A Story of GP

with a few "twists"

by: J.D."The Okie"Rhynes

I was one of your fathers close friends in the late 50's until he passed away. Gary Patterson and I were like brothers, and I helped him build the original #111 Dodge Coupe in 1958. The picture of "The Phantom" with Lynn Glass and Gary in front, with your dad standing behind the car with Herb Vochazter, not the other gentleman you named. I know this to be the truth, because I built the intake manifold and the headers on Gary's #111 coupe. I also built most of the headers on your dads car from 1959 to about 1963 or 64, I cant remember exactly. I did build the headers on the Chevy engine that Gary and I helped your dad install in the 32 coupe, that he won the first Open Comp race at Capitol Speedway with, in 1960. My nickname was The Okie. A lot of my close friends still call me that today.

   In 1960 I was running a muffler shop in Sacramento for Brownie Muffler Service. The shop was located on 4th and Broadway, And Gary was running a crank grinding shop down on 32nd and Broadway, for Woolly Motors, who had a very extensive shop in Stockton on Weber Ave. at the time. That is when we built the car with the Chrysler sedan body on it. The picture of the sedan you have here on your web site is backwards. The exhaust came out the right side door, not the left. I did all the welding on this car as well as the intake and exhaust work. We won about 10 or 11 mains at West Capitol with this car in 1960 or 1961, cant remember the exact year. You gotta remember, we were young guys in our 20's and loved to race and drink a lot of beer!

The engine in this car was so damned illegal it was pitiful how we used to run off and hide from the rest of the pack! Not only was Gary one of the best drivers of all time, he was probably the smartest man I've ever known. One day in May of 1960 he roared up to my shop in his '56 Bird, threw a crankshaft on the shop floor and said, "Guess what this is?"  I said, it looks like a crank for the race car... Right! But this isn't your ordinary crankshaft! This is out of a 1951 Desoto, Blah, Blah.  So, I asked? He says, this crank has a5/8 inch longer stroke than the crank in the race car, we ran a Chrysler Spitfire 6]Gary said I figured it out Okie! We can use the Desoto rods, and the Chrysler pistons and we'll have 296 cubic inches! I think the legal size of our engine was supposed to be around 245 inches. Then he said, take your torch and cut the counter weights off the crank! I told him that would make the motor vibrate like hell when it was idling. He looked at me like I'd lost my mind and said; Who the HELL is gonna IDLE IT? I'm gonna wind this baby to 6500 coming out of the corners! So, I whacked the counter weights off and we drank a couple of six packs waiting for it to cool off, wrapped it in a fender cover and he took it to his shop and ground the mains and rod throws.010 under, and we put together the best running Spit Fire 6 that we ever ran in that car. Gary would come off the corners outrun 'em to the next corner cross that big sedan up, beat 'em to the next corner, by a half a straightaway, and do it allover again! Not only were we cheating better than anyone else they were ALL cheating, one way or another. We were just better at it, we had some thing going for us that only Gary could come up with. Somehow, someway he dug up some research that Chrysler had done on the effects of "Tuned" Intake and Exhaust back in the late 20's or early30's.We took this info and I built an intake manifold for three carbs15 3/4 inches from the base of the carb. to the intake valve. The exhaust had to be 1 3/4 inc

Gary was probably my best friend ever. Not a day goes by that I don't think of him. I have a picture of him in Walt Ross's car tacking about 10 grand in a corner, over my work bench, in my shop where I spend at least 12 hours a day, building hot rods, motors and all kinds of neat stuff! I've got tons more of adventures he and I had years back, and hopefully I'll get to tell some more down the road. Next time I'll tell you how we never got caught for having too big of a motor. Hope you enjoyed listening.. J.D."The Okie"Rhynes