John Hagen (1 Viewer)
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yeah what he said....
Bill
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I never knew John, but I lived in Des Moines, Iowa during the middle '60s through the middle of 1980, so I got to see him race a lot.
I had a friend in Des Moines, who was a talented machinist, named Charlie Malyuke. Charlie was one of those guys who said "Why not?" when an engineering challenge was presented to him. He was also a hard-core Modified Eliminator drag racer who liked Chrysler Hemis, having worked hand-in-hand with Gary Ostrich in Gary's shop when they were building engines on contract for the Chrysler Corporation "factory" racers like Sox and Martin, Richard Petty, etc...
Charlie and John Hagen were friends. Charlie was building a Plymouth Arrow Pro Stocker and wanted to run a Chrysler Hemi in it, but decided to adapt the Hemi heads to the shorter-deck 383 wedge block to gain the advantages of a shorter stroke, lighter reciprocating parts, smaller physical size, and lighter overall weight.
Charlie sold one of the blocks, so modified, to John, and John proceeded to set the NHRA mph record for Pro Stock with it. Also, he was runner-up to Lee Shepard in a very close final-round race at the last Pomona race (World Finals) that would feature "small" motors in Pro Stock. The engine had less than a year's R & D time on it... would have been a really formidable contender the next year, if the rules hadn't changed.
Canadian Wally Dyck also bought one of these 383 Hemis from Charlie and set the A/D record with it, and may have re-set it later.... not too sure about that, but I remember him holding that national record for a long time.
Anyway, I just wanted people to know that John was a thinker and someone who didn't follow the crowd; his little 383 Hemi showed him to be an individual who wasn't averse to trying new things, and making them work.
I'd post a picture of Charlie's Pro Stock Arrow, but the Draconian file size limits on this site don't like ANY of my pictures, and I'm so computer illiterate, I don't know how to reduce them to an acceptable size. Doesn't seem like 57 kb is a very big file to me, but this program rejects every picture I try to post. I am on a different BB called "For A Bodies Only" and I post multiple pictures there with no problem. I hope they can do something about that problem. It would be nice to be able to post some pix.
Bill, in Conway, Arkansas
I had a friend in Des Moines, who was a talented machinist, named Charlie Malyuke. Charlie was one of those guys who said "Why not?" when an engineering challenge was presented to him. He was also a hard-core Modified Eliminator drag racer who liked Chrysler Hemis, having worked hand-in-hand with Gary Ostrich in Gary's shop when they were building engines on contract for the Chrysler Corporation "factory" racers like Sox and Martin, Richard Petty, etc...
Charlie and John Hagen were friends. Charlie was building a Plymouth Arrow Pro Stocker and wanted to run a Chrysler Hemi in it, but decided to adapt the Hemi heads to the shorter-deck 383 wedge block to gain the advantages of a shorter stroke, lighter reciprocating parts, smaller physical size, and lighter overall weight.
Charlie sold one of the blocks, so modified, to John, and John proceeded to set the NHRA mph record for Pro Stock with it. Also, he was runner-up to Lee Shepard in a very close final-round race at the last Pomona race (World Finals) that would feature "small" motors in Pro Stock. The engine had less than a year's R & D time on it... would have been a really formidable contender the next year, if the rules hadn't changed.
Canadian Wally Dyck also bought one of these 383 Hemis from Charlie and set the A/D record with it, and may have re-set it later.... not too sure about that, but I remember him holding that national record for a long time.
Anyway, I just wanted people to know that John was a thinker and someone who didn't follow the crowd; his little 383 Hemi showed him to be an individual who wasn't averse to trying new things, and making them work.
I'd post a picture of Charlie's Pro Stock Arrow, but the Draconian file size limits on this site don't like ANY of my pictures, and I'm so computer illiterate, I don't know how to reduce them to an acceptable size. Doesn't seem like 57 kb is a very big file to me, but this program rejects every picture I try to post. I am on a different BB called "For A Bodies Only" and I post multiple pictures there with no problem. I hope they can do something about that problem. It would be nice to be able to post some pix.
Bill, in Conway, Arkansas
Bill some great memories. Charlie another name from the archives. John was a great man. I have never heard a bad word uttered towards or about him nor do I ever expect to hear one.
That Arrow was it for a while. Bad little ride.
He was an innovator and one hell of a threat at any event. May not have won much overall in Pro Stock but made damn sure everyone knew he was there.
Was somewhat blown away when I came back in the other night and this thread was back up. I was just talking to someone about John and all of the good things. As well talking about how you never get over losing your heroes.
RIP John RIP,
Low Pockets
That Arrow was it for a while. Bad little ride.
He was an innovator and one hell of a threat at any event. May not have won much overall in Pro Stock but made damn sure everyone knew he was there.
Was somewhat blown away when I came back in the other night and this thread was back up. I was just talking to someone about John and all of the good things. As well talking about how you never get over losing your heroes.
RIP John RIP,
Low Pockets
Bill
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As I'm sure you're aware, John was a strong presence in ANY class he chose to run. I wish now, I'd gotten to know him.
I walked up to him an an early '80s West Coast NHRA national event (I was living in California by then) when he was running the "little Hemi" and asked him if it was a 426 (knowing full well what his answer would be, having watched Charlie build all ten of those 383 "Hemi-modified" blocks) and John said, almost apologetically, "No, sir, it's just a 383." I had to turn away because I knew exactly what it was and why he was running it, and I was grinning from ear-to-ear. He would have thought I was laughing at him.
Nothing could have been further from the truth.
Charlie developed a terminal case of Lymphoma in about 1996, and we lost another good one there. He had just built a '66 Nova (350hp 327) for C Stock, a twin to the car he used to run back in '66-'68.... a car he'd bought "new" and was re-creating for NHRA Stock Eliminator.
Lots of excellent pictures of John's race cars on that Bison Dragways website that was posted as a link, earlier in this thread. Really took me back....
Bill, in Conway, Arkansas
I walked up to him an an early '80s West Coast NHRA national event (I was living in California by then) when he was running the "little Hemi" and asked him if it was a 426 (knowing full well what his answer would be, having watched Charlie build all ten of those 383 "Hemi-modified" blocks) and John said, almost apologetically, "No, sir, it's just a 383." I had to turn away because I knew exactly what it was and why he was running it, and I was grinning from ear-to-ear. He would have thought I was laughing at him.
Nothing could have been further from the truth.
Charlie developed a terminal case of Lymphoma in about 1996, and we lost another good one there. He had just built a '66 Nova (350hp 327) for C Stock, a twin to the car he used to run back in '66-'68.... a car he'd bought "new" and was re-creating for NHRA Stock Eliminator.
Lots of excellent pictures of John's race cars on that Bison Dragways website that was posted as a link, earlier in this thread. Really took me back....
Bill, in Conway, Arkansas
DrRocket
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Bill. Check your PMs...
Bill,
I remember Charlies cars quite well. Some of he and Boris' (Dave Shafer) match races were legendary at Eddyville. Throw in Al Parker in Mabrier's car, and Bob Morton in Cooper and Kreigs Camaro and you had some fun Saturday nights.
Boris was another innovator, being perhaps the last small block pro-stock racer ever. For sure the last one to race a Ford.
I only remember seeing Hagen race down there (or it was at NEITA) a few times. In his Arrow.
I remember Charlies cars quite well. Some of he and Boris' (Dave Shafer) match races were legendary at Eddyville. Throw in Al Parker in Mabrier's car, and Bob Morton in Cooper and Kreigs Camaro and you had some fun Saturday nights.
Boris was another innovator, being perhaps the last small block pro-stock racer ever. For sure the last one to race a Ford.
I only remember seeing Hagen race down there (or it was at NEITA) a few times. In his Arrow.
Bill
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Re: Charlie Malyuke
Greg,
I was in Iowa on vacation one year when Charlie was match racing Dave at Eddyville.
If you'll send me an email, I'll send you a pic I snapped of his Dodge Aspen (or, Volare; never can remember which), with the back of Dav's T-Bird in the background (it's a starting line launch picture.)
Email me at [email protected]
Bill
Greg,
I was in Iowa on vacation one year when Charlie was match racing Dave at Eddyville.
If you'll send me an email, I'll send you a pic I snapped of his Dodge Aspen (or, Volare; never can remember which), with the back of Dav's T-Bird in the background (it's a starting line launch picture.)
Email me at [email protected]
Bill
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Re: Charlie Malyuke
Oh, Charlies last PS car was a Volare.
Bill, check your email.
Oh, Charlies last PS car was a Volare.
DrRocket
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My apologies to all involved. I had some major computer problems this weekend, of course, right about the time I promised Bill I would post his pics. I ended up taking my entire hobby/computer room apart to deal with the various issues.
It was NOT a pretty sight.
All that aside, Bill Dedman sent me some VERY cool photos of Charlie Malyuke's creations, and I'll now post them for you to see. You'll really be impressed with the 383 Hemi, I think. Quite the piece of engineering, IMHO.
Here's the first one Bill sent me:
THANK YOU Bill, for some VERY cool photos!!!
It was NOT a pretty sight.
All that aside, Bill Dedman sent me some VERY cool photos of Charlie Malyuke's creations, and I'll now post them for you to see. You'll really be impressed with the 383 Hemi, I think. Quite the piece of engineering, IMHO.
Here's the first one Bill sent me:
THANK YOU Bill, for some VERY cool photos!!!
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DrRocket
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A color photo:
DrRocket
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Here's the Volare:
DrRocket
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AND, here's the 383 Hemi Bill has alluded to. Tell you what. I'll just post the photo, and although I can see what's been done here, I'll let Bill tell you what was done to this engine. This was a serious piece folks!
DrRocket
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I was at the race that John Hagen left us. I had been spending some time at the mud pits, but heard they were running pro stock and decided to watch that instead. I saw what happened, and knew at the time "This is NOT good."
RIP John..........
RIP John..........
Bill
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Thanks a bunch for posting those, David! I really appreciate the time and effort you took to downsize those "too-big" jpegs of mine so they'd fit the format here.
The thing about Charlie was... he built everything he raced. By that, I mean, Charlie conceived the idea for a car, built a jig to construct the frame on, built the entire underpinnings, including narrowing the rear end and building the axles, frame, suspension, steering mechanism, axle control/location apparatus, did the interior (aluminum), built the seat (titanium, usually), did all the bodywork, and then put the motor together after deciding what was going to work and what was not, in terms of go-fast components. Then, he drove it!!!
John Hagen was a master driver, and engine builder/tuner, and his car was about .2 quicker than Charlie's but he didn't build it. Charlie was a rennaisance man... there seemed to be nothing he couldn't do.
Insofar as the short-deck Hemi engine was concerned, there had been smaller-displacement (2nd-generation) Hemis built before, but they had always been based on the 426 block. In Kansas, a guy named Fred Cutler (or, was it "Ted"?) had run a 383 Hemi in a wagon, I think, and Dave Koffel had built some, but they didn't have the advantages associated with the smaller 383/400 blocks.
Charlie had run a 426 in an Anglia Gasser, and in an A Street Roadster, so he was very familiar with the top end of the motor, but it was the lower half that fascinated him. He wanted the shorter stroke, shorter, lighter rods, and lighter crankshaft that the 383's enjoyed. Alas, the Hemi heads were too different in some important ways for the factory to have adapted them to the wedge, short-deck motor, but Charlie never saw a mountain too steep to climb, so he decided that this marriage was do-able.
He gouged the lifter-valley walls up near the top of the deck for pushrod clearance, adding some pieces of steel tubing to seal the water leaks, and dug eight troughs in the block for the attachment bosses that would receive the top row of cylinder head hold-down studs that are unique to the Hemi.
If that's clear as mud, I apologize. Look at the picture; it's worth a thousand words, easily, especially, the way I write! Maybe two-thousand...
So, with the head stud problem taken care of, along with the pushrod clearance issue resoved, the only other thing left to do was to fashion an external oil drain-back tube to return the top-end lubrication to the pan, because the wedge block had no such pathway for the oil to drain into.
Because of the short stroke, (reduced piston speed), this engine would see 10,000 rpm with regularity, and reliability. A narrower intake manifold with a smaller plenum was built by Jerry Hemmingson, (of Jerico transmission fame,) for this little powerhouse.
This "short-deck Hemi" was lighter, smaller, and more powerful (per cubic inch) than a 426, but, it was too little, too late.
John Hagen set the mph record with his, and was runner-up at the Pomona World Finals, with less than a year's R & D time, but the winds of change just blew this little feller right into the history books, as the 500 cubic inch NHRA Pro Stockers became the reality the following year, and we all know what they say about displacement... LOL! Size matters!
Never a guy to waste parts, Charlie put a cut-down 440 crank in his (for 510 cubic inches) and ended up running it on nitrous in IHRA's Pro Stock in a new body (the Volare you see pictured in the previous post by David.) He set the strip record at Eddyville and did some match racing with it, but heard the siren song of NHRA's Stock Eliminator, and built a new toy; a '66 350hp 327 Nova for C/Stock; a twin to a car he'd bought new in '66, and had a lot of fun with at the Des Moines strip, Cordova and Rockford "back in the day."
It was a "work of art," too, but that's a whole 'nother story.
RIP, Charlie; hardly anyone did so many things so well...
The thing about Charlie was... he built everything he raced. By that, I mean, Charlie conceived the idea for a car, built a jig to construct the frame on, built the entire underpinnings, including narrowing the rear end and building the axles, frame, suspension, steering mechanism, axle control/location apparatus, did the interior (aluminum), built the seat (titanium, usually), did all the bodywork, and then put the motor together after deciding what was going to work and what was not, in terms of go-fast components. Then, he drove it!!!
John Hagen was a master driver, and engine builder/tuner, and his car was about .2 quicker than Charlie's but he didn't build it. Charlie was a rennaisance man... there seemed to be nothing he couldn't do.
Insofar as the short-deck Hemi engine was concerned, there had been smaller-displacement (2nd-generation) Hemis built before, but they had always been based on the 426 block. In Kansas, a guy named Fred Cutler (or, was it "Ted"?) had run a 383 Hemi in a wagon, I think, and Dave Koffel had built some, but they didn't have the advantages associated with the smaller 383/400 blocks.
Charlie had run a 426 in an Anglia Gasser, and in an A Street Roadster, so he was very familiar with the top end of the motor, but it was the lower half that fascinated him. He wanted the shorter stroke, shorter, lighter rods, and lighter crankshaft that the 383's enjoyed. Alas, the Hemi heads were too different in some important ways for the factory to have adapted them to the wedge, short-deck motor, but Charlie never saw a mountain too steep to climb, so he decided that this marriage was do-able.
He gouged the lifter-valley walls up near the top of the deck for pushrod clearance, adding some pieces of steel tubing to seal the water leaks, and dug eight troughs in the block for the attachment bosses that would receive the top row of cylinder head hold-down studs that are unique to the Hemi.
If that's clear as mud, I apologize. Look at the picture; it's worth a thousand words, easily, especially, the way I write! Maybe two-thousand...
So, with the head stud problem taken care of, along with the pushrod clearance issue resoved, the only other thing left to do was to fashion an external oil drain-back tube to return the top-end lubrication to the pan, because the wedge block had no such pathway for the oil to drain into.
Because of the short stroke, (reduced piston speed), this engine would see 10,000 rpm with regularity, and reliability. A narrower intake manifold with a smaller plenum was built by Jerry Hemmingson, (of Jerico transmission fame,) for this little powerhouse.
This "short-deck Hemi" was lighter, smaller, and more powerful (per cubic inch) than a 426, but, it was too little, too late.
John Hagen set the mph record with his, and was runner-up at the Pomona World Finals, with less than a year's R & D time, but the winds of change just blew this little feller right into the history books, as the 500 cubic inch NHRA Pro Stockers became the reality the following year, and we all know what they say about displacement... LOL! Size matters!
Never a guy to waste parts, Charlie put a cut-down 440 crank in his (for 510 cubic inches) and ended up running it on nitrous in IHRA's Pro Stock in a new body (the Volare you see pictured in the previous post by David.) He set the strip record at Eddyville and did some match racing with it, but heard the siren song of NHRA's Stock Eliminator, and built a new toy; a '66 350hp 327 Nova for C/Stock; a twin to a car he'd bought new in '66, and had a lot of fun with at the Des Moines strip, Cordova and Rockford "back in the day."
It was a "work of art," too, but that's a whole 'nother story.
RIP, Charlie; hardly anyone did so many things so well...
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Cuda Hunt
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Thanks to those that tried helping with ideas on finding Hagen's green 1968 B029 Cuda. I have pretty much stalled on any further ideas. John Hagen sold the car to Lenny Lowe who raced it under "Lowe-Froberg-Peterson" until about 1972. It was then sold to two guys in like Kansas or Nebraska or something. Shortly after that one of the two guys died possibly in a farming accident. I have not been able to locate either of the two guys' names or what they did with the car. If anybody ever reads this entry and has more information, please contact me at [email protected]. Thanks again!
Cuda Hunt
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can anybody tell me how to get pictures on here? How to add them with my profile name to show when I post and how to add them in entries like some of the posts have?
The Swegian
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You need to have an account with an online photo service, such as photobucket.com. That's the one I use (it's free) and you have to get your picture(s) on there and copy the IMG code (that accompanies a picture when it's uploaded to your gallery/album) in with your post here on the mater. Feel free to PM me if you have any questions.
Bill
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I think you can also upload them from your own computer's hard drive, but they have some REALLY tight size limits as to how big (file size) the pictures can be. I can't upload ANY of mine because they are all too big, and I am too stupid and ignorant to be able to downsize them to an acceptable size.
Programs are available to do that, but I never can make them work. Maybe you'll have better luck than I do.
Just scroll down afrer you've written your post and watch for where it says something like "manage attachments." Then hit "browse" and look in your photo files for the picture you want and it's pretty self-explanatory from there.
I hope you have better luck that I did...
I was fortunate enough to find a smart person who took pity on me and downsized them and posted them for me. Not everyone is that lucky (as I was.)
Programs are available to do that, but I never can make them work. Maybe you'll have better luck than I do.
Just scroll down afrer you've written your post and watch for where it says something like "manage attachments." Then hit "browse" and look in your photo files for the picture you want and it's pretty self-explanatory from there.
I hope you have better luck that I did...
I was fortunate enough to find a smart person who took pity on me and downsized them and posted them for me. Not everyone is that lucky (as I was.)
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DrRocket
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Mark is right, Steve. A place like photobucket (That's also what I use.) will automatically somewhat downsize the pics when you up load them to your account there. And, as Mark says, there's a IMG code you can just copy and paste into your text when you post here. When you're writing your post, you'll see that icon up in the lower right of the options. It looks like a square with mountains. You'll get a little popup that asks for the url of the image you want. That option will insert the proper IMG codes for you. But if you use photobucket, you won't even need to use that.
Here's an example from my photobucket account.
See the IMG Code space? All you have to do is click on that once. It will automatically copy the proper code for you. Then, just paste it into your reply field and you're done! Not NEARLY as hard as it may seem. There are other image hosting sites out there besides photobucket, and they all work fine. This isn't meant to be a photobucket advertisement. It's just that I've used them for about 4 years now, and have never had a problem. They've never lost anything I've ever uploaded. I'm sure other sites are just as good though.
Give it a try.
Here's an example from my photobucket account.
See the IMG Code space? All you have to do is click on that once. It will automatically copy the proper code for you. Then, just paste it into your reply field and you're done! Not NEARLY as hard as it may seem. There are other image hosting sites out there besides photobucket, and they all work fine. This isn't meant to be a photobucket advertisement. It's just that I've used them for about 4 years now, and have never had a problem. They've never lost anything I've ever uploaded. I'm sure other sites are just as good though.
Give it a try.
