TVR: Do you remember when and where you saw your first race?
Lynn: I don't. But, I was born and raised 4 miles from Williams Grove. My Dad had a garage and an auto court (motel) on the way to the Grove, the last one. So, I saw the racers... I can't really tell you the first race that I attended. I was addicted to it at a very young age.  

TVR: At what point did you know you wanted to get involved and how did you accomplish that?
Lynn: Well, again, my father had the garage and the racers use to stop there, on the way. They use to stay at the auto court. I remember Joie Chitwood's Thrill Show stayed there. Of course, when you're a young kid you want to be a cowboy when you grow up, but I knew right away I didn't want to be a cowboy. I wanted to be a race car driver. These guys were bigger than life and they seemed like they lived life to the fullest. And, I was car crazy because of my father's influence, so... so it was just a natural. That's what got me very interested in it. Probably, when they put me in the ground I'll still be interested in it. 

TVR: What was your first ride?
Lynn: It was a mechanic's race at Silver Springs. I, at the time, was helping Fred Putney on his Class A Sportsman over there. At the end of the year, they'd have what they call a mechanic's race. Ree Smith was the head mechanic in 1960. He had run the car in the previous mechanic's race, flipped it and tore it all up. They kept the car at my shop, by the way. 

The next year, Fred had gone real well with the car. The particular night they had the mechanic's race, Smitty was not there for some reason. He had some family thing that he had to go to. Fred had not finished well in the race and was not happy about it. I had bugged him about who was going to run in the mechanic's race. So finally out of I think pure tired of hearing it... "Take the car out in the mechanic's race."   

I remember there's about 15,16 cars and it's probably about a 10 lap race. I went out and ran 2nd, behind an ex-driver who had been a mechanic who had driven for a number of years. I was real proud of myself. But, I must have really scared the hell out of everybody, because when I came in, none of the other crew would talk to me, Fred wouldn't talk to me... but at that particular point I knew that... I knew I was going to have to work on the cars, but I knew that wasn't my final goal in life. My goal was I had to drive the car. And, you know, things led from there. That was 1961.

TVR: And then? 
Lynn: They started a hobby class at Silver Springs. Then, later on they ran them once a week at Williams Grove. It was a claiming race. Claiming meant you had to sell your car for $129. It paid $25 to win the feature. Me and the neighbor, Dick Bair, bought this '47 Ford. We put it together with an old flathead in it... old, used parts. Dick helped on the car, so we took turns driving it. One week I'd drive it and the other week he'd drive it. It was kinda funny. Dick was a little more particular than I was. The week I would drive it, we'd sit on the car to watch the Sportsman feature. Of course, the week Dick would drive it, nobody was allowed to sit on the car because it was his ride. So, that's where we got our start.

From there, we went pretty good with the car. I wanted to move up, into Sportsman. I had a friend, Rod Brenneman, who... him and I had old cars together and everything. He went to Cumberland Valley High School, I was going to Mechanicsburg High School. We were good friends. His father had an old Class A Sportsman, which is what Fred was running, that was kind of... they had quit running. Jack Wentz had run it. It was the #88 Locust Point Quarry Special. It was sitting over there and hadn't been run for a year or two. So we talked Forrest Brenneman, Rod's father, into letting us run the car once a week at Silver Springs... which we did. We had a great time, It was the end of I think probably 1962. 

Over the winter months, I'm sorry to say, a freak accident at the quarry claimed his life. His father was devastated, as everybody was. We all were. I remember, I went to his father the beginning of the very next year to find out what they were gonna do with the car. Since Rodney and I had such a good time with it, he sold me the car at some ridiculous low price. I didn't have the money. I remember borrowing the money, part of it anyway, to pay for it. You gotta remember, I was just starting a garage business and I didn't have a lot of extra bucks to throw, as my father said, foolishly down the drain. I think the only reason that my father lent me the money, he looked at the value. I mean, if I did nothing with it, I could sell it and I could have tripled or quadrupled my money. Mr. Brenneman knew that wasn't my intent. I wanted to go racing. 

So, we ran that car and umm... it didn't handle as... I found out real quick it wasn't a winning car. But, we went out, ran the Grove with it. They ran sportsman, or these flatheads there on Tuesday or Wednesday night. They were running like 5 nights a week at the Grove. They ran Drag races, sportsman and, you know, different things. So, we went well. We finished in the top 5 against competition that had much better equipment than we did and much more experience. So, we went well and of course we wanted to move up. 

So, I got a chance to buy an old '32 Ford. It wasn't a Class A, it was a modified. It had an overhead in it. It was originally one of the #77 cars that Billy Gettle had, oh... a lot of guys drive. I know Leroy Felty, it was his ride. Then later on, Johnny Lux had bought the car and put a #61 on it. It had a 312 Ford in it and it was Bobby Gerhart's first competitive ride. Of course, then he moved on to bigger and better things and the old carcass was sitting down in Lebanon. So, I went down and bought the thing and drug it home and stuck a rear end in it. I didn't have an engine. I had a Corvette at the time, a '59 Corvette with a 327 that I thought was pretty good. So, I took the engine out of the Corvette and stuck it over in the racecar. I remember going to Selinsgrove the first time, running this overhead. I remember going out, we got there late and I went out. The first time I got on it down the front straightaway, I about spun out right on the front straightaway. I thought, "Oh Boy!" It had more power than that old flathead I was use to running. Within the next couple of weeks, I learned the cold, hard facts. I blew the rear, had no money to put in it. Then, I blew the motor. So now there I was... trying to get a business going, didn't have a passenger car 'cause I'd taken the motor out if it and the racecar was broke. I was pretty low ebb at that particular time. 

At the time, I was still helping Fred Putney and he had landed a ride in Hank's Auto Parts car. Harold Hank had a junkyard down in Etters. He took a liking to me and when he saw that I was kinda down and out, he took care of me. He helped me with a rear end and helped me with a motor. If I couldn't pay for something right away, he understood that. If it wouldn't have been for him helping me, I probably wouldn't have survived that year. But, when I needed help, they kinda came along and helped me. We went pretty decent with the car. At the end of the year, I remember Fred got canned, out of the car for one reason or another. At that point I thought I had all the experience, you know... I was a "young gun". So, I went up to Hank and said, "Hank... If you're looking for a driver, I'm your man." You know, I'll go hard and stuff. So... I teamed up with Hank and we went well. But, he wanted to win and we didn't win. We had opportunities but we either had mechanical failure, or young driver brain fade, one of the two. In essence, I ended up getting canned out of that car. But... I gained a lot of experience.

So, then I ended up... At that particular time, it was during Viet Nam. I was 1-A. I was about ready to be drafted. If I was drafted, I'd of had to leave for 3 years and that would have killed my business. I got in the Air National Guard, but I still had to leave for a period of time. I think it was in '65 and I had to leave early in the year. Till I got back (6 months later), I had a brand new CAE racecar. Ree Smith, who use to help Fred, he ended up having the CAE racecar and bought a couple of Holman and Moody Fords. So, I ended up jumping in that. The next 3 years we were a threat to win most anywhere and we went real well. That took us through '65, '66 & '67. 

At the end of '67, we were winning... well, we were going well. We were considered, you know, if somebody picked 5 guys, we would be one of them that would be there to win. I remember at that particular time I use to like hockey too. We'd go down and watch the Hershey Bears. I ran into Shorty Emrich, plus at the races. He had two grandsons who loved racing and he was raising them. I use to spend some time talking with them. Little did I ever expect... here I am driving a Ford and he has a Chevrolet dealership. Of course, staying with Smitty and working on his racecar was Kenny Weld, who's going real good and his car is Chevy powered. I'm driving a Ford and you'd think... at the end of '67, we didn't have a lot of money and we were going to need some help. So, Emrich said, "Come and see me." So, I went to see him and I know Kenny had talked to him. Kenny's personality off the race track sometimes, you know... he's a very competitive person, a tremendous racer. But, sometimes his personality turned some people off. Apparently, I was lucky enough that the grandkids liked me and they really didn't care for Kenny. It had nothing to do with his ability, it just had to do with that. So, here we were driving a Ford and we're going to be sponsored next year by a Chevrolet dealer and poor Kenny couldn't believe it. Here he ended up driving for Don Rice (a Ford Dealer). Quite a deal.

Bobby Allen came on the next year. Emrich, Bobby and I had a good team right up to '75, when Emrich was really in ill health. 1975 is when I got acquainted with Al Hamilton. He actually bought out my half. He ran his regular car and he bought out my half of the Emrich deal. We ran that, very successfully. In '76, I thought I was going to drive for Hamilton, but we had a little difference of opinion when it came down to who was gonna pull the wrenches. I was gonna bring Ralph Heintzlman along and umm... he just wanted Joe and I wanted them both. So, we split at that point and I had no ride. 

Ralph and I put a car together that we were gonna sell and that's when Maynard Boop came along as a sponsor. Nobody knew, but in '76 actually, I owned the car. Boop just... believe it or not, he was a major sponsor... $5,000 for the year. We won 16, 17 races that year. Didn't race every race... didn't race every race at the Grove because it was tough making money. We ran a limited schedule, probably 50 or 60 races. But, we won 17 which is a pretty good percentage. Mr. Boop wanted to race more and I didn't want to travel to Florida and things like that because I had my business going pretty good. I ended up selling out the end of that year. Kramer (Williamson) ended up driving the car the next year in Florida. Everybody drove it. Now you got Kramer, Toby (Tobias), Mitch (Smith)... that's the 312 era. At the end of the year, I came back and drove the car also. Actually, I went with Benchoff that year. Kind of a part-time retirement try deal, which didn't work very well. So, I came back and we raced in '78... didn't have a good year at all. 

But, Mr. Boop still wanted to go, so I decided that I was just gonna clean the slate. We were gonna buy the best car we could get and hire the best mechanic. Hence, that's when I got hooked up with Davey Brown, Sr. The next few years were outstanding. Of course, then I ended my career in '83 driving for Al Hamilton. That's after Mr. Boop had to quit because if his wife passing away and selling the business. They were all good associations.

TVR: How about the big block years?
Lynn: Well, around here it was "run what you brung" and the cheapest horsepower at that time was the big block. They weren't the easiest things in the world to drive, but they put out raw horsepower. A little guy could go down the straightaway with anybody with a big block. They ran them, well, the whole way through that period of time. The small block was still 9 out of 10. I got my first aluminum big block in '78, when we weren't going real good. We got it for $300. It was an old ZL1 all aluminum block. We put sleeves and stuff in it. In '79, we beat the Outlaws with it. Then somewhere they tried... they kept fiddling with the rules. We started "run what you brung" around here under small wings. Of course, the Outlaws came along bitched our wings were too small. Then we went to the big wings, which was probably a mistake. But, for national unity, we did it. Two years later, they said our motors were too big. Now, you couldn't have it both ways. You know what I mean? I told Ted Johnson that, you know... I said, "Look. What's good for you Outlaws isn't what's always best for us. Just remember that." 

They ended up overreacting around here and limiting the engines and they outlawed the aluminum block. We ran our cast block, we got them going real good. The only time we were allowed to run our aluminum blocks was when the Outlaws came to town. They kind of tied one hand behind us. That's why I think we weren't as successful after '80, '81 or '82 as we could have been. But, that's... you know, politics. Political stuff. As a racer, I had to deal with it, but that wasn't the part of the racing that I liked. Actually, that was the part of racing that got me out of it, was having to play the politics and dealing with some promoters who I didn't think... They were looking at dollars and cents, not what's best for racing. That kinda led me to go somewhere else and play somewhere else, I guess. <laughs> 

TVR: How many different types of racing did you compete in?
Lynn: I would have driven anything, just to give it a try. There's only two things that really scared me, probably, and that's watching those nitwits run those hydroplanes. I use to talk to Charlie Lloyd all the time about that.  I think them guys are crazy. Of course, I was pretty good friends with the Sholly's, Percy and Tuck, real good (motorcycle) racers. Them guys sliding those things around with a steel shoe. Boy! And I thought them guys were crazy. Other than that, four wheels... I'd give anything a try. I really enjoy... I'd try anything. 

TVR: Prior to your competing in racing, who were the drivers that were your favorites?
Lynn: Well, my first hero was Tommy Hinnershitz. <laughs> What a guy. I remember as a young kid, sneaking into the pits at Williams Grove. I was 10 years old, very impressionable. I wanted to see this... I knew he had to be a big 6'4" strapping guy... anybody who could drive a racecar like that. I snuck in the pits and here's this little bald-headed old guy with no teeth. Kinda crushed me a little bit, but I still loved him. 

Of course, that was a hero worship. Then later on, after I got my career going and everything, I got to restoring some old race cars. I bought his old racecars. I got to have a personal relationship with Tommy above that. It's very seldom that you can have a hero and put him on such a pedestal so high that once you get to know that person, they can never measure up. He's one guy that always measured up. He was the best goodwill ambassador racing could ever have. 

The 2nd guy was a guy named A.J. Foyt, who was pretty brash. But boy, he worked hard on a racecar. Foyt considered Tommy Hinnershitz his hero. If you read his book, he said that the best he ever saw on dirt was Tommy Hinnershitz. That old man could fly. Those are two pretty good guys.

Of course, my father also was kinda instrumental for me, because of his love for automobiles, the garage and being close to Williams grove. Him being a racer, "infecting" me early... that was another very good one. That's the reason I still love old cars. Right to the end, I'll be car crazy.

TVR: Here again, this is almost the same question... who do you feel were your biggest influences and mentors?
Lynn: Well... I think I covered that pretty well. Of course, there were a lot of people that helped me along the line. I remember young, even when I wasn't sure how good I could be or what I could be, I remember there people... Well, Ree Smith helped me, umm... Harold Hank, Bob Benchoff. And, there were some guys who were just fans who use to go pretty regularly and they knew things. They'd come up to you, even though you were little guy and you weren't winning races, they'd say, "Kid, you got it. You stand on the button, you're smart, you pay attention. You're gonna make it." And it took those people. 

Hey... when you go to Williams Grove and you're just a young kid. You're going over there and you're racing against guys that have been racing 15, 20, 30 years. You've got equipment that you stuck together that was hand-me-downs and they say, "What are you doing over here? You can't compete." Well, they're probably right. The only way your gonna find out where you're lacking is go there and compete against them. So, should I have quit when somebody said "you can't compete with those guys"? They were right, but I had to. I had to find out where the equipment wasn't as good, or maybe where I wasn't as good and try to improve. That's all you can hope for. But, you take somebody's word, that tells you you're no good, or you're not going to be able to compete... you can't believe that. You have to believe that you will be able to compete. Maybe not today... but you'll learn and be smarter tomorrow. That's the key to any type of success. 

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