Customer Reviews

We Were the Ramchargers: Inside Drag Racing's Legendary Team

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I was a car nut and amateur drag racer in the late '60s - early '70s, and I was also a MoPar guy, so the Ramchargers, along with Sox & Martin and Dick Landy, were my heroes. I followed them in NHRA's "National Dragster" newspaper and all the car magazines, watched them on ABC's "Wide World of Sports," and even saw them run in person a couple of times (I lived a long way from their base of operations, and we seldom ventured into each other's parts of the world). So, as an old racer and a collector of Chrysler racing memorabilia, I had to have this book. It is beyond my expectations. Not only is it a very personal and detailed account of the Ramchargers car club, its cars, its members and their racing efforts, but it starts with a good account of Chrysler Corporation history, leading up to the formation of the Ramchargers in the '50s and the "golden age" of Chrysler drag racing, which ran roughly from 1962 to 1974. I had not realized how much the Ramchargers were actually responsible for Chrysler's "golden age" and for much else that is now taken for granted in drag racing. If you're an old Ramchargers fan, a MoPar drag racer, a Chrysler Corp. or drag racing history buff, someone nostalgic for the '60s, or a modern-day racer who would just like to know where it all came from, this book is a great read, and it's also full of photos of the men, their machines, and some legendary races.

Dave Rockwell's first-person account of the Ramchargers from beginning to end is, without question, the best book ever written on the subject. Having grown up in the sixties and seen the Ramchargers in action personally, this book is dead-on accurate and should be on every Mopar fan's booklist and coffee table. Was just excellent!

Great book and most importantly all the stories, race results, dates and times are correct. No self serving stories here, just the facts.
MIKE BUCKEL

We Were The Ramchargers: Inside Drag Racing's Legendary Team
by Dave Rockwell

If, as statisticians tell us, there is a 98 percent chance that at least one of the air molecules in your lungs came from Julius Caesar's last breath, then it stands to reason that at least a few of the other air molecules probably passed at one time through one of the Ramcharger's Chrysler Hemi racing engines. This is a humbling thought for us car-centric folks, and especially for drag racing enthusiasts.

The Ramchargers were a group of like-minded young engineers who formed an after-hours racing team to transform Chrysler's stodgy image and make it into a performance brand. From the 1950s through the 1970s, this group of technologists became one of the most successful drag-racing teams in history--winning races, breaking records and bringing home national championships to a manufacturer that was often perplexed about all the fuss.

Dave Rockwell started out as a teenaged kid hanging around the Ramcharger's shop, eventually becoming a full-fledged Ramcharger as he worked his way through college. His book, We Were The Ramchargers: Inside Drag Racing's Legendary Team takes the reader back to the earliest days when a bunch of guys, who liked cars and had the necessary engineering background to understand what they were doing, set in motion a research project that would dramatically change the sport of drag racing. Rockwell, who today is an adjunct professor of clinical psychology at Michigan State University and a practicing psychoanalytic psychotherapist, interviewed more than 40 former Ramcharger teammates, executives, competitors and track operators, and quotes magazine reports of the period in order to explain how the team became so successful.

The book opens with this quote from Walter P Chrysler: "The fun I had experienced in making things as a boy was magnified a hundredfold when I began making things as a man. There is in manufacturing a creative joy that only poets are supposed to know." Rockwell uses the first few chapters of the book to introduce the young men who would become the Ramchargers. He details their childhood interests and the events that brought many of them to the informal gatherings in Chrysler's lunchroom which would eventually result in the formation of a club, and then a racing team.

The irony is that although the Ramchargers worked at Chrysler, primarily as engineers, the company initially had little interest in their activities. Even after the team began having significant success, enough so the company allowed limited use of corporate resources and materials, it was strictly an off-the-clock project. Their activities were often unpopular with the "serious" executives and engineers at Chrysler whose job it was to produce "basic" transportation.

Tom Hoover, a researcher, graduate physicist and one of the original Ramchargers was designated engineering coordinator for performance in 1962 by his bosses at Chrysler. Hoover recalled: "In the long term there would be a price to pay. The old guard doesn't forgive you if you are perceived to stomp on their toes where there may have been doubts as to whether or not they could do it. They have long memories, and generally speaking, they would get you. Certainly this was not going to be a good career move within the company."

Despite, or perhaps because of, the lack of interest by most of Chrysler's upper management the Ramchargers produced a string of innovations that ensured success on the drag strip. Each race was looked at as an opportunity to experiment and further the state of the racing art. So when the team developed tuned intake and exhaust manifolds, or experimented with multi-link suspensions or developed high-stall torque converters, they did so with the cold calculating eye of an engineer. This approach led to consistent success They broke many of the time barriers in drag racing: The first 11-second quarter mile (1963); the first 9-second pass (1965); the first 8-second run (1965); the first 7-second run (1967), and the first 6-second quarter mile pass in 1970.

Rockwell's book is not a lightweight read. He is detailed in his description of men with whom he worked and the passion they felt for drag racing and Chrysler performance. The book is not just about the glory that accompanies victory, but also the hard work, the sacrifice, occasional tragedy, the late nights, the long drives, and the frustrations that any racer will recognize and understand comes with winning. The layout of the large-format 9 x 11 inch 280 page book is dense with text that is broken up with more than 225 black and white photographs and the occasional technical drawing. At the beginning and end of the book is a montage of color photographs. Many of the photos that Rockwell has found have never been published before.

We Were The Ramchargers tells a story that has long been missing from the history of American automobile racing. The fact that this history has been told by the people who shared the hardships and the victories will make it a valuable resource to future car enthusiasts who will wonder how drag racing and the American automobile evolved during the 1960s.

Copyright 2010 Kevin Clemens (speedreaders.info)

The Ramchargers were a group of Chrysler engineers who were also hot rodders who liked drag racing. They had the know how to make Chrysler a champion at the drag strip. I knew a lot about the Ramchargers but learned quite a few things from this book. If you are/were a Ramchargers fan then you've got to read this book. If you are interested in a group of hot rod engineers who made drag racing history then read this book.

This is the best book I have ever read on Chryslers racing program from it's inception in the late 50's through the early 80's. Done in all first hand accounts, makes it live and real with many beautiful pictures along the way. Great book.

as a young boy growing up in australia any information about drag racing was like a bible.i was able read drag world, drag news and national dragster that came to the speed shop.i always looked forward to reading and learn what i could about the ramchargers.with this book i am able to read their story,plus fill in all the gaps.

Very well written. The author is actually one of the Ramchargers. I've recommended this to every car crazy friend and MoPar fan I know.

This book was an absolute dream to read, i felt as if I were a fly on the wall, Dave Rockwell did a fantastic job researching and putting it all on paper. Forget any attitudes, showboating, etc...these guys were the real deal, family men who wanted to get the power to the ground and make it work for them. Honestly, I get the feeling that I missed out being born late, but this book takes me back. a must have for any MOPAR enthusiast !!! 5 stars !!! you'll have hard time putting it down !

Over the last 30 years I have devoured all the information I can find on musclecars in general,Mopars in particular.Vintage books and magazines,new books and magazines.I figured I had,at one point or another,seen and heard all the great stories of the musclecar era...But this book made me realize I hadn't!Every Mopar guy needs the history lessons on Walter P.Chrysler and John and Horace Dodge.I already knew that Tom Hoover was a driving force behind the development of the 426 HEMI.I also knew there were several more instumental enthusiasts involved with the Ramchargers.I didn't realize just how special and devoted a group of guys this was.Tragedy and learning curves,as well as victory and development.You need this book for your Mopar and/or Drag Racing library.The only reason you will want to put this book down is to go out to your garage and wrench on your own old Mopar.Thank You RAMCHARGERS.Extra Care in Engineering.It makes a difference.God bless the old Chrysler Corporation (because God's a HEMI guy!)