Another Visit With Steve TruchanBy: RacerRich Photos by Gary Gasper (January 2, 2010) - Just about five years ago I was fortunate to make a visit to Steve Truchan’s machine shop in Gary where he restores race cars in his spare time. Steve was most gracious with his time that day and showed me the cars he was currently working on. When I left him then he had told me to come back anytime. I really didn’t think it would take this long for a return visit to Steve’s shop but unfortunately our busy life has kept us from making a second trip to see what Steve has been doing …..Until today. I mentioned doing this adventure with our RaceStar photographer, Gary Gasper and he was in total agreement to making the trip with me. We contacted our popular Shadyhill Speedway flagman, Steve Parkes who is a very close friend of Steve’s and he arranged our visit. On our arrival we were greeted by both Steve’s, along with some other guys that would become new friends. Meeting Roger Goodan, Jim Tauber and Rene Vasquez for the first time and during short conversations with them they told us they were “Steve’s Pit Crew.” We also met Paul Mollick who told about his racing days a number of years ago. Paul drove stock cars at numerous tracks throughout the Midwest and did some ASA racing. We were delighted to see a friend of Gary’s at the shop this day. Gary had recently done a story and photo session with Chuck Alm. Chuck is known as ‘The Patch Man’ since he has a collection of racing patches and decals that are now nearing 1600 in number. (See Story & Photos on RaceStar) Since Gary knew Chuck, they had some good conversation time together. It was my pleasure to get in a good visit with Chuck and we agreed that we should get together in the near future so that I could see his collection in person. Please remember Chuck, it took me five years to get this return visit in, but hopefully we can work out something soon.
Well, we were here to see what Steve had been doing with his restoration hobby. He definitely has been busy as he has many more cars now than he did during my first visit. While some of the guys were removing dust covers and rolling them around for Gary’s camera, Steve started telling about his prized possessions. His latest addition is a former Super Modified #21 that he recently finalized with his paint job. This car was originally built by Wally Meskowsky and Paul Leffler.
(Rollover image above for another view) Next we see a #54 Champ Dirt Car formerly owned by Ronnie Ward who was Rodger’s brother.
Then we are told about the #2 Indy Car Roadster owned and built by Steve’s Dad, Steve, Sr. The car has the 1st 16 valve 220 C.I. Miller engine in its front compartment. While driving for another owner, Steve, Sr. passed his Rookie’s test at the Speedway in 1946. A few of his better races show that he had a 3rd place finish at Springfield, a 2nd place finish at Atlanta and also had a 4th place finish at Langhorne.
Sitting close by is another #2 that was owned by Shorty Cantlin and built by Clyde Adams. This car also has a 16 valve 220 C.I. Miller engine in it and this engine finished 2nd in the Indy 500 in 1932. Steve, Sr. drove this car to a Sprint Car win in 1941 at the famous Jungle Park ½ mile track. The guys had rolled out a #14 Foyt rear engine Indy Car that Steve was working on during our first visit to his shop. A very neat race car and the only rear engine vehicle he has in his collection.
Steve still has his #94 Silver Crown Car that he entered in some of the Silver Crown races in 1988 and 1989. Our flagman, Mr. Parkes had driven this car in the Hoosier Hundred at the Indiana State Fair Grounds one mile dirt track in ’88. By now Steve, who is also a mechanic, had excused himself to go get a friend’s car started on this very cold morning in northwest Indiana. Mr. Nimetz had driven the car at the Hoosier Hundred and at the one mile Springfield dirt track in ’89. He was very happy to have Gary take his picture with the car. Other drivers that drove the car for Steve were Ed Lynch, Jeff Bloom, Rich Vogler, Steve Kinser, Jim Keeker, Danny Milburn and Tony Elliott.
As we were touring the cars, of course different ones were telling racing stories. Steve told a good one that I really liked. He had Whitey Gerkin driving his stock car at Illiana and he told that the car was equipped with some pretty competent brake pads. When Whitey came in from hot laps, one wheel was smoking badly and when they checked for the problem they found the brake pad completely destroyed. Whitey told them to just clamp off the brake line and he’d run with three wheel brakes. After the heat race, which he won, they found another brake pad totally wore out. Again they decided to clamp the brake line for that wheel so now he only had two wheel brakes to run the feature. Whitey won the feature and when he returned to the pits he had no brakes at all. Steve asked him, what are you doing to wear out these big brake pads we had? Whitey told them he wasn’t backing off the throttle entering the turns so he had to really stand on the brakes to get it slowed down. They all had a big laugh over this, just as our group did after hearing this colorful story.
As we moved along we see a #1 Boyle Products Special that was built in 1931. Bill Cummins drove the car to the 1934 National Championship. Russ Snowberger owned the car for about ten years starting in 1937. During this time Louie Unser won the Pikes Peak Hill Climb in 1939-40 and 41 in this car. Later the car was bought by Lou Rasse who had Frank Werne drive it and the car was last raced in 1947. Steve eventually bought the car from John Snowberger, Russ’ Son.
(Rollover image above and below for other views)
Next we see a #94 Indy type roadster that had been raced as a Super Modified around 1964. Beside it is a #1 Sheraton Thompson Special Foyt Dirt Car from 1968. A.J. won a lot of races with this car.
Last in line is Steve’s next challenge. It’s the #0 Todd Gibson ‘Flintstone Flyer.’ Steve will soon be working on this car to make it the newest restored vehicle in his collection.
After returning the cars back to their original spots and putting the dust covers back on them we enjoyed some more conversations. Gary and I were preparing to leave since Steve is busy running a business and we didn’t want to wear out our welcome. Like my last visit, Steve shared a lot of time with us and we really appreciate his hospitality.
(Rollover image above for alternate view) Getting to meet our new friends from this day and spending some time with our friends, the two Steve’s mentioned throughout this article, made it an even better adventure than we had anticipated. I’ll always believe that racing is the ‘Greatest Sport in the World’ and one of the best parts of it is the friends we make along the way. This was a fun morning that both Gary and I enjoyed. There is no way we can do justice to Steve’s hard labor of love on restoring these race cars. However, we both hope that we can give a glimpse to our RaceStar friends, through our words and pictures, the enjoyable visit we had at Steve Truchan’s machine shop. UPDATE TO THIS STORY
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Our
flagman’s way of introducing the final guy we were meeting,
was to say that he was one of the best drivers ever at the Crown Point
Speedway. He was talking about John Nimetz (photo on left), who I
had watched race on a few occasions but had never met before. Actually
John knew more about me since two of his close friends, .JPG)
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As
we continued to admire the cars on display, Steve tells about one
of George Walther’s Dayton Steel Wheel Specials. The #77 Indy
Roadster was originally built by Gordon Schroeder and like all of
Steve’s cars, he has done a beautiful job of restoring it. The
car raced in the Indy 500 in 1951 and 1954. Elmer George was the last
driver for this car as he raced it in some of the 1955 races.
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