[Chrysler300] Fw: Experimental 300C at Daytona Beach

["Burton Bouwkamp" <northburt@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: Burton Bouwkamp 
To: chrysler300@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 
Sent: Monday, January 11, 2010 8:35 AM
Subject: Experimental 300C at Daytona Beach


Christopher Belby

Here's what happened. I was there in 1957. We ran two manual transmission and two automatic transmission 300C's in the stock "Class 7" class. One manual transmission car (driven by Red Byron) finished second at 134.1 MPH to a Pontiac (136.6 MPH). Brewster Shaw (our local dealer) ran 139 MPH downwind but could not make the return run. I don't remember why. Vicky Wood and Warren Koechling in the automatic transmission 300C's were at 129.7 MPH and 128.3 MPH.  

Chrysler planned a publicity event for Daytona during that Speed Week with the run of a 300C in the flying mile Experimental Class. It was a fuel injected engine of over 400HP prepared by our Research Office. 

This project was derailed by two unexpected events: 

1. We hired Buck Baker, a prominent NASCAR driver to drive the car on the beach. I remember that we agreed to pay him $1,000. On the day before the event Buck signed to drive for Chevrolet and he was a "no show". (With Kiekhaefer suddenly dropping out of stock car racing, Buck was looking for a "ride".) While the car was waiting in line to make it?s official run - with no driver - we hired Vicky Wood to drive it. 


2. During the first run (heading South) the clutch disc exploded and that was the end of this effort. Examination afterward showed the failure to be due to centrifugal forces caused by high rotational speed of the clutch disk.

We never blamed this failure on Vicky - it is probable that the clutch disk would have failed no matter who was in the driver?s seat.


Had the clutch held together we would have exceeded 150 MPH but it is unlikely that we would have topped Hot Rod Magazine?s 1957 Plymouth Savoy with a fuel injected and modified Chrysler hemi engine. That car driven by their editor Wally Parks recorded 159.9 MPH in the Experimental Class. They worked next to us at San Juan Motors (Brewster Shaw's dealership) and Wally Parks and Ray Brock are first class people.

Ray said he wished that he had known that we needed a driver for the experimental 300C because he would have driven it for free. In hindsight, I wish that one of us - Bob Graham (Project Engineer) or I - had gotten in the driver's seat. But at that time factory people were supposed to have an "arm lengths" relationship to racing. We were there but always in the background.

Burt Bouwkamp


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