Ray Nichels (1922 - 2005)

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Just found this in my email.


Ray Nichels passed away Friday, November 25, 2005.
Funeral services are planned for early Tuesday morning, November 29th at Our Lady of Consolation Catholic Church at 8303 Taft Street in Merrillville, Indiana 46410.

Ray is perhaps best remembered for his preparing midgets for Teddy Duncan, Tony Bettenhausen, Johnny Parsons, Paul Russo, Mike O'Halloran and Ray Richards;
for collaborating with Russo on the building of Basement Bessie;
for putting Banjo Matthews on the pole at Daytona and Pat O'conner on the pole at Indianapolis.

Our friend and colleague Len Sutton was part of the Nichels Engineering driving team that also included Rodger Ward, Paul Goldsmith, Fireball Roberts, Joe Weatherly and Marvin Panch.
Volumes can be written about Ray and his drivers.

Ray was THE MAN behind the Pontiac efforts in the late 50's and early 60's, then left GM to handle the Chrysler programs involving the development of the Hemi engine as well as the Dodge Daytona and Plymouth Superbird aero package.

May he R.I.P.
 
Damn lost another great one, i remember some of the stuff he did with the Superbird development, just watched a special about 5 months ago on Speed about it. RIP!
 
I'm not sure if these links will work; you may have to copy and paste or type them into your address line, but I found a little information for the newer fans who may not have heard of Ray or his contributions to auto racing.

http://www.livinglegendsofautoracing...raynichtml.html
http:llwww.livinglegendsofautoracing...aynichtmlB.html

http://www.highperformancepontiac.c...9pon_interview/
http://www.highperformancepontiac.c...1pon_interview/

While they're fairly long articles, they only touch a very few of the highlights of Ray's life.
He taught the legends how it was done!
 
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