A Historical Perpective by Glenn MILLER

With Dean LOWRY leaving in late 1968 to start his own shop, Deano Dyno Soar with his brother Ken in Santa Ana, Joe Vittone was starting to consider selling the company and get back to his other ventures, Joe had the Econo VW dealership going full tilt, he also owned the building Revmaster was in, he owned the EMPI Roberta Street property, as well as many others Irons in the fire!

At this point in 1968, Darrell decided it was time to go off his own and left Roberta Street to start EMPI – R&D some refered to it as Research & Development, we called it EMPI Racing Division. Darrell comments “The first small shop was on 8th and dwight started in late ’68 and was called EMPI R&D shop”. Darrell was tired of hearing people say the the Inch Pincher was the car that Dean Lowry built… By 1970, so many changes were made to the Inch Pincher little represented Lowry’s work, things like that Wild Paisley Top, new body parts in fiberglass, wild paint work with flames, and many others changes. That shop being too small, a larger building was found just up the street 5 blocks! That larger shop up East 8th was still EMPI operated until F.D.I. took over. In fact, it still was and EMPI R&D facility until the end of ’71.

This second site was where the building of the new race the “Inch Pincher two” took place, consisting of a fresh ’59 bug chopped top body installed on the old Inch Pincher Pan. With many others mods like a new leading link front suspension, more lightweight parts installed and topped off with a wild Molly paint job, the car was soon setting records with times in the 11′s.

EMPI was sold in 1972. Thats when The Race Shop started life, same location, new name. Since the Inch Pincher two was now property of the new EMPI-F.D.I., Darrell had to leave the car behind that he had spent so many years working on. The Inch Pincher two was turned over to the FDI guys and after a brief stint with another driver, no one knows for sure what happened to either the body shell or the engine.

The new Race Shop saw many cars built and maintained here, the main one being the Off-road bug also called the Inch Pincher two, il was built for off-roaders from Mexico, and Darrell’s VW powered Fiat 850 that went on to be a NHRA Record Holder, Dave Andrews fast week end warrior 12 second daily driver. The Race Shop Ghia that was owned and built by John Preston had a Race Shop built engine and a deal was struck for R/S sponsorship. And the well known EMPI slalom Car. Others cars were built and/or maintained at the first Race Shop on University East 8th street.

This advert for an hi-performance oil pump with filter is the only one I have ever seen for the Race Shop in my old literature. Price was a cheap 34.95$… Did you already saw some Race Shop adverts?

Darrell comments “The ones you listed and Preston’s Ghia engine was built at the University Shop. We also built engines for John Smith’s Bug as well as the Anderson Brothers. Plus Engine/Trans for bug Ed King’s Juve Turkey VW. At the University street Shop we worked on the Schley Brothers. Engines both dragsters and sedans, as well as did Dyno testing for Lee Leighton when he tried the VW hemi heads. Also remember we tuned up the East Coast NED Bug and gained about 20hp. He then went on to win his Class at the Winetrnationals and then won the next race for modified Eliminator at the Gator nationals. We also worked on Audley Campbell H/G Sedan Stutt Bee. You jog a lot of memories for me, Regards”.

Glenn saw David Andrews and asked for some comments about working at the Race Shop, he remembers, here are his comments ” I bought a new 67 Bug and was and was soon transfered to March Air Force Base in Riverside, one afternoon while leaving a local sandwich shop I noticed a Race Bug in a garage across the alley, on closer inspection, “My God it’s the EMPI Inch Pincher ” so I stopped in and met Darrell Vittone, we hit it off, and I then went to work for them ! ”

He adds some funny memories : “The Schley brothers dragster was delivered to the shop and when we added the steering wheel and turned it to the right, the wheels went left. One of the bros said “It’s OK, I can drive it that way”. We all laughed and we reinstalled the rack & pinion steering properly, seems it was installed upside down. One other time while trashing on the Lightning Bug sedan to get race ready a slip with a power drill put a hole right trough the freshly painted body, a devastated look overcame the bros… Vittone walks over and installs a decal over the hole and sait “It’s fixed”.

Some parts supplied were Race Shop exclusives, like the 89mm pistons which were designed by Mahle in Germany, wow bigger & better than those legendary EMPI 88s. These were exclusively distributed as were the Race Shop exhaust systems.

The new quarter included an engine assembly clean room, a dyno area, Cylinder heads area, Fab shop area, 3 bay with a lift rack ans outside a wash rack, storage building and a paint booth. The shop also had the job of doing engine work and other various Economotors projects for Joe, like Salesmans demo cars, performance work, outside engine and transmission jobs, suspension mods, disc brake conversion, installing race parts…

Over the years those working at the Shop were of course Darrell Vittone – the Boss, Dave Andrews – right hand man. Fumio Fukaya, the VW Head wizard, was added in 1972. Some full and part timers were Jim Bentley – Mr PR, , Chas Morris – Ace welder and Fab man, Leon Schindele – Paint & body whiz, Roger Kessinger – Suspension & Fab man, part timer Tony Martin – welder & Painter, Bill Bransford and the Whale, Bob Hibbard as gophers and crezman Jim Rudolph.

After a few years, the Race Shop was moved again to a much larger building located in the rear of Joe Vittone, Economotors VW dealership at the Riverside Auto Center.

The Race Shop Ghia

I don’t know exactly why, but I always loved the paint job of the Race Shop sponsored cars. Without a doubt, the bright and not so common colors used play a big part in that statement. John Preston Ghia is no exception and if you ask me, I would say that this car is my all time favourite Ghia. Moreover when you consider that this car still exists today.

While browsing through my nostalgia literature some times ago, I found an article in the late Volkswagen Greats from August 1975 ’bout this Record holding Ghia. The article is very interesting in that John PRESTON in person speaks of his car and the story behind. Talk about opportunity… So here it is, without any add or cut… Enjoy !!!

” In August 1971, while still living in Omaha, Nebraska, I decided to build a full race Ghia, something that up until that time was seldom seen on the drag strip. I bought a ’63 Karmann Ghia in good shape and turned it over to a fellow I knew at the body shop who was a jack-of-all-trades, and as it turned out, a master of none. By December, the car was totally ruined. There wasn’t a single salvageable part left, so I was forced to scrap the entire car and buy another one. I picked up an identical ’63 and removed the metal top from another Ghia. Two tops were needed so that the new body shop I’d found could chop the top the way I wanted it. This time I was smart enough to follow the progress on the car and was delighted to see that this man was truly an artisan. The car was supposed to be finished by April, but when the target date rolled around, the car wasn’t quite complete because he’d lost interest. Our agreement had called for him to do all the bodywork and painting, so I was forced to take it to another shop. Some time later, on a Friday night to be exact, the car was finished. Saturday morning, we put the motor in it and towed it 200 miles to get to a drag strip, almost losing both the trailer and car in a near accident. When we got to the strip the car looked great. Then we made our first pass. Coming off the line, first gear felt good. Second gear also felt strong. But when I went to third the car did a 180 degree spin into the grass alongside the strip. I figured that I’d done something wrong, so we took the car back to the shop and checked everything out. Nothing unusual turned up so we went back to the strip and made another pass.

This time everything was fine until I shifted into fourth, at which points the car did a 360 and a 180 into the grass at about 90 mph, the right rear fender hitting the guard rail so hard that the car spun around and caught the other side. Our second outing with the car and it was wrecked. What a way to start a season. Again, the car was repaired and again we towed it to the strip, this time on a Wednesday night. And, sure enough, the damn car again spun into the grass, fortunately no hitting anything. A guy I knew came up to me after watching our escapades and asked to look at my front end. Would you believe it? he told me my axle tube was in backwards. We changed the axle around and on the first pass under full ower the car turned an 11.45 ET, which was seven hundredths under the record at the time. At the first points meet we went to in May of ’72, we set the record. Since that time I’ve held the record and it’s never been broken or taken away.

From the car’s inception three years ago, when it was running mid-11s at 116 mph, we’ve been able to markedly improve its performance. Now we’re turning 10.80s at 123.50 mph. There are many reasons for this car’s success. I’ve worked along with Darrell Vittone at his Race Shop in Riverside, California, ever since I first got the car and that’s probably a significant factor right there. But the big part of our winning is that the car simply works well. There’s nothing really trick about it. Front end components consist of sox positions coil-over schocks with adjustable springs rates,a P&S steering box and P&S spindles (a la Funny Car). With these coil-over schocks, I can dial in the amount of weight tranfer I need at a particular drag strip, depending on the traction available. A full roll cage ties the front suspension to the rear suspension (A la Pro Stock). A 27mm Crown torsion bar is used in the rear and we set the suspension initially with all the of the weight in the car so the wheels are straight up and down. Then we use a Bus type snubber with a piece of braided hose inside it and set the snubber so that it’s about a quarter of an inch away from the stop. As a result, when the car works, there’s very little movement, forcing the wheels and tires into the ground. There is no decambering whatsoever. The car is all steel without an ounce of fiberglass in the body. All-up weight is 1365 lbs. I run an SPG 82 roller with 89mm EMPI pistons and cylinders. The motor puts out 203 horses on Darrell’s Dyno, which means it is producing about 1,63 hp for every cubic inch. This figure has only been surpassed by the motor Darrell ran in his modified Compact car. The heads on my number one motor are interesting because they’re over four years old. They were the very first of cylinder heads from the old Race Shop. The heads have been updated to 42mm intakes by 37,5mm exhaust, and have consistently flowed more both on intake and exhaust than any other set of heads that the Race Shop has produces. Why, we don’t know. The engine also has a set of four year old EMPI manifolds, which have been rewelded several times. The basic specs on my number two motor are the same, but of course the heads and so forth are much newer. We use 48 IDA Webers with 42mm venturis and 190 main jets. A Vertx mag with 28 degrees of advance is also used. Treuhaft has supplied the clutch for the 13 to 1 motor and a 8 1/2-lb flywheel is bolted to it. Other features of th engine include a Gene Berg four-quart sump and competition oil filter. I guess you could say I like simplicity. As you can see by looking at the car, I’ve made a fervent effort to keep everything very basic.” – John PRESTON

HYBRID HAULER (Volkswagen Great Spring 1973)

“What does it take to stay competitive in drag racing? Ask any hardcore racer and you will get a reply like ” a helluva lot of work and plenty of luck”. The competitive racer spends hours of research work striving to get the lowest ETs to stay ahead of hundred other guys trying just as hard to do the same thing. it’s a never ending battle on two fronts, the clocks and the competition and it’s not limited to the fuel burning Dragster or Funny Car builders, either. It’s just as dificult, if not more so, to refine an existing factory-built machine to make it a better drag racer all the while staying within the limits of the very stiff NHRA Rule Book.

Darrell VITTONE has been connected with high performance Volkswagen for a good many years and his EMPI Inch Pincher VW Gasser is well kwown to anyone with an interest in drag racing. Until a short time ago he track tested EMPI speed parts in this company sponsored race car.

Now there’s a small shop in Riverside, California, simply named THE RACE SHOP. It’s a speed shop designed to make VW-powered cars go fast, and it’s Darrell newest endeavor. To christen his new enterprise, Darrell started out to build a strong race car. He was free to pick and choose because he was no longer tied to the VW as the car he must campaign. However he wanted to stay with a VW powered machine because he knew this engine best. To fit the needs of super fast H/Gas drag sedan, he looked for something with better aerodynamics than of the Beetle sedan. Even with a 4 inch top chop to make it a better drag machine, there just had to be a slicker way to go.

To comply with NHRA rules, the engine must remain in the same location as it was originally. At first a rear-engined small sedan better than the Beetle seemed nonexistent, but there was the super smooth little Fiat 850 Spider. The only drawback was that to race in a NHRA class, it must be a hardtop class, no open cars. But there is a fiberglass top that can be fitted to this model that would qualify it as H/Gas class material. It wasn’t difficult for Darrell to decide that his new car would be a hardtop Fiat 850 with the strongest VW engine he could put together nestled in the rear.

Looking at Darrell’s new wildly painted drag machine, it is hard to imagine it was once a stock street driven roadster with all the regulars like bumpers, wipers… Leon SCHINDELE of Riverside takes credit for the magnificent job of reworking the Spider’s exterior, filling all the holes that existed when the parts were removed.

SCHINDELE also worked the ‘glass top to get it as smooth as the metal body. It is evident that much time and hard work was put into the car getting it ready to paint. Credit for the paint goes to the wild car paint artist, Georges CERNEY of Norco.

He was a way of using a startling assortment of bright colors and making them really come on. The car sports lot of orange and red and some bright yellow, very dark burgundy, shades of purple, and white. And it’s bright.

Most of the chassis work was done by Charles MORSE. First the entire stock Fiat suspension was removed. Up front the stock A-arms and its complete suspension was replaced with a much lighter set-up. For strenght and simplicity, they decided to use a Funny car tubular axle and a dragster-type torsion tube. The funny car axle was originally built by John BUTTERA but Charles cut it in half and narrowed it 6 inches to fit the 850 body. The torsion tube was made up with brackets to attach it to the lower edge of the chassis rails. The housing was fitted with a shortened VW torsion bar and special arms attach the bar to the reworked axle.

Small KONI shocks are used but are held to a limited travel of 3 inches on the front suspension. The steering bos is the stock Fiat rack & pinion unit mounted in its original location.

At the rear, the stock Fiat control arms were retained but heavily strengthened to absorb drag racing punishment. The unit were lightened considerably by drilling and all of the seams were heliarc welded for added strength. The stock coil springs were retained but have a long snubber bolt running through them for travel control. The rear suspension is set up with one inch of travel as required by NHRA rules. Bilstein gas-filled shocks are used in the rear and have been relocated.”

“Now to the real heart of the car where Darrell can really do his thing. The basic engine is a completely reworked ’71 VW engine. The cc’s have upped to 2090 or 127.5 cubic inches by altering both bore and stroke. A plain bearing Okrasa crank is completely worked and is fitted with full-floating forged steel Z/28 Chevy rods reworked by Childs and Albert. Yes, we said Chevrolet. Darrell likes them because they are longer and lighter than the Porsche rods. EMPI 88mm barrels are used but have been taken out to 89mm to match the forged Mahle pistons which are distributed exclusively through The Race Shop. Rings are Mahle stainless steel dykes units.

The crank assembly was balanced by Riverside Motor supply Co. An Engle F-32 camshaft is used along with their lifters. Manley valves are then fitted to the dual port heads. Currently, Darrell is using 40mm intake and 37mm exhaust. Norris dual springs are used and EMPI steel rockers activate the valves. Darrell did his things to the heads which have been ported, polished and surfaced by The Race Shop. They were also flow tested on their own flow bench. Carburation is handled by a pair of 48IDA Webers mounted on a set of EMPI cast aluminum intake manifolds.

Gene Berg’s full flow oil filter is used. An EMPI oil sump and a Nikerson oil pump keeps the oil moving. A Joe Hunt Vertex mags fires this little dynamo and Fourtuned special header system channels the exhaust out a long chromed stinger. The interior was completely gutted except for the two bucket seats that are required by NHRA. The sheet metal floor was cut away leaving the center tunnel and outer reinforced area. All this area was replaced with sheet aluminum by Tom Hanna of Westminster, who also did the dash metal work.

The roll cage in this car is more than just a safety feature. It is a vital part of the car’s frame structure. Since the car was originally a roadster and Darrell removed a big portion of the sheet metal from the floor, the car needed something to tie it all together.

Darrell was looking for something more aerodynamic than the VW sedan for his new race car and we find his choice unusual and attractive. As of this writing the car has not appeared at an official event but when it does we think there’s a good chance that the current NHRA H/G record may fall to a combination of German, Italian and American hot rod ingenuity.”