What else was changing?
SS: I’ll tell this story with respect. I loved Don Nicholson. I was a kid and I remember he had that little flatbed truck he used to tow with. The top of the dashboard was just filled with rolls of Tums right up to the windshield. He had ulcers from the aggravation of racing for a living. I was probably 22 or 23 then and he was probably 35 or older, but he looked 50 to me then. I also saw people who’d owned companies and done other things and then had come back to racing and they were really having fun. And there’s Don with his Tums, trying to make a living out of racing. I said to myself, “I’m going the wrong way here. I need to have a career and then I could race, too.” I’d spoken to Dick Moroso (when his business was in Stamford, CT, an easy jog from Long Island--Ed.) and told him that I was going
to retire from driving at the end of the year and that I’d like to work with him and help develop stuff at Moroso. So I had it all planned six months before I actually retired.
When did engine building take preference to everything else?
SS: I sold all my stuff and worked at Moroso for nine months, but I also built engines on the side. I rented a room at a speed shop that I had used for $100 a month and built engines at night. After a few months, I realized that I’d never cashed the Moroso checks because I was making a lot more money just workin’ at night. Then Dick moved everything upstate, making the commute impractical for me. I decided then that I would stay with the engine business. That was in 1977.
What was the routine?
SS: I got my own shop at the end of ’79. It was just me. I’d go to the track on the weekend, and get a customer to drop his car off on Monday. I’d yank the motor, rebuild it, put it back in the car for the weekend, take it out to the track, drive it, and give it back to the guy. I used to do a car a week alone and then I finally hired somebody to yank the motors so I could concentrate on building engines. In the ‘80s I also did a lot of general car work, too. I had two mechanics and a couple of lifts and we used to do everything. The turning point was when I began advertising nationally. Here’s a funny story. When Weld Racing went out of business (presumably the first time—Ed.), I made them an offer on the whole package. I’d bought 900 sets of wheels and I had a 2,500-foot shop with 16-foot ceilings. They filled it to the sky. I couldn’t get a car inside. I didn’t realize how many I’d bought, so I took a little ad out in National Dragster. I then began to realize the importance of advertising and national exposure.
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What happened next?
SS: I always had a local reputation and when I started racing with nitrous, I already had my whole clique. When I was running Pro Stock and staying on the west coast, I knew Dale Armstrong. He’d dabbled with it and he gave me a 10,000 RPM plate. I put it a friend’s Camaro. Nitrous was so crude in those days, no measuring, no monitoring of anything. I kind of evolved that into being one of the originators of really tuning nitrous. It was our secret weapon. We’d street race that thing and killed ‘em for a couple of years. Nobody knew what nitrous was. We hid the bottle behind the door panel. Then I put it on some race cars and started with the prelude to what became IHRA’s Top Sportsman--big-blocks with juice in old Pro Stock cars. I toured with it a little bit, it was notoriety. I started with nitrous in ’76 and by ’81 we were really into it. By ’82, we went 7s and match raced those things locally. Eventually, IHRA created Top Sportsman.
What did you do to prepare for that?
SS: We did all our work with Mike Thermos and NOS, including dyno testing. The nitrous notion grew and evolved into what Pro Mod is today, but it began with Top Sportsman. I like to think I helped to bring it along, made it palatable and understandable. Now, it’s very well accepted and I’m very happy to be a part of that. We won the NMCA Pro Street championship for the last two years. I still go to every race and tune it, play with it. I don’t drive anymore. Vinnie Budano has been doing that for the last five years. It’s every bit as much fun standing behind the car on the starting line as it was when I drove. Vinnie’s a great driver, a great friend, and we really click as a race team.