Presented by

The Drag Racing Heritage Foundation

Chuck Bayuk

"Still Racing"

   Chuck Bayuk was born in Chicago and unlike a lot most drag racers, had no interest in cars what so ever during the first sixteen years of his life. Instead, Chuck’s interest was in racing sailboats on Lake Michigan. During his sixteenth year his family moved to Denver and with no body of water around to pursue his interest in sailing he was soon looking for other endeavors.

   As fate would have it one of his new neighbors in Colorado happened to be a hot rodder with a tricked out 46’ Ford that caught Chuck’ eye. After checking this machine out and talking with the “hot rod neighbor”, as Chuck put it, he was “hooked for life”. Chucks drag strip adventures began when he got a job working the gate at the new Continental Divide Raceway when it opened in 1959. Chuck’s job was to direct the cars to either the “Hot pits” or the “Stock Pits” as they came in the gate. Since his job was over after the cars had arrived and his pay was a pit pass it afforded him a lot of time to wonder the pits and check out the many different cars that were competing.

   It wasn’t long before he decided he had to have one of these machines and since he liked the simplicity of the dragsters over the stockers with all their unnecessary components he made up his mind to build one for himself. Chuck had joined the local “Lancers of Denver” Car Club but when the group disbanded and split up their assets he found himself in possession of a 1952 Chrysler Hemi motor so the time had come to start on his car. He was still in High School at the time so he made the building of the car into a shop project. Three years later in 1962, he rolled his comp coupe complete with his first chassis, the Hemi, hooked to a 48’ Ford transmission and a 46’ Ford rear end and topped off with a pick-up body out of the shop and headed for the strip.

Photo of Chicks first race car taken in 1962. A Model-A pickup cab on 100" homebuilt frame with a '53 long bellhousing Hemi Chrysler on gasoline. Turned a 11.23 with a 123.24 mph

The car ran pretty well but by the end of the year he decided to sell it and started on a roadster. Again he designed and built his own chassis and picked up a later model 354 Hemi for power and in 1963 he again hit the strip with his new creation.

Here is a photo of the Fuel Roadster at CDR in 1964. Running on only 25% Nitro it ran a  8.76 with a 173.74 mph; 6000" above sea level.

Others soon noticed his success at the track and he was approached to build a chassis for another competitor. He got out the stick welder and soon was delivering the chassis to his first customer. He saw the possibility of making a few dollars and started his own speed shop of sorts out of his parent’s garage. He was able to pick up a number of lines of speed equipment that he could purchase at wholesale and was still welding up more chassis for the local racers. Things were going along pretty well and business was starting to grow when Uncle Sam called and Chuck found himself in the Navy. Needless to say he planned on re-opening the business upon his discharge but came home to find that his friend, Mark Williams shop had grown into a pretty major operation. When Chuck had left for the service Mark was working out of a small two-car garage shop where he would swap his labor for use of the tools but the business had flourished so Chuck changed his mind about re-opening his business. Chuck did approach Mark with the idea of building a rear motor car but with this being 1967, Mark told him he was nuts and that he would NEVER build a rear motor car. I guess this proves one should never say never!

   Chuck returned to his job as a machinist and made friends with a fellow whose partnership in a Junior Fuel car had recently broken up. So he had a car with no motor and Chuck had his Hemi from the roadster with no car, so a new partnership was formed. 

They ran the short wheelbase digger on 25% with a block off in the return and the little 354 was a pretty strong contender.

   In 1969 Chuck teamed up with Dick Custy, who later went on to drive a number of funny cars, along with Don Cullen and switched over to a good old iron 392. They upped the load to 98% and with Custy’s driving the car was a contender anywhere it ran. They even took the show on the road running a series of 4 car, booked in, match races to make a few bucks. During this time Chuck had changed vocations and was working as a mechanic at a local VW dealership. One would never expect to find a group of Top Fuel racers working on VW’s but at this dealership there were at least 5 fuel racers on the payroll and on Friday night when they all loaded their tool to go racing for the weekend, the service manager thought he was loosing his all his top mechanics at one time

   As many of the people who ran cars as young men, when Chuck took on the responsibility of a wife and soon children as well, he put the drag racing behind him and went about making a living for his family. But even though he wasn’t able to continue his racing, the love and excitement of it all never left him and would once again make it’s way to the surface.

  Fast forward to 1993 and while he moved to California and returned to racing wooden sail boats the urge to have another hot rod come over him and he purchased a 32’ Highboy roadster from one of his ex-partners and started hitting the street rod meets. It was at one of these meet that the old feeling were really revived when he meet Bill Pitts, the owner of the restored “Magicar” top fuel cars from the sixty’s. Bill was displaying the car at a meet where Chuck also had his roadster and was in need of someone to help who knew the proper procedure for firing a fuel Hemi. Chuck volunteered his help and once the thing lit, the sound and the smell of burning nitro set off all the bells and whistles in Chuck’s mind.

Chuck's Fuel Altered in 1998

    Chuck started hitting the swap meets around California, picking up the parts to put another Chrysler together. After several months of parts gathering, Chuck was able to build a new 354 and in 1998 he teamed up with another partner and started campaigning a Fuel Altered in the GoodGuys/VRA series. As partnerships sometime do, this one didn’t work out so he took his Hemi and began the search for another car to place it in. In 1999, Chuck found and purchased a new unfinished front engine dragster chassis and sent it to Tom Morris for the great paint job. He then put his motor in and once again got behind the wheel to run the 7.60 index class in the VRA series. This has been his ride from then until the present and has been a lot of fun for him. Although he is yet to make it to the winner’s circle, he doesn’t hurt parts and is inching ever closer to his first event win.

   He and his partner are in the process of building an all aluminum Donovan in their pursuit of better performance and will hopefully have the new combination ready by the 2004 March Meet. Even if the new power plant is not ready in time for the Bakersfield race, he will be among the NE 1 entries with the old reliable iron block. Because as Chuck discovered, once you are infected with the drag racing “bug”, you never quite get it out of your system.

So if you are attending any of the GoodGuys events, look for Chuck and say ‘Hello” and maybe swap some old racing stories.

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