Sunday, July 8, 2012

Doctor Elton A. Eckstrand


Lawyer Al Eckstrand of Detroit is driving Plymouth Super Stocks at the big national drag meets this year. To millions of drag strip fans, this leaves little doubt as to who is the man to beat. Eckstrand has a reputation in quarter mile stock car drag strip racing something like Jack Nicklaus or Arnold Palmer hold in golf. He's the man to watch if you are trying to pick a winner.

He has never had any formal engineering training, nor has he ever earned a nickel as a mechanic. His approach to the sport is that of an amateur with an analytical mind and a great desire to win. He has mastered the engineering principles that go into high performance cars and is guided by them, rather than reacting to every weird rumor that goes around the circuit. He prefers stocks because they hold the greatest crowd interest and offer the toughest driver competition.

Having won his first major victory with a TorqueFlite Plymouth Fury as a Super Stock Automatic winner in the 1960 NHRA Nationals, Eckstrand was a pioneer in demonstrating that the automatics could give the sticks a run for their money.

But he is equally at home in a manual shift car. Plymouth builds both in its 1964 line-up of Super Stocks. They promise to be hotter than ever in 1964 competition.

Via : Winged Warriors

2 comments:

  1. I met Elton on Brighton pier somewhere around 1996. He was living in a modern large mansion type building in kent drove a blue ford Mondeo. He told me stories of his car racing days. A real nice guy he liked the British pub he told me as long as you have a local pub you can make friends if you go there often enough. I didn't know him that long due lifestyle differences but he was down to earth and nice.

    ReplyDelete