| TexasDreams |
01-06-2006 02:17 AM |
JOHN LINGENFELTER, 1945-2003
National Dragster, Jan 30, 2004 by Burgess, Phil
Fabled racer and engine builder was a legend on and off the racetrack.
If it went fast on the dragstrip or on the street, there's a good bet that John Lingenfelter was interested in it - that is if he didn't already have a hand in it.
On the strip, he won 13 NHRA national event titles - nine in Comp, three in Super Stock, and one in Pro Stock Truck - and routinely set national records, but his powerplants were responsible for many more trophies and records.
Over the course of a career that spanned more than four decades, Lingenfelter won in everything from Super Stock and Comp door cars to econo dragsters, Pro Stock Trucks, and NHRA Summit Sport Compact Drag Racing Series entries. he was the first Comp driver to break the six-second quarter-mile barrier, and in 2002, upon joining the NHRA Summit Sport Compact Drag Racing Series, he quickly became a force, winning one event and eventually piloting His Summit Racing-backed, Ecotec-powered Chevy Cavalier to the sport's first six-second pass by a four cylinder-powered machine at that year's Mazda NHRA Sport Compact World Finals in Pomona. It was in that same car that Lingenfelter's glorious racing career ended a day after breaking the barrier.
While racing R.J. Simrock in the semifinals of the October event, Lingenfelter lost control of his Cavalier and crashed heavily. he lapsed into a coma during surgery in November 2002 and remained in a semi-comatose state until his death Dec. 25, 2003, at Adams County Memorial Hospital in Decatur, Ind. he was 58,
Lingenfelter, born Oct. 6, 1945, in East Freedom, Pa., began racing his Chevy-powered '40 Ford as a teenager in the early 1960s and soon graduated to a W30-equipped '68 Olds. The former high school wrestler studied mechanical engineering at Pennsylvania State University and drafting before going to work in the engine lab at International Harvester, where he remained until 1973.
By that time, he had already won his first NHRA national event, in Super Stock in 1972 at the granddaddy of them all, the U.S. Nationals in Indiana, which would become his newly adopted homestate and site of his Decatur-based Lingenfelter Performance Engineering horsepower emporium. He won the Big Go twice more, in Comp in 1978 and 1986, with econo dragsters, and he competed in Pro Stock on several occasions but with limited success.
His 30-year-strong Lingenfelter Performance Engineering, which builds engines for circle-track cars, motorhomes, off-road trucks, national champion SCCA autocross racerr and even ambulances and law enforcement vehicles, was the natural outgrowth of the experience Lingenfelter gained while racing. In 1984, he branched out to the street market and beyond, developing high-performance kits for Chevrolet enthusiasts. His book, Modifying Small-Block Chevy Engines: High Performance Engine Building and Tuning for Street and Racing, was a must read for the Bowtie brigade. he was dubbed by one magazine as "the godfather of the Chevy small-block."
In 1988, Lingenfelter collaborated with Reeves Callaway to produce the engine for the Callaway Sledgehammer Corvette, a 355-cid twin-turbocharged Chevy that produced more than 900 horsepower and was clocked at 254.76 mph on the 7.5-mile oval at the Transportation Research Center in East Liberty, Ohio. Also that year, he finished second in the Pro Stock Truck standings, the first year of competition for the now defunct class, thanks to one national event victory.
In 1989, Lingenfelter tackled the Bonneville Salt Flats with an '89 Firebird Trans Am that was equipped with a twin-turbocharged 355-cid small-block that produced a reported 1,400 horsepower. The car was fitted with six nitrous-oxide bottles (for intercooler cooling, not induction) in an attempt to run 300 mph. The car ran an amazing 298 mph before problems set in and the attempt was scuttled.
Lingenfelter's expertise was not limited to Chevrolets; he also built an astounding Dodge Viper with a 725-horsepower engine that went O to 60 mph in only 3.3 seconds and ran the quarter-mile in 11 seconds flat at 134 mph. The Viper went 0 to 150 mph in 14.4 seconds, quicker than Lingenfelter's 415-cid Corvette ZR-I, which needed 15.6 seconds to reach that speed.
Lingenfelter is survived hy wife Cynthia and daughters Kerri Ann Page and Kelly Jo Kline.
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