Pacenotes – February 2014

• Stu Hilborn, widely known as the Father of Fuel Injection, has passed away at the age of 96. While in the U.S. Air Force during WWII, Hilborn devised a new way of increasing fuel flow to internal combustion engines, and his mechanical fuel injection system revolutionized the auto racing industry. In 1948, on the dry lakes of Southern California, his streamliner, with Howie Wilson at the wheel, became the first car to record a speed over 150 mph. Hilborn subsequently took his technology to Indianapolis, most notably on Howard Keck’s Fuel Injection Special that Bill Vukovich drove to back-to-back 500 wins in 1953 and ’54, with 33 other Indy winners also using Hilborn injection systems. Hilborn was a member of both the Specialty Equipment Manufacturers Association (SEMA) Hall of Fame and the Hot Rod magazine Speed Parts Hall of Fame.

• John Morton was honored on December 7 with the Lindley Bothwell Lifetime Achievement Award, presented by Ann Bothwell on behalf of the Fabulous Fifties group in Southern California. After a mild roasting by a string of friends including Dan Gurney, Parnelli Jones, Peter Brock, George Boskoff, Bruce Burness, Joe Cavaglieri, John’s daughter Leah, Sylvia Wilkinson and others, Morton himself took to the podium for typically modest remarks, summarized when he said: “I find it difficult to understand why, in a room with Dan Gurney and Parnelli Jones, I am the one being honored.”