A Cover from A Pete Millar Drag Cartoon's
March
1964 No. 3.
The cover of the magazine shows the Stone,
Woods, and Cook car as a rabbit and my grandfather, Floyd Grist talking to the AHRA
official and apparantly asking, "Is this legal?"
My Great Uncle, Ralph Grist has this. He was my Grandfather, Floyd Grist, Ralph's brother and they were the Grist Bros. Racing Team that fielded a black chopped top 41 Willys. They ran in A/GAS with an unblown 430 Ford I believe in the fifties and sixties. They raced primarily in Southern California such as Lions, Pomona, and Santa Ana to name a few. They held several records and met a lot of people during their trials in drag racing.
I recall one story that my Great Uncle Ralph had told me about the Stone, Woods and Cook gang that I thought was kind of funny. It goes something along the lines of all the drivers were at some sort of meeting, be it drivers meeting or organization meeting, and a remark was made by the Stone, Woods, and Cook gang that was something to the effect of, "Why don't you Grist Brothers step up and put a supercharger on that Willys and run with the big boys...", and of course my Grandfather and Uncle rattled back, "Yeah, well why don't you guys take off that blower and race us the real way."
Contributed by Jeremy Grist
Posted with Permission of Pete Millar - Thank you Both!
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Stone Woods & Cook vs. Big John Mazmanian
at Pomona in the 60's.
Contributed by Bill Tunney
Doug Cook and someone else with his Willys
Contributed by Doyle Hatfield
While going through all my SWC material because of the re-release of the original Revell 1962 SWC kit, I noticed that I had markings for SWC Willys coupes in no less than 9 different SWC cars, markings, and engine changes - including one shot of the final SWC B car with Ray Cook driving and powered by an injected small block Chevy!!! The original car had KS Pittman driving with all-white markings. Then Cookie took over at the 62 Nationals when KS left the team to drive his own car. Cookies name appeared in very small letters on the rear quarter.
One of the early KS pics shows the car with Enderle injection and scoop instead of the normal Hilborn setup everyone knows.
Then we have the usual light blue car with full SWC markings on the door. Then came the A car (all previous cars/markings were for the B car) which was quite different from the B car including the interior, which was black. Then came the black car, which was re-painted a darker shade of the original light blue color, then came the candy blue cars with various grilles and sheet metal shapes. Then the radical sectioned dark blue car that was more funny car than A/GS. That was the final car before the SWC Mustangs.
But the "B" car went through one more stage. It was loaned to Sig Erson where it had a small block Chevy install with Hilborn injection (no blower), and had Ray Cook driving and his name on the door. All mention of Engle Cams is gone and replaced with Sig Erson Cams logos. That's the car that Joe Troilo bought and restored today. I'm trying to get the decals done by someone of the KS Pittman version and early 1962 version.
Larry Davis
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