“Disco Dean” Karns Reveals “Stinky Pinky Three” ’66 Chevelle

Ever-entertaining Ohio native “Disco Dean” Karns has pulled the wraps off of the latest addition to his fleet of flamboyant, bright pink racing machines this week, in the form of a supercharged 1966 Chevelle known as “Stink Pinky Three.”

Karns, an accomplished bracket racer and competitive no-prep star, debuted the Chevelle at the recent Eat Race Die Productions no-prep event in Fayetteville, North Carolina following a whirlwind week of nearly around-the-clock work and travel to acquire and prepare the car.

Powered by a 557 cubic-inch, roots-supercharged big-block Chevrolet, Karns procured the Chevelle from former A/Fuel and Top Fuel Dragster driver Alan Bradshaw, with less than half a dozen laps in all on it. Built by Indiana native Tad Froderman for Bradshaw, the car was later sold to Daryle and Pat Bielecki.

As Karns tells the story, “this was Daryle’s dream car, it was everything he ever wanted. No sooner than he bought the car, he found out he was terminally ill and later passed away. This car sat in a trailer for several months and I heard about it and got with my buddy Mike Hunt and had him go over and look at it. He knew where it was at, said it would be a perfect car, steel roof and quarters, and hadn’t been down the track ten times. It was this guy’s lifelong dream to have this car going and he left his wife with it. He sent me some pictures of it, all dusty and dirty, and I loved it. I was waiting on my dragster to sell to jockey money around and contacted Alan to ask him about it, if it was a good car and all, because it was 2,300 miles away. A couple of weeks later he calls me back and I tell him I’m thinking about buying it. He says, ‘well, how are you planning on buying that?’ I said, ‘well I’m going to call the lady and make her an offer,’ and he says ‘well, it’s sitting in my garage right now.’ ”

 

Dean continued the conversation with Bradshaw and was able to work out a deal based largely on Bradshaw’s desire to see the car put to good use. Following four days of negotiations, money exchanged hands. What ensued was a Texas to Ohio goose-chase to procure the car in time for his scheduled appearance at Eat Race Die. Karns and company stripped the car, put new tires on all four corners, powder-coated the wheels, and wrapped it in two days before loading up to race

The blown powerplant is backed with a Marco Abruzzi-built Powerglide transmission and converter, which sends the power back to a Moser full floater rearend housing. The engine is presently being re-worked by All-In Racing Engines to add a set of Profiler cylinder heads. Karns also switched the fuel system over to a setup from Snyder Motorsorts. With a VIN number, steel roof, steel quarters, and factory wheelbase, the Chevelle is tailor-made to no-prep-style racing, and Karns intends to press it into Big Tire duty this season. His Dodge Challenger, Stinky Pinky Too, meanwhile — which remains for sale at present — will likely run in Small Tire if he maintains possession, with the Hemi powerplant and/or the screw blower potentially being swapped over to the Chevelle if the competition forces the need for more oomph.

Bok Signs applied the wrap — including the faux vinyl top, carrying over the theme of the Challenger — which carries the logos of two of Karns’ primary supporters: JR1 Racing Oil and the Doorslammers 2 mobile video game.

“I wanted to do two cars; a small-tire and big-tire car was my original plan for everything. I thought the Challenger would be better as a small-tire car, so that was my plan to make this a big-tire car. Now that I have the screw blower, maybe I’ll just have two no-prep cars in case I buckle one up and have another one ready to go. Gotta’ have one on-deck. But the Challenger is still for sale … I have too many racecars,” he says.

In its debut, Karns drove the Chevelle to a runner-up finish to Scott Taylor’s “John Doe” Oldsmobile in Big Tire at the Fayetteville Motorsports Park event.

About the author

Andrew Wolf

Andrew has been involved in motorsports from a very young age. Over the years, he has photographed several major auto racing events, sports, news journalism, portraiture, and everything in between. After working with the Power Automedia staff for some time on a freelance basis, Andrew joined the team in 2010.
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