Just found out about Al Young (and his world travelling satellite) . RIP.

When I heard Al had passed I considered posting an obit, but it was too difficult at the time due to the sadness. I also figured that someone that knew him better than I would likely post something. Though Al was a few years older than me, he was always full of energy, and was an influence on me deciding to return to racing after more than a 30 year absence, following my work retirement a few years ago.

Al and I were not really close friends, he had many more people in his life closer than I, but I can say he was an educated, gracious man, and a citizen of the world with a commitment to teach others. I saw and talked to him several times last season at the track; his heart failure was sudden and unexpected.

I met Al about 50 years ago when I was racing Chevies and he was racing the "Lion Dance" A body Cuda with a 4spd. I was running a Chrysler 4spd behind my big block Chevy, as none of the Chevy trans would hold up to race track duty. At some point in late 70s I decided to try a complete Chrysler race car and Al was one of the influences behind that decision. Around then Al switched to a Torqueflite and relied on another northwest legend, Pat Blais, to build his trans for the remaining decades. Back then, I continued my attempt at stick shift class racing with limited success, and Al with his skill flourished in various forms of "bracket" racing up to and including Super Comp. As a side note, though I've known Pat Blais for about as long, and he is actually a closer friend, I never raced one of his trans until just last year, in my post-retirement, lazy man's race effort.

I'm not up to offering a complete bio on Al, but will offer some remembrances. After the Cuda, Al wanted to go faster and went with a Challenger E body, which I believe ran into the eights. When Al decided to lessen his race load, he donated the car to Seattle's prestigious Museum of History and Industry where it remains on display. Then Al continued to race, but went back to his roots in a way, by driving his B body '70 GTX back and forth to the track and running it in street-able form. Al raced most every weekend for over 50 years at SIR or Bremerton, unless he was out of town for a bigger race somewhere on the west coast.

Al won some big races such as $50k Bracket Shoot Out, in the days when that was really big money. He also won NHRA and AHRA championships, and was inducted in the NHRA Hall of Fame. I've heard it said that he was the most winning bracket racer of all time, and that may be true as he ran thousands of race rounds and won a dominant percentage. He had the Bardahl Oil sponsorship for five decades and I believe he also had close relationship with the Bardahl family. Al tested and proved out a number of race components for manufactures, and I'm sure we can thank him for some of race items we use commonly today.