Dave's Page
(Dave Campbell, and his wife Emma, were one of the original couples of the Midwest Nostalgia Super Stock Association and now Nostalgia Super Stock Inc. Dave has compiled a history of the Club which includes letters to members, magazine articles, and Club newsletters. This page will present monthly excerpts from that history.)
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The following article appeared in Muscle Cars, September 1990 issue. “Horsepower Invades St. Louis” by Wayne Scraba, stated that the separation of this third annual event from the previous events was the horsepower—three L-88 Corvettes, a ’65 Cobra and a ’67 427 Fairlane. The event was attended by 7-8,000 spectators and has $10,000+ of prize money. “The dash for the cash could best be described as warfare in the trenches, but when all of the tire smoke had cleared, one of Tim Thorpe’s Corvettes had turned a best elapsed time of 12.2 seconds in the 1320 at a whopping 118 miles per hour. And that was on street tires with the exhaust system corked!”
Featured in the article with pictures were Russ Campbell and his ’62 Chevrolet post and Jim Whittenburg and his ’63 Ford. Rick Johnson and his ’62 Super Duty paired with the ’61 409 owned by Don Shaffer. Mike Riefer, owner of the ’63 Max wedge paired with Dave Campbell in his ’63 409 Biscayne (Faded Memories). Scraba goes on to say, regarding Campbell and Riefer, “both vintage racers ran in the special Super Stock eliminator, but with acts like this, memories of the old factory drag strip wars will live forever—faded or not!
1991 (Dave Campbell sums up the groups activities for the year.)
By this time word was getting around about our group. The magazine article in Muscle Car magazine, along with Len Greco promoting our race cars, other racers became interested in what we were doing.
Our first race was for Len at Gateway on May 4-5, 1991. the next race, we were invited to attend the Super Ford Extravaganza held at Milan Dragway in Milan, Michigan on July 19-21, 1991.
August 9-11, 1991, we were invited to participate in the Good Guys Hot Rod Happening in Indianapolis, IN at IRP. (2008 will be our 18th year at Good Guys Indy).
Russ Smiltniek purchased the National Muscle Car Association (NMCA) from Chuck Green who started the organization. In 1989 Russ called Rick to see if our group would come to Memphis Motorsports Park in Memphis, TN to participate in the MNCA World Finals on September 14-15, 1991. Our group along with some racers out of the Southeast did some match racing exhibition style that weekend. The NMCA organization wanted to see our cars to see if they wanted to start a class for Nostalgia Super Stock Race Cars.
Magazine articles and pictures:
Aug/Oct 1991 issue of Rotunda Times on the Super Ford event
Sept 1991 issue Midwest Drag Racing Magazine – Super Ford event
Dec 1991 issue Muscle Cars magazine at Memphis—NMCA event
Poster—Super Ford
Poster—Muscle from the Past
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1989 Nostalgia Movement
The Nostalgia movement began in May of 1989 when Russ Campbell called and asked if I would join him at Gateway International Raceway in St. Louis, for an exhibition match race for Len Greco a promoter out of Fenton, MO. Len started promoting “Muscle from the Past” shows. Russ had a ’62 409 Chevy and a friend of his also had a ’62. That event was where we met Rick Johnson and his ’62 Pontiac. The four of us did some match racing that day for Len.
1989 National Muscle Car Association (NMCA)
In August of 1989 Emma and I, along with several other 60’s race cars, traveled to Bowling Green, Kentucky, to do some exhibition runs for the NMCA. This was a newly formed organization owned by Chuck Green.
The following magazine articles with pictures covered the event:
Sept/Oct issue 1989 “Fast Class” Magazine (NMCA), ‘The 409s’ by Robert Bravender. This article featured Jim Goodwyn’s ’62 Belair, The Murphy’s ’62 Belair, Jim Jones’ ’62 Chevy Biscayne, Dave Campbell’s ’63 Belair, and Ron Kukuruda’s ’67 Hemi Belvedere.
Dec issue 1989 “Super Street Machine” Magazine, ‘HI-PO Show’. Pictured in this article were Ken Dvorak’s ’67 Ford Fairlane XL 427, Dave Campbell’s ’63 Belair, and a ’63 Dodge Ramcharger convertible powered by a 426, owned by Mike Davis. (Dave says that it is the only Max Wedge light weight convertible from the factory that he knows of, left in existence.) As the article states, “The beauty of the NMCA is its ability to attract both the old and the new. …It’s watching the old shoebox racers thundering down the quarter-mile for a taste of yesteryear. It’s two buddies getting together to exchange information and bench race. Being a member of the NMCA is all these things.”
1990 Midwest Nostalgia Super Stock Association
During the winter of 1989, Len Greco called Rick Johnson and asked if he thought he could put together eight or ten 60’s style race cars for exhibition match racing for his show on June 5-6, 1990, at Gateway.
Rick called me and together we succeeded in getting enough cars together for a show. Len Greco was impressed enough with our group, that he invited us to Kansas City International Raceway (KCIR) for an event held on July 28-29, 1990.
It was at this event a meeting was held at Dave and Emma’s house to discuss the possibility of forming a group of racers to do heads up style match racing which became known as the “Midwest Nostalgia Super Stock Association” (MNSSA).
A lot of credit goes to Len Greco for promoting our group as he really liked our cars, the quality of our cars, and he liked how we conducted ourselves. He was able to get us in magazines, he put us on his fliers, and he put us on the map. From that point forward our group was the forerunner of Nostalgia Super Stock Match Racing or a form of Nostalgia racing as I remember.
Muscle Cars, Sept 1990, covered the Gateway International Raceway event. The article, ‘Horsepower invades St. Louis’, by Wayne Scraba featured several cars. As Wayne Scraba indicated, “Toss 500 musclecars into a bull ring in St. Louis, mix in $10,000-plus of prize money and then throw in 7-8,000 spectators and you know something is going to happen.”