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70 Monte Carlo and early days at I-70 Speedway

I've been asked many times why I raced a Monte Carlo when I-70 opened, here is how it came about.

When the new asphalt track opened, all of us local racers were really excited, all most of had ever raced was on dirt.  Well, we took our dirt cars and bought asphalt tires for them and went to I-70.  Dave Wall, Joe Wallace,some other fast guys on dirt and myself had a rude awaking. Those Lakeside cars did not do very well on the high banks of I-70.  None of us had a clue about pavement racing.

I had a great sponsor at the time and I told him we had better buy a pavement car from someone who had been racing on pavement so we could get a caught up with the guys that came in from out of town and blew our doors off.  I had a 57 Chevy dirt car that was not even close to a pavement car.

Joe Ruttman had a 66 Chevelle listed in Hawkeye Racing classifieds, the car sounded like it would be a good one and we knew Joe was fast and was winning some pavement races. Sponsor and I went and looked at the car and it was light years ahead of what I had, so we bought it on the spot.  Joe forgot to tell us that the car had been outlawed in his area.

Car had boat headers on it,  so the car could run lower and the engine set back a little to far for his area rules.  It looked so fast to us, we neglected to really check it out to close.

Brought it to I-70 and the car was very fast, the other drivers started fussing about it right away;  they said the headers were blowing in there faces and the car did not look like a stock 66 Chevelle.  The boat headers came out at the top of the front fenders. [boat headers were not allowed the following year].

They protested the car and in the inspection process the engine was declared to be set back too far. So now, I have a fast car that is illegal to race, [Thanks Joe you rascal].  So, I went to a Chevy dealer and started raising hoods on every kind of Chevy to check engine setback.  Due to the long nose on the 70 Monte Carlo Chevy,  the motor was moved back about 5 inches.  This would make my outlaw car legal if I put  a Monte Carlo body on it.  We changed it in a week, but it was not near as easy as the panel bodies that we run today.  Back then, we had to run close to stock steel body panels.

Back to the track, and after it was protested again,  the car was declared legal to run.  The car was still fast, but had a push the long nose was causing.  A little creative engineering was used to cut 9 inches off of the front end,  took it out of the middle of the fenders and off of the back of the hood. That cured the push and the car was very fast again and I won a lot of races in it.

Funny thing, I was protested a couple of more times but nobody ever noticed the short nose and they never fussed about it.  Thank goodness for the long nose Monte Carlo.

Waiting for Friday night

Terry Bivins #53