 Herb McCandless talks about the old days. |
Shep, on the other hand, has always got the stories. Gracious to a fault, he has excellent recall on the reasons why something may or may not have been done back in the day, and he was instrumental in answering some of my questions on the development and construction of the 1969 Six Pack package cars when I first began researching it. He and Ron McDaniel, a long-time Chrysler employee who has just recently retired, were talking back and forth between Pro sessions about which Detroit-area manufacturing plant was the worst. The conversation went something like this…
“Oh, Hamtramck was pretty bad,” Shep recalled. “There was always gunfire in the neighborhood.”
“Not as bad as Dodge Main over on Jefferson Avenue,” retorted Ron. “I worked for Security during college there in the late Sixties, and we called it ‘the academy,’ because if you work a full summer at Dodge Main, you could work anyplace in the company. It was a dangerous place inside there.”
Dodge Main was a seven story plant that had been around since the days when the Dodge Brothers were supplying Henry Ford with hard parts. Dark and filled with a lot of areas where you could tuck away for a nap or other activities, this place must have put some grey hair on everyone in McDaniel’s law enforcement position (one, I might add, he left after that year to go to work for Cotton Owens, but that is a story for another day).
“Do you remember hearing about that whore house those guys had set up in a boxcar out back?” said Shep with a laugh.
 “Yep, I remember that. Do you remember when…” Larry Shepard Indy 2006 |
“Yep, you could get anything you wanted at that plant. Dope, girls, guns. It seems like there was somebody getting stabbed or shot once a week. It’s no wonder these restorers get frustrated. No two cars ever came out of some of those plants the same way, because by the middle of the shift half those guys were too stoned or drunk to stand straight! And that was on Monday!”
The banter went back and forth, punctuated by rollicking laughter. This was the history that doesn’t get recorded, and I am hoping that my relaying it doesn’t betray any confidences. What was important was that I frankly don’t know who ran the Low ETs that weekend, even in Pro Stock; I finished up my work and was on way home by Sunday morning with a satisfied feeling. Nope, it’s these relationships which seemingly reacquaint themselves instantly after months or even years that make a real difference these days. It’s all part of hang time.
