I was born and raised in the Cleveland, Ohio area and became a car nut when I was about
five years old. I went to my first drag race in 1962 and '63, as soon as I got my driver's license and could
drive, I tried drag racing my old '55 Ford. A few years later, after I got out of the Army, I went to work for Stouffers Foods in
1968 and in '69 I got married. My job took up most of my time, but I still raced whatever I had &
whenever I could until 1975, but it was only as a fun thing to do.
I also built and owned several stock cars that my brother-in-law drove at Cloverleaf Speedway from 1972 to 1975 on asphalt ovals. In 1971, I met a man at Stouffers who became one of my best friends. Nick Iarussi was a hardcore drag racer with an old '55 Chevy he called "GODZILLA". He won 3 Mid-American Pro Gas titles with that old '55 and he taught me a lot about racing as well. Going to the races and hanging out with Nick got my blood flowing to really want to do some serious drag racing. |
In 1975, I built the original 1970 "Real McCoy" Nova (left) and it quickly became
a race-only piece that I raced in northern Ohio in brackets until 1982. I later sold it and moved to
Gaffney, South Carolina. After being out of racing for several years, I started to go crazy and decided to
get back into racing again.
The next "Real McCoy" that I built in 1988 was also 1970 Nova. It was an all steel bodied, totally street legal, back halved 4-link car. I mainly raced it for fun because I was doing other racing as well. At that time, I was helping a friend named Mike Duvall run late model dirt cars for awhile. He taught me quite a bit and we won a lot of races. Then another friend wanted to run NASCAR in the Goodies Dash division so from 1990 till 1993, I was involved with that on and off as a crew chief, body man and engine builder. It was an experience I'll always treasure, and ironically, also despise. It allowed me to meet people and do things I only dreamed of before I got involved with it. However, a series of tragedies in 1993 and 1994 changed my life. In '93 we had a bad crash at Daytona and our driver Rodney White was seriously injured and the man he hit, Joe Booher, died. Then in 1994, Rodney Orr, the guy who had driven our car back in 1990, was also killed at Daytona, just two days after Neil Bonnet. I had a pretty tough time dealing with these tragedies so I stopped racing NASCAR. I decided to go back to drag racing, but this time I wanted to win some races as well as have some fun. I modified the Nova, built a new motor, and went out to the track on a mission. It worked and we won a couple races that spring and every year after that until I sold it in '95 to my brother Dennis in Ohio. I wasted no time in building the next "Real McCoy" - a Beretta with a round tube, mild steel chassis with a fiberglass body. It took me a couple years to figure it out and then I had several very successful years with that car. Unfortunately, my vision started going bad and I needed to slow down, so I sold it in 2000 and built the current "Real McCoy" which is a 1971 Nova. I am also in the slow process of building another 1972 Nova to run in IHRA Top Stock (the link's at the bottom of this page) or a class that requires stock suspension and small tires. 
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Top Stock Nova Project | Back Half Nova Project