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Legends of the Quarter-Mile |
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Presented by The Drag Racing Heritage Foundation |
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Gene Adams |
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Many arguments can be made for who was the top engine
builder of the day and like most innovators Gene didn’t receive the press that
his drivers did but in the 60’s his engine building expertise produced more
Top Eliminator wins than anyone else in the history of the sport. Almost every
car he was involved with was a winner so lets take a look at the career of this
pioneer and some of his numerous accomplishments.
Fast Facts about Gene Adams While
researching this feature, I ran across an the astounding fact that Gene Adams is
the only man that his engines/cars have held NHRA National Records in the past
five decades.
* In 1971, his one car held 4 records in the same year including the A/fuel speed and E.T. record set at Seattle of 6.85 @ 203.61. He then switched the same car over to gas and set the speed and E.T. record in B/G Dragster at Irwindale * In 1985 Gene’s motor powered the “Asian Flu” A/Altered to a National Event win at Fremont and a new speed and E.T. record for the class of 7.24 @ 189 + * When the nineties rolled around one of Gene’s potent power-plant's was in the car of Roger Odell with Ed Vickroy driving, due to the fact Don Enriquez had not accumulated enough points. While running at the NHRA World Finals in October 1992 they set a new A/Fuel speed record at 253.16. A very interesting side note to this record is the fact that it won the NHRA's "Run of the Year" for 1992. The interesting part of that is this was the same year that Kenny Bernstien made the first run over 300mph. The fact that the car, powered by Gene's motor bettered the old record by more than 20mph faster than anyone had ever gone in the blown alcohol class, prompted NHRA to award them with the distention of the Best Run of 1992.
* His dragsters were the first to go in the 6's both blown and un-blown. In the Adams, Warye & Mulligan car, John broke into the six's, November 1966 with a blast of 6.95 at Carlsbad. At that time the quickest E.T. ever recorded was 7.12. In the summer of 1971 with Don Enriquez driving the injected car, they ran 6.98 at Orange County. His cars were also the first injected cars to go 200 and 250 when Don Enriquez went 202 at Orange County in July, 1968 and the "Run of the Year" mentioned above was the first 250 mph pass by an injected car. * Ron Pratt's Jr./Fuel car which Gene was crew chief, won the CHRR in 1995, 98, 99 and 2000. The 410 cu. in. Chrysler, injected on alcohol was the first Jr. Fuel car to run 180 and had a best of 7.29 @ 183.86. The car held both ends of the VRA Jr. Fuel record and has not been ran since the 2000 CHRR
Photo's by Bob Johnson
While one of Gene’s motors may not set an NHRA record in the 2000’s it will only be because he no longer runs the NHRA events.
The Early
Years Born in Minnesota, Gene’s family moved to California when he was just a child so Gene feels as if he was a native Californian where Gene’s father worked for Douglas Aircraft as an aircraft mechanic and flight engineer. Gene was introduced to drag racing when in 1952 he took
his Dad’s 50’ Olds 88 out to C.J. Hart’s Santa Ana drag strip. Little did
he know he was starting a career in a sport that he would continue still today
or that his name would become synonymous with that very sport. His dad’s Olds
was stock except for a set of headers that Gene had installed and lacked the
power to run with the new model cars that were running in the stock class so it
wasn’t long before he was changing the cam, reworking the Olds heads for
better flow and adding more carburetion to make the car a winner. Gene was
aircraft mechanic at Douglas himself and was always trying new innovations to
make the car faster. He became quite successful at both Santa Ana and Saugas
drag strips. Even with the success he had with the stocker, Gene still wanted to
go faster, so he soon moved up to the gasser class As Gene explained, at that time there were two classes for gassers at Santa Ana. One of them being, pre-war OHV cars and the other being post-war OHV cars. The pre-war cars were early Fords, Chevy’s and so forth with modified Olds and Caddy engines while the post-war cars were full sized cars of that time period with modified OHV engines. Gene’s Olds of course ran in the Post-war class except when on the rare occasion he ran an NHRA event where all cars were classified on a pounds per cubic inch basis putting his car in the D/Gas class. In 1955, Gene changed the car to alcohol and took the Olds to Bonneville where he won runner-up honors in the fuel coupes and sedan class with a top speed of 143 mph while running stroked 303 Olds with a Hilborn injector set-up. Gene also put the engine in a 34 coupe to attempt to set a record in the class. Not only did they set a record in the coupe the one weekend that the little Olds was in it, the same engine held 4 different speed records in 4 different classes at the same time including a sports car. Gene also put the engine on a dyno that Stu Hilborn and Cobb; a Bonneville racer had partnered on and found that it produced 360 H.P. on gas, which was pretty strong for the time. At the end of the 1956 season Gene built a stock bore and stroke 371 Olds engine and topped it off with a GMC 4-71 blower. This moved him into the supercharged class at Santa Ana and up to B/Gas at NHRA races. One of the many unique innovations that Gene developed for the car was a set of highly modified cylinder heads the allowed the Olds to be a top contender in the class. He ran the Olds through the end of the 57’ season but in January of 1958, his country called and Gene was inducted into the Army so he pulled the engine from the Olds and allowed his friends Ronnie Scrima and Mort Smith, both of whom worked at Engle’s, to run it in a dragster while he was doing his duties in the military. Ronnie Scrima built his first dragster chassis and along with Gene’s motor, created the Scrima, Adams & Smith car that started the whole thing. After running the Ronnie’s homemade chassis for about 8 months, they pulled Gene’s engine out and put it into a Scotty Fenn TE-440 chassis with a spool type rear under it, which was rare for that time period. When on leave from the Army, Gene would go to the track to help with the dragster and in doing so got hooked on dragsters. It was during one of his weekend leave that they took the TE-440 version of the Scrima, Adams and Smith car to Long Beach for a test and tune session. Mort was having a very hard time getting the little 93” car down the track, so Mickey Brown who had not brought his own Olds dragster along that night, offered to see if he could get it down the track. This proved to be a fatal decision for Mickey as at about 100’ out, he lost it and went upside down, losing his life in the process. The car was not badly damaged so the engine was removed and the chassis was sold.
The
Dragster Years In
1960 when Gene was discharged from the Army he and Scrima along with Leonard
Harris as the driver, put the Olds engine into a Fiat to run in the modified
coupe class. This car began their association with Albertson Olds as a sponsor.
The car ran in the high 9- second range, which was very competitive at that
time. It was at this time that Gene began working at Hilborn Fuel Injection as
what he describes as a “flunky”. However before his 15 years at Hilborn was
up, he was very important part of the legendary speed equipment manufacturer.
After running the Fiat for a few months Ron Scrima bought a new K-88
chassis and after doing a lot of his own modifications they pulled Gene’s Olds
out of the Fiat and put in the dragster and the Albertson Olds dragster was
born. This car was a very strong runner and won many races including the 1960
Nationals in Detroit, turning a very impressive 9.23. They also amassed a record
of 12 Top Eliminators in a row at Long Beach before heading east for a month of
racing. Upon their returning they won another 6 in a row to amass a total of 18
in a row at long Beach, a record, which was never equaled. The Albertson Olds dragster was a very innovative car for its time. Ronnie Scrima made extensive modifications to the 93” wheelbase car, which included cutting out some of the struts to allow the chassis to flex more, and adding a champ car rear end with knock-off hubs to mount the Halibrand wheels. Gene’s engine work included many innovations such as installing offset valve guides to enable him to run larger valves and using one of the first Hilborn 4 port injectors atop the GMC 6-71 blower. An interesting side note that helps to show just how fast things were changing during this time is the story about the blower scoop. It seems that the Hilborn unit was so new that they had yet to build a scoop for it by the time that Gene and crew left for Detroit to run in the Nationals. Stu Hilborn, told Gene that if he could get the scoop finished in time he would air freight it to him in Detroit. When the car arrived and started in competition it was still using a home-made fiberglass scoop, but Stu called on Friday night and told them the new aluminum scoop was on it’s way. Gene sent a couple guy’s to the airport to recover the new piece and installed it on Saturday morning. The car won the event with the first unpolished Hilborn scoop in place. Upon their return to the west coast, Gene immediately removed the unsightly scoop and sent it to be polished. So the only time the Albertson Olds car was ran with an unpolished aluminum scoop was the last two days of the 1960 Nationals. This certainly helps to explain why photos of the car taken only days apart show the car in different forms. The parts and cars were evolving on almost a daily basis at this point in the sport. In October of 1960 the Albertson Olds car was scheduled to run a match race against the Howard’s Cams twin engine gas dragster at Lion’s but when they arrived the Howard’s car had broken an engine and was unable to race so they decided to try and qualify and race the Olds in eliminations. While cooling the engine down after a qualifying pass Gene discovered a cracked head and they put their car on the trailer as well. Since Leonard didn’t have a ride for the evening, he was approached by another car owner, to drive his dragster. It was known as being an ill handling car but Leonard proceeded to qualify the car, but in the first round of eliminations, he lost control and hit a chain link fence that was a few feet from the track surface and lost his life. This devastated Ronny Scrima as well as the owners of the Albertson Olds dealership who pulled their sponsorship the next day and Scrima immediately sold the car to Tom McEwen and so the team of Adams and McEwen was started. Gene did several modifications on the car that Tom wanted such as a different roll bar and a parachute. With the added weight and Tom not being as experienced as Leonard at slipping the clutch the car was not quite as fast and did not win as many races in the beginning. After running the car for 4-6 months they decided to build a new car. The same Olds engine went in yet another gas dragster that they referred to as the “high-back” car. This car, built by Gene’s friend, John “Freight Train” Peters was very successful getting runner-up honors against Pete Robinson at the Nationals in Indy in 1961. Early in 1962 Kent Fuller built Adams and McEwen another new car with a unique and beautiful body by Wayne Ewing, that came to be known as the “Shark” car. Again the Olds engine was put in it and they immediately started winning races. At the ’62 Fuel & Gas Championships with a 33% load in the tank, the big Olds set the second lowest E.T. of the meet and the second highest speed as well. They also went five rounds in eliminations before being beaten by Ted Gottelli. For they’re great showing against all the Chrysler powered cars they were awarded the “Best Performance of the Meet” Award. After a few months they picked up a sponsor deal from Mickey Thompson and changed to a Pontiac power plant. Late in the summer of 62’ they commissioned Kent Fuller to build a very lightweight car with a magnesium body and lots of weight saving features. At this time Gene built his first Hemi for this car. Gene built a stroked 392 to run on gas, which ran a very respectable 8.40 @ 180 but McEwen wanted to go Top Fuel racing so they ordered one of the first Woody chassis ever built and Gene put the ’92 back to stock stroke and they entered the fuel wars. In 1963 they won runner up at the March Meet to Art Malone but that was their last race together. The car belonged to Tom and the engine was Gene’s so they went their separate ways with Gene putting his motor in his brother, Gary’s, Scrima built car with Rick Stewart doing the driving chores. Only two races into this partnership, Rick crashed and destroyed the car at the 63’ Pomona race. The front axle on the car was built from aluminum and came apart in the lights. The car had the very first Hilborn “Bugcatcher” injector on it but when the car went upside down the injector was destroyed so Gene returned to using the low profile Hilborn 4-port and never again used a “Bugcatcher” Again a new Woody chassis was purchased and Gene being the thinker he is decided the 392 was overkill so he put together a new 354 and upped the nitro to 40-50% running under the Adams Brothers & Stewart banner. They ran this combination for about 6 months but ordered another lightweight car from Woody and in January of 1964 started running it. The car broke the existing record of 7.43 with a run of 7.42, which was a track record that stood for more than a year. They also were second runner –up to the “Hawaiian” at the 65’ Winternationals. They ran for around a year and a half before the escalating cost of running fuel was more than Gene’s brother could handle, so he sold his part of the team to John Rasmussen. According to Gene, the cost was getting to be so bad for running a fuel car that by the end of 1965 they owed John over $1000.00 just for his part of the upkeep on the car. In 1965 this was no small amount of money and Gene and Rick were both married with families so he knew something had to change. Gene talked them into going back to the gas class and built a 5/8” stroked 354 and immediately starting winning. Within 2 months they were able to pay back the thousand dollars and start paying Rick 25% of the winnings. They were the first gas dragster to run in the 7.80’s so things were going good It wasn’t long before Gene was approached by Jack Warye, a Garden Grove auto dealer to wrench his Top Fuel car so he turned the gas car over to Rasmussen and took over the tuning on the fuel car. It was thought that Rick could drive both the gas car and the fueler but it only took a couple weeks for him to decide that it was more than he could handle so Billy Scott took on the driving chores for ‘Ras” in the Top gas ride and Rick continued to drive the Adams & Warye fueler. In a matter of a few weeks, Rick crashed the car and left the team. At this point John “The Zookeeper” Mulligan took over the seat and the team of Adams, Warye & Mulligan was formed. John had quite a bit of driving experience in the Beebe Bros. Fiat Altered and the Ward & Warye fueler. With his driving abilities and Gene’s mechanical abilities it didn’t take long for them to rise to the top of the fuel ranks and set a new National Record with a time of 7.24 @ 219.28 which they backed up with runs of 7.31 @ 219 and 7.33 @ 219 to get the “official” record. Gene used a variety of engines for power including a stock stroke 354, a 354 with a 5/8”arm, a stock stroke 392 and a 5/8” stroked 331 so it is hard to pin point exactly what engine was in at a particular race. Gene does recall that they were running the 331 when the record was set and relates the details of that engine as using a Delta 5/8” stroker crank along with 55 heads that Joe Mondello had reworked and installed 2 1/16” intake and exhaust valves and rocker arms from Ed Donovan. He also used Venolia pistons and M/T aluminum rods. Gene believed in running higher compression (7:1) and lower loads of nitro (60- 65%). Again Gene’s innovative thinking proved to be right. They ran all the 66’ season and the first part of the 67’ season but with the advent of the new Goodyear tire the strain on a fuel motor had gotten so bad that the parts bill was becoming more than Warye could afford and he sold the entire operation. Mulligan then teamed up with Beebe to run the famous “Beebe and Mulligan” car and Gene decided he would try his hand at the new Jr. Fuel class that was becoming a weekly show at Long Beach. The field was dominated with small block Chevy’s since the rules called for a maximum of 310 cubic inches. Since Gene was never one to follow the leader he decided to build a Desoto to run the class. Starting with a 1955 Desoto 291, he offset ground the crank, punched it out to 305 cubes and added a set of 1957 heads. In the mean time Rasmunson and Scott was doing extremely well in the gas class and had built a new car so Gene got the lightweight Woody car from them to put his little hemi in. After enlisting Jerry Glenn to do the driving they took on the Jr. Fuel class and was starting to find their combination when they kicked a rod out. This was the final straw as Gene had just bought a new home so the car was parked and Gene went about his job at Hilborn and Jerry went on to drive the “Atlas Oil Tool Special” top fuel car.
One of Gene’s
fellow employees at Hilborn was a young man named Don Enriquez, who approached
Gene as to what it would cost to get the Jr. Fuel car going and for him do the
driving. He told Gene that if he didn’t work out, he would walk away and Gene
could keep the money. According to Don, Gene was very hesitant about letting him
drive. Gene knew Don’s father, who also worked at Hilborn and didn’t think
that he would approve of the idea. But Don, at age 27 said he could make his own
decisions and came up with the needed cash to persuade Gene to bring the car out
again. Don had never driven a
dragster so Gene took on the job of coach to familiarize Don with the car. Don
explained his training program to me in this way........ “After convincing Gene to let me drive the car, I gave him the necessary $500.00 to build a new short block and we made our first trip to the drag strip. Gene instructed me to stage the car and on the light run it to 100’ and shut it off. Four times that day we did the same thing and loaded the car. The next week we returned and the first two passes were at 100’ and shut off. On the next pass, Gene told me to run to the same spot then lift and get right back in it. It did this and ran around 184 or so. The next run was the same thing but I stepped up to about 186. When we were preparing for the next pass, Gene said that everyone told him the car would make a move to the left at about the point I had been lifting because that is where the clutch would come in. He instructed me to be ready and crank the wheel to the right at that point and then drive through it. I did what he said and on my first full pass in a dragster ran in the neighborhood of 7.70 @ 188 in a car that was capable of passes in the 190 range so we were both pleased. That day in 1968 was the first pass and I have been doing it ever since” The Adams & Enriquez team was one that worked really well together and won numerous events both regional and national and set a number of records in the process. Over the next year or so the completely dominated the Junior Fuel class. However the Jr/Fuel class was starting to fade in popularity so Gene built a 354 so they could also run the Combo Eliminator class at NHRA events by just swapping the engines. They raced continuously as a team from 1968 until 1975 and then off and on for another 12 years. A partnership of this length in drag racing is unusual then and now and they remain good friends even today. In addition to the very successful Jr/Fuel car they ran several other cars during their partnership including a twin engine Don Long car equipped with 2 injected 354’s punched out to 420 inches running on nitro. The car, named the “Double Eagle” and while it ran well it never lived up to Gene’s expectations, partially due to a harmonic vibration that he could never completely overcome. After about 6-8 months of running the twin they returned to Jr/Fuel. In 1974 Adams and Enriquez went Top Fuel racing with a rear engine car equipped with a Donovan. The venture was not very successful and since Gene had ran without sponsorship ever since the Albertson Olds days he soon discovered running a Top Fuel car out of pocket was much more than he was willing invest, not to count the time involved. In 1975 NHRA started a new Pro Comp class, which lumped both blown and injected cars along with altered and roadsters together. Gene pulled the Donovan out of the Top Fuel car and built a stock stroke 354 to run the class. Gene and Don had just got their combination together when NHRA started a blown alcohol class that included both funny cars and dragsters. This was really well suited for Gene and they won not only the Winternationals and the March Meet, they set a low E.T. record at San Gabriel in their last race with the car. However rule changes by NHRA made it much harder for them to compete with the iron 354. In 1976 Gene sold the entire operation, including car, trailer and parts. This was to be the last car that Gene would own.
1975 Winternational's Pro-Comp Final win
over John Shoemaker (Photos courtesy Gary Adams) In 1975 Gene left Hilborn to go to work for the W.R. Grace Company, who had purchased a number of speed equipment companies including Mr. Gasket, Mallory and Brook’s Rods and Components who set up a testing facility which was very well equipped wit an engine dyno and at least two chassis dynos. Gene worked along with the legendary Chevy guru, Bill ‘Grumpy” Jenkins and Art Chrisman to test and develop new speed equipment. Gene then worked with the Mallicoat Brothers on their Funny Car/Altered running a Donovan with iron heads. After doing this for 4 years, Gene decided to move away from California but in 1982 Gene returned to work in an automotive machine shop for Chess Bushy in Ramona, CA. In addition to running the shop he also helped Chess with his Top Gas car and then put it on nitro to run in the Pro Comp class just to stay involved with the sport
In 1983 Gene opened the doors of the first Adams Performance shop in a
rented building where he used his highly developed skills to build engines for
others. Having worked for Hilborn for so long, people soon started bringing
their injectors to him for repair and tuning. While he wasn’t well equipped
for doing them he could set the barrel valve and nozzles using a pressure
tester. He soon decided he was going to have to have a flow bench to do the job
properly so he built himself one and today his shop in Chino Valley, AZ does a
lot of injector work and very little engine building. Gene also stocks parts for
Hilborn and Enderle injectors as well as others. In the early 1990’s, Gene was approached by Don Rattican for photos and information on the Albertson Olds car. The NHRA Museum had found the car in pretty much original condition in Alabama and had purchased it to restore and display in the museum. Gene furnished the photos, some of which are part of this article, and his knowledge of the car to enable an exact restoration. The car can be seen at the Wally Parks Motorsports Museum exactly as it was when it won the 1960 Nationals. (See Photos of restored car) Gene’s Latest Project While Gene is still somewhat involved with the A/Fuel car of Dr. Kin Bates that his son is the tuner on he has just finished a very interesting project. After attending at Nostalgia event at Bandimere Dragway with his brother he was amazed at the way they were getting the Ford Flatheads and GMC in-line 6’s to run, and the idea hit him to build another Olds. After returning home he contacted Don Rattican and picked up an old 303 Olds block as well as a complete 303 engine from his neighbor John Schultz, who is a avid collector of vintage Olds. He proceeded to punch out one out to 335 cu. in. and did his magic on a set of 55 Olds heads. After welding a divider in the Siamese ports and making them into 4-port heads along with several other modifications they flowed as well or a little better than 70’s era small block Chevy heads. He then added aluminum rods and a set of high compression pistons as well as modifying a set of Crane roller rocker arms to fit the Olds. He then went to Hilborn and picked up a set of reject injectors that were made for a SBC that he also made work on the Olds. After that he managed to get the last core that Engle had for a roller cam for this engine, which they ground to his specs. After completing the engine, which was almost a four- year project done in his spare time; he put it in one of Kin Bates old dragster chassis to run in the VRA nostalgia Eliminator 2 class. The car to date has only made one pass, which netted an 8.90 @ 151, but raised many an eyebrow when most could not even recognize what brand of engine it was. It will be very interesting to see how this car does in competition in 2004 and I for one will bet it will be a contender as most everything Gene has touched through the years has been competitive in whatever class it was in.
The NE III car driven by Kin Bates Jr.
using the Gene Adams Olds for power on its first run
This is the Kin Bates current VRA A/Fuel
car with a 1957, 392 iron block Chrysler engine. Gene's son Dean Adams is the
crew chief and owner of the engine. The engine has 468 cube's and runs 95-98%
nitro. On this pass it turned 6.50 @ 211.06, it's best performance to date. The
cars main competition have state of the art, billet Alan Johnson & Keith
Black's with BAE heads, supercharged on alcohol. Gene gives his advice on the
tune-up. The cast iron engine is, at time's, swapped out in favor of a billet
Rodek 392 with 1955 cast iron heads.
Another unique Gene Adams car to watch for
in 2004 is this A/Fuel car of Claude Lavoie.
You can bet that there will be more to add to this story as long as Gene is active in drag racing. I want to thank Gene Adams for all his time and help in putting this article together and for sending me his photo collection to scan and share with all of you. He is a very interesting person to talk with and is definitely a pioneer and innovator. I would also like to thanks his brother, Gary Adams for his help and input as well. Written by George Crittenden and edited by Gene Adams.
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