed. The ports were as big as they could make them (sometimes too close to water jackets), and the camshafts were pretty radical.

My racing mentor raced a Tui with air-cooled engine. It was pretty cool.