Team "Check Mate"
 

Here's a link to a few pictures of Mike Keener's D/G Vega, A/SM Camaro, the "Check Mate" Pro Stock Camaro and the Booth-Arons race shop that Mike was nice enough to send for me to scan. Hopefully I will be able to add more in the future.
Bob Rice
http://albums.photo.epson.com/j/Albu...&a=32610889&f=

Re: Team "Check Mate"
 

Hey, Mike. Whats' up with the rear quarter on that SS/D 69 Camaro? You were literally stretching the rules before you and Merc teamed up...LOL. Hope to see you next year. Thanks for supporting Top Stock. AR

Re: Team "Check Mate"
 

AR...You kill me! Hope you and Lynn are doing well!

Thanks for the kudos on Top Stock and I loved every minute of helping to get it off the ground. The first race in 2000 still seems like yesterday to me!

MK

Re: Team "Check Mate"
 

the first version and racing-action of Top Stock and it's intension was the best thing for a long time,i am glad to see it's started to evolve around that idea again!

Re: Team "Check Mate"
 

great pictures-thanks for the memories again guys!

Re: Team "Check Mate"
 

Thanks for the great pics from Mr. Rice. Just 2 questions:
1. How much ballast does it take to put a mouse motor Vega into "D" Gas??? How small must that motor have been???

and,

2. What kind of induction system is on that Vega???

Thanks for any info...

Re: Team "Check Mate"
 

Kinda makes me feel nostalgic for Vegas .Never thought that would happen. Nice ironhead Sportster, too

Re: Team "Check Mate"
 

Bill...The Vega ran D/G (8.5#) with motors from 287-292 cu in so the car weighed between 2440-2482 including the driver. This was a very light (entire body acid dipped) car built by SRD and had about 300 pounds of ballast in it (a lot of it mounted forward) when we ran it. The tunnel ram was an Edelbrock TR-1Y with 660 cfm center squirter carbs that were converted to dual feed float bowls. Our engines in that day made about 2.1 HP per cu in which was pretty stout back then.

Mark...Good eye on the Sportster! I not sure if Merc still has it or not....

The partial photo of the 5,000 sq ft shop was shot by Carol Arons and we were fortunate to have shared it with Wally Booth during his AMC days. Immediately to the right of the Camaro in the back of the shop is where the dyno room was which was quite rare for drag race teams to have in those days, but AMC paid for it so...hey never look a gift horse in the mouth! Hard to believe there were only 8-10 National events in those days and of coarse we ran them all.

The Vega was a really great race car and remains my favorite Team Checkmate car to this day although I'm having fun getting used to my GT/A Cavalier. It was the second SRD car built for Carmen Rotunda and modified by Mike Fons from a Jenkins designed 3 link with under the bumper wheelie bars to a more more modern style ladder bar system with current Pro Stock type wheelie bars used in the 75-76 era.

The car ran some high 9.20's and low 30's on good tracks in decent air at 145-146 mph. It was a really fun car to drive with the Chrysler 4 speed trans and a real H pattern shifter. In 77 we put a 5 speed Nash in it with an inline shifter which may have been a tad quicker but I'm not so sure. These were the days when the Modifieds left the starting line at 9,500 RPM and were shifted right about 9200. What a rush to drive!

If anyone has any other questions about any of the Detroit Gang or the Pro Stock/ Modified/Comp days of yesteryear...feel free to ask. If I can't answer them I can usually tap another racers memory bank that can and pass it along!

Thanks to all that viewed my pass down memory lane and especially to Bob Rice for putting this together. I promised to send Bob more photos from the old days so now I just have to find them all. OK Merc...I guess I'm coming over for Christmas to look through your collection. This guy has everything stashed away for sure and stuff I probably didn't even know he had!

MK

Re: Team "Check Mate"
 

Arnold,
I think those wheel openings were Wally Booth inspired.
Bob Rice

Bill,
The thanks go to Mike for allowing me to scan his pictures and post them.
Bob Rice

Mark,
I?ve always had a soft spot for the Vegas. The one picture that seems to elude me though is a nice color shot of Jack Trost?s ?Vegabond?.
Bob Rice

Re: Team "Check Mate"
 

my brother and i have a 68 camaro that we have drag raced since the late 80,s. mostly bracket racing with jerico. we used to go over to the checkmate car pit area. to investigate how they set up there stockers because we new from watching these guys they were no beginners like us. my brother used to say these guys have put some serious thought into everything and it looked as tho they built most rear suspension pieces in there own shop. thanks for the pics of your past. i had no idea you guys ran all those classes. no wonder we were and still are impressed .....thats keener and mercure