As Lake Speed Jr. sees it, if a racer or team owner can qualify for a Hall of Fame, so should those who make them go fast. Speed pounds the drum these days for the newly formed Engine Builder Hall of Fame. Right now, it is a virtual existence, but soon, there will be a physical presence in Lincoln, Neb., at the American Museum of Speed.
“The idea for this came a couple of years ago,” Speed said. “I do a lot of testing out at Ron Shaver’s, Shaver Specialty Racing Engines, and we were sitting in his office at the end of the day, he was saying, ‘This engine builder away recently.”
Speed listened to Shaver reel off a list of accomplishments, and standing in awe of the stats.
“The comment was, ‘It’s so sad that some of these people that played a significant role in our industry, no one knows their story,” Speed said. “If no one captures that story, no one can ever know what impact they had, what legacy they left on the industry.”
Speed holds a special place in his heart for engine builders, and it is showcased in his driving force behind the Engine Performance Expo. A conversation with manufacturer John Callies [Callies Performance] and engine builder Jon Kaase drove him to the importance of memorializing those who create the power on the race track.
“There’s the SEMA Hall of Fame, and that’s great for all the SEMA stuff,” Speed said. “There’s the International Motorsports Hall of Fame, and that’s great for all the motorsports, but there’s nothing specifically for engine builders. So we decided that we would create a 501(c)(3) nonprofit to just focus on engine builders, to memorialize these people that created the industry that we have today.”
The litmus test for the Engine Builder Hall of Fame, Speed adds, is inclusion doesn’t need to be a trophy count. The inaugural class includes Ed Winfield, Harry Miller, Vic Edelbrock, Ed Iskenderian, Ed Pink, Holman & Moody.
“When you won the race, when you won the championship, they gave you a trophy,” Speed said. “That was your reward for that. This isn’t a tally of who has the most trophies. This needs to be like the NFL coaching tree.
“You have all these coaches in the NFL now, and so this guy’s the hot new guy, but if you trace it back, well, he’s in from that Bill Walsh tree, or you’re from the Chuck Noll tree or the Bill Parcells. Those are the guys that had that legacy because whatever they had, they passed it on to the next guy and the next guy and the next guy, and it trickled down.”
Speed said it’s important to define the legendary players in the game.
“We knew we needed to create this litmus test of who are the people that created that impact?” Speed responded. “So, perfect example, we’re sitting at the SEMA MPMC show. The very first person on that list is Harry Miller. A lot of people may not know who Harry Miller is, but without Harry Miller, there’s no SEMA because Harry Miller hired a guy named Ed Winfield, who’s also on that list. Ed Winfield is the guy that taught Ed Iskenderian how to grind camshafts. Without Ed Iskenderian, there is no SEMA.
“Without SEMA, there’s no Media Trade Conference today. So it’s not even the Kevin Bacon, six degrees of separation. We’re at four to get from Harry Miller to us sitting here today. It’s that impact.”
The Engine Builder Hall of Fame is broken down into four different time periods. There’s pre-WW II, postwar, 60s – 70s, and seemingly modern era.
Speed said he would love to get race fans more involved, and the website has a nomination process through their contact us link. Two new inductees will be inducted annually from each time era.
For Speed, being involved in a monumental project means the world to him.
‘I feel honored and overwhelmed that somebody like Scooter [Brothers] would say, “We take it seriously, but also at the same time, I feel like it’s something that had been missing. No one had given guys like Waddell and Ed Pink and these guys the credit they do.
Speed said if not for the support of Comp Cams, Total Seal, UEM pistons and Edelbrock, this dream would have never materialized.
For more information, visit enginebuilderhalloffame.com.
