The following letter comes from Tommy Ivo concerning the passing of Kenny Safford and Rod Pepmiller.
Yes indeed they were both Road Kings, from the original club. Rod was my strong right arm and a little bit of my left, ever since I started racing. I was also in business with him twice. The first time was in my chassis shop and then in an auto repair business. I wore him out; doing all the welding on my trailers I built. And he was my best man at my wedding. He was just my all round best friend and I'll miss him dearly. He passed away one day before my 78th Birthday. He was six months my senior at 78.
And then Kenny did the same thing, four days after my Birthday. Some birthday that was! Kenny shared my chassis shop building, with the Sour Sisters dragster. I guess you can't imagine who named them that. And between him, Rod and Ed Jankey; who's in a wheel chair now, suffering with MS. They were my three musketeers, that I had more fun with in my life. Somehow I look at my nicks and dings from racing in a different light now. I feel so bad about the whole thing. I even forgive Kenny for crossing my wires on my funny car, when he went to Pomona with me, to make test runs with it. He was the "Mr Norm" funny car guy you know.
But I just chocked it off to him being an eastern guy from Chicago! <Ivo type grin> Hey, you have to look at it a little on the light side. Or it would really put me down in the dumps! Here's a piece they put in National Dragster. Look down to the end of the whole thing. http://www.nhra.com/blog/
Here's another story a friend of mine sent me. I'm trying to give you some material to work with. The Safford-Ratican-Gaide team won 17 out of the first 22 Top Fuel races it attended but also was hard on parts. “We were winning enough races for the car to support itself, but we were constantly breaking engines because the Olds block wasn’t strong enough,” remembered Safford. “We went through 22 blocks in one year.” Enter the always cunning prankster Mr. Ivo, who shared shop space with the team. “Ivo would see us pouting a lot every time we broke an engine, so he started calling us the ‘Sour Sisters,’ and the nickname stuck,” said Safford.
The team switched to Chrysler power in early 1963 before Safford moved to the seat of the B&M Torkmaster car in 1964, which preceded a long and successful stint driving for “Terrible Ted” Gotelli that lasted until early 1969. Safford made the switch to Funny Cars in 1969, driving first for the Stone-Woods-Cooke team on the new Coca-Cola Cavalcade of Stars program, which allowed them to make contacts with many more racers, track promoters, and manufacturers. Among those he met was Gary Dyer, driver of the Mr. Norm’s Dodge Funny Car, who was looking to step out of the car for the 1970 season.
“Here's a picture of the four of us, in front of the Sour Sisters dragster when we were putting it in the Auto Club of Southern California Wally Parks NHRA Motorsports Museum one time. THESE WERE THE BEST OF TIMES!
Here's the only time I got Rod Pepmiller’s goat so bad, with one of my prankster jokes. I had pulled his hub caps off and put them behind the tires. Then I hit the starter button, with it in reverse gear on a stick shift. You could do that on them old cars and make it move. It was kind of a beat up car. But somehow I guess he liked that old car. Do you think it had anything to do with it being Rod’s ONLY car? <another Ivo type grin> But if I didn't outrun him he'd have removed my head from my shoulders, I'm sure. HE WAS UPSET! But you run a lot faster when you have the fear of death breathing down your back! <last Ivo type grin> Wonderful memories to be sure!