One of the most revered modifieds of all times is the 707, or "Big Donkey". No matter what iteration, it  holds a spot in the hearts of all of us older modified fans. From its Lincoln engine, in a sedan to the Ford "cammer" in a Pinto it has always been a memorable racecar.

Recently, vintage car owner and long time modified fan Roy Schreffler had the opportunity to spend some time visiting with the creator of those great modifieds, Paul Deasey. What you are about to read are the words of Roy Schreffler as he relates that visit to us.

After so many years have gone by, how is it that I "just now" am discovering a guy named Paul Deasey? It's a long story that started about four years ago. It actually started longer ago than that, somewhere around 1964, at the Nazareth ½ mile dirt track. I didn't realize it then as a young 8 year old boy who loved cars, that history was being made only four miles away from my house on those sultry summer nights when the breeze was blowing just right, and I could lay awake in bed and hear the roar of the cars coming from the
nearby track.

My dad had a friend who bought a brand new 1965 HIPO mustang, and he Drag Raced it at the ½ mile. A couple times we would catch the Modified races before the drags. A year later the guy traded it for a 1966 Fastback HIPO. One particular night during the modified feature I remember hearing the announcer proclaim the leader, Al Tasnady, the whole night. I was about ten, building plastic models of cars and fantasizing about being a driver and mechanic. It didn't help that Grandpa had so many old rusting hulls in his back yard, and they just beckoned me to get in behind the wheel and pretend to be a driver at the track, throwing speed shifts like lightning and making the sound of the open headers with my voice. It didn't matter. Nobody was around to hear me anyway. Grandma used to say to me "You stay away from
those old cars, you're gonna get hurt!" "Yes Grandma, I will". I made sure when I closed the door it wouldn't make a sound! I would stare at the engines all taken apart and wonder what all that stuff did in there.

By 12 I was wrenching on the old hulls. By 14 I was helping to scrap them. I remember my dad taking me to the garage of Hanchick & Lerch, where my eyes beheld the neatest car I had ever seen. It was a red #44 '37 Chevy Coupe sitting there, and I peeked inside. I wondered how the heck the guy ever drove it, sitting in the middle with a hand lever for the brake, and the shifter all bizarre. Boy did I have questions. By 15, I owned my first vehicle, a 1956 Ford F100 pickup, modified quite a bit with stainless steel running boards, chrome stacks, a 283 Chevy engine with an automatic trans. What a ride. I turned 16 in 1972, and started work that year, so I never got the chance to fulfill my passion for dirt track Modified Stock Car racing. I traded the plastic model parts for metal ones and acquired new cars at the same pace as I did the plastic ones; they came and went. Growing up in the muscle car era was pretty neat, and being able to own a classic 1969 Corvette with the 435HP/ 427 with factory side pipes, well, it was a fantasy fulfilled. It had to go when the family needed a new home so I settled for driving Demo Derby for a few years just to stay close to cars, revving engines, gas and clashing metal. That ended and work and family kept me pretty busy.

Then computers and the Internet became the rage, and eBay became a new passion for looking at old iron. Stoked by conversations at work with my friend Dean Frey about those long lost days of roundy-round dirt racing at the local tracks, I was reminded again about the passion I used to have as a kid for those old coupes. Then, in the winter of 2000, on a chance trip to Ollies discount outlet to look at a digital camera, the whole mess started up again. There in the parking lot high up on a rollback, my eyes beheld that sight of the car I saw in the garage of Hanchick & Lerch way back when.

The completely restored Red #44 '37 Chevy Coupe stock car. I waited in the cold until the owner of the rollback came out of the store. We made friends and I went to see the car in it's new home up in Wilkes-Barre, PA. I got bit by the bug bad.

Soon an eager eBay purchase yielded a '37 Coupe fresh from an Iowa cornfield. Then I joined the GSVSCC and NOTARC vintage stock car clubs in New Jersey and things really started to heat up. I found out about the "707" Big Donkey driven by Al Tasnady in 1964, so my next eBay car purchase was a '37 Plymouth 5-window coupe. I didn't have to go so far for that one. I stumbled onto an old Reading Sportsman racer, the P-18, and decided to restore that to fast track me into vintage racing, so I could say that I was one of the last to "race" on Flemington Speedway. Sure enough, I was one of the last on that cold day October 18, 2003. Another eBay score yielded the quintessential coupe body for dirt modified stock cars; a '35/'36 Chevy 5-window coupe, just like the Piscopo #39 cars of the mid to late '60s. And if that isn't enough, a still further eBay score yielded a '37 Ford Slant back, just like Deasey's "Gypsy".

Since starting this journey back into time I couldn't help being drawn to the mystique of Paul Deasey and those two cars with that big number "707" and their special nicknames, the "Big Donkey" and the "Gypsy" and all the famous drivers that piloted them. Who was this car builder, what drove him to build these cars and what was he like? After four years of living history, I got the nerve to pick up the phone and call Paul Deasey. Thanks to some front-end legwork by Joe MacFarlan (www.3widespicturevault.com) I found Paul all the way out in Everett, PA (Bradford County, near the town of Bedford). After a full hour-long conversation and a full sheet of copious note-taking, I remained fascinated by this man. He did not disappoint. Instead, he stoked the fire.

Did I mention that I am a mechanical and electronic engineer myself? I suppose I saw and felt a certain connection to Paul and the things he did which were, and still are considered ahead of their time.

It's six months since I last talked to Paul, and he isn't getting any younger. I felt compelled to go see him before he became another regret in my history book. A neatly timed business trip had me going right near his place, and I called him and set up a time to see him on a Saturday morning. He usually sleeps in now, until 9:30 he tells me. After all, at 79 he needs to get some rest. We made it for 11:00. My son and his girlfriend were also with me, and they agreed ahead of time to give me all the slack I need with Paul. They "listened in", as I described Paul to them as a man with lots of "character". Maybe they would get a glimpse of that. An hour was all I thought I would need, two if it went well.

His directions were a bit vague, and Microsoft Streets & Trips didn't have his rural home and business on the map. "OK", he said. "Past the church, and I'm the third house on the left". There it was, up on the side of a hill with a big 18-wheeler rig out front. Barrels of metal shavings, and over there a sign that validates we made it. "Deasey Machine Tool & Die Inc." I got my digital camera ready. The whine of a turbo diesel slowed down and I wonder if he heard us outside. I heard some faint noises coming from inside, and I motioned to the kids that "he's in here, I think". I entered the unlocked steel door of the shop.

It appeared as though his house is built atop the machine shop. It was dark inside, and I heard voices and the hum of a hydraulic pump, typical of modern CNC machines. I saw two guys near the machine. One guy had half his body in the machine and the other guy listened as the first guy described what will take place when the program runs. They realized we were there, and it became instantly clear that before me stands Paul Deasey. The man that was "in the machine"! He's of moderate build, wearing a flannel type Camo
Jacket and dark blue sweatshirt. Bright and cheery, he gave me a firm handshake. His friend, Tony, greeted us with a big, cautious smile.

To my right I saw a 5x7 framed photo of none other than Stan Ploski in the later 707 with the Ford Cammer motor. Then the questions began, and amazingly they come from all around and from everyone. This was not a one sided Q&A session. Since my son is a trained machinist and also works as an auto mechanic, there was lots for all of us to talk about. Well, except for maybe my son's girlfriend. She just took it all in. She marveled later about how much we all seemed to know and how she didn't understand a single word of it, but she knew that there was some high level stuff being talked about. She pointed out how sharp minded Paul seemed, and his capacity to remember even the smallest details.

We got the grand tour of the place, and found it much larger inside than what it looked like from the outside. Lathes, CNC mills and all the "stuff" you need to do modern machining. We tested each other with little factoids, and we passed. Paul and Tony accepted us as fellow like-minded knowledge base folks. We digressed from modern machining to the history of racing way back in his day. Paul talked about the time Frankie Schneider needed a tire in a hurry, and how Frankie's trailer was so far away it would have been
impossible to get there and back in time to start the race. Paul lent him one off his rack that was closer, and later got beat by Frankie. He went outside to fetch something while we were talking to Tony, and he came back with a set of original fuel injectors off the old 1964 Lincoln motor on the Big Donkey. Yep, the real McCoys. He showed me the finer points of this setup. He told us stories of how he used to get paid by his competitors to set up their fuel injection, only to get beat by them the next race. It didn't matter to Paul. That was racing then and he never minded helping out with this expertise. This made him even better as the bar kept getting raised. Eventually he would do one better and beat the competition again. We digressed again and started talking about what Paul is doing today with his machine shop business. He showed us how he can use his computer 3-D Master Cam software to make his innovative designs come to life. He then says, "Oh, by the way, wait until you see this". He took us over to a corner in the shop and under a blue tarp, which he flipped off he exposed the infamous Ford Cammer engine. It's the real deal folks, and he let me take digital photos of it. My son asked him questions, and more questions, and we get lost in more history. It was unbelievable.

The time just flew by, and we really needed to go but somehow the questions still came, and we get engaged in conversation again and again. We were all over the map. Paul is a simple yet complex person, with a mind that is on a higher plane than most. Even though his eyes are looking at you, his mind is a mile away. He is still the epitome of innovation and creativity after all these years. And his friend Tony is just like him. We share a common type.

As I tried to wrap up by saying "It's time we best get going", we ended up outside and Paul disappeared near a set of trailers. I heard him rooting around in there, and I went over. Inside is a racing museum of stuff he's collected. It isn't neatly arranged. It looks like it has been gone through over the years, and Paul was quick to point out the parts, what they are and what they were for. He then came outside and spotted a set of old tires and wheels under the trailer and pulled them out. He explained that these two setups were from the original 1964 Big Donkey car, and he rolled them to me and said I could have them. Imagine my surprise! I wasted no time getting them situated nicely inside the '37 Ford slant back hull I picked up earlier in Michigan. It must have taken an hour alone just to try and leave the place. We just kept thinking of things to talk about, but we had to get going if we were to get home before dark. So we had to say goodbye, and Paul said we could come back for a visit any time. Paul gave us directions to get back to RT30 and then the turnpike and we headed home. I started to get flashbacks to each conversation I just had with Paul or Tony, and I remembered that Tony said he had taken personal photos during the whole time he had been with Paul as a helper going back to the early '60s up to the present. I started to wonder what kind of treasure trove he must have. We did trade e-mails, and maybe Tony will give me a peek into his "stash" some day.

Thanks to Roy Schreffler for sharing this with us. You can check out the pictures Roy took at Joe MacFarlan's web site (www.3widespicturevault.com).

Reach Scott Pacich at pacich711@cs.com

Note: This article originally appeared in Area Auto Racing News in 4/27/04

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