Carmen Pisano the Patriarch of the Venolia Piston company passed away this
year.
Paul Smock and I went to his funeral. A rather packed gathering of some
very interesting people say nothing of the 1/4 mile Dragster contingent.
It was a couple of years ago that Paul asked me if I wanted an executive
tour of Carmen's shop / Venolia. He had known Carmen for years and finally
made the appointment for us to meet.
I'm certain that Paul had a substantial visceral chortle as we literally
came to see each other face to face. See, Carmen was a short man in
stature (a concept I understand) but, a bull of a character with a presence
like a battleship. He had his own way of doing things and that's the way it
was. We got along so well that he asked me to be his Physcian -something
that was was easy and hard to do.
Anyways, in the back were several pallets of large bore pistons - All were
for a single season for John Force. The amount of alum chips on the floor
and watching those mills/lathes turn out shiny pistons was pretty special.
Lots of interesting things to look at including their trophy and prototype
section.
BTW... they do have TR4 pistons.
Mordy
|