Same thing in the dyno room?
SS: When you dyno a motor those sounds and feel are there, too. You feel the vibrations through the soles of your shoes, through the concrete floor in the dyno room. In the car, you can feel the motor detonating with your hand on the steering wheel. In the dyno room you can feel it through your feet and you just know your on the edge of the target.. It’s a carry-over from the days when the driver was also the mechanic and also did the tuning. You 
came to the point where you said “this is the way I gotta go” and you made the appropriate changes.
What was your first drag race car?
SS: I raced probably a half-dozen cars before I had my own. I used to drive other people’s cars all the time and I was racing before I had a driver’s license. Back then, you paid five or ten bucks and you could race. Nobody ever asked to see your license. I had natural ability with a four-speed and I hung out with an older crowd. I never raced an automatic car. If you had a hot rod, it had a four-speed in it. If it didn’t, you’d get laughed over to Jersey. My first cars were Pontiacs and when I finally raced my Ram Air IV Firebird at a national event going heads-up against small-block Chevys, that’s when I realized I couldn’t do that. I switched to the small-block in 1971.
You raced Fords, too. What's the story behind that?
SS: I raced a series of small-block Chevys, my (GT-2, and GT-3) Camaros and the Vega until I did that experimentation with the Fords at the end of ’74. The rules were such thatthe small-block Chevy at that stage of development couldn’t compete against the Cleveland. Glidden, Gapp & Roush, you couldn’t outrun ‘em. There were only three or four small-blocks that ran in the eights and mine was one of ‘em. We go 8.90s and they’d go 8.80s, 8.70s. Nobody could compete with ‘em. I ran the Fords for a couple of years and found that one engine was just like another. They’re like women: all different, but all the same. I don’t mean any disrespect. You gotta give ‘em what they want. You listen to their language and they’ll tell you what they want. You gotta speak it and understand it and feel it.
Your AHRA GT Camaros were a tremendous success. How come?
SS: I raced the Camaro at the end of the ’71 season. It was one of those storybook deals. We were competitive right off the bat and by the last race of the year I won the final, and went the first ten-second run. That was a cool thing. In ’72, we just dominated. With AHRA and IHRA, we won 9 out of 13 races and were runner-up at two.
How long did you race before opening the motor business?
SS: I ran the GT car, then I ran Pro Stock, and because I’d gotten notoriety in the beginning I got some help with sponsors. In the winter, we went to the west coast. All the racers used to live across the street from Disneyland at the Marco Polo motel. I raced Pro Stock until the end of ’76. Television coverage hadn’t come about yet, the purses were no longer in line with the cost of the car. All of a sudden is was getting expensive and development was getting to be more expensive, too. It wasn’t making monetary sense.
