Raymond's Site

Big truck! Big truck is 1958 Dodge W300 Power Wagon for sale on Hemmings.com. Big truck has four-wheel drive! Big truck has Isuzu diesel! Big truck has mechanical rebuild complete. Big truck come with headache rack. Big truck has look of turn-of-century boxer from Bowery or Five Points. Big truck maybe need some rust issues addressed. No, big truck need no rust issues addressed! Big truck perfect just as is. From the seller’s description:

I’m driving this truck daily around town; runs great and starts right up even in cold weather. I’ve currently invested about $20,000 in this truck. Mechanical work includes but is not limited to brand new fuel injection pump, rebuilt water pump, rebuilt steering column, completely rebuilt all four brakes, rebuilt 4-wheel drive. Cleaned out and restored both fuel tanks, brand new tires. Repaired all electrical work.

Both doors had significant rust and I have purchased new doors which currently being painted; new glass is also being cut for the new doors. Original wood bed still intact but new wood on order to replace. Minor rust in the floor inside the cab and around one small section under the windshield. I will be addressing these issues next and painting the whole truck one piece at a time.

Ray Evernham. Photo courtesy The Elegance at Hershey.

Ray Evernham may be best known to racing fans as Jeff Gordon’s long-term crew chief, or for his role in leading Dodge back into NASCAR as a team owner in 2001, or even for his role as the star of Velocity’s Americarna, a show created in collaboration with long-time friend Rick Hendrick. We know him best as a vintage hot rod fan, rolling up his sleeves (and the cuffs of his jeans) to run in vintage hot rods at The Race of Gentlemen, or more recently, to support his wife Erin Crocker Evernham at the 2015 Race of Gentlemen. Attendees at next year’s The Elegance at Hershey will get to know Ray in a new role, as he’s been selected as Grand Marshall for the 2016 event.

Ray’s early ambitions were to be a driver, but he soon found that his true talent was as a crew chief and driver manager. In 1990, he worked for a time as a chassis specialist for an up-and-coming driver named Jeff Gordon, and in 1992 Ray joined Hendrick Motorsports as Jeff’s crew chief. The paring produced a Winston Cup Rookie of the Year award for Jeff in 1993, and Winston cup Championships for the team in 1995, 1997 and 1998.

In 1999, Ray became a team owner, and the following year ran a limited Winston Cup schedule with driver Casey Atwood behind the wheel of a Ford. Around the same time, the Evernham Motorsports team was approached by Daimler Chrysler to lead Dodge’s return to NASCAR racing after an absence lasting almost two decades (Arrington Racing had last campaigned a Dodge Mirada in Winston Cup in 1982). In less than 18 months, Ray and his team developed an engine, a car and the parts distribution system necessary to bring Dodge back to stock car racing’s highest level. In February of 2001, driver Bill Elliott delivered a pole-position start and a fifth-place finish for Evernham Motorsports at the Daytona 500, a race sadly overshadowed by the death of Dale Earnhardt.

Ray stepped down from his role as a team owner in 2010, selling the last of his stake in Evernham Motorsports (then Gillett Evernham Motorsports) to Petty Enterprises. He didn’t remain idle for long, rejoining Hendrick Motorsport as a consultant in 2011. In the years since, Ray has been a television commentator for NBCSN, covering NASCAR, and for Discovery and Velocity, covering Barrett-Jackson auctions. There’s Americarna, too, and in his spare time, Ray designs and builds custom cars like For-Ply, a 1964 Plymouth Belvedere restomod exhibited at SEMA in 2012. As this 2014 video demonstrates, he’s also an avid car collector, with a passion for Mopars and vintage racing cars.

Steve Moskowitz, The Elegance board member, said of the selection, “We chose Ray not only for his great appreciation of fine automobiles and all forms of automobile racing, but because he is a “car guy” in every sense of the word. Ray is one of those people you instantly like and is the type of person we want to honor. We are most appreciative that he has taken time out of his busy schedule to join us for the weekend.”

The 2016 Elegance at Hershey will take place from June 10-12, 2016, on the grounds of the Hotel Hershey in Hershey, Pennsylvania. For additional details, visit TheEleganceAtHershey.com.

Photos courtesy Gilmore Car Museum.

Donald Gilmore didn’t even care much for old cars before he retired, but his wife, Genevieve, figured he needed something, anything, to keep him busy after a long career in business, and decided an old Pierce-Arrow would do the trick. It did, and that Pierce-Arrow, in turn, led to the formation of the Gilmore Car Museum in Kalamazoo, which will celebrate its upcoming 50th anniversary with a retrospective of Donald Gilmore’s cars and life.

If any structure can be considered the progenitor of the Gilmore Car Museum, it’s the surplus Army tent that Donald Gilmore stored the Pierce-Arrow under after Genevieve bought it for him in 1963. That car, as Jim Donnelly explained in his profile of the couple in the November 2013 issue of Hemmings Classic Car, led to others, and that tent led to first a purpose-built three-car garage and then to a larger shop and display room on 90 acres he bought specifically for his growing old car hobby.

By 1966, the Gilmore collection had grown to 45 cars and the couple decided it was time to create a museum and non-profit dedicated to the cars. He bought three barns from the area, dismantled them, and had them reassembled on the 90-acre property specifically to house the collection and opened the museum on July 31 of that year. Donald continued to enjoy his museum for another nine years, and since then the museum has added a number of other structures to house partner museums dedicated to Pierce-Arrows, Full Classics, Franklins, Ford Model As, Lincolns, and Cadillacs and LaSalles.

To celebrate, the museum has announced a special exhibit dedicated to the cars of Donald Gilmore, an exhibit which presumably would include that 1920 Pierce-Arrow, as well as an overview of the museum’s 50-year history as part of the museum’s third annual lecture series. The 2016 lecture series, which has yet to be finalized, will begin on January 10. The exhibit on Donald Gilmore’s cars will begin this winter. For more information, visit GilmoreCarMuseum.org.

The Replicarz 1/18 scale 1967 STP Paxton turbine. Photos by Mark Fothergill, courtesy Replicarz, unless otherwise noted.

With driver Parnelli Jones in the cockpit, the STP-sponsored, turbine-powered number 40 Indy Car ran in the lead throughout much of the 1967 Indianapolis 500, until the failure of a $6 bearing cost Jones a near-certain victory. You can’t own the original 1967 STP-Paxton Turbine Indy Car, which was donated to the Smithsonian Institution by STP and is on semi-permanent loan to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum, but thanks to Vermont’s own Replicarz, you’ll soon be able to buy a stunning 1/18 scale model.

According to Andy Granatelli, only the wheels and the car’s Pratt & Whitney turbine engine were produced by outside vendors, in order to keep the revolutionary race car secret as long as possible. Despite its think-outside-the-box engineering, the car’s turbine engine, offset driver position, air brake and Ferguson four-wheel drive were all within the scope of the 1967 USAC rulebook, and few took the car as a serious threat during practice and qualifying. On pole day, Jones could average no more than 166.075 MPH, good enough for sixth on the grid but nearly three MPH slower than pole sitter Mario Andretti, who managed an average of 168.982 MPH.

Parnelli Jones at Indianapolis in 1967. Photo courtesy Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

The 1967 race began on a Tuesday, under cloudy skies. Andretti led from the green flag, but only into turn one, when a surprisingly quiet but blindingly fast red car, carrying the number 40 in a black meatball, swept past on the outside. Jones had shot from sixth to first in less than the length of a straight, and after averaging an opening lap of 154 MPH, quickly began to grow his lead on the field. A spin on lap three would again bunch the field, but it was rain that brought a halt to the race on lap 19.

Detail of the Pratt & Whitney turbine. Photo courtesy Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

The next-day restart began with little drama, but on lap 52 Lee Roy Yarbrough, who’d spun on lap three during the previous day, washed the back end a second time, collecting race leader Jones in the process. Despite the contact, both cars were able to continue, but Jones’s day nearly ended again on lap 80, when he pulled from the pits with a fuel hose still attached to the turbine car. Luckily, the mishap didn’t result in a fire, and Jones was able to rejoin the field without a significant delay.

Crashes or mechanical failures claimed many of the pre-race favorites, including Dan Gurney, Mario Andretti, and Gordon Johncock. It was Johncock’s spin on lap 193 that brought out the race’s penultimate yellow flag, erasing the near-full-lap lead that Jones had built over second place A.J. Foyt. With a mere four laps remaining, Jones lost power in the turbine car and rolled to a halt near pit in, his race over. Scored with completing 196 laps, Jones would finish in sixth position, ironically the exact same position in which the car qualified.

The performance of the turbine car drew the attention of USAC officials, and the rules regarding turbine-powered cars were re-written for the 1968 running of the Indianapolis 500, significantly limiting their performance. Despite this, Andy Granatelli returned with the turbine-powered Lotus 56, while Carroll Shelby initially entered turbine-powered cars of his own, withdrawing the (potentially illegal) entries following the death of Lotus 56 driver Mike Spence in practice on May 7. Granatelli’s Lotus 56 turbines, driven in the race Art Pollard and Joe Leonard, performed surprisingly well up until laps 188 and 191, respectively. Both cars retired with a snapped fuel shaft, and with little fanfare, the era of the turbine car at Indianapolis had come to an end. The cars were banned outright by USAC for the 1969 race.

As the car that ushered in a legitimate threat to convention at the Brickyard, Andy Granatelli’s 1967 STP-Paxton Turbine Indy Car deserves a permanent position in American racing history. From the photos we’ve seen of the Replicarz model, the level of detail is stunning, down to the ST6B-62 turbine beneath the removable engine cover, the aluminum monocoque hidden behind the nose cone, the glass-faced gauges and even the accurate wiring and plumbing. At $249.99 it isn’t inexpensive, but for fans of Indy Car history, it’s a price worth paying. Preorders are being accepted now, with deliveries expected to begin in the first quarter of 2016. Visit Replicarz.com to learn more.

Here’s the latest installment of “Key Tweets,” a weekly post that summarizes some of my tweets (or retweets) from the week, including pictures and other fun stuff. Follow me @MarkGraban and join the fun and the conversation. See the previous installments of Key Tweets here.

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Your pie chart is broken pic.twitter.com/AgXjkfPrW5

— Mark Graban (@MarkGraban) December 7, 2015

Free webinar — “Lean Thinking in an Academic Medical Center — The Beat Goes On” https://t.co/5MEFBYsaZX

— Mark Graban (@MarkGraban) December 7, 2015

This is as crazy as asking hospital CEOs to vote on a "best hospitals" list https://t.co/ubjyMueYUh

— Mark Graban (@MarkGraban) December 7, 2015

How a Cultural Transformation Can Advance #PatientSafety https://t.co/O2FmewoTTA

— Mark Graban (@MarkGraban) December 7, 2015

I have 500 subscribers now on my YouTube channel – check it out & subscribe #lean #kaizen https://t.co/8iuIHrn2PJ

— Mark Graban (@MarkGraban) December 7, 2015

Toyota has shifted to "andon buttons" when it works better & makes sense. Time to revisit the shadow board? https://t.co/S6f8SP2DzG

— Dan Markovitz (@danmarkovitz) December 7, 2015

My grandpa is in a rehab hospital. He correctly predicted "As soon as I doze off, they will wake me." Yup. What would you like for dinner?

— Mark Graban (@MarkGraban) December 7, 2015

Nice Video — Quality Improvement in Healthcare https://t.co/KkuIAOLlei via @YouTube #Deming #Berwick #Lean

— Mark Graban (@MarkGraban) December 7, 2015

You have the right to not pay for care not provided. Imagine that!! @ePatientDave pic.twitter.com/hcmjWT7O8A

— Mark Graban (@MarkGraban) December 7, 2015

Look whose material we just ran into at @TheIHI #IHI27Forum @MarkGraban pic.twitter.com/p7EDzmc2xa

— Louise Batz PSF (@batzpatientsafe) December 8, 2015

#27Forum "It is cruel to show improvement data without giving the knowledge and tools to close those gaps." @maureenbis

— Lori Fannin (@Lori_Fannin) December 8, 2015

Leaders must spend time w/ frontline docs, #nurses “Farther you get frm the bedside, the fuzzier the pic gets” M.Leonard #27Forum #ptsafety

— SusanCarr (@SusanCarr) December 7, 2015

Rehab hospital was supposed to refill my grandpa's portable O2 tank overnight. Didn't happen. Slowed us down getting him to MD appointment

— Mark Graban (@MarkGraban) December 8, 2015

This seems fussy. They don't want patients to be late. But don't be too early. Have never seen a sign like this. pic.twitter.com/dH4LzMdKzb

— Mark Graban (@MarkGraban) December 8, 2015

Our @KaiNexus customers set such a great example. Collectively implement employee ideas 75% of the time. Far better than suggestion boxes.

— Mark Graban (@MarkGraban) December 8, 2015

Coming in the spring of 2016. 3rd revised edition of my book. https://t.co/9wYZEUrGyV #lean

— Mark Graban (@MarkGraban) December 8, 2015

Weird pathology lab company slogan on their van: "We take it personally."

— Mark Graban (@MarkGraban) December 8, 2015

Welcome Bruce Hamilton ("toast guy") to Twitter — @oldleandude #lean

— Mark Graban (@MarkGraban) December 8, 2015

Data over time (run charts) is important, but make sure you don't response to common cause variation inherent w/ any process #lean #27Forum

— Isaac B. Mitchell (@IsaacMitchell) December 8, 2015

Expected cover for the upcoming 3rd edition of my book @LeanHospitals #Lean https://t.co/iM7RXIgial pic.twitter.com/5IVzj2Fhqt

— Mark Graban (@MarkGraban) December 8, 2015

What is care other than patient-centered or person-centered? Better late than never? pic.twitter.com/oG7mkphqH7

— Mark Graban (@MarkGraban) December 8, 2015

Good principles – respect, listening to others, autonomy. The best of what healthcare should be. pic.twitter.com/dWufnPAdZD

— Mark Graban (@MarkGraban) December 8, 2015

The one thing Bush and Clinton agree on: where to get campaign hats. https://t.co/WLHzaiUcZS via @slate

— Mark Graban (@MarkGraban) December 9, 2015

Fine, @washingtonpost, I won't read your paper after all. The Xs don't work. pic.twitter.com/I9vnJRM1u9

— Mark Graban (@MarkGraban) December 9, 2015

The RN world of alarm fatigue, "We are only truly alarmed when no alarms are going off." #27Forum

— Isaac B. Mitchell (@IsaacMitchell) December 9, 2015

The system is designed by doctors for doctors. The rest of us are sheep. https://t.co/r2Q0D3JUPV

— Paul Levy (@Paulflevy) December 9, 2015

Yes, then no: “The only way #lean works is if you can get all the workers to buy in… only way is with rewards. ” https://t.co/aFDJS26J9F

— Mark Graban (@MarkGraban) December 10, 2015

“health care expenditures at high-pressure companies are nearly 50% greater than at other organizations.” https://t.co/gF6gWoqxRx #lean

— Mark Graban (@MarkGraban) December 10, 2015

769 improvements implement this year, $148k in cost savings (plus other benefits), shared by @kielrosser – #lean pic.twitter.com/OjUQuvq0DC

— Mark Graban (@MarkGraban) December 10, 2015

"We're haunted by suggestion boxes" says Ron Smith from @MaryGreeley. "Monthly review is way too slow." They are now improving DAILY.

— Mark Graban (@MarkGraban) December 10, 2015

"Our goal is to engage every employee" in some form of improvement activity @MaryGreeley, says @kielrosser. #Kaizen #lean

— Mark Graban (@MarkGraban) December 10, 2015

“Targets and goals are meaningless if both levels of government don't address the roots of the problems ” https://t.co/x17rOALdw6

— Mark Graban (@MarkGraban) December 10, 2015

"How is the "Toyota Effect" Helping Factories, Hospitals, and Non-Profits?" by @MarkGraban on @LinkedIn https://t.co/haYalWvZQT #Lean

— Mark Graban (@MarkGraban) December 11, 2015

Do they mean #Lean Sigma or #SixSigma? No wonder there is such confusion pic.twitter.com/DlZc667PMI

— Mark Graban (@MarkGraban) December 11, 2015