SWEDE'S
STATS
PRE-1970
CAR LIFE
Magazine Article
February 1970
1970
BOBBY BALL
150
AUTO RACING
Magazine
March 1971
Crew Members
photo courtesy of the Savage Family Collection
Gary Kelly
Engine Builder, Tire Changer, Family Friend
Gary Kelly with Jim Wright
My association started when Swede was in diapers, I have been a family friend since before his birth.
Swede's dad, Dave, approached me saying Swede wanted to race Quarter Midgets at age nine, they had purchased an older car that needed some work. We came to an agreement and they brought the car over and I started by doing the necessary things to make it safe and we went racing. At that time I knew nothing about Quarter Midget racing, what the competition was like, rules and so forth. It soon became apparent that we needed more performance and better handling. At the time there were only a few good performing cars and fewer good drivers. The necessary things were done to the car and we started racing in earnest. I maintained the #79 car that Swede and his younger brother Bruce drove and eventually built a new car for Bruce so they would both have a car to drive. Even at nine Swede was a quick study and was able to execute the driving skills necessary to be victorious over all the other competitors. At that time Swede and Bruce were both driving the same #79 car which created somewhat of a problem because many times they both qualified for the same event. Regardless of that, it soon became apparent that Swede was a far superior driver than Bruce and as good as the kids that had been at it for some time.
Because we are dealing with children most of them emulated just what the car in front of them was doing, most of the time playing follow the leader. I would talk to Swede about doing something different like move to the outside so the one in front of him would not see him, wonder where he went, get sloppy and you can pass him. I would ask Swede if he knew what the other drivers were going to do, he usually knew, then I would tell him if the kid in front went into the corner low and came out high he could go in high cross under him and come out low in the lead. Swede would execute that perfect the next time. Also that he could do the same thing in reverse, again never just follow, do something different and it would work most of the time.
There was another long time friend of mine, Charles Ransom, from motorcycle and auto racing that had built and maintained a car for a boy from the Dameron family. The car handled much better than our "Bucket of Bolts", because it was lighter yet had as much power, Charles would tell me if he had a driver with as much talent as Swede they would never loose, we beat them most of the time.
Although the Quarter Midget rules were very strict, we were allowed to do whatever we wanted to the engine as long as it did not exceed the displacement limit. Most of the other teams were putting in larger valves, I kept the small ones because I felt it pulled better off the corner and Swede was able to make up the difference with ability.
Another eventual San Bernardino Indy car racer, Billy Scott, was Swede's competitor even in Quarter Midgets. His father was on the Technical Committee. They would make surprise inspections on the race winners and when I had to take the head off for them, Scotty would just shake his head and walk away.
The bottom line of this whole thing is, Swede was just much more talented than the others and able to do on the race track whatever he was told.
I was a part of Swede's motorcycle years from riding fire roads in the San Bernardino mountains together, through the flat track races at Ascot Speedway in Gardenia, CA., to pitting and push starting the Speedway bike at Costa Mesa Speedway, located at the Orange County fairgrounds.
I worked at AAR in Santa Ana, CA. from 1969 to 1972 thanks to Swede. My primary job was to manage the customer engine building department.
At that time the Formula-A cars were popular both here and in Australia, the small block Ford with Gurney Eagle heads was the engine of choice and Ford Motor Co. was doing a lot of sponsoring. Around 1970 or so, the economy turned South and Ford pulled a lot of it's sponsoring and the customer engine sales died off.
Photo courtesy of the Speed Merchants Collection
Around that time Chrysler decided to enter the Trans Am arena with the Plymouth Barracuda and Dodge Challenger, both were basically the same car with only cosmetic changes. I was chosen to help develop the engine in conjunction with Keith Black Racing who was doing the Dodge Challenger that Sam Posey drove. The engine was a de-stroked MOPAR 340 that made good power but did not have a long life if run in the high RPM range for sustained periods of time, a design flaw that we could not fix. If you remember, Swede and Dan usually had fast time and led many of the races but DNF because of engine failure. Bummer!
My job also included building some of the stock block Fords that were used in the Champ (Indy cars), and Can Am cars. I was part of the pit crew, the left rear tire changer at the first Ontario 500 in 1970. During the out of town races my job was to stay at the shop and build and ship things to the race as needed.
On the personal side, Gurney was a partner with the Montesa motorcycle importer and both Dan and Swede had a Monte trials bike. There were times when working late at night we would get the bikes out and have trials races around the machinery and stuff in the shop, that was a hoot! I usually rode Swede's.
When Swede's mother was a young lady she had a pet Raccoon named "Rip". Because of the stories Swede heard of the racoon, Swede had to have one as a pet as well. Of course it helped that his father was a vetrinarian.
Swede lived right down the street from me and I took care of his pet raccoon when he was away at the races. Whenever we were at Swede's house every body wanted to play with the Raccoon, but it was not too receptive, not mean just reclusive, and would go under the bed. To get it out one had to lay on the floor, reach under and try to get a hold of it being careful not to make it mad and get bit, needless to say, the raccoon usually won!
Swede built a chicken wire cage on the side of the house for The raccoon and when I took care of it while he was away, it became quite a challenge. When I went into the cage it was okay, but when trying to get out without letting it get away is when the challenge began. The darn thing would get on my shoulder and when I tried to grab it, it would just go to the other side. We would play that game until I would go back inside and scrape it off on the cage, then hold him in one hand as I backed out and closed the gate. Swede and Sheryl were always very gracious hosts, we would usually talk racing and play pool.
Swede will always hold a special place in my heart and, like all the others, I miss him immensely.
- Gary Kelly
Photo courtesy of the Savage Family Collection
Gary Wheeler
Assistant Designer at AAR
As an assistant designer, I did the trackside vehicle dynamics for Swede and Gurney from 1970-73, then later got to be Chief Designer at AAR for a couple of years.
Swede was a good young man. We roomed together often during the TransAm series in 1970 . . .
On one particular occasion in 1970, the AAR Indy Car team was staying in a nice motel for the Trenton NJ race. A break in the TransAm schedule allowed Swede and I to attend. After dinner, a grinning Swede came into our room and announced: "Look what I bought from the vending machine down the hall!". It was a little plastic box with a pin on the end of a lanyard -- a battery-operated burglar alarm. It worked like a hand grenade. Pull the pin and it made a loud piercing shriek until the pin was replaced.
"Let's put it in Tarozzi's room", Swede said. Now Bob Tarozzi was the TransAm Barracuda team manager and was also staying at the motel for the weekend. I asked how we would get into the room, and Swede just smiled and produced a key from his pocket. I realized he had once again sweet talked yet another desk clerk out of a room key. Swede was an incurable practical joker and had gotten quite good at that.
We snuck into the empty room. Swede stood on a chair and solidly duct taped the alarm box high up out of reach on the wall. Then, we taped the lanyard to the top of the door, so when it was opened a few inches, it would pull the pin and activate the noise maker. Swede used just enough lanyard length to let us insert the pin and carefully squeeze out of the room.
That night, we waited to no avail. Finally we decided Tarozzi had discovered the unit and disarmed it. (After all, he knew perfectly well to watch for such things.) But about 2 AM, we were awakened by the shriek of the darned thing. It seemed like it was taking forever for Tarozzi to fumble around in the dark and find a way to get up high enough to silence the unit. It just wailed on and on. After nearly a minute, we heard the ruckus of lots of foot stomping and broken plastic sounds as the alarm got silenced the hard way. A door slammed real hard, but we couldn't tell if it was that door - or just some awakened guest.
The next morning, we all gathered downstairs for breakfast, and Swede and I waited with baited breath for a reaction. Then Dan smilingly introduced Chris Vallo - as a new prospective sponsor for our Indy team the next year. Mr. Vallo, a mysterious Greek, spoke briefly and thanked Bob Tarozzi for giving up his room for him at the last minute! Then Vallo scanned the table sternly and thanked the crew for extending such a "warm" welcome. He went on to say this was his introduction to motor racing, and he was curious as to why a prospective sponsor would be treated that way. We saw it would come to no good if the culprits got identified. So we just stonewalled and Mr. Vallo never discovered who did it. Gurney, of course, didn't really want to know. One must remember Dan had been one of the culprits who disassembled a tiny Fiat and reassembled it in an upstairs room of another F1 driver in the Grand Hotel of Monaco back in the Sixties.
Swede and I should have done something worse. It turned out that Chris Vallo was a scam artist who eventually "sponsored" the purple "Mystery Eagle" driven by Jerry Grant in the 1972 Indy race. Somehow he lured AAR into running the car but never paid a dime. After the race, he even stole the team's two Honda mini bikes! Flew right off with 'em folded up in the rear of his Twin Beech - never to be seen again.
- Gary Wheeler
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Photo courtesy of the Speed Merchants Collection
Photo courtesy of the Savage Family Collection