: So you purchased both of those. The factory didn’t give them to you?
AV: I bought them!
: Do you know what made General Motors want to back out of racing?
AV: Well, General Motors in particular frowned on the performance part of it. From what I understand Pontiac getting out of the high-performance game was brought on by one of the GM executives. He’d gone to New York City for some kind of a meeting and there was a Pontiac Performance sign next to the hotel that blinked all night and shined into his window and it made him mad. So he went back home and he said, “We are not going to do that (performance) anymore.”
: And you have been driving Mopars ever since?
AV: Yes, except for 1966. I had a little a setback and raced a Pontiac GTO for a little while.
: Could you actually make a living as a doorslammer racer in those days?
AV: Sure, I could make a living. I raced anywhere from two to five times a week.
: During that time did you do any match racing?
AV: No, not a lot.
: Why is that?
AV: Well, guys would show up with another motor, with a trick this or that. It’s no trick to spend $35,000 to make five (thousand). I just had my car and I could go to Quaker City or I could go to Dragway 42; I could make three or four hundred bucks every weekend without doing all that other stuff – you know spending money to make money. That to me is kind of silly. Nobody, no matter what they said ever showed up with the car how its supposed to be in NHRA trim (to a match race).
: What did it cost in 1960 and 1970 dollars to build one of your Mopar racecars?
AV: Seventy-five hundred! My 1970 Pro Stock car cost -- between me and (the help I received from) Chrysler -- the car cost $7,500.
: Did they help you with parts too?
AV: Oh yeah, Chrysler did then.
: What do you consider the most important drag race you ever won?
AV: The 1968 U.S. Nationals with my ’68 Hemi Barracuda, it was a stick. I always race a 4-speed manual car, a Super Stock/B car.
: Was there an advantage for you racing with a 4-speed?
AV: Well, I had to beat the people in my class first of all, and then in the eliminator you’d run against your National Record. Since I could run quite a bit under my record, I didn’t have a tough time until the final, and then it was all out. But in the final if you won and went fast that’d become your new (class) record. I had all these other guys who raced the same kind of car that I did and they’d look at me with those big eyes, “Hey don’t set that record real low!” So I’d barely beat the guy.
: During the racing season, how often did you rebuild one of your Hemi engines?
AV: Generally on the Hemi motor, after I got the bearing problem and oiling cured probably seventy to seventy-five runs.
: Nobody would run like that today, would they?
AV: No, today they are taxing the motor way past whatever it was thought possible (at the time).
: While the Chrysler factory was backing Super Stock and Pro Stock racing was there much cheating going on?
AV: Oh I don’t think so. There was always stretching the rules, but, no, we had to suffer through a teardown and for the most part everybody was okay…except at the match races.