Rapid Response

A film review

The author recently had the opportunity to watch the documentary film Rapid Response based on Dr. Stephen Olvey’s excellent book of the same name. The author highly recommends this film  - all automobile racing fans and particularly open wheel racing fans need to see this two-hour film, which was directed, edited, and produced by Indianapolis native Michael Miles through Mile A Way Productions.

This film uses vintage footage provided by First Turn Productions and still photos from the Indianapolis Motor Speedway film archives, which are a real treat for racing historians. The film opens with historical color footage that features the Cummins Diesel Special starting from the pole position and Troy Ruttman winning the 1952 ‘500,’ and then continues with historical footage of crashes through the years at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway (IMS).

The film weaves the story of Dr. Olvey into the history of safety developments of our sport, beginning with his days working for IMS’s Dr. Tom Hanna because he wanted to “help the drivers.” Interspersed with the historical footage are recent interviews with Mario Andretti, Al and Bobby Unser and Parnelli Jones that add flavor of what safety was like in the “old days.”  

Olvey tells the story of his role that helped improve medical response at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway through the years, and tells the story of the eventual formation of a dedicated safety team that traveled the USAC Championship Trail created by Steve Edwards to provide “consistency of performance by qualified capable people.”

The film then introduces orthopedic surgeon Dr. Terry Trammell and follows his story from his days as volunteer medical student who worked at IMS in 1973, to his treatment of Danny Ongais after his awful Indianapolis crash in 1981. Together through the 1980’s and 1990’s Trammell and Olvey worked together to improve the response to accidents and later to the collection of scientific data to help redesign the race cars to better protect drivers.

The film focuses on critical events such as Rick Mears’ Sanair accident and Chip Ganssi’s Michigan accident in 1984, complete with interviews with Mears and Ganassi. Olvey reviews the events that led to the cancellation of the CART race at the Texas Motor Speedway in 2001, and the film closes with the story of Alex Zanardi’s gruesome accident at the Eurosport oval in Germany and his triumphant return to racing.  

The film Rapid Response is unrated and contains footage of fatal accidents. 

Visit the film’s website at   https://rapidresponsemovie.com/ to find a theater near you.

Restored 1975 Plymouth Duster ”California Flash” drag car

Driver and engine builder Larry “Butch” Leal from Tulare California is a legend in National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) drag racing. Beginning with his first foray into the sport in 1960 in a Chevrolet El Camino. In the early nineteen sixties, Leal became a member of the Ford Drag Racing Team and he won the Super Stock class at the 1964 US Nationals in Indianapolis where he earned Leal the nickname “the California Flash.”

In 1965, Leal joined the Chrysler Corporation as a factory-supported driver in the Pro Stock category driving Hemi-powered (hemispherical combustion chamber) cars. Chrysler pulled out of direct factory sponsorship for Pro Stock racing in 1974 because of NHRA Pro Stock weight rules which Chrysler management felt unfairly favored the small-block Chevrolet.

In 1975, Butch Leal became associated with the Chrysler Direct Connection performance-parts program and ran this Ron Butler-prepared Plymouth Duster powered by a 16-plug (two spark plugs per cylinder) 426-cubic inch Hemi engine with a 4-speed transmission. Competing in the   B/MP (Modified production) class, it ran a best quarter-mile elapsed time of 9.65 seconds with a best trap speed of 142 miles per hour. This car was featured on the cover of the April 1975 Car Craft magazine and the cover of the 1975 Chrysler Direct Connection parts catalog. 

   

With this car, which had to weigh 8.00 to 8.99 pounds per cubic inch of engine displacement.  was allowed very few body and chassis modifications, as the body and the bumpers are all steel. Leal won the Modified Eliminator class at the 1976 NHRA Winter Classic, the Winternationals and the Gatornationals events. 

Leal was named to the 1976 Car Craft Magazine All-Star drag racing team as the modified driver of the year.  Leal drove Chrysler cars through the 1977 NHRA season. Leal who retired from drag racing in the late nineteen eighties is a member of the Mopar Collector’s Guide Hall of Fame the International Drag Racing Hall of Fame.

The car was meticulously restored by John and Denny Laube who proudly displayed the car at the 2018 Performance Racing Industry show in Indianapolis Indiana.    

"Pop" Dreyer big car at PRI 2018 

One of the features at the 2018 Performance Racing Industry (PRI) trade show in Indianapolis the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum presented the “Hoosier Thunder: Indiana’s Short Track Heritage” exhibit. The display included a 1937 Dreyer Special Sprint Car which is similar to the car driven by Everett Saylor, shown as a tribute to those years of racing and leading car builder “Pop” Dreyer.

Floyd “Pop” Dreyer began as a motorcycle sidecar-racer, owned an Indian motorcycle dealership in the early nineteen twenties and quit when he was married in 1925.   worked as a welder at Duesenberg and worked on Frank Lockhart’s ill-fated land-speed streamliner. After Duesenberg closed, Dreyer started his own shop in Indianapolis.    

"Pop"  began to build motorcycle powered midget race cars .big cars (today known as sprint cars), junior racers for kids, overhead valve conversions for Ford engines and magnesium wheels.  The entire front row of the 1931 Indianapolis 500-mile race was occupied by cars that all wore bodywork built by Pop Dreyer. 

Everett Saylor won the 1937 CSRA (Central States Racing Association) championship in a Dreyer-built Sprint Car while Dennis “Duke” Nalon won the 1938 AAA (American Automobile Association) Eastern Big Car title in a Dreyer chassis, and Jackie Holmes won the 1949 AAA Midwestern big car title behind the wheel of a Dreyer.  

In 1953 Dreyer sold his patterns and racing parts and invested in a motorcycle dealership, and in 1959 Dreyer became the ninth Honda dealer in the United States and the first east of the Mississippi River. Today Dreyer Honda remains in business the oldest continuous operated Honda dealer in the nation.  

Floyd “Pop” Dreyer has recognized for his accomplishments and contributions to racing with inductions to the National Sprint Car Hall of Fame, National Midget Auto Racing Hall of Fame, the American Motorcycle Association (AMA) Motorcycle Hall of Fame, and the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America.