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Legends of the Quarter-Mile |
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Presented by The Drag Racing Heritage Foundation |
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Roy Steffey & Jim Marsh |
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Logghe, Marsh & Steffey and Beyond In the late 1950’s two high school friends, Roy Steffey and Jim Marsh made the decision to give up street racing and go drag racing. Since Jim’s father was the local Justice of the Peace, this seemed the smartest way to continue to race. What follows is the story of how they progressed to Top Fuel and how Roy Steffey continued on to build the 1965 World Finals winner and go on to build and run some of the first of the flip-top Funny Cars. Roy Steffey was always a very innovative and calculating mechanic and fabricator. His accomplishments over his years in drag racing are proof positive of that so let’s take a look at how it all came about. Both Roy and Jim
Marsh, who were to become brother-in-laws, worked for Logghe Stamping
Company which did metal stampings for the Big 3 auto manufactures from their
plant in Fraser, Michigan. The Logghe Co also started to manufacture
dragster chassis and made quite a reputation in the business. Connie Kalitta
won the 1962 March Meet using one of their chassis. It was well over a year
old at the time of the big win and was the first car to hit 180 MPH. After racing the Chevy for a while Roy and Jim decided to build built their first dragster in 1959. Though certainly not state of the art it was the beginning of many great accomplishments to come. The first car was a homebuilt car as most were at that time; using 1934 Chevy rails for the chassis and a 265 C.I. Chevy for power. They started with a two-carburetor set up with a hand pump to pressurize the fuel tank. They backed it up with a Chevy milk truck transmission using only second and high gears. Later they add a blower to the Chevy while still keeping it on gasoline.
First Dragster with twin carb's Photo courtesy of Roy Steffey
First Dragster after
having blower added against unknown competitor Since money to race on was in short supply, they worked out a deal with their local friendly GM dealer to get access to the engines changed out in warrantee work. They would look for the ones with rod bearing problems that would most likely have a good block and then search for another with piston or cylinder wall troubles that should have a good crank. With two or three of these they had the makings of a race engine. They had a fair amount of success on the local Michigan strips with this car but like most drag racers wanted something faster and quicker. The next step was a twin Chevy engine car still running on gas. They again built the chassis for the twin and with very short wheelbase the car never lived up to its expectations.
Their second dragster was
a twin engine car with small block Chevy's for power Their next dragster was a Logghe chassis car using a one of their very early design chassis that was referred to as the “square roll bar” type. The car-started life with an aluminum nosepiece but it was done away with after the first outing. In the beginning the dragster had a blown Chevy on gas for power that was later changed to a injected on nitro set up. It was while they were running the blower that their friend Connie Kalitta came by the shop with a visiting Don Garlits. He suggested they go to the injected nitro combo and he just happened to have a Hilborn injector and pump that he would sell them. After scrounging up enough money to buy the injector from Garlits, they proceeded to put it on a stock 327 Chevy block and put 70% in the tank. Although the stock Chevy did just fine for 5 runs on fuel, when Roy tore it down it was just about ready give it up. It did hold together long enough though for Roy to assemble another Chevy that was much better suited for the job with M/T pistons and rods and a Moldex ¾” stroker crank. This car and engine combination garnered them a number of Top Eliminator honors at surrounding tracks.
The third dragster known as the
"Square Roll Bar Car" in one of the few if not it's only appearance with
This photo is believed to have
been taken as the car was readied for the trip to
"Square Roll Bar" Car against unknown Coupe
"Square Roll Bar" shown with a Hilborn 4 Port set-up
Jim Marsh behind the wheel of the "Square Roll Bar" car after changing to injected nitro.
The same car as above after being
changed over to injected on nitro. Jim Marsh
After a win at St. Thomas Dragway
with injected nitro car (L to R) Roy Steffey,
CONTINUE to Chapter Two
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Many More Great Photos in the
All Photos in this article and the
Scrapbooks are Courtesy of
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