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Post by dragnews on Nov 23, 2008 9:13:35 GMT -5
The year is 1970. Ardmore Dragway is under new management, Lonnie Sears and Johnnie Laird have taking over the facility from the Ardmore Timing Association. The Vietnam war is coming to a close, and drag racing is on its second expansion boom. The new generation returning from the war, is similar to the early hot rodders returning from Korea conflict of the 1950's, They had a new look and new ideas for the sport of drag racing.. Larry Zunk from Gainesville Texas, was one of the many young Texans to cross Red River, and challenge the Okie's back in the early years. He also sported a different look and definitely a different idea on race cars. Larry was a young auto technician., (back in those day's we called them mechanics) that worked at Brown motor company in Gainesville Texas. Larry had that 70's look,really long hair, drove in cut off shorts, and wore Roman sandal shoes, but that car.....well that is were our story begins. Larry's choice of race cars was a 1955. No not a Chevrolet or even a Ford, but a Pontiac. A big ol heavy ugly tin Indian. It was Painted Military tan,with 60's acid rock lace swirls and whatever else you want to call that paint scheme. Although Larry looked different than all the other clean cut racers of that time. He was way ahead of the game in racing ideas and mechanical ability. Larry called his hot rod Double Ugly, and sometimes, I think his appearance and automobile was just a diversion to fool the competition of his true racing abilities, The Pontiac was powered by a big 455 Oldsmobile that made a big top end charge, and hard for the little 327 dragsters to play catch up. It had a automatic transmission, that gave it more consistent E.T.'s . Most cars including the dragsters still ran a manually shifted transmissions. The car had a 3 inch staggered front axle and really low slung headers. Back in the early days He could leave the line and not start the clocks until the back wheels would clear the early scratched built staging beams. Larry was runner up at Ardmore"s first Cow Pasture Nationals, when he red lighted in the final to Jim Ragland. Larry went on to win many Sunday races before leaving the sport. Double Ugly has gone through many more owners and won a ton of races before being retired to pasture back in Texas today. As far as Larry, no one knows for sure where he is, but he sure left a ugly legacy at Ardmore Dragway. The photo above is of Double Ugly at Green Valley Race City during the 1977 bracket finals were it competed for team Ardmore. (Story and photo's courtesy of the Ragland collection 2008) Next time Rick's favorite dragster......................Rob
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Post by jerry10 on Oct 29, 2009 20:23:17 GMT -5
it was in denton tx . bill irwin had it. he heard it was in ok. and he use to on it back in the greenvalley days. .
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Post by garystoy on Nov 27, 2009 12:41:36 GMT -5
Double Ugly!!!!Here's a picture of Double Ugly when David Ferguson and Richard Dearhiem owned the car. That is Richard driving and David helping with the burnout. They purchased the car from Lynn Johnson who had purchased it from Zunk. David later bought Richard's part out and sometime later sold the car. This is at Ardmore not sure what year.
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Post by garystoy on Oct 11, 2010 16:30:47 GMT -5
Well here is another picture of Double Ugly from my friend David Ferguson. On this one you can see a little more detail on the paint job. On the stripes there are many scales, each taped off separate and air brushed a different color. The spots on the side are where drops of paint were applied to the surface and then an air gun was used to scatter the drop into a star burst pattern. I can't imagine how many hours must have gone into the paint job. That is Richard Dearhiem in the picture. He co-owned the car for awhile.
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Post by garystoy on Oct 22, 2010 14:49:05 GMT -5
This is a picture of the beauty and the beast. Liz was Richard's wife at the time so (since Texas is a community property state) she was also a part owner of Double Ugly at one time.
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Post by garystoy on Nov 24, 2010 9:53:05 GMT -5
OK after over 700 views I think it is time I post the last picture I have of old Double Ugly. This one is from the back. I had forgotten about the greeting that Larry had painted on the trunk until this picture reminded me. It said "PIECEONYA". This of course left everyone who viewed Double Ugly from the back to ask their self...Piece of what? Well how each person answered that question probably had more to say about their attitude about life than anything else. As for me, I think it means a great piece of Ardmore dragrace history. I hope everyone has a good holiday and that each of you have something to be Thankful for.
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Post by justing on Aug 8, 2011 11:11:58 GMT -5
Pictures Gary where are the pictures??
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Post by garvisedwards on Aug 10, 2011 14:53:11 GMT -5
Cant wait to see it make a pass, thanks Gary.
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Post by oldbluegoat on Apr 7, 2012 0:38:57 GMT -5
Is thid the car that was on ebay back about 2 or 3 years ago some where back east? was a national record holder.
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Post by garystoy on Sept 6, 2012 21:05:16 GMT -5
The old girl saw her first green light in years. She got all chocked up about it. A brake problem and a trans leak put her on display only for the rest of the weekend but look for her to show back up at her favorite track soon.
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Post by garystoy on Oct 1, 2012 14:21:20 GMT -5
More history on Double Ugly…. This is back before she was even named Double Ugly. I was at a friend of mines birthday party a couple of months ago and her uncle Rodney asked me how the racing was going. I responded that I had been real busy at work and spending a lot of time on the road but that I had a new project. I pulled out my Blackberry and showed him a picture of Double Ugly. He asked what year model it was and I told him a 56 Pontiac. He told me that he had some friends (two brothers named Krebs) in high school that had one just like that. He said that theirs was painted solid tan color and went on to tell me that they had put thousands of miles on that car making the drag back in those days. (I don’t know if every town had a “drag” years ago but in Gainesville it was from the end of Grand Ave. to the far end of California St. and back.) The drag was still popular when I was in high school in the seventies but feel out of popularity with that age group sometime after the mid 80s. Uncle Rodney also told me that the car was no stranger to an occasional street race challenge even though it was in stock trim back then. Both Rodney and I wondered if Double Ugly could possibly be the same car that he had known back in high school. He even said that he was sure he had a picture of himself and the Krebs brothers that had the car in the background but he did not know if he could find it after all these years. If he does I will post it. Yesterday, my friend John Grussel (a long time racer at Ardmore) verified that Larry Zunk purchased the car from one of the Krebs brothers. When I first got Double Ugly, John who owns the shop right next to mine, would come over and look the car over. I had showed him the only original paint left on the car from when Larry had painted it. The only thing left was some faded paint on the roof of the car. I also showed him the spring hangers still on the car from when it had the straight axle. After seeing all of this, he still was not totally convinced and wanted to be sure. Then one day he shows up and walks and over to the car, I noticed he had a flash light in his hand. He opened the driver’s door and gets down on his knees to look under the dash. It seems that John had called Larry Zunk and Larry had told him that one way to tell for sure would be to look at the home made brake pedal. Larry told him that he had made it from an old shifter handle and that it would say “Fenton” on the side. Sure enough that is exactly what it said. John also gave me the picture below. This picture is Larry Zunk racing the car before it was called “Double Ugly”. Notice the Snap On sticker on the back from a sponsorship deal Larry had worked out. John said that Larry had painted the solid tan car with a panel job that was popular in the day. The panels were just solid dark brown. John said that Larry’s friends would tease him (like friends do) and say “that car is ugly”. So Larry decided to take the brown panels off and replaced them with the amazing paint that is pictured above on this thread. The pictures do not do the paint job justice. The paint was really a work of art. When Larry showed the car to his friends with the expectation that they would give their approval, instead one of them (again as friends do ) said “Well that car was ugly but now it’s double ugly” And that’s how she got her name.
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Post by garystoy on Feb 3, 2016 8:15:49 GMT -5
I found this posted on Wallace Racings web site. Here is a link to the site link This appears to have been written by Larry Zunk himself some years ago.
When I won at the AHRA Spring Nats.(1st paint job pics) it had a .030 over 389 (re-man. short block) with hyd. cam, my own head work. The next winter I repainted (2ed paint job pics) it and built a .030 over 428" 4-bolt with Howards rods, Ram Air IV heads, Doug Nash intake and Holley 4500, Isky Roller 300 deg. Cam and Crower 1:7 roller rockers for a Ford. Had everything on the bottom balanced and clearanced (.080 side clearance on the rods). Rebuilt (by me) iron distributor with points and Accell coil. Used a Turbo 400 with my own valve body mods and a variable pitch stator converter (from a taxi) with manual switch right next to the line lock switch on a home made shifter. Dana_44 w/4:54 rear gear. Max torque and shift point was about 5800 rpm. The car ran a best of 10.67 and very consistent 10.70s. Sometimes the only thing I did between rounds was open the hood to cool it down. Ran it for a couple of years then sold the car body and put motor and trans in the vett. It ran a few 10:0s. Then some guy wanted the Vett more than I did and I again kept the motor and trans. The motor then went into a 32 roadster that was too dangerous to drive. Ran it 3 times, couldn't keep the front end on the ground. Broke an axel and almost rode the rail. Next I put the same motor/trans in a 67 Goat and sold the whole thing the day I got it running. That was about 1977 or 78. Thanks, Larry Zunk
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Post by zebu (Larry Zunk) on May 5, 2019 5:39:42 GMT -5
This is the only pic of me winning the 72 or 73 spring Nationals in Formula 2D/HR at the original Greenvalley Dragway. Notice the tower is on the right side of the strip. I was racing a team called Whatley Brothers Racing. They owned the record in this class (2D/HR) and were running about 3/4 of a second faster than me. Well they could have beaten me easily. As luck would have it, they redlighted on the money round. This was the original paint job. Here are some more pics of the car back then. 2ed paint job and big motor.
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Post by zebu (Larry Zunk) on May 5, 2019 5:47:49 GMT -5
Gary to correct a bit of your history. I actually bought the car from Dale Brown's girlfriend, (Patsy Luttmer). Dale had gone off to Viet Nam and left the car and title with Patsy. She needed money and asked me if I wanted it. I bought the car and immediately began turning it into a racecar. I know the Krebs brothers that you mentioned and they may have owned it before Dale Brown. I have an original pic of the car somewhere, I will try to find it.
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Post by zebu (Larry Zunk) on May 5, 2019 5:52:49 GMT -5
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