Ted Harbit & Chuck Kern: Ted's Martin Report

[BobPalma]

See later posts in this thread for race results and a lengthy personal report from Ted.

You can't keep a good man down: Thursday afternoon, June 25th, Ted and Mary Ann Harbit reportedly loaded The Stude Tomato on the back of Ted's 1961 tilt-bed truck and accompanied Chuck and John Kerns north to Martin MI.

The event is the annual June F.A.S.T. and Pure Stock Musclecar Drag Race this weekend at U.S.131 Motorsports Park, better and simply known as "Martin."

I say reportedly because I knew of the master plan and talked to John Kerns Wednesday evening. John confirmed all plans were go; that he and his father Chuck and their 1963 R2/Powershift Avanti were meeting Ted and Mary Ann noonish Thursday at Ted's house, to head north.

I don't have confirmation that they left or arrived, but have no reason to doubt it. Chuck and John were taking the Avanti to compete, and Ted was taking The Stude Tomato for his first "trip down the strip" since The Recent Unpleasantness May 9th. (Proper southern ladies, I am told, always reference the notorious 1860s War Between The States as the recent unpleasantness, so you'll forgive my adopting the phrase to reference Ted's severely traumatic event May 9th...)

(Your humble correspondent did not accompany the team due to a 45th High School Class Reunion at Paris IL Saturday night, for which $30 each X 2: $60 had long been expended for banquet tickets!)

Hopefully, Ted will see this thread upon his return and post results. Go Team!

Ted? BP

[jclary]

I wish the best for Ted. As for your high school reunion...I hope you have as much fun as I did at my last one. When it was my turn to address the group, I said I was very proud of them all...especially since I had never heard of any of them appearing before Judge Judy or on the Jerry Springer show!

John Clary
Greer, SC

Life... is what happens as you are making plans.
SDC member since 1975

[raprice]

It's great to read that Ted is BACK!
Rog

'59 Lark VI Regal Hardtop
Smithtown,NY

[Chris Pile]

Hooray for Ted!

Chris Pile
Midway Chapter SDC
The Studebaker Special

[BobPalma]

Sunday morning, June 28th: I just got a brief e-mail report on Martin from John Feistritzer, a forward from Frank "Peg-Leg" Rice, who attended Martin this weekend. (Frank has the red and black 1957 Ford Custom 300 2-door with 312/300 engine.)

Frank reported, "Ted won. He was a little tired, but looked like he was enjoying himself." Cool beans!

That's all I have now. Hopefully, Ted will post later after he's home and recovered. BP

[studeski]

quote:Originally posted by BobPalma

You can't keep a good man down: Thursday afternoon, June 25th, Ted and Mary Ann Harbit reportedly loaded The Stude Tomato on the back of Ted's 1961 tilt-bed truck and accompanied Chuck and John Kerns north to Martin MI.

The event is the annual June F.A.S.T. and Pure Stock Musclecar Drag Race this weekend at U.S.131 Motorsports Park, better and simply known as "Martin."

I say reportedly because I knew of the master plan and talked to John Kerns Wednesday evening. John confirmed all plans were go; that he and his father Chuck and their 1963 R2/Powershift Avanti were meeting Ted and Mary Ann noonish Thursday at Ted's house, to head north.

I don't have confirmation that they left or arrived, but have no reason to doubt it. Chuck and John were taking the Avanti to compete, and Ted was taking The Stude Tomato for his first "trip down the strip" since The Recent Unpleasantness May 9th. (Proper southern ladies, I am told, always reference the notorious 1860s War Between The States as the recent unpleasantness, so you'll forgive my adopting the phrase to reference Ted's severely traumatic event May 9th...)

(Your humble correspondent did not accompany the team due to a 45th High School Class Reunion at Paris IL Saturday night, for which $30 each X 2: $60 had long been expended for banquet tickets!)

Hopefully, Ted will see this thread upon his return and post results. Go Team!

Ted? BP

Bob,
Great news, good job Ted.

My 45th was last night also, just in a different place. Congrats!!

Claude Chmielewski
Studeski

http://www.studeski.com

Fillmore, Wisconsin
47 M-16 Truck
62 GT Hawk
63 Lark
64 Commander Wagonaire
50 Champion Regal (parts car)
63 GT Hawk R2
[img=left]http://www.studeski.com/62hawk/62hawka/dakota01_250.jpg[/img=left]

[Bredehoft]

my 48th was yesterday...ok, not reunion, but birthday. I had thought about going to Martin, since it is just about an hour away, but my son had a summer basketball shootout all day yesterday. So I spent the day watching him - therefore I did not get to Martin to snap some photos of Ted in action. (Today, he helped me rebuild the front disc cylinders on my Lark and we took a short ride!)

Welcome back, Ted!

--george

1963 Lark Daytona HT - 63V J8 175
53-54 C/Ks, 55 Speedsters, 63 Daytonas, Wagonaires Registries

[showbizkid]

Well, as Sam Cooke sang, "Ain't that good news!"

Congrats Ted!


[img=left]http://members.cox.net/clarknovak/lark.gif[/img=left]

Clark in San Diego
'63 F2/Lark Standard

http://studeblogger.blogspot.com

https://www.studebakersandiego.com

[rusty65]

YOU GO TED!!!!Is there any YouTube footage of this??I'd like to see 'The Master' back in action again......

[rusty nut garage]

Thats great news!!
P.S. BP in my family, tradition calls that war "The War of Northern Aggression" [}]

quote:Originally posted by BobPalma

You can't keep a good man down: Thursday afternoon, June 25th, Ted and Mary Ann Harbit reportedly loaded The Stude Tomato on the back of Ted's 1961 tilt-bed truck and accompanied Chuck and John Kerns north to Martin MI.

The event is the annual June F.A.S.T. and Pure Stock Musclecar Drag Race this weekend at U.S.131 Motorsports Park, better and simply known as "Martin."

I say reportedly because I knew of the master plan and talked to John Kerns Wednesday evening. John confirmed all plans were go; that he and his father Chuck and their 1963 R2/Powershift Avanti were meeting Ted and Mary Ann noonish Thursday at Ted's house, to head north.

I don't have confirmation that they left or arrived, but have no reason to doubt it. Chuck and John were taking the Avanti to compete, and Ted was taking The Stude Tomato for his first "trip down the strip" since The Recent Unpleasantness May 9th. (Proper southern ladies, I am told, always reference the notorious 1860s War Between The States as the recent unpleasantness, so you'll forgive my adopting the phrase to reference Ted's severely traumatic event May 9th...)

(Your humble correspondent did not accompany the team due to a 45th High School Class Reunion at Paris IL Saturday night, for which $30 each X 2: $60 had long been expended for banquet tickets!)

Hopefully, Ted will see this thread upon his return and post results. Go Team!

Ted? BP

Russ Shop Foreman "Rusty Nut Garage"
53 2R6 289 5SpdOD (driver)
57 SH (project)
60 Lark VIII 2dr sd (driver)

[Guest]

WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

Erin Hays
"From Stuck and Rusty to Slick steel and sex appeal"
RZRECTD
1961 Hawk
1962 Lark
1963 Wagonaire

[BobPalma]

Both Ted Harbit and Chuck Kern got home safely from Martin MI Saturday evening...and brought "Studebaker Gold" with them!

They were both in attendance at our Indy Chapter SDC "Griffith Picnic" this afternoon; Sunday, June 28th.

Ted and The Tomato won their shootout against Jeff Sawruck's 1969 Pontiac Custom S 350 HO, 4-speed. Jeff's Custom S has turned a best of 12.88, but not this weekend. Likewise, Ted has turned 12.999 in The Tomato, but his best this weekend was 13.09.

(Ted's friend Fred Robinson has turned even better than Ted's 12.999 in The Tomato, but I am not sure of Fred's better ET offhand.)

Ted and Jeff swapped Rounds One & Two in the shootout, throwing the decision to the do-or-die Round Three everyone tries to avoid. Ted had an excellent reaction time and stayed ahead of Jeff to win Round Three and, thus, his shootout.

Ted reported feeling very good about racing again. He and The Tomato performed well, with several reaction times well under .100, so The Master didn't lose a thing inside the brain box when The Chicken Hawk tumbled last month.

Chuck Kern likewise did very well, posting his Best ET and Speed ever in his 1963 R2/Powershift Avanti: 14.12 seconds @ 99.71 MPH. Sooooo close to 100 in the quarter that he is bound to crack it as soon as the newness of his fresh engine wears in...or out, I guess that might be.

Chuck was paired with a 1965 Olds 442/4-speed and, like Ted, they traded Rounds One and Two to trip the trigger for Round Three. As sometimes happens when a GM guy is faced with that much tension and the possibility of losing to a Studebaker, he red-lighted big time, Chuck said, handing the Shootout's 2-out-of-3 contest to Chuck.

Chuck said his competitor shot out so early Chuck wasn't even sure all the yellow lights had come down, much less the green one had come on!

So we are on our way to another successful season of Pure Stock Musclecar Drag Racing with Team Ted & Chuck running out front.

Congrats, guys! BP

(Edited to update information about Jeff Sawruck's Pontiac.)

[Anne F. Goodman]

Fantastic Great News!!!!!

Mabel 1949 Champion
Hawk 1957 Silverhawk
Gus 1958 Transtar
The Prez 1955 President State
Blu 1957 Golden Hawk
Daisy 1954 Commander Regal Coupe
Fresno,Ca

[11SecAvanti]

Great news, strong performance and winning congraduations to both Ted and Chuck.

Start and Stage Your Studebakers

[BobPalma]

'Just got a lengthy e-mail from Ted, sent to a dozen or so folks. It's quite detailed, so I'm posting it here with no editing. Thanks, Ted

Chuck and John got to our house about noon Thursday and we took off for Martin. We drove about an hour or so and stopped for lunch and arrived at our motel about 12 mile west of the strip at about 5:30 that evening. This is the first time we stayed at this motel and it was pretty nice.

Friday morning we arrived at the strip after a good breakfast in Allegan, just down the street from our motel. We found a spot to unload and got in line to be teched in. I didn't expect it to be a real strict tech but I didn't expect it to be as loose as it was. Chuck and I both had the hoods up and when the tech guys came by they didn't even look at the engines. Just wrote the numbers on our windows and that was it. I guess they did do a real good job of checking the FAST cars though. There were only 11 FAST cars and I don't know the total Pure Stock cars but must have been at least 80 and probably more.

Time to do practice runs. I experimented with the Tomato by retarding the timing to 25 degrees total. I figured it would slow it down but wanted to retard it enough so I would know just how much difference it made. The first run I took it fairly easy and it only went 14.00 @ 102 mph. I made a second run to be sure it was a good standard to go by and it was 14.10 @ 101. The sixy foot times were really bad being 2.467 on both runs.

Set the timing up to 36 degrees and tried it again and still had 2.468 sixty foot with a 13.66 @ 106 mph. This was a BIG difference. The next run had a 2.339 sixty foot with a 13.51 @ 103. I hit the clutch just a few feet from the finish line or the speed would have been another 106 or slightly better.

Next we put the Avon tires on the rear and the Goodyears on the front just to see if they would hook any better. The first run with the Avons gave a 2.306 sixty foot and 13.51 @ 105 (must have hit the clutch a shade later). The next run was 2.32 sixty foot with 13.54 @ 104.

Next run (the seventh) had a 2.297 sixty foot with 13.29 @ 105 and even noticed a slight miss. I thought maybe I was too low on gas (car only weighed 3450 with me and this is about the lightest it has been) and wasn't' picking up enough fuel with the fuel being forced to the rear of the tank.

The next run was 2.199 sixty foot (hey, this is a LOT better than 2.4's) but the miss was a little worse and only went 13.44 @ 103.6.

I wanted to try one more run with the timing set back to 33 degrees. This gave a 2.329 sixty foot with a 13.66 with a bogus 90 mph. Don't know where that came from. Anyway, set the timing back to 36 total.

I then remembered I thought the alternator was not charging like it should and I had brought another battery and a 40 amp alternator and thought maybe with the Pertronix ignition it was not putting enough juice out to fire it so Saturday morning I bought two and a half gallons of racing gas and put in it to be sure that was not the reason and put on the 40 amp alternator in place of the 35 amp.

As soon as I started it I knew it was better as the amp gauge went all the way over and dropped slowly back to about half way for awhile. The 35 amp was not doing that.

I made one practice run then Saturday morning and took it pretty easy and went 2.35 sixty foot with 13.53 @ 103. No miss and felt good so felt pretty good about how it was running now.

Sorry I don't have much to report on Chuck's Avanti or Doug's Tjapkes' '63 R 2 automatic Lark but I do know Chuck was turning 14.40's @ 97 and 98 mph and Doug was 13.90's @ 101.

Chuck, John and I went to check to see who we were paired with. It didn't matter as they changed our pairings later due to some guys dropping out due to breakage. Chuck ended up being paired with a 442 four speed Olds that qualified at 14.32. I was paired with a '69 Pontiac 350 qualified at 13.30.

Chuck lost his first shootout but won