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Show Feature SOUTHERN UTAH NEWS TUESDAY OCTOBER 20. 1992 Jim Travers Whiz Kid By Barbara Pyles worked as a stooge. (In those dianapolis 500." One of their accomplishment days if you werent the chief This is the story of one mans mechanic, you were called a was the construction of the Fuel love of racing. His mechanical stooge), Injection Special. In 1953 and He remembers the race has talent vividly helped many aspir1954, with Bill Vukovich behind I to when the wheel, the Kurtis 500 Fuel Lindskog was killed. ing drivers race victory. Only those close to Jim Travers know heard the chief mechanic and Injected Special won the Indiathe car owner saying, well it napolis 500. Vukovich was one his story. o Seventy-twyears ago, looks like our boy has had it. We of the few drivers to win IndiaTravers was bom in Salt Lake had better shop around and get napolis consecutively. People City. He grew up in West Los a new one. I thought, this is like legan callingTravers and Coon the Whiz Kids. Angeles and went to Hamilton war. In He in Culver Travers School and Frank In 1953, the Pole Position 1946, City. High motorCoon oil started workingfor man, Mechanic Banquet honored the says, he was hot rod and Keck. One of their jobs Whiz Kids for being Howard cycle happy. of the Fuel Injection Special, In those days, boys built the was to build and maintain offy race in raced their the most famous racing car ever cars, roadsters they s In 1948 they went to built. backyards. Without knowing it, On May 30, 1955, while drivwas laying the ground- - napolis and finished 10th. We work for what would later be- - felt like a bunch of kids among ing a new car, built by Travers famous people like WilburShaw and Coon, Vukovich crashed come his lifes work. After high school, he went to andMauri Rose. Here we were a fatally. He was leading the Inwork for Rich Manufacture. He bunch of punks from the coast, dianapolis 500 on his 57th lap. When you go to breakfast in the also earned the disapproval of says Travers, Travers recalls one day that morning youre not sure everyhis elders by being a hot rod. It was the days when most of the will stay with him forever. It one is going to be there for dinrace events were instituted at wasin the days when cars pitted ner, says Travers. You had to drive-i- n restaurants and ended right on the race track and race be hard and not show any emowith the arrival of a police car. cars were zooming past ten feet tion. He says racing is much Then, on Sunday, December away. He was the fuel man. Fuel safer today, than when Vukovich 7, 1942, Japan bombed Pearl spilled on him, and then the car was killed." The team ofTravers and Coon Harbor. On Monday, Travers exploded. Travers was on fire and his brother were at City and started to run, ( an alcohol built the Vukovich Indy StreamHall ready to go to war. The flame is invisible, so the major-Nav- liner. While the car never ran a took my brother and not ity of the people watching didnt lap, it was valued wo years ago me. I had bad eyes, it just frac- - know he was on fire.) He stopped at 2.1 million dollars. In 1957, Ford begin to pursue tured me, says Travers. I in front of the Indianapolis s peel-Aand started to a wanted Grand Stand be fighter pilot. racing cars and asked former extin-dards the war went on, the stan- ing off his clothes. After Indianapolis 500 winner Pete were lowered and Travers guishing the fire, he ran to the De Paolo, to explore the possibilenlisted in the Air Force. Be- - race car in his shorts and helped ity of constructing an engine for cause of his eyesight, he wasnt push the car togetitgoingagain. the Indianapolis 500 De Paolo seized the Whiz Kids and put a fighter pilot, but he did fly as a Travers didnt know he was To of to work. Unfortunately, The them chief. filmed. script ing Even during the war, he Please a Lady, was changed to the project was shelved before it couldnt hold back his mechani- - include the incident, really began and the team of cal instincts. While stationed at Travers spent many weeks in Travers and Coon were out of I wo Jima.he and afriend, Sweed the hospital. It was a terrifying work. entered But talent is never without Lindskog, used pieces ofbombed- experience, but it never out Japanese jeeps fitted with my mind to stop racing or to sue work for very long. In 1958, the wheels and tires from a bombed anybody. We use to say, its a team stared working for Lance trailer to construct a midget race rough business, but nobody is Reventlow (Wool worth heir) to car. They drove this contraption holding a gun on us. Travers do the engine work for his racing at enormous speeds all over the sayshe wasin racing because he cars. They built the original Chevy-equippe- d Scarb for liked it. islands roads. Reventlow. After the war was over, ButTraversdidntgiveup.In By 1961, they found themTravers and Lindskog got in- - my life time you never gave up, volved in midget car racing, if you did you were dead. It took selves working for Champion In- Spark Plug Co. They performed Lindskog raced and Travers six years before we won the dynamometer tests on Offy engines and went to races to check spark plugs. The men realized that this wasnt getting them anywhere. Travers and Coon became business partners in 1962 under the name of Traco; TRA for Travers and CO for India-Traver- y be-cre- w Coon. Jim Travers at home in his workshop He still enoys sending time there Photo by B.vtxira Pytos tinkering around a new track record in '62 at Trenton using one of their engines. Then, Roger McCluskey won the USAC Championship with one of Tracos engines. Traco earned an undisputed reputation for building the worlds strongest modified pas- senger car engine. The company bailt engines for Chevrolet, Ferraris. Porsches, Off ys, American Motors, Volkswagens, Buick, Toyota Oldsmobile and Ford They assembled engines for such famous drivers as Pamelii Jones, Aland Bobby Unser, A.J. Foyt, M. Andretti, and Penske Racing, ect. We started building engines for anybody that came along We did business in Mexico, Europe, Switzerland, Japan, Australia, England and New Zealand. We were very very successful," says Travers. For the 1971 Tran9-Aseries, the company produced 10 engines for Penskes Camaros. They won the championship on several occasions. When Penske made a deal with American Motors to run the Trams-AJavelin, Traco engineering took on the impossible task of modifying these engines to be competitive against Ford, Chevy and Chiysler. Again, they won the Trans-AChampionship with m that could whip them w ben they had the whole Ford Motor Co and Chevy R. and D work ing on their operation, says Travers We dominated everything " Afle r t w en ty fi v e y ea r s i n bu si ness, Travers got burned out. I divorced myself from it and sold " my company He says there are times when he regrets that he didnt keep going Travers is like one of his en gines, he can measure up In a lifetime, he has accomplished more than most men dream of Once you st t your goal to a certain thing, whetheritbe winning the Indianapolis 500 race or succeding in a business venture, you never give up," says Travers In 1 981 , Travers and his wife Diane drove through southern Utah on vacation. They liked the area and have lived in Kanab ever since. q m Si . Belarus TRACTORS Get the job done for half the price m the Javelin. The Traco staff numbered five. The combined workshop, test rig and office was located on Jefferson Blvd in Culver City, CA In a mere 2,000 sq. feet, the n for company became enbuilding some of the best gines in the country. coveralls In grease-staine- d and with dirt under their fingernails the team produced the a companys first efforts. Ebb Jim Travers, standing in front of a couple of his favorite pictures, holding Barbara Photo by Pyles. Roses championship race car set model of one of his creations. well-know- The Traco-bui- lt engines took from four to six weeks anywhere to complete with a total of 100 man hours. After building an engine, extensive tests were run before delivery. Traco always emphasized, the most important factor in building an engine is straightforward, careful work- manship. People couldnt understand how guys with a little shop in Culver City could build engines "Hold on to Dear Life Days" Please bring your infant and toddler car seats to the Sheriff s office. They will be checked over and donated to needy families in the area. 4 |