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Go,
Grandpa, Go
Everyone
goes to the race track to have fun, right? Well, some people just
naturally enjoy themselves a lot more than others, and you won’t find
anyone having much more fun at a drag race than Paul Adams.
Adams,
67, a retired trucking and ready-mix cement company owner, will tell you
that he truly loves the time he and wife Sandee spend racing and visiting
with friends whenever they go to a National Street Car Association event. Considering
the amount of enjoyment and success that Adams has derived from racing,
it’s hard to believe that he took a 30-year hiatus from the sport,
basically missing the 60s, 70s and 80s while he worked to raise a family
and establish his businesses. A
native of West Virginia, Adams now lives in Barboursville, where he spends
his time away from the race track collecting and restoring classic street
and performance cars. These days members of his family, including two of
his three daughters and a granddaughter, are responsible for the daily
operation of the businesses he established, leaving “Grandpa” free to
pursue his passion for all things automotive. a
d v e r t i s e m e n t It’s
a passion that has been rekindled in a big way over the course of the last
decade or so, when Adams aimed a car towards the end of a quarter-mile
strip of asphalt for the first time since the 1950s.
“When
I was a young guy my friends and I used to fool around at the race track
quite a bit,” said Adams, recalling his previous experiences on the
‘strip. “Back then I had an old flathead-powered ’32 Ford Model A
that had a rear window from a ’49 Studebaker installed as a windshield.
It was one of those panoramic, wrap-around things, and we thought it was
the coolest thing at the track. We’d race all day and then drive it
home. Everything was great unless it rained, but that really didn’t
bother us too much, either. If it rained, we’d just open the doors and
let the water out and go on about our business. Today that style of car is
popular – they call them rat rods now, but to us it was just a cool
car.”
In
addition to drag racing, Adams also spent some time running around the
dirt bullrings that flourished in West Virginia in the 50s. “We just
raced the cars that we drove on the street – at the drag strip and on
the circle track. I did quite a bit of dirt track racing back then.
“Even though I quit racing all those years ago, I never quit loving the
cars of the era, and I have four original Fords in my collection right
now. There’s a ’32, two ‘34s and a ’37 – all of them with
flatheads. “There
comes a time in most people’s lives when they have to accept
responsibility and make what they hope are the right choices as far as the
future is concerned,” Adams said. “That’s what happened to me, and
when it came down to racing or raising my family, there was no question
that my family came first. Sandee and I just celebrated our 48th
wedding anniversary, so I’m here to tell you that I made the right
decision. We raised three beautiful girls and all of them are very
successful today. a
d v e r t i s e m e n t With
most of his lifelong personal and business ambitions realized, Adams was
primed to make the most of his new-found “leisure” time, which he did
in the early 1990s.
“I
got back into drag racing thanks to a car that I bought from a junkyard
years ago. It was a 1970 Torino Super Cobra Jet that I paid two thousand
dollars for,” Adams said. “Once I had it restored, some friends of
mine convinced me to take it to a Fun Ford Weekend event in Xenia, Ohio.
The first time I launched the car I cut something like a two-second light
– I left on the green – and I had the shakes so bad by the time I got
to the end of the track I could hardly read my time slip. But as the day
went on things got a whole lot better, and even though the car only ran in
the fourteens I was hooked on drag racing for the second time in my
life.” Soon
after Adams made his return to the drag strip, he decided to try his hand
at circle track competition again as well. Forsaking dirt for the paved
oval, Adams purchased a new late model Thunderbird, but after just a few
races he realized that he just didn’t like it very much. “It was all
work and no fun as far as I was concerned,” he said. “I’d work on
the car for 30 hours to race it for three minutes. I found out that I
definitely preferred drag racing.”
In
1991 Adams’ friend Donnie Chapman convinced him to go to a National
Muscle Car Association race. By now the Torino had given way to the 1966
Ford Fairlane that he campaigns today, a grey-blue beauty with “Fountain
of Youth” boldly emblazoned on the sides. “I bought that car from a
good friend named Oggie Burton,” Adams said. “It had been built and
raced in Super Stock since 1969 by the Kearns brothers from Jackson, Ohio,
and it held two or three NHRA records in its day. The car sat in a
basement for over 10 years until Oggie bought it. He liked old cars but he
didn’t like to go fast, so I was able to convince him to sell it to me.
The first time I took it to a race I was the slowest of the 17 cars at the
event. It was a 12-second car back then, but we’ve been able to get it
to go a little quicker since then. a
d v e r t i s e m e n t
“We’ve
made a lot of changes in the last 14 years, that’s for sure,” Adams
said. “When I first got the car it still had the original suspension
under it, which was very similar to what the ’64 Ford Thunderbolts had.
The traction devices on it were really, really bad, so we put a ladder bar
and leaf spring combination under it. Later, we went to coil-over springs
and then finally, about three years ago, we installed a four-link set-up.
Now it’s basically a back-halved car. The rest of the car is stock, or
at least the way it was when the Kearns brothers ran it. It still has the
acid-dipped front fenders, and in fact it still has the original stickers
on it from when it ran at events back in the 70s. I taped those up when I
painted the car to preserve them – there are stickers from Bristol,
Indianapolis and other tracks.” Since
Adams’ Ford now runs in the eight-second range, it’s obvious that
there have been a lot of changes under the hood as well. Throughout the
1990s Adams ran with power provided by Jim Kuntz, of Kuntz and Company,
legendary purveyors of performance for the Blue Oval crowd. With Kuntz
engines providing motivation, Adams and the “Fountain of Youth”
Fairlane won NMCA Nostalgia Super Stock championships in 1994, 1996 and
1997.
“Jim
did a good job for me, that’s for sure,” Adams said. “I won three
titles with his engines, but when I stepped up to the NSCA’s Pro
Nostalgia class, I decided to go in a different direction. Two years ago I
started having Tim Davis build my engines. Tim, who lives in Zionsville,
Indiana, runs a ’93 Dodge in the NSCA’s Hot Street class. I’m not
sure what kind of a combination that is – a Mopar guy and a Ford guy,
but he sure has helped me step up my performance. He’s a great guy and
he’s always there when I need him. There have been lots of times where
we’ve been working until three or four in the morning putting things
together so we can race the next day. It will be two years this September
and I’m still running the first engine that Tim built for me. We’re
running faster than we ever have, and we won the Pro Nostalgia
championship in 2004, so I can guarantee you that Tim Davis makes
horsepower.” Getting
into the technical side of his big Ford, Adams explained that his car
weighs 3,003 pounds, which is pretty amazing when you consider the fact
that the minimum weight allowed in the class is 3,000 pounds. “We
specifically built the engine to minimum weight because we felt that
it’s easier to get a lighter car off the line than it is to get a
heavier car off the line,” Adams said. The
424-cubic-inch powerplant utilizes a Shelby aluminum Ford FE block topped
with Edelbrock aluminum heads and stuffed with J.E. Pistons, a Jesel valve
train and billet crank. Up top, a Hogan sheet metal intake is crowned by a
pair of 750 Holley carburetors. The power is transferred to the rear tires
by way of clutchless Jerico four-speed transmission, an aluminum drive
shaft, and a Ford 9” rear housing 6:00 gears. To date Adams has posted a
best run of 8.67-seconds at 157-mph, and his best sixty-foot time has been
1.21-seconds. “My goal now is to get into the 8.50s at over 160,” said
Adams. “It’s hard to do that with only 424-cubic-inches, but I’m
pretty sure we can do it.”
Adams
is a serious competitor, for sure, but he’s also a well-known prankster
who loves to entertain folks at the races. He’s shown up sporting a wild
“Afro” wig, huge joke shop sunglasses and a lot more. He even dressed
as Elvis once at an event in Memphis. “You can’t go to Memphis without
seeing Elvis, so I thought I’d better oblige everyone,” he said. This
fun-loving side of Paul Adams has endeared him to his friends in drag
racing, but at the same time his competitive nature and drive to excel
make him a feared opponent out on the two-lane blacktop. He has the best
of both worlds, a fact he is very appreciative of. “The Lord has allowed
me to make a living at doing what I like to do,” he said. “I have
never set an alarm clock in my life. I’m 67 and retired now, but I’m
still up at six every morning and on the go. I enjoy staying active and
the Lord has blessed me with the good health to do that.
“Financially
I wasn’t able to do the things I wanted to do when I was young, but now
I have the means and the physical ability to be able to enjoy myself.
There are a lot of people my age who can’t do what I do, so I’m very
grateful for what I have,” Adams said. “Of
course I wouldn’t be out here doing this at all if it wasn’t for the
love and support of my wife and crew chief Sandee. She goes to all the
races with me and we just have a great time. She’s the kingpin of the
whole operation, let me tell you. Then there’s Smokey Adkins, who is my
right-hand man, Rick Bess, and of course Oggie Burton will always be a
member of my crew although we lost him to cancer five years ago.
“The
car is called the Fountain of Youth for obvious reasons,” said Adams.
“I named it that because I figured it would keep me young, and it
certainly has. Of course, the car has some years on it, too, so I like to
think that I’m keeping it young at the same time. After all, it’s
running four seconds quicker now than it ever has and is the current NSCA
E.T and mph record holder. “As
long as I have the health and the means to do it I want to keep racing and
having fun. Sandee and I certainly want to stay out here racing, but I
have to say that while it’s always fun to win, it’s more important to
us to go to a race and see all of our friends. The camaraderie that we
enjoy as racers is what it’s all about.”
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© Competitionplus 2005
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