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To the best of this author's recollection, DeName never won anything
approaching a major match race. He competed once or twice at the NHRA
Summernationals, the UHRA Summer Nationals (Gil Kohn and Ed Eaton's
United Hot Rod Association of the early 1970s), the New England Funny
Car Nationals at Epping, and some of the Garlits PRO races of the mid-1970s.
Except for the UHRA shows at New York National and the Epping race,
DeName never qualified for any of these races.
WE PAUSE FOR AN ILLUSTRATIVE ANNECDOTE:
DeName of the Game
At the 1971 or'72 UHRA race in New York, two members of a well known
Southern-based Funny Car team flew into LaGuardia Airport where they
were to pick up their station wagon in the parking structure. Apparently,
their crew had driven the truck to the race track a day or two earlier,
and one of them followed in the wagon and dropped it off at the airport,
so that these two Southern gents had something to drive to the track.
When they landed and went to the parking lot, they found that their
station wagon had been stolen. Panicked, they ran back to the airport
reported the theft and ran into another Funny Car team.
"Our car's been stolen. What do we do?" they queried.
One guy said, "Here take this number. It's Freddy DeName's. He might
be able to help."
They call.
New York voice answers on the other end of the line, "Car stolen. No
kiddin'. Where are you now? Okay, what are you wearing so we can identify
you? Fine, go to the entrance of level two and wait. I'll have someone
by in 15 minutes."
They do that. Fifteen minutes later a brand new Olds Vista Cruiser
wagon pulls up to the pair. A swarthy guy with wrap-around dark glasses
stops, opens the door, and says, "This is from Freddy. It's yours for
the weekend."
After a number of sincere thanks and handshakes, the pair get into
the Olds. The delivery guy hunkers down by the driver's window and says,
"When you're done with it, bring it back here and we'll take care of
it."
He starts to walk away, but halts and returns to the driver window.
"Oh, one more thing, whatever you do - no tickets and don't crash it."
Happy motoring.
… AND NOW BACK TO OUR STORY
A typical year for Freddy was 1976. Based on what was published, DeName
ran 10 times and his first race was the Cars Magazine event at Atco,
where he lost to Roy Harris in Gus Wunsch's "Brutus" Mustang II. His
last was a rare trip to Florida for the Garlits PRO race where he DNQed
with an 8.10 run. His best run of the season was a 6.91, but he wasn't
driving the car at the time; Harlan Thompson was. He went two rounds
before losing to Gary Burgin.
DeName stayed on as an owner in 1977, but Thompson was the main driver.
In 1978, DeName's racing career was at an end. Thompson drove for him
at just three events. The one highlight for DeName came in his first
race that year, an eight-car show at Englishtown. Thompson ran a best
of 6.69 en route to a runner-up finish against Jimmy King in the King
& Marshall Chevy Monza.
While Thompson was driving those occasional dates, DeName had frequent
dates plying another trade.
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