The late Leonard Abbott, inducted into the International Drag Racing Hall of Fame recently with Joe Amato, Jeg Coughlin Sr., Rich Guasco, Clayton Harris, Fred Sibley, and Ed Almquist, was, first and foremost, a problem solver.

"He was always trying to make things better," said Gary Sumek, who has worked at Lenco Racing Transmissions, the company Abbott founded in 1966, for the past 36 years and has owned it for the past 27.

Like many racing innovations, Abbott's revolutionary planetary transmission, the first transmission designed specifically for drag racing, was born of necessity. "Leonard was a Top Fuel racer, and he needed something to keep up with the bad boys," Sumek said. "He had a 392, the 426s were coming into vogue, and he decided that an overdrive would be the best way to do it. He put one together, went up to Long Beach [Lions Drag Strip] and right away, the car left like a rocketship because it had the right gearing."

The late Leonard Abbott, inducted into the International Drag Racing Hall of Fame recently with Joe Amato, Jeg Coughlin Sr., Rich Guasco, Clayton Harris, Fred Sibley, and Ed Almquist, was, first and foremost, a problem solver.

"He was always trying to make things better," said Gary Sumek, who has worked at Lenco Racing Transmissions, the company Abbott founded in 1966, for the past 36 years and has owned it for the past 27.

Like many racing innovations, Abbott's revolutionary planetary transmission, the first transmission designed specifically for drag racing, was born of necessity. "Leonard was a Top Fuel racer, and he needed something to keep up with the bad boys," Sumek said. "He had a 392, the 426s were coming into vogue, and he decided that an overdrive would be the best way to do it. He put one together, went up to Long Beach [Lions Drag Strip] and right away, the car left like a rocketship because it had the right gearing."

The problem was, it broke. "Leonard went back to the drawing board, came up with something stronger, went back up to Long Beach a week or two later, and ended up setting low e.t. and top speed and winning the race," Sumek said. Veteran Top Fuel and Funny Car shoe Joe Lee was the driver. "Right away, a bunch of racers came over and said, ''Hey, I've got to have to have one of those,' and then everybody wanted one."

The first customer was none other than Don "the Snake" Prudhomme, who won the 1969 Nationals at Indy with a Lenco 2-speed. A year later, Gene Snow, who, with Jack Jones, helped solve the pinion-breakage that plagued the early units, utterly dominated Funny Car competition in 1970, winning three of the last four races of the year, the Summernationals, World Finals, and inaugural Supernationals.

Before long, just about every Top Fuel and Funny Car team in the country had one, and they remained a must-have component in the fuel ranks until the switch to the multi-stage clutch/high-gear-only era in the late 1980s.

"When he first came up with the idea, everyone thought he was a little goofy, trying to make a transmission for a Top Fuel car," said Jones, the Top Gas great who, with Abbott, ran Lenco in the early days. "I handled the business end of it, and Leonard ran the shop. He always had lots of ideas. At first, he didn't have the machinery he needed – he owned an engine-rebuilding shop at the time – but he never ran out of ideas. There were times when we had every car in every pro class at NHRA national events, 64 of 64. Well, 63 of 64, I guess – everybody but Garlits."

"Leonard only had a high school education," Sumek said. "He was completely self-taught. Everything he knew, he learned on his own. When we got our first NC machine, he went to school in Ohio to learn how to operate it. By the end of the class, he was telling the guy who taught the class things that would make it better. That's just how he was."

Abbott, an Arkansas native, moved to sunny San Diego in the late 1940s and raced at all the Southern California strips with his brother, Norris, who was killed in an accident at Paradise Mesa in the late 1950s. Lenco was always at the center of his life. He sold the company to Sumek just days before he died of cancer at age 53 in June 1984.

"Leonard was a very quiet guy, Sumek said. "It wasn't easy to really get to know him; he was very private."

"I don't know what to say about Leonard's personal life except that he didn't have one," said Jones, who won the NHRA Top Gas championship in 1969 and the U.S. Nationals (then still called just "the Nationals") in 1968 and 1970 and helped Abbott develop both the underdrive and the first air-shifter. "Leonard's life was his business. He was probably the most honest, kind-hearted, hard-working guy I've ever met, a prince of a man. I worked for four people in this industry, and three of them were three of the greatest people I ever met – Leonard, Bob Stange, and Keith Black – and Leonard was at the top of the list."

After the initial success of his early overdrive units, Abbott got an even better idea: an underdrive. "The underdrive was better because you didn't have to use such a low ring and pinion," Sumek said. "Instead of a 4.88 rear end, you could use a 4.10 ratio, which has a much stronger ring and pinion, and still end up with the same gearing."

Comp and Pro Comp racer Dave Mack had the idea for the first 3-speed: Just bolt together two 2-speeds. Billy "the Kid" Stepp and the Motown Missile teams were among the first to use 4-speeds in Pro Stock. "Chrysler called not long after we came up with the 4-speed," Jones recalled. "There was never any disconnect – you didn't have to use the clutch to shift it – and at this private test, every Pro Stock car there except one picked up two-tenths, instantly." The only driver who didn't get faster with a Lenco was Ronnie Sox, long acknowledged as the master of the conventional 4-speed trans.

Forty years after Abbott's first successful two-speed underdrive for fuel cars, the same basic design, in three-speed form, is between the framerails of a majority of the top-running Alcohol Dragsters and Alcohol Funny Cars of today. "There aren't too many drag racing parts you can say this about," Sumek said, "but with the Lenco it's true: Leonard's initial concept has carried on for four decades."

 

 

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