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| Doing More with Less |
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Written by Randy Fish |
 Many years ago, I used to see a hard-running, straight-six-powered, '23 T Altered Roadster at the Gatornationals every year. This car was unique and it seemed they always towed it with a pristine Ford E-350 Econoline van. Some time later I became friends with this Michigan-based team of Comp Eliminator scientists known as Ambrose-Argenta & Huettman. However, I quickly realized they were not your average human beings. Quite the contrary. These guys were so genuine and so friendly they made me feel like I'd known them forever.
As time went on, I learned they were all long-time employees of Ford Motor Company and each one of them bled Ford Blue. Each season I'd keep track of their racing success, where they'd bag their share of Divisional event wins and national event trophies. The more I visited these guys, the more intrigued I was by their amazing '23 T. This thing is flat-out fascinating. Steve Ambrose told me they used to cut up 302 V-8 cylinder heads and weld them back together to make one V-6 head. That was okay for a while, but these Ford engineers found the welded heads weren't consistent; the material moved around from the stress, once the horsepower increased. They fixed the problem by special-ordering a billet cylinder head from Alan Johnson Performance Engines, machined exactly to their specifications.
Bob Huettman kept chipping away at the competition with his tune-up, while Ambrose was rock-solid in the car. All the while, the third member of this trio, Reynold Argenta, was always there for between-rounds maintenance, for starting line analysis, and he was good at sizing up the competition, too. Unfortunately, they lost Rey in early October of last year and he's greatly missed. However, his spirit is with them every step of the way, including their number-one qualifying effort in Gainesville this year (7.669 on an 8.44 index), their number-three qualifying run in Atlanta (and trip to the final round), and also during their number-three qualifying charge at Madison, Illinois.
Now that Ambrose and Huettman are retired from Ford Motor Company, they seem to be enjoying their newfound freedom to race. If you were to ask anybody in the Comp Eliminator pits what these guys are all about, we'd bet you'd get nothing but admirable comments. We'd also bet that's the reason the team of Ambrose-Argenta & Huettman was honored with the Brut Essence of Racing Award at this year's Torco Racing Fuels Rt. 66 Nationals. Don't worry, I could never replace Steve Ambrose in the cockpit, but it sure felt good to try it on for size! Updates as they become available - film at 11:00.
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