The Dork-O-Motive Podcast

The famed Novi V8 is one of the most storied engine in American motorsports history and also one of the most star-crossed.   Massively power, innovative in its design and capable of making noise like no other engine in the history of the Speedway, it never won a race.   But why? How does the most powerful engine for a two decade span not win...anything?   This is a complete history of the Novi both in its developent and in compe...

This is a story about how five cars with no proper competition class, all running on nitro, crashed the party at the 1965 NHRA US Nationals and changed drag racing forever.   This is the story of early funny cars, their search for acceptance, the resistance they had to battle, and how creative owners and builders got in making sure they got the attention and press they deserved. These cars were rebellious as much as they were uniq...

The Offenhauser four cylinder engine is one of the most incredible power plants in the history of American motorsports.   It's basic design was conceived as a boat engine in the 1920s, making about 125hp. By the time it was all said and done, Offy engines raced into the 1980s and were making 10 times the power they were at first.   The story of the Offy is so amazing because of the cast of characters involved in its creation, the...

Ford's foray into the Indy 500 in the 1960s is a motorsports story for the ages. In 1963 the company used a pushrod engine derived from their successful 260ci small block V8. After nearly winning the race with that effort, engineers were turned loose to build the ultimate version of the engine.

What they designed was dual overhead camshaft, 255ci V8 that made peak power at 8,000 RPM, was tested to within an inch of its life, and ar...

Today, centrifugal superchargers play a huge roll in the sport of drag racing. They are capable of making huge power efficiently and the technology built into them is of the highest orders of strength and precision.   This is a far cry from the early 1960s when four guys, thousands of miles apart thought that drag racing needed a new boost option for the masses. The Dahms brothers in Connecticut came out with their Eliminator cent...

The history of land speed racing is marked by some of the most innovative, interesting, and oddball vehicles ever made. One of them belonged to Art Arfons and was known as The Anteater.   Using a turbocharged and supercharged 1,710ci Allison aircraft engine, it was Arfons' first dedicated Bonneville car. It ran more than 300mph and was actually used to try and set a speed record at Daytona International Speedway as well.   This i...

This is the story of three men.   Three men who through their own bravery, creative approach, and lifelong obsessions, created the industry of oil well fire fighting.   Tex Thornton, Myron Kinley, and Red Adair all built up each other's knowledge and success to make scads of money while risking their lives on a daily basis to put out burning oil and gas wells, cap blown out wells, and otherwise battle the most intense and wild fo...

He's a man who have likely never heard of, Serop "Setto" Postoian, an early top fuel master who helped to make Don Garlits. Postoian was among the earliest stars in a young sport.

Motivated, fearless, and every bit the match for the man who would eventually become known as the greatest drag racer of all time. The rivalry between Garlits and Postoian in the early days of top fuel drag racing was contested across the nation.

They wer...

This is a look back, 90+ years back into the history of speed to check out the exploits and impact of the amazing racing tractors created by the Allis-Chalmers company in the 1930s that literally changed the world by racing and chasing land speed records.

These were the first tractors with rubber inflatable tires and that changed the farming game as well as entertained millions of fans over the course of five years in the 1930s. T...

This is the story of how early drag racers developed the clutch technology that has ultimately lead to the engineering wonders in today's 11,000hp top fuel dragsters and nitro funny cars. It is the story of experimentation, of failure, of accidents, and of success.

The development of the multi-disc, centrifugally controlled clutch was incremental in all areas. From the materials, the design, and finally the manufacture of these pi...

When the Hurricane of 1938 struck New England, it was a disaster of proportions unknown to the region at that point. No storm in modern history had wrought more destruction or devastation than that one.

Beyond the cities and towns, past the population centers, there was another looming nightmare...the forests. Nearly 1,000 square miles of New England Pine Forest were blown down, placing nearly 2 billion board feet in logs and lumbe...

There are few stories in the history of drag racing that can compare to that of Alfred Gordon Fenn, known as Scotty.

He was a visionary and created the first commercial dragster chassis business in the world circa 1958, but his life story goes far, far beyond that. For the first time ever, learn the back story, learn the success story, his precipitous fall in the sport, and how he managed to continue his career for years after peop...

He was a man with dozens of patents to his name, the designer of the first four cylinder car in America, the first eight cylinder car, and the first V-8 production car, but have you ever heard of him?

The answer is no.

H.H. Buffum was a genius engineer of the late 1800s and early 1900s. He made a fortune making equipment for the shoe manufacturing industry and then turned his attention to cars. Take this fascinating ride back int...

This is the in-depth history of what I believe to be the greatest heavy duty truck of the second world war. The M26 tank retriever was a machine designed with armor, with an engine of 1,090ci, with brute strength, and above all, with loads of practical engineering built in.

The truck out-performed every other rig in this role worldwide and was just beyond cool. With nearly 1,400 produced between 1942 and 1945, many still exist toda...

It's a stunning thing to realize that Ford mass-produced an 1,100ci, dual overhead camshaft, alunimum block, flat plane crank V8 in the 1940s. Sill the largest mass produced V8 engine ever, it was just what Uncle Sam needed to power Sherman tanks.

But how did it come about? In this video we not only look at the awesome specs and mechanical feats that this engine is known for, we also look into its murky and wild history.

A history ...

This is the story of one of the greatest minds in the history of the sport of drag racing. Lew Russell Robinson known more widely as "Sneaky Pete" Robinson was an innovator without equal in the 1960s. He approached the sport as a trained engineer from Georgia Tech and took that education to speeds and performance unknown for his time.

He was the type of guy they write rules to slow down, to save from themselves and to prevent lesse...

The Indy 500 has long been recognized as one of the most amazing hot beds of racing innovation in history. The 1966 race saw a car that may well stand as one of the most unique, inventive, and downright odd of the era. The Stein-Valvoline Special was a twin Porsche engined, four wheel drive, California garage built machine from the mind of a former midget racing champion and his friends.

 

The story of this car, its driver, and th...

Every winter for 13 years between 1954 and 1966 the greatest sports cars as well as the greatest sports car drivers in the world would gather in the Bahamas for what may well have been the coolest racing event in history. 

10 days of partying, racing, hanging out on the beach, and enjoying life with some of the world's greatest stars is just as awesome as you think it is. Racers like Stirling Moss, AJ Foyt, Mario Andretti, Phil Hil...

During three winters in the 1960s, hot rodders in Chicago had the unique opportunity to do something no one has been able to do before or since. They went drag racing indoors. The didn't just do it once or twice, they did it weekly. How? Where? Why? Who put it together? 

The story actually begins in the 1930s and the indoor drag strip followed go kart racing, midget car racing, even a road course indoors! The promoter, a man named ...