Mom had given me strict orders to stay in the house except for going to my friend's birthday party. Mom had purchased a model car kit for me to work on in order to make sure I stayed in the house.
I spent all that morning working on that car model. It was a red top fuel dragster with gray wheels. Later that afternoon I went to my friend's birthday party. When the party was over I returned home to continue to work on that model car.
About an hour or so later I heard the racecar startup all by itself out in the garage. I couldn't believe my ears! Was this really happening? I don't think I had ever been so scared. I didn't know what to do. Mom told me that I was not leave the house after returning from that birthday party. I remember thinking I had better not disobey mom but I had to do something about that race car that was running all by itself in the garage. I guess it must have taken me about three seconds to figure out what to do.
I ran out of the house to the neighbors' two doors down where I had attended the birthday party hoping my friend's mother would still be home. I banged on the door and my friend's mom answered. In a big panic I told her to call my dad at Modern Motor. It was a Chevrolet and Cadillac dealership and dad was the service manager.
My friend's mom called my dad while I was standing there in her house shaking all over from fear and that loud runaway race car in the garage. She said to him "you're race car has started up all by itself and is running in your garage". I'm sure that dad thought that this must be some kind of a joke being played on him or something.
Dad raced home in just a couple of minutes and sure enough that car with its monstrous roar was running all by itself in the garage. I was sure glad he was there to shut it off. I remember him going from the kitchen into the garage, shutting off the car and opening the garage door. A big cloud of smoke came out of the garage when he opened the big door. The whole neighborhood all stood there in amazement, mostly mothers with small children. I was so relieved that it was over and I didn't get punished for leaving the house.
Back in those days all of the supermodifieds had starters and clutches but no generator or alternator. Dad raced at Pocatello Airport Speedway (Pocatello, Idaho) on Friday nights and Sportsman Speedway (Blackfoot, Idaho) on Saturday nights. A freshly charged battery would supply enough electrical energy to start the car and power the ignition for a complete nights racing. Dad would put the battery charger on the car Friday night or Saturday morning in preparation of the Saturday night race at Sportsman Speedway.
The batteries back in those days usually had rubber from a tire tube or some other contraption over the top of the battery cells and posts where the cables attached. This was a safety feature to keep battery acid from coming out of the battery in case the car rolled over or flipped since the battery was located in the cockpit with the driver.
This car had a small block Chevrolet engine so he would just connect the battery charger cables to the starter solenoid and the chassis. This was a simple way to connect the charger without removing the battery cover each time. There was also a 12 volt wire that ran from the starter to the coil.
Apparently what happened was the spring clip on the battery charger cable popped off of the starter cable and shorted across the solenoid and started turning the engine over. This in conjunction with that wire to the coil fired her right up just like using the starter button the dash. It was amazing how well it ran there in the garage. The car had four Stromberg 97 carburetors which must have been perfectly tuned. That car probably never would have started up so easily the next year when it had fuel injection installed.
The neighbors that I ran to when that car started in the garage by itself were some of dad's most loyal fans. They used to go to all of the races at Sportsman Speedway in Blackfoot. Years later in 1979 dad was racing his new Malloy car at the Super Oval Speedway near Emmett, Idaho and won the main that night. After the races were over, those same neighbors from 1966 showed up in the pits. They had been transferred to Boise some years earlier and decided to go to the races that night at the Super Oval. What a surprise that was thirteen years later!