History Of Skip Holbert - Drag Racing   

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First Racecar - 1961 Studebaker Lark

V8 Engine, 4.11:1 rear end, 3 speed manual transmission, 4 dr sedan. Quarter mile times for the Lark were in the mid 16 second range. The car fell into NHRA P/S class. I won my class the first time I ever competing at a drag strip, in Pocatello, Idaho. There was only one other car in P/S that day, and I beat him and came home with the trophy. That was the start of my on the track drag racing career. That was the Summer of 1967.

But that is getting way ahead of the story. I was born and raised in Daytona Beach, Florida. Home of the Daytona 500. Back then, it was the Daytona 250 and it was run on the old Beach & Road Course. The cars would race North for two miles on the beach and turn and head South on Highway A1A, which was two miles of two lane highway, all the way to the South Turn, at the inlet, where the pits were located. I loved NASCAR as a little boy and thought circle track was the only real racing. I attended many, dirt and paved, 1/4 mile and 1/2 mile, races around the state when I was little.

There were not many black racers back then in NASCAR (nothing has changed). In 1951, Wendell Scott, a black NASCAR racer, drove one of the three Mercury Outboards Chrysler 300's in the big race. Wendell did not finish the race, but one of the other Chrysler's won that year. It was the first time a black racer ran at the Beach & Road Course in Daytona. The local black racers had their own little circuit in Florida where they competed against each other in different cities, mostly on small dirt tracks.

Mr. Albert Bethune, Sr., son of Mrs. Mary Mc Cloud Bethune, founder of Bethune Cookman College in Daytona Beach, took me to many races. My dad did not like racing, but he was a policeman and could get tickets to any event that I wanted to attend at any nearby track. "Mr. Bert", as I called him, was one of my dad's best friends and he loved racing too. I loved to go to the track with him because he drove a new convertible Lincoln Mark I and I could ride in style! Mr. Bert owned one of the local funeral homes in Daytona Beach, so he had the money.

I was introduced to drag racing when I attended Nuclear Power School in Windsor Locks, CT in 1964. Connecticut Dragway was just a few miles from the school, located just outside of Hartford, CT. A few of my classmates tried to talk me into going to the dragstrip. My response was, "What fun is there to watching two cars go straight"?

When I finally attended a race, I could not wait to get back out there in two weeks. One of the instructors had a 1963 Ford Galaxy 500 with a 406 engine that ran in B/S. He was real hot at the track until Ford introduced the 1963 1/2 Fastback Galaxy 500 with the 427 engine. Boy, was he upset! Both cars ran in the same class and his 406 could no longer compete with the quicker 427 engine cars.

When I graduated and was sent to Virginia, one of the guys that I had gone to the track with in Connecticut was stationed on the same ship with me. He had a 1964 Fairlane with the Hi Performance 289 engine. He asked me to be his pit crew at the track, which was in Emporia, VA, about 75 miles from Newport News, VA where we were stationed. At Emporia Dragstrip, we came up against some factory sponsored Fairlane's just like his, but they had one advantage. They did not have to drive their cars back home and to work every day. My friend would not take his engine to the limit and therefore we lost every week. Up to that point I had never been down the track, but it was exciting just to be associated with a car.

After a few patrols on the nuclear submarine that we build in Virginia, I was sent to Idaho to be in charge of the Electrical Division of the newly formed Maintenance Training Group. I made Chief Electrician's Mate during the first few weeks I was up there and life suddenly got a lot better. That was in early in 1967.

One of the young men that worked for me was Petty Officer 2nd Class Electrician's Mate who owned an original 1967 Shelby GT 350 Mustang. He was also a dragracer. One of my other crew members was a 2nd Class Shipfitter (welder), who owned a new 1967 Camaro, with a 350 engine. "Ed" was a dragracer from his heart who had won many trophies and was a very aggressive competitor (today, Ed drives a very competitive Top Sportsman car). The Shelby GT was more show than go, but Ed's Camaro was at the track every time the gates opened (every two weeks). We also had another Chief that had a 1967 Dodge Super Bee, with the 440 engine. He went to the track a couple of times to see what it would do, but that was it. I did not have anything that I could take a chance at running, until I purchased my "fishing car", the 1961 Studebaker.

Pocatello Dragway was about 60 miles South of Idaho Falls, ID and located along a highway that I had to travel to go to one of my favorite fishing spots. I passed by that Sunday and saw all the cars and decided to stop and watch for a few minutes. When I got to the gate, the young lady asked, "Are you going to race it"? I laughed and said, "This thing"? She said that had a class for everything. All I had to do was take the hub caps off. I paid for a tech card and the rest is history!

When I left Idaho, I had won many class trophies and had won a few rounds in Stock Eliminator. As a going away present, the drivers at the track gave me a "Most Courteous Driver" award and a very nice pen & pencil set. By the time I left Idaho in 1969, on my way to California and Vietnam, I had traded my P/S Studebaker for a 1962 Chevrolet Biscayne, with a 283 engine, that ran in Q/S class. I will always remember those first days of racing and winning in Idaho.