[ED FINLEY]

Originally Posted by fines

I love the Manta, because it was one of the more obscure cars! It was maintained by Canadian Frank Weiss at the 16th Street Speedway in Indianapolis, and ran in a black livery with gold lettering (almost like the John Player Specials :lol: ).

Technical info: It had the turbo-charged Drake "Offenhauser" 4-cylinder engine (with Hilborn injection) in the rear, driving through a Hewland 4-speed gearbox. Front suspension was by double-wishbones, rear by top link, lower parallel links and radius rod. Wheel base: 106 inches, front track: 64 inches, rear: 63 inches. Overall length: 179 inches, width: 78 inches, heighth: 38 inches.

Usually, there was no main sponsor, just small decals by Goodyear, Mocal, DieHard, STP, Valvoline and so on, but sometimes it was entered by "Vans by Bivouac" or "1st National Bank". It ran #50 in late 1978 (DNQ at the Phoenix 150, Oct 28) and 1979, driven by Weiss himself and finished 20th (not running, engine) at the Ontario 200 (Mar 25), 8th (22 laps down) at the Milwaukee 150 (Jun 10), 23rd (not running) at the Pocono 500 (Jun 24) and 7th (10 laps down) at the Milwaukee 200 (Aug 12). It qualified last at Ontario (119 % of pole-time!), 12th at the first Milwaukee race (104 %), 18th at Pocono (108 %) and 9th at Milwaukee again (104.6 %). Milt Harper tried to qualify the car for the 1980 Pocono 500, but blew the engine in practice.

Possibly the same car with a Chevrolet engine was run by Ed Finley in 1976, #79. It did not qualify at the Phoenix 150 (Mar 14), finished 13th (29 laps down) at the Trenton 200 (May 2), 15th (25 laps down) at the Milwaukee 150 (Jun 13), did not qualify at the next Trenton meeting (Aug 15), finished 11th (44 laps down) at the Milwaukee 200 (Aug 22) and failed to qualify again at the Michigan 150 (Sep 18). It appeared again, with a Drake engine at the Phoenix 150 in 1977 (Oct 29), again failing to qualify. Before that, the Milwaukee organisers had refused to let it pass scrutineering. In 1978, it did get past scrutineering at Milwaukee, but was crashed by Finley in practice.

The reason for the crash of this car was due to a wing strut that was improperly fastened as bolt hole was stripped due to the head mechanic (Ken Mahoney ) not re-threading the bolt hole and figuring that lock-tight would hold it, which it did until at speed down the front straightaway at Milwaukee when it came out so the rear of the car had no downforce and wing tilted and lifted the car in which I slid across from turn one entry and slammed into the wall at exit of turn two = concussion and very bruised along whole left side of body from shoulder to feet.
Posted by Ed Finley on 16 May 2017