User:GARYGDYER/sandbox

Gary Dyer is an American Drag Racer and businessman. Gary was born in Minnesota and moved to Illinois as a child during World War II. Gary grew up in the Southwest Suburbs of Chicago and attended Argo High School. During high school, Gary was interested in cars and became friends with Pat Minick and John Farkonas. After high school, Gary spent time building and drag racing cars. In the early 1960's Gary became friends with Ed Rachanski who loved racing too. Together they secured a factory drag racing deal with Mercury Automobiles and acquired a 1964 Mercury Comet A/FX factory race car. Gary mostly drove and both helped tune the car for optimal times. At the end of 1964, Gary moved over to Grand Spaulding Dodge and took over the dealerships racing program for 1965 under the direction of Norman Krause. Initially, Grand Spaulding Dodge requested a prototype 1965 Coronet A/FX Factory race car from Dodge which featured a radically altered wheelbase and chemically milled body. Dodge denied the request but offered the regular A990 race car. Later NHRA banned the prototype factory race cars from competition stating the cars "looked funny" due to the radical wheelbase change. The name "Funny Car" was coined for these altered cars. Gary tuned, installed a 671 supercharger and raced the A990 for the beginning of the year and had great success. In the summer of 1965, one of the Dodge Prototype Coronet Race Cars became available from Roger Lindamood who decided to stop racing the Color Me Gone race car. Gary purchased the car and transferred the supercharged 426 hemi engine from the A990 into the Color Me Gone factory Altered Wheelbase car and continued drag racing for Grand Spaulding Dodge. The great success Gary and Grand Spaulding Dodge were having in the Midwest and South caught the attention of many of the great west coast drag racers who contended the time being run by Gary were false. Norman Krause challenged the best of the west coast racers to a 4 car match at Lions Dragstrip in California on November 6, 1965 and took out full page ads setting up a race to settle who was the best in the country. Representing the Midwest was Gary Dyer and Grand Spaulding Dodge from Chicago, representing the south was Don Gay with his Pontiac out of Texas, and representing the west coast was Big John Mazmanian and Tom McEwen. All teams showed up and with a crowd over 8000 in attendance, Mazmanian and McEwen squared off. McEwen won with a new world record of 8.88 seconds. Next up were Gary and Don Gay. Gary won and lowered the world's record to 8.63 seconds beating McEwen's record by .25 seconds. Gary won all the matches that night and his accomplishments made the front page of the Los Angeles Herald. The 1966 racing season continued with Gary running 100 races that year and in his spare time, Gary decided to build a lighter Funny Car and commisions Rollain & Buttera Race Cars in Wisconsin to build a new 1966 Charger Funny Car. Later in 1968, Gary designed a brand new funny car chassis utilizing a dragster roll cage and 10" narrowed over a standard race car. This new design was custom built by Race Car Specialties in California under the direction of Frank Huszar. It was the Grand Spaulding Dodge Mini Charger.  Unfortunately in late 1968 at US30 Dragstrip in Indiana, the oil filter came off the engine and oil caught fire on the exhaust and set the whole car on fire, burning Gary and totaling the Mini Charger.  Gary spent 6 months recovering and building a new 1969 Logghe Chassis Funny Car.  Gary and Grand Spaulding Dodge were invited to compete in the new Coca Cola Funny Car Racing Series for 1969. Gary competed in and won the series with 11 overall event wins.  For 1970, a new Romeo Palamedies Challenger was built and had great success.  Finally, Gary's last race car was a 1973 Dodge Colt Pro Stock Race car. During his racing career, Gary built his own engines and superchargers. His superchargers did so well that most of the major racers in the late 1960s and early 1970s used racing superchargers built and modified by Gary Dyer. Upon retirement, Gary started Dyer's Blowers and sold supercharger kits to the public for their own personal high performance cars. Today, Gary contiunes helping out at the company he started after retirement from Drag Racing.