Maxwell Reveals Dodge Drag Racing Histroy

 <<Maxwell 50th Release.doc>> 


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David Harris, CMI





For Immediate Release
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David Harris, CMI
(704) 455-4291 - office/(704) 756-9301 - mobile
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Dodge Celebrates Drag Racing Heritage
Dick Maxwell and the "Ramchargers" Changed Factory Involvement

POMONA, Calif. (July 5, 2001) - In 1961 Dick Maxwell and the Ramchargers set
out to change Dodge's image on the street. The sport of drag racing has
never been the same since.

As the NHRA Winston Drag Racing Series remembers it's past during the Pep
Boys NHRA 50th Anniversary Nationals at Pomona Raceway July 5-7, Dodge
Motorsports also wanted to relive its drag racing history. 

Dodge's dominance of Pro Stock and Super Stock competition back in the late
1960s and early 1970s was due mainly to a group of Dodge engineers known as
the "Ramchargers". Starting in 1961, these 20 mechanical and mathematical
wizards were tasked with putting some muscle into Dodge's production
vehicles. One of the stars of that operation was Maxwell, who was
instrumental in helping drivers like Dick Landy and Ronnie Sox, of Sox &
Martin fame, become legends within NHRA lore.

A recent interview with Maxwell uncovered what the NHRA was like back in the
early days of the sport.

Q: Could you describe Dodge's factory involvement during the early days of
the NHRA?

A: The factory drag racing programs really started at Dodge and Chrysler in
1961, when the Ramchargers developed an engine to run in Frank Wiley's new
car. The thing that really pushed corporate involvement though, was the
emphasis that was being put on it (drag racing) by the competition --
primarily Pontiac. So we (Dodge) did the first package cars in late 1961 and
1962. From the factory standpoint, we had a lot of people out there racing
for us. 

Realistically, we had a little bit of an edge most of the time because we
were developing a lot of the stuff that was being run in the cars. Sometimes
that was good news and sometimes it wasn't because we had stuff in our cars
that other people couldn't get. But it didn't always work. We had a
different sponsorship program in the mid 1960s, as we ran two sponsored
Super Stock cars in each sales zone. We had somewhere between 44 and 50 cars
under parts contracts around the country. 


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Reliving Dodge History
Page Two

We also had our professional teams that received the most factory support.
And those 
were the Ramchargers with drivers Dick Landy, (Ronnie) Sox and (Buddy)
Martin. It made a tremendous impact as far as getting Dodge and Plymouth out
there in front of the drag racing crowd. Quite frankly, neither one of those
divisions had any headway on the street within the younger markets. Of
course, the corporation followed up with packages like the Road Runner, 426
Street Wedge and the 440 Six Barrels and that kind of stuff. The company
followed right along on the bandwagon and backed up what they were doing on
the race track by putting the right kind of stuff in the show rooms.

Q: In your opinion, why was Dodge's factory drag racing program so dominant
in the late 1960s and early 1970s?

A: We were dominant for two reasons. We were dominant with the Wedge cars,
once we got them worked out, quite simply because the people we had working
on them were better than our competition. Primarily, again because of the
RamChargers, a lot of us were doing this work as part of our daily jobs. We
were better because we were all engineers and analyzed what was happening to
the cars. And we made the right choices as to what it took to make the cars
go faster. A lot of the guys we were racing against were really good at
modifying the cars and making them go fast, but a lot of times, things would
happen that they didn't understand. And if you didn't understand why, it
made it difficult to get to the next step. We had the edge in that we had
the training to understand why and could take it to the next step. The
second reason was that once we entered the Hemi (engine), we were dominant
because we had a technological edge that nobody else could match. We made
more horsepower than everybody else.

Q: Is a modern day NHRA Pro Stock crew chief similar to one of 30-years ago?

A: I don't think so. The cars back then were not nearly as complex as they
are today. We didn't have clutches to tune and we were running essentially
stock suspensions in the front and back of the car. The cars were a whole
lot less complex. It was sort of a package. Basically, all it took was an
engine, driver and a suspension combination to make the car go fast. These
days, it takes an engine, driver, clutch and knowledge of the suspension to
go fast. The technology of the sport has advanced so much. It's made
adapting the car to the driver a lot more important. At least that's my
feeling on it.

Q: How has the sport of NHRA Winston Drag Racing changed over the past 50
years?

A: It was a lot different back then. It was not nearly as professional in
those days, but probably for the participant, more fun because it wasn't as
professional. There is so much corporate pressure these days to succeed.
It's just not from the factories though, but also from the other companies
that have their names, and have put a lot of money into these programs. Now,
I don't think it's as much fun as it used to be. But technologically, it's
way ahead of what it used to be. And it's so much bigger. 

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Reliving Dodge History
Page Three

The NHRA has done a tremendous job of building this sport into something
that really means something. I was talking to (Senior Vice President of NHRA
Racing Operations) Graham Light earlier and the NHRA is only behind Winston
Cup in television ratings. That's just incredible. I think that the factory
involvement in the 1960s had a lot to do with building it because companies
started talking about it in their advertising. We made a case for it (drag
racing) by bringing it to the Dodge dealerships and getting them behind it.
So I think that that all helped build it as well. 

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