“This was the first time I...
“This was the first time I ran The Old Master dragster at Fontana in 1965 before we put the nose on the car to shake it down. The next weekend we went to Long Beach and won. From then on, we won almost every time we ran the car.”
For Ed, the end of drag racing came in 1980. He began to see the trends starting to change in 1975-76. They were running the engines harder and sponsorship money was changing everything. “We were doing fewer and fewer engines, but we were selling a few more parts than normal. My main thing, then, was consulting. I spent more time answering people’s questions and getting them out of trouble. I didn’t know how I could charge for consulting. I needed to look someplace else.”
The ’90s took Ed back to his bygone days when he hung out at Vic Sr.’s garage watching and learning from Vic Sr.’s success with his Ford Flathead V8-60-powered Midget. This time it was Ed Pink’s Ford Midget engines that dominated, to include eight United States Auto Club (USAC) Midget Championships with 100 National Event wins and four consecutive Silver Crown Championships.
No question, Ed Pink made his mark in drag racing and was honored for his contributions to the sport in 1995 at the NHRA Hot Rod Reunion at Bakersfield along with Ak Miller and Chris “The Greek” Karamesines.
Ed is not the retiring type. He still puts in an average of 20 hours a week as consultant to Ed Pink Racing Engines. Ed sold the company in 2008 to Tom Malloy.
“If they have a particular engine they haven’t run before on the dynamometer, they’ll bring me in to get it sorted out. I’m kind of a fireman, a troubleshooter. They’re taking advantage of all the experience I have. They’re plugging me into areas they need my expertise in. There will come a time when they won’t need me anymore.”
Ed, you weren’t called “The Old Master” at an early age because it sounded catchy, you were called that because you were. The passing years have given that name new meaning. As long as there is Pink Racing Engines there will be Ed Pink walking through that door.
That’s Lou Baney with his...
That’s Lou Baney with his back to the camera. Now you don’t expect a Ford dealer to have a Chrysler Hemi in his dragster, do you? But that’s not just any Ford, it’s a mighty SOHC Ford and politely Ed and Prudhomme, two staunch Mopar guys, went along with it.
“That’s Edelbrock’s dyno I’m...
“That’s Edelbrock’s dyno I’m using. Vic Sr. put a new dyno into their place and had the dyno that’s in the photo put to one side. Vic Sr. said to me, ‘You need to have a dyno. We’re going to lend you a dyno and put it in your shop.’ We had it for a couple of years until I could afford to buy one like they had. If you were honest with Vic Sr. whatever you needed he would do for you. He was responsible for helping me in my early years because I was starting out with nothing.”
“We have so many engines we’re...
“We have so many engines we’re doing here we have a library of camshaft profiles … but it takes common sense. You take what the engine will be used for, what rpm, how much compression, what kind of car it’s going in, what it weighs, what gear ratio, until you know everything about that engine. Then you figure out exactly what you need for a camshaft. I do the same thing with pistons, piston rings. I’ve been doing this for a lot of years, taking advantage of all the experience I have, always learning the hard way, making mistakes. They’re plugging me into the areas they need my expertise in. All 31 people who are working here, I’ve hired. The engineer has been here 31 years.