The Albert Einstein of Modifieds - Part 3

The late, SONNY DORNBERGER

An interview with Sherrie Dornberger, Sonny's Daughter

by Cemetery Jim       March 15th, 2005  (Third of a 3 part series)
   
(Part 3:)


Just a Few of the Dornberger Cars

Today, factory bought race cars are the norm. The back yard home built race car is almost nonexistant. The two cars that started that trend, and made it almost mandatory to have a factory car if you wanted to be competitive were the Olsen Eagles, and the Troyer Mud Busses.



During the winter of 1963-1964, Sonny was building a car and engine for me, so I spent a lot of time there working on my own car. Budd Olsen had decided to build and drive his own car for the '64 season. This would be the first time Budd had built a car, and he needed some help. who did he go to? Sonny. I can't begin to tell you the number of times Budd stopped into Sonny's shop that winter with questions about what he should do with this, or where should he position that, or should he do this? or that?


As with anyone who ever walked into Sonny's shop with a question, Sonny would stop what he was doing, and spend an hour or two diagraming and explaining what to do, why it should be done that way, and what that would accomplish. So, the first "Olsen" car was really a Dornberger car that Budd Olsen assembled. That was the #83 car, a '36 Chevy coupe.

As it turned out, Budd never drove the car because prior to the beginning of the '64 season, Budd was offered a ride in a top car, and decided he would take that and he put his brother-in-law, Jackie McLaughlin in his own #83 car. Unfortunitely, that car was destroyed in a freak accident later that year which took the life of McLaughlin, but that was just the first of the Olsen cars. A few years later Olsens were winning at just about every dirt track in the Northeast, including Syracuse. Everybody knew, if they wanted to win, they needed an Olsen or a Troyer. The man who showed olsen how to build race cars was Sonny Dornberger.


OK, enough about race cars... now lets talk engines. Dornberger engines have won from coast to coast in everything from modifieds, dragsters, Hydroplanes, sprint cars, and more.

At the time of his death, Sonny had 8 completed engines in the shop.

What this one man accomplished in his lifetime, is much more than any other 10 men I can think of. When you talk about the Modified Hall of Fame, Sonny Dornberger's name should be at the top in double size letters... the rest of us are just also rans by comparison


Cemetary Jim