Did you ever put Turbine in your Go Kart?
I almost did. I got a S-6 Micro Turbo engine that put out 170HP. Turbine from Turbonique, My plans were to put it on a Rupp Go Kart So I drove up to Ohio where the Rupp Karts were built on the way stopped in Akron Ohio to talk to Art Arfons, and Doug Rose, seeing they were running the fastest jet cars in the nation, to see what I could learn from them. Doug said I should stream line the Kart if I wanted to go faster. So when I got over to the Rupp Factory I asked Mickey Rupp and old Racing friend of mine to have him build me a Streamlined Go Kart for the Turbine? Mickey said I will not build Kart for you if you are going to use that Turbine it will kill you. To this day I am thankful for Rupp talking me out of using The Turbonique Turbine engine because over the years a number of people were killed or injured because of those turbines blowing up.
Mickey took the original twin T-16 engines off my Dart Kart and the hardware then he through the Dart Kart frame in the steel hopper, so they original Kart no longer exist Mickey then built me a beautiful lay down streamlined Kart. The fastest I ever went in the sit up Rocket Kart was 140mph; the streamlined Kart went 162.12 mph. I would Guess I made some were between 275 and 300 runs with the Turbonique rocket powered go-kart.
Did you ever have any close calls with the Turbonique Go Kart?
I never did run my Turbonique Go Kart on a NHRA Sanctioned track So allot of the tracks I ran on were short and bumpy I remember when I was running my Kart at Columbia South Carolina and I hit a bump and the kart came about a foot off the ground my foot hit the brakes and locked them up I spun the darn Kart out and when through the lights backwards and tripped the clocks at a 150 mph I got the thing striated out and I didn’t even get a scratch on me. That was the worst thing that happened to me when I was driving the turbonique Go Kart.
I also remember I did have a close call up in Nashville Tennessee, the manager told me I had better check out the track before I ran because the shut off area was real short, so I drove my van down the track. I soon found out the shut down area was really short. When I got down to the end of the track I was surprised to see there was a big drop off with a number of cars at the bottom of the 100-foot embankment that had gone off the track over the years. So the Track owners added safety nets at the end of the track so you would not drive over the hill. Well the first run I made I saw the end of the track coming up fast. I dint want to hit the Safety net so I locked up the brakes and slide into a 6” inch curb at about a 45 degree angle. I hit the curb so hard I bent the right side of my front axel way back. I was luckily I did not flip the Kart over.
What ever happened to the twin lay down Kart?
Well, I took it to the General Motors Proving Grounds in Milford Michigan to do a static test in front of some General Motors engineers. When I fired the engine a fuel line broke. The whole thing caught on fire and burned to the ground. I brought the kart back to Chitwood’s shop and rebuilt it and put a new Monza Jr. Body on it. Chitwood sold it to Charley at Beach Bend Raceway, in Bowling Green, Kentucky. He blow up the motor brought it back to Tampa and I repaired it. Later on Chitwood was doing a show up the Beach Bend Raceway and Chitwood talked me into driving the Rocket Kart it had just rained out I hit the puddles of rain I felt like I was in a boat. We were doing a show on the on the wide world of sports it had two west bends I did stunt driving with it stunt mans championship left to Rt. Hap Roberts a Jack Dave Roberts haps son.
Tell us a little about the 1965 Z16 Chevelle?
We installed a Turbonique Drag axel in it that developed 850 hp. This thing was really fast, I would start out in third gear, fire up the rocket in the drag axel and car would smoke the tires for a eight of a mile and still run over 150 mph. The big problem on just about every run I would have trouble keeping the rear end together there was just too much power going through it. The last time I ran it the rear end locked up at a 150mph and I barrel rolled it 12 or 13 times. That beautiful car turned into a big ball of scrap iron so we just hauled the whole thing to the junkyard.
How did you end up building a Hydrogen Peroxide Rocket Go Kart?
A short time after I crashed that Z16 I received a call from Joei Chitwood Sr. he said his truck driver had quit and was wondering if I would be interested in driving his truck that hauled his equipment for his thrill show around the country to county fairs. Well I didn’t have anything else to do so I took his offer, and went on the road. A few weeks latter I started doing precision stunt driving in the show. That wasn’t long after that I started crashing motorcycles through what we called a wall of fire. I did that for some time. Then I started racing Go Karts again. We had big race at St Petersburg Florida I saw a guy that had what was called an adjustable expansion chamber that he used for his exhaust system on his Go Kart, that help produce more torque at different RPM. I ordered a kit from this guy for my Kart that needed to be welded together. So I went over to Big Daddy, Don Garlits shop to have him weld it together for me. He told me he didn’t have time. But he told me he new a good welder that would have no trouble welding it by the name of Glen Blakely So I went to his shop and we started talking about my Turbonique Go Kart. And he said he would build me a go-kart.
I was going to buy a hydrogen Peroxide motor from Dick Keller But one day I was at Tampa Speed way standing there talking to a bunch of racers when the racing announcer saw me and said over the P.A. system. See that guy standing there that’s Captain Jack he going to build a Hydrogen Peroxide Rocket Powered Go Kart that’s going to go over 200 mph. This guy by the name of Orville Porter came running over to me, and almost talked me and shouted out I already have a thousand pound thrust hydrogen peroxide motor I will sell you
So Orville sent me a picture of it, and I bought his rocket motor immediately. Soon after that Glen got work and built me my Hydrogen Peroxide Kart. He built the frame out of 4130 chrome molly tubing Glen also built the fairings over the tanks and two adjustable canards on the front of the Kart To give it a streamlined look and to help keep it on the ground, It took about 4 weeks to get it build.
Jack when was the first time you drove the Peroxide Kart?
Glen Blakely and I took the Kart to sunshine speedway in Clearwater Florida A friend of mine told me he was worried that I would get sucked right off kart at high speed So I ran the kart with out the body panels. And we put the canards at a steep angle to hold it down on the track at high speed. Tom Jones the track manger and Fred Sibley where also there to give us a hand. The first run I made I shut off early the thing went 170 mph. The track was right next to a horse ranch and there was a white horse that had his head through the wooden fence he tore the fence down and stampeded the rest of the horses. Because of all the noise the rocket made.
I called Larry Carrier the owner of Rockingham Raceway he said oh I remember you, but if you’re looking to get booked into the track for the up coming race season, I already spent my money for year. I said no I would like to come out and run Rocket Kart for nothing Fred Sibbly gave me a seven-foot ribbon parachute so I wanted to test that, and get some exposure and hopefully you would book me track next year.
When I got to the track I saw that there was alot of big name racers there, including John Paxton with the Courage of Australia Rocket Car. All of a sudden they started advertising over the PA we had a Go Kart that can go over 200 mph. Some those there hillbillies started laughing when they heard that. Larry came over to me and said don’t hurt your self now, and you make sure you shut off that thing off early. As soon as I did a burn out on the line with rocket, those hillbillies quit laughing. It was so quite you could hear a pin drop. I made my run and shut the rocket off early and still went 170mph the crowed went wild, they had never seen anything like that before. Larry ended up booking me about 15 times that year. On his other IHRA Sanctioned tracks.
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