FEATURE - From the Tower by Bob Frey

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Thu, 16 Oct 2003, 07:37 PM

The Little Engines That Could

By Bob Frey
Photo by:Auto Imagery, Inc.

Marion Stephenson

At the recent national event in Maple Grove there was a lot of speculation that we might see a third stock car go in the ten second range, and while it didn’t happen, given the performance of the cars and the track conditions it certainly could have. To a lesser extent, those of us who think that stockers are “way cool” were hoping that the magic ten second barrier might be broken in Chicago or Dallas. It didn’t happen at either of those races either, but a strange phenomenon did occur in both Pennsylvania and Dallas and that is that a racer by the name of Marion Stephenson won the race. Both races. And he did it in a car that is as far removed from the ten second range as you can get. In fact, this year, even though the great Kevin Helms is going to win the world championship for the third consecutive year, a lot of races have been won by stockers that are “way slow.” OK, so maybe slow makes it sound like they are not top of the line cars and nothing could be further from the truth, but several of the cars who were getting the big head starts have won this year and that really is way cool!

Al Vanis
Marion Stephenson has now won back-to-back events and he’s done it by getting the head start from virtually everyone whom he has faced. Al Vanis beat all comers in Englishtown earlier this year to win his first race since 1974 and he did it by leaving first most of the time. I say “most of the time” because he did have to give a head start to that P/SA car of Don Himes in the fifth round after Don dialed in a 12.72, but Al ran him down with his romping, stomping Pontiac LeMans. Toby Lang, who is having a pretty good year, whipped ‘em all in Denver with his G/SA Chevelle, which certainly isn’t the slowest car out there but it till gets to leave first most of the time unless, of course, it’s Stephanie Wong in the other lane like it was in the final round. Lee Zane who won in Columbus and in Indy, took off before most of his opponents at both races including the last four rounds at the “Big Go” where he beat the big cars of Tom Rhoda, Rick Winchester, Peter Biondo and Dan Fletcher. At his Ohio win Lee got the head start in three of the last five rounds and, ironically, in one of those rounds where he had to wait it was none other than Marion Stephenson in the other lane. Go figure!! Marion’s Maple Grove win, in case you didn’t notice, featured three rounds where he got a head start of at least a second or more.

Kevin Helms
While none of this is really significant in the overall realm of things, it is always interesting to see the different approach for drivers in the Stock Eliminator class. Helms, who will have to go down as one of the best drivers in the history of the category, elects to race and win with a car that chases almost everyone and beats most of them. His last five rounds in Bristol earlier this year saw Kevin wait for more than a second on most occasions and up to two seconds on a couple of runs. To me, one of the most impressive things about that performance and most of Kevin’s other wins was the simple fact that Kevin had the patience to wait in every one of those matches and get a green light. I guess that’s why he is going to be the champ again. John Shaul, who drives one of the best big cars in the Stock Eliminator didn’t have the “patience of Helms” in the semi-final round at E'town and his red light start gave Mr. Vanis the win and a free trip to the final round. It should be pointed out, however, that John did sit patiently for over three seconds in round three when he ran down Ed Fernandez and his T/SA entry. Maybe a great way to end the season would be to have Kevin Helms and Marion Stephenson square off in the final round at Pomona in a couple of weeks, although I know that Lee, Dan, Peter, Toby and a bunch of others probably don’t agree with me, but then I’m used to that.

Billy Nees
Over the years a couple of drivers have taken this head start thing to an art form. One that comes immediately to mind is Billy Nees, the winner of the Keystone Nationals in 1994. If you add the head starts together that he got in the last five rounds it comes to slightly less time than it took me to write this column. Billy left the starting line first by margins of three, four, five, four and a scant two and a half seconds en route to the win. His little Chevy Nova made life miserable for a whole pile of fast cars, all of which were left gasping for breath at the end of the track and at the end of a losing race. Going back more than a few years you find George Williams who won the Gatornationals in 1980 with the ultimate stocker, a Z/S Chevrolet Vega station wagon. Now to set the stage for you I’ll tell you that the field that year in Florida included the classic Ford Fairlane A/S entry of John Cseh, the A/SA Chevy of Dave LeBrun, Mike McDowell’s fast B/S car and the familiar “Teacher’s Pet” Plymouth A/SA of Jerry Stein. And yet, when it was all over, the little Z/S car was the last one standing and George got his second national event win. Oh, by the way, in the final run of that race George met the reigning Stock Eliminator World Champion Ray Cook and Ray ran 11.29 to George’s 16.38, both of which were negated by that nasty red light shining in Ray’s lane. Maybe he should have consulted with Kevin Helms before the run. Leading up to the final, George was slated to meet Johnny Mills and his A/S entry, but I guess Johnny figured he either couldn’t catch Williams or that he’d have to foul out because he didn’t even show for their match. Don McElroy did show up but he broke out in an effort to catch the little wagon and the rest, as they say, is history.

Ben Wenzel
Obviously there have been a lot of other stockers, big and small, that have won national events in spectacular fashion but I found the scenario of the last few week’s very interesting. That and the fact that it’s a big block car that will win the championship again this year. Now that I think about it, how about a final round match between Kevin Helms and George Williams? Now that may be one of the most exciting races of all time, and I’m pretty sure that Kevin will be “clean and green” to borrow a phrase from Alan Reinhart. With a few front wheel drive cars, some of the new “laptop” stockers and a bunch of the more traditional stock eliminator cars the class appears to be as healthy and entertaining as ever. Now if only we could get Ben Wenzel into the winner’s circle again, after all, he was the first guy that I saw win the Stock Eliminator crown at Indy and that was back in 1967, and from then on, I have always been one of the first to say that stockers are and always have been way cool!!