THE AVANTI AT DAYTONA

AN INTERVIEW WITH STEPHEN BLAKE

By George Krem and Art DeArmond

Photo of Stephen H. Blake reprinted from
COLLECTIBLE AUTOMOBILE May 1984 Vol. 1 Issue I

Preface: Back in March 1983 George Krem and Art DeArmond conducted a telephone interview with Steve Blake shortly after the Avanti successful assault at Daytona. It was a comprehensive interview which was originally published in the May 1983 SDC TURNING WHEELS. 1 contacted Linda & Fred Fox as well as George Krem requesting reprint permission which was graciously granted Note: The photos accompanying this article did not appear in the article in TURNING WHEELS - Editor

Stephen Blake is not a typical car company President: he actually likes cars. To him, they are not just a means of making money they are a way of life. His first Avanti was a factory reconditioned 1969 model with 97,000 miles which he drove regularly. He liked the car so much he bought the company. There are a number of parallels between Stephen Blake and She wood Egbert, who is known as the father of the Avanti Perhaps the most obvious one so far is that both men sought a performance image for Avanti early in their work with the car. That is what inspired this article; the new Avanti made such an impressive showing at the Daytona 24 Hour Race, that it was protested After all, you don't just show up with an unknown car and set track records - it tends to upset the established participants. But more about that later.

We contacted Mr. Blake (he insists on being called Steve) soon after the Daytona race and asked for his help in presenting information in TURNING WHEELS about the racing version of the Avanti and his plans for the future. Steve Blake is an energetic and positive man who is moving just about as fast as Sherwood Egbert did when the Avanti was in its initial development program. Steve has already made a number of changes in the car and the way in which it is produced. Art DeArmond and 1 interviewed Steve Blake by telephone on March 21st (1983); here are the results of that interview.

George: Can you tell us how you got the idea of entering the Avanti at Daytona or in any racing event?

Steve: Yes, I was at the SEMA (Speed Equipment Manufacturers Association) show in Las Vegas and I was talking with some guys listening to their "worst" stories about racing, and it seemed to me that racing stories were sort of like fishing stories everyone had a new lie. It was kind of amusing; they were talking about going to Daytona. I had never been to Daytona and didn't know anything about it, and I said "What's so special about Daytona?" They said "Well, it's the first International Motor Sport event of the year and it's a 24 hour endurance race". My ears perked up because I think that Avanti is probably the most durable car around, and surely the most reliable, even with its quirks. I started thinking maybe this could solve one of the problems that I had been facing since taking over Avanti (this was around the first of December).

One of the problems was the lack of awareness on the part of the public about the car. Ninety percent of the people don't know what the car is, they figure that it died twenty years ago. Some of them think its a replicar or an Italian car, or who knows what. But I started thinking about it, and I said to one of the guys, "I think I'll take an Avanti and race it at Daytona". They all laughed and said "Yeah, right." I called a friend of mine in California, Herb Adams, who is probably as good a chassis and suspension expert as there is in the world, as far as I'm concerned. Herb told me I was out of my gourd. He said" Steve, you take 3-4 months to develop a car properly for Daytona. It's a special type of car. The car has to be just about bullet proof'.

I said "We can do it; we have almost two months".

He tried to talk me out of it. There's a race car chassis builder near us named Ray Dillon. I talked to Ray and he told me the same thing. All I have to do is have two people tell me that I can't do something and that's it. So I called everybody who I knew anything about racing and I found out what usually went wrong at Daytona; much to my surprise, I found that just about everything goes wrong. I felt that we could take our chassis and build the structural roll cage. We could put in a more contemporary suspension suited to Daytona with bullet proof parts. We have been working on a new suspension for the car anyway. I also said let's try the new four wheel discs, the new cross member, and everything. Again, everybody said I was nuts. We have the fiberglass bodies; all we have to do is flare the fenders.

George: What cross member are you referring to?

Steve: A new engine cross member. So basically what we did was to get Dillon to help us build the chassis, and we got Bo Laws in Orlando, who is probably as good a Chevrolet engine builder as there is, to build us a 305 into a race motor. It came out with 630 horsepower.

George: So it was a 305? Some newspaper articles said it was a 350.

Steve: Quite a few papers said it was a 350; it was actually a 305. Technically, I fount out later that we could have raced a 350; but if you know much about the engine, the short block in a 305 and the short block in a 350 are almost the same. Basically, you are allowed to bore out a certain number of cubic inches based on the weight of the car. We were under; it was no problem. We could have used a 350 but based on the way the car ran, it would not have mattered. I could not have expected any more out of an engine even if it were gold plated.

George: It certainly ran phenomenally well.

Steve: Well, let me put it to you this way. After the race, we dyno'd the engine and saw the same horsepower with the same oil pressure. We took the heads off of the engine and the inside of the engine was clean. That's after 24 hours. We began work on the car around the 20th of December, and by January 3rd or 4th we thought the car wouldn't work. I was kind of down because the dimensions or width of the frame rails, that we had to build the car with the cage around the engine compartment and the suspension just did not work. We could not get the suspension we had been playing with. So, we decided to cut it apart and start over. We built a new chassis from scratch and changed the body panels a little. We got a lot of help from our suppliers, Borg-Warner, Doug Nash, Chevrolet. The help from Chevrolet was some advice. Goodyear, and others helped. I did not want to go down there and look foolish, so I got Joe Ruttman, who agreed to drive for us, and Herb Adams. They are both absolute superstars as far as racing goes. Herb doesn't race anymore but he agreed to race for us. Joe knows Daytona and has done a little bit of road racing. Herb knows Daytona like the back of his hand. We decided that with the combination of the car (what we felt to be it's aerodynamic qualities) the drivers, and a tractor trailer with about three cars in parts, it did not matter what would break. My employees would put the car back together again. We went down there before we finished painting the car. IMSA made us come on Monday because they wanted to see the car run because they did not think we would be competitive. So we got there on Monday, and my employees had pulled a whole bunch of all-nighters.

George: You say that you had enough parts to build three cars?

Steve: Two more, yes, plus the one we ran. We had extra body panels, four transmissions, 30 wheels and tires, a couple of carburetors, four alternators and three rear ends.

Avanti "Daytona GTO" outside the factory in South Bend -
Side Profile - Collectible Automobile May 1984 - Vol. 1- No. 1

George: What kind of transmission was used?

Steve: A super T-10. We just took lots of extra parts, and I mean lots of extra parts. We found out what always broke, and fortunately, we were right. The one thing wrong about it nobody ever told us about batteries, and we took one battery with us. Joe put the car into the dirt to avoid crashing into that Mustang. Well, when the race started, we got up to 5th place and we were coming out of the chute on to the Tri-oval when a factory Mustang in front of us blew its engine. Joe had two choices. He was passing the number 4 car, into fourth place and when he went past, this Mustang was just about dead, with smoke pouring out of the rear of it. Joe had two choices: either plow into the Mustang or try and put the car sideways into the dirt, which he did. Thank God, because he saved the car. We had trouble getting the car started, but finally we did get it going. What had happened was that our Die-Hard died. It croaked. We got the car back into the pits. That shunt cost us 5-6 hours total in the race. It caused electrical problems, rear-end problems, but we just kept going. No matter what would break; we had the parts to fix it. My guys just worked all night long, and every half hour we had to come in and change batteries. We had a terrible electrical problem in the car and it was caused by that first thing.

George: Was it some sort of short?

Steve: It must have been. We have the car apart right now; we looked for it and could not find it. So we are just rewiring the whole car. We're having the engine rebuilt. I do not know where and how we are going to race it because I really can not afford it, but we're just taking our time putting the car back together again.

George: Is there any possibility that this car might somehow be on display during our national meet in South Bend this summer (1983)?

Steve: It is very possible, yes. We can probably arrange something.

George: That would be great, either at the factory or the museum. With the opening of the new museum, many of our members will be in your area of town, and I understand that your people have been very helpful in allowing us to have several tours of your plant, so I am certain that there will be a lot of people around and they would love to see it if possible.

Steve: No Problem... I say no problem; there are some races this summer. If we can get some sponsorship, we would like to go to a couple of races. I just don't know how and when, I cannot afford more, one was enough.

George: Steve, I think Art would like to ask you some technically oriented questions for a few minutes. Then I would like to ask you some questions regarding the production Avantis So, I'll turn the phone over to Art, here he is.

 Art: First, I'll offer my congratulations; I spent several years in road racing myself, and 1 found it pretty difficult to finish a half hour race. I have a tough time imagining finishing 24 hours.

Steve: It's a killer. I'll tell you; it is unbelievable.

Art: Well you have fulfilled led a lot of fantasies for many of us who have been wailing for two decades to see an Avanti be successful in International Racing . It was a long wait but worth it.

Steve: We are not finished. You know, my employees were just so turned on. Those guys got up at six o'clock on Saturday morning and did not go to sleep until 11-12 o'clock Sunday night. They stayed up all night; we change the transmission in the middle of the night. We changed the rear end in the middle of the night. We stopped an oil leak in the middle of the night. We reworked wiring at 6:00 o'clock in the morning. It was kind of dark and it started to rain. As we came around turn 4 towards the start finish line, a Porsche in front of us lost its wheel and tire. The Avanti, just promptly drove right over it. It ripped our headers off, and we had to rebuild the headers at 6 in the morning. I'm so proud of my people  They were just unbelievable.

Art: The glamour factor was exceeding the hard work factor.

Steve: Oh yeah!

Art: In the area of future racing do you think you'll be sticking with IMSA (International Motor Sports Association) or will you be running any SCCA Trans-Am?

Steve: Well we would like to run in SCCA Trans-Am, but they do not want us. They say we do not make enough cars. You guys do not know me - I'm not through with them. I plan to make a little noise.

Art: I hope you are successful Is the Road America IMSA race one that might eventually be on your calendar?

Steve: Elkart Lake Road America is a distinct possibility. Could I call you back. I have a long distance call I have been waiting for. I'll call you back in about 5-10 minutes. (Steve calls back explaining that he had been selling a car).

Steve: You might add in the newsletter that we now own the track lap record for a GTO car at Daytona.

Art: What was that lap time?

Steve: Well, there is some question. We were under the impression that it was 1:48..4 and we have been told that it was 1:47.4; but I believe that it is 1:48.4. I have not received the stuff back from IMSA. (The Official Information)

Art: Do you have any idea what your top speed was on the oval?

Steve: Yes, about 207. This was not for the whole race, of course, We were clocked at 207 at that point.

Art: Why don't you get that thing made legal for NASCAR?

Steve: A couple of people have asked us.

Art: You could take care of your competition real easy; I think
they would be factoring your engine before long.

Steve: Yes.

Art: There was a little bit of confusion on the problems you had
during qualifying in that you got bumped out of your original
grid position.

Steve: It was just that they were messing with us. What happened was that we qualified with the fastest time which was 1:49.8 in qualifying, and they just decided that we had gone too fast. They said that there is no way you could come down here the first time and qualify that fast. We were beating Porsches on the straightaway and stuff like that. So, we had a big fight. We had 6 or 7 protests filed against us.

Art: What were they protesting?

Steve: They said our engine must be illegal. It was actually the combination of our engine and our driver. Joe is a killer; he is a beauty. He knows Daytona; he knows the tri-oval; he knows how to get up near the wall and use the ground effect, and we had basically a ground effect car. We were very fortunate the aerodynamics of the car are still there. Period. And they really showed themselves at Daytona. What happened was they filed this protest.. I said what are we supposed to do? If we would have had a 350 and enlarged it to 388 , we would had to have been heavier than we were. We were too heavy, which was a plus. Well, we did not have a 350, we had a 305, and what they wanted to do was take the motor apart. The way IMSA rules read, they have to post a bond so that if they are wrong, they have to pay to have the motor rebuilt. No competitor would post a bond. So IMSA's Chief Stewart, Charlie Rainville, decided to be a real stickler for detail, so he said "All right, I'll file the complaint." If IMSA files the complaint they do not have to do a thing (Post bond). I said, "Listen, man this is a low bucks effort; I can not take this motor apart."

First of all we rented the qualifying motor. We did not own the qualifying motor. We owned the race motor. The qualifying motor belonged to a short track racer.

Art: Was it a Bo Laws motor?

Steve: Yes. So we got a hold of Bo, and he came over. Bo said, "I'll take the motor apart; the motor is legal; but they have got to pay." He had dyno'd the motor - the qualifying motor is a killer or monster-whatever they call them.

Art: It had in excess of 630 HP of the race motor?

Steve: Yes. It probably had 700 horsepower, but he did it with all kinds of trick carburetion, etc. I do not know what they do; the motor was a real high power sprint car motor. Bo said, "Once you take it apart, I have to take the thing back to the shop, make sure there is no dirt in, rebuild it, and you are going to pay for it." The IMSA guys would not listen. We were between a rock and a hard place.

Art: Did you have to put your race motor in, Steve?

Steve: Yes. larger.

Art: And it qualified at what speed?

Steve: We qualified at 1:50.1.... our first lap was 1:51.4, 1:50.9 and 1:50.1. And they decided that the 1:50.1 was our time. On Thursday qualifying, the first 10 spots are set. They disqualified our Thursday qualifying time, so the best we could ever do was 3rd. GTO pole.

Art: Because they had already two that had qualified Thursday right?

Steve: Yes-and at slower speeds.

Art: But they were still gridded ahead of you because of the day
they qualified?

Steve: Right. So we requalified at that speed, and Rainville came over and said, "I'm sorry." Roger Bailey was the chief technical guy for IMSA. He was a superstar.

Art: I bet he was astonished to see the car there.

Steve: Yes. He is a good guy. He was really trying to help.

Art: Well, you don't do IMSA any harm by going there; that gets them publicity .

Steve: Right.

Art: They ought to pay you appearance money! Specifically, what items on the race car are you considering for production cars?

Avanti "Daytona GTO" outside the factory in South Bend
 Passenger side profile - Collectible Automobile
Vol. 1. No. 1