buddy ingersoll / buicks real pro stocker

[deadmanscurve]

sept '04 issue of drag racing action / page22 . nice little one page article on ingersoll's pro stock effort . not his attemps at "reaching" pro stock speeds of the day but his attemps at being allowed to run pro stock with a turbo v6 regal mounted in a 5 year old warren johnson chassis ( regal - v6 - you know a real stock combo ) good little chunck of buick history there . the article's author is busting on nhra/ihra for short sightedness in not allowing him to run . i remember following all that at the time and it was pretty good . the nhra runners brought out the crying towels but ihra said "sure - you can come on over" - for one race - qualified first - beat up on ihra wonderkid ricky smith in the semi's and then almost beat bob glidden in the finals . if i remember correctly - head scratching ensued , ingersoll was told he would have to run one turbo instead of two - he went FASTER - used some big 'mutha turbo etc . the door was officially closed . i believe buddy is still out there wrenching on race cars , it was nice to see a little ink on the guy - and on his combo that really scared the crap out of the biggest of the big boys - and on buick involvment at a time when interest and factory support was low . nascar wasn't king in the 60's it was drag racing . the streets are not filled with "nascar" today ( not counting window stickers ) its gassers and pro stocks and altereds . thats impact that lasted 40 years . del

 

[Epitome]

When we did the special limited edition lithograph of Buddy's car a couple of years ago (limited to 300, came with GMP 1985 GN, all lithos were signed by Buddy) I got to spend the day with him in his shop. He is a great guy and at that point was a chassis consultant for a number of racers, including his friend Warren Johnson. I sat there with him for hours, going through all his old scrap books with pictures of all his race cars from over the years. He had one book filled with all of the official record holder certificates from the NHRA he had achieved over the years. He told me a story about a turbocharged Pinto he had. He said he had dominated the competition so badly that the next year, he was basically the only one left in the class, everyone else changed there cars around to a different class to avoid him. He loved that. He said he "loved to show up and kick ass". He was a true competitor. He also said he had no intentions of ever racing his own car again. He never mentioned anything about switching to a single turbo at any point, but maybe he did, I don't know. He said Ricky Smith was a "big cry baby" lol. His car had mechanical fuel injection, so he had to hit the gas, check the tune, hit the gas, check the tune. The boost was the boost, because changing the boost would have have screwed up the whole fuel curve. Interesting stuff. Here is a link to the lithograph we did.
http://www.epitomeexclusives.com/BuddyIngersoll.htm

 

[Epitome]

By the way, that Regal he raced was Warren Johnson's old Hurst/Olds race car. It was brown. He showed me a bunch of pics of it that were taken the day he got it, before it was changed over to a Regal.

 

[Cheeseburger]

Are any lithographs available by any chance?
Are they in a frame?

Thanks.

 

[chevyII]

I can remember reading that he had run on and off for 0ne year and did so-so never winning an event. It was going to be a matter of time as the compitition knew once the car was sorted out he was unbeatable and they cried like kids and he was out.

 

[Epitome]

Lithographs were serialized to 300 and were only sold serial number matched to the GMP 1985 GN, so they only came with that car. The lithograph lists a brief history of Buddy Ingersoll at the bottom. The pic on the website is just of the artwork. We have been sold out for a very long time.

 

[troGNman]

Just after Buddy campaigned the Regal/Cutlass he had transplanted that motor into a '87-ish Skyhawk Hatch. He had a super secret turbo setup that created no boost lag. I have the writeup in an old issue of Turbo magazine. That car was red and white. I'll have to dig up the article for some E.T.s.

In the early '90's he had again tried his hand at Pro Stock but with a more common approach. The body was a '88-90 Regal with a conventional DRCE powerplant. He might have just eked into qualifying at some NHRA events during that time.

I understand he is a chassis wiz as he has given valuable input to both Kurt & Warren Johnson and currently crews for a Pro team as we speak.

 

[Epitome]

I actually askd him about his zero lag turbo set up and he kind of laughed about it. He said his "secret" was having the turbo right in the headers. He said the trick was to keep the turbos as close to the heads as possible and that spool up was helped along by the rapidly expanding gases caused by the heat. He said the further the turbo is from the heads, the harder it is to spool. He said he learned this trick with previous cars and when he worked on Formula 1 race cars. I didn't get the feeling he was trying to hold back some bigger secret, he seemed very candid, but who knows

 

[jastrckl]

I thought that was sort of common knowledge about header volume affecting spool. Still interesting. What does anyone know about the combo of the car billy ran in IHRA? I've been wondering for a long time how he was so fast so long ago, it seems like people are only catching up NOW to his times THEN. I was hoping for more detail than the number of turbos he runs

 

[ijames]

I think the big things were that his car was a very light, almost state-of-the-art-for-the-time Pro Stock chassis, and he ran a Lenco manual with a clutch instead of an automatic with a torque converter. A similar trans setup is definitely one of the things helping Bill Anderson's et's.

 

[EightSecV6]

No doubt, Buddy was a pioneer, he was HEAVILY backed, financially by Buick Motorsports. I couldnt imagine how fast twins would spool with a clutch!!! The Lenco is ALOT more fogiving than the Liberty. Messing with the boost affects clutch setup alot more than the fuel curve, I have at least learned that much.