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Coming Home To Chrysler
How Tony Schumacher’s Dad (And Granddad!) Changed Ed Pink’s Fortunes...
By Dave Wallace, Photographs by Ron Lewis & from the Ed Pink Collection

While Ed Pink was flogging Ford’s SOHC 427, arch-rival Keith Black — with Chrysler’s engineering support — concentrated on adapting the late-model Hemi to fuel racing. After Gas Ronda was burned and Lou Baney lost Ford funding (as detailed in our previous installment), Pink needed a major player to put him back in the Chrysler game. Ed found one in 1970, as he recalls here:

“As the Ford ’Cammer program was ending, I got Don Schumacher for a customer. We started with him in about 1970. He had John Hogan as his crew chief, and we were helping Hogan, giving him tuneup advice, and tips, and doing machine work. We kept doing more and more and more. Then it got to the point that John wanted to do other things, so he left, and the deal was more or less put in my lap, where we did the engines. Don hired a chief mechanic, but it was really all of our stuff. I mean, we called the shots on the clutch and the engine and the whole thing, and Schumacher did a heck of a job in those days.

“That was probably the start of the Funny Car thing for us, and for Keith [Black]. I think that I got the good break: I got Schumacher as a customer. His dad had a lot of money and was going to spend it. Consequently, I could do a lot of experimenting and development work, and Don was happy for it, because that meant he’d always get it first, before anybody else got it.

“There was one time we did all of Schumacher’s engines, all of Barry Setzer’s. We had Top Fuel cars. We’d have 20 or 30 cast-iron 426 blocks — this was before aluminum blocks — brand-new from Chrysler, sitting on the floor, prepared, all the machine work done. Over the years, Prudhomme had his two shops here, Super Shops was here, and Shirley Muldowney, and McCulloch, and Blue Max.

“Those were good deals businesswise for us, and performancewise, and for promoting my business, because we’d get the whole deal: We’d take care of the car; the car would be here; we’d hire the mechanics; we’d do the engines. And each time that car left, it had been gone through from front to back, top to bottom. It was like a new car every time it went to the race track. That’s the reason why they used to win a lot and run fast, because they always had the very latest and best stuff. And I had the best guys working on ’em: I hired guys like Larry Wagner and Dee Gant and Bernie Lewis — really good mechanics who were really into what they were doing.

“And I’d go to the race track. As the engine builder, you needed to be really hep on what tire to run, what air pressure to run, how to set the clutch, what gear to run in the rearend, as well as the engine. That’s why we built the clutches, and did our own blowers.

“We won a lot of really big races in drag racing. I can remember Funny Car races where we’d get down to the last four, and all four were ours. Out of 16, we’d have, like, 10 of ’em qualified. We were selling complete engines for $7500. People thought that that was a lot of money!

“But I wasn’t — and I’m still not — the best businessman. We were probably more expensive than anybody else, but I made less money. Maybe it’s because I spent too much time doing it, and didn’t really charge enough for the amount of time that was spent.

“One time, I thought it’d really be a good idea if I took my van back to Indy. I had my son drive back there with a friend of mine, Bob Savage. We had clutches and blowers and heads and pistons and rings and rod bearings and main bearings; all that stuff that guys need, so I’m there to service my customers. The mistake I made was, I should’ve stayed out of it.

“Somebody needs a blower, so he goes to the van and says, ‘I gotta have a blower; I just blew my blower up!’

“Then this racer would come look me up, and he’s got a sob story, and I give him the blower. When we’d loaded that van up, there was $30,000 worth of merchandise in there. They came home with nothing in there and $3000; the rest of it was owed me.

“I’ve never collected a dime, to this day. That was probably 1969, 1970. That’s my fault. I can’t blame the racers for that, y’know?”