BILOXI DRAGWAY NEWSLETTER
Special Edition

    Reprinted from the pages of Drag News especially for Biloxi Dragway racing fans. The following are a series of letters between Don Gay and Mr. Norm concerning Don's challenge of Mr. Norm's Grand Spaulding Dodge.

Dear Mr. Norm:                                                                                                                                        July 16, 1965

    By now you've probably got all of the Dodge fans waving their flags and cheering because you put down Arnie "The Farmer" Beswick's blown GTO in an all-out match race with your Grand-Spaulding hemi-Dodge.

    Of course, the important thing here is that Beswick's Pontiac blew an engine and that doesn't make you the big winner over the Pontiac that all of your fan clubs really would like you to be.

    We want to offer you a chance to "try on" another Pontiac GTO to prove your Dodge. This one isn't stock bodied and it doesn't have a stock wheelbase like "The Farmer's," and this one's also been in the 9.70's.

    What do you'all think? Wanna go a three-out-of-five? Name the place and we'll see how that Chicago Dodge stacks up against this ol' Texas Indian that's pumping 421".

                                                                                                                                                                    Don Gay                                                                                                                                                                                                    The "Infinity" GTO                                                                                                                                                                                    Dickinson, Texas

GRAND SPAULDING AUTO SALES, INC.
3300 W. Grand Ave. * Chicago, Ill. 60651

Dear Don Gay:                                                                                                                                                 July 26, 1965

    In response to your letter of challenge in "Drag News", we would like you and the drag-racing fans to know our position.

    Here at Grand Spaulding Dodge, PERFORMANCE IS OUR BUSINESS. We race race our cars all around the country to enhance our knowledge of performance under the stress and strain of competition. This know-how is then applied to our business - to servicing the cars we sell. We don't race for prizes, pennants or glory - we race our Blown Hemi and our AF/X because PERFORMANCE IS OUR BUSINESS, and, in order to be better in our business, we must be better on the tracks. Because of this, we go to great expense to travel to various strips and tracks around the country, racing cars that will add to our knowledge and know-how. We race such top-notch performers as Arnie Beswick, Stone Woods and Cook and other men who know and love racing.

    We are willing to run our car against anyone, anywhere, who has proven himself and his car, because there is always something that we can learn from honest competition. At this point, you have proven nothing but your ability to insert and ad in "Drag News." Take our advice - go out and get yourself a reputation. Earn it by racing against such great runners as we have mentioned above. Don't try to get a quick "rep" by challenging the giants.

    But in the true spirit of competition, and because we like to see an ambitious and aggressive youngster try his mettie, we might consider matching our Hemi against your car. That is if you can prove that you deserve a crack at us. Talking big doesn't make you big. Our fans have a right to wave banners. We have given them that right by the records we have hung up for Johnny-Come-Lately's like you to shoot at. Our records weren't earned on a track owned and operated by our father. If we had a Dad who owned a track, and were being clocked by hired hands, we'd turn 8.20's, but we wouldn't brag about it.

    We're not shutting you off. We're sure an aggressive youngster like you will find a way to get where he wants to be. There have been instances where youngsters have been known to break records. This is where they separate the men from the boys.

                                                                                                                                                                      Mr. Norm

Dear "Mr. Norm"                                                                                                                                        Dickinson, Texas

                                                                                                                                                                        July 31, 1965

    Your letter, published in last week's DRAG NEWS, allowed me to arrive at two very important conclusions: (1) Drag racing does have its own Cassius Clay; and (2), the big-dealer sponsored racers not only think that they have an advantage, they make it known, and operate accordingly, by picking their racing opponents, using "performance tests" as an excuse to avoid challenges. Would it go rough on you if you were beaten by an 18-year-old who's only been in drag racing for about three years?

I want it to be known that my Dad's Pontiac agency is very small serving a community with a population low in number. My parents do own and operate the Houston Dragway where I race my cars most often. But at our drag strip, "Mr. Norm," the best elapsed time I could get out of my GTO (on its first runs) was a 10.28 seconds. At least that's what was on the time slip, the one I got from the "hired help" who read our clocks. After that I took off with the car on a little tour and made a couple of stops in "Mr. Norm country (Illinois), I visited Cordova, where my car first went into the nines, and then I went down to Rockford, which I am told is your home strip, where my car turned its 9.70 e.t. Need I say more?

Until my GTO was built I didn't have a car in a class which I could race against such as Stone-Woods-Cook or Arnie Beswick, but my first match race with the GTO was against Don Nicholson's Comet. Don is among those drivers whom I regard as being among the best. If only because of his consistent performances, and that's why I challenged him to race. Granted, our match race wasn't completed, due to new equipment that broke, as so often happens, but I did try... and so did Nicholson.

Now, perhaps I don't have as big a name as you, "Mr. Norm," If you say so, but then, my Dad's little Pontiac agency can't afford to advertise on the back page of DRAG NEWS each week either. But people are always telling me how often they read about my cars in DRAG NEWS and other magazines. And the only thing I can figure is that it's because of all those trophies and records I own. I haven't won a lot of match races; my car is too new and I have had only a few weeks to race it. My most important wins came from those little meets like the 1962 Nationals and the 1963 Winternationals at Pomona, California, when I was driving my A/Stocker. Of course, the Indy Nationals and Winternationals aren't like a match race against another car; they have only 500 or 1000 entries and a guy has to run more than a dozen cars in his class for a chance at the title. Have you ever run (or won) at the Nationals, "Mr. Norm"?

I could go on and on, but what it all boils down to is this: If you're not scared of my GTO, just name the place, I've raced bigger and better than you, boy, and it's about time you met some of the challenges, rather than sit back and wait for the car you want to run. After all, I've been at the top . . now it's time for this kid to show you how they separate the men from the boys.

                                                                                                                                                                    Don Gay

                                                                                                                                                                    The "Infinity" GTO

                                                                                                                                                                    Dickinson, Texas

The following is a news item printed in Drag News August 28 issue.

Gay vs. Mr Norm Match Races In September, October

    A storm's been brewing and it's about to come to a "head." The fervent battle between Don Gay, who drives the newly-nitroduced "Infinity" supercharged Pontiac GTO exhibition stocker, and "Mr. Norm" of the fuel-burning Dodge hemi team, will be presented in three segements,

    The first two-out-of-three match has been scheduled for the Great Lakes Dragway at Milwaukee, Wisconsin for Sept. 12; the second showdown will be at Rockford, Illinois on Sept. 19, and the third and final match race will be held Oct. 10 at Biloxi, Miss.

    Both Gay and Mr. Norm have been 'hot numbers' in the exhibition match race circuit; Gay only last weekend, put down Ronnie Sox in a match at Houston Dragway, The GTO's elasped times are still in the high-nines and running strong. Mr. Norm's Dodge, meanwhile, was a front runner at the recent Super Stock Nationals, held in York, Pa.

    Gay's bout with Mr. Norm's Dodge is the result of a challenge on the teen-age driver's part Mr. Norm, of Grand-Spaulding Dodge in Chicago, was reluctant to respond the challenge, since the youthful Gay was not a "proven" match-race contender. But after considerable deliberation, Mr. Norm decided to pair off the Dodge against Don's GTO.

Jim O'Connor in Mr. Norm's Injected "Funny" Dodge, turned a 9.52 and 9.79 sec. elapsed time at Biloxi Dragway July 31. At the NHRA Nationals Don Gay running the B/FD Class in his GTO beat Jack Chrisman's Blown Comet turning a E.T. of 9.32 at 160 M.P.H.!

Sources: Drag News, Biloxi Dragway Newsletter, Copyright BiloxiDragway.com