Chevy Intake Manifold on Donohue NASCAR Matador !

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By Chris Dolack, Post-Gazette Sports Writer

In typical crew chief fashion, Henry Dvorchak never sought the 
limelight. His goal was simple -- make cars run faster, safer and 
smoother.

Dvorchak moved from Hastings, a small town in Cambria County, to 
Pittsburgh in 1969. He immediately fed his desire for working on cars 
and engines with a Swissvale-based drag-racing team before switching 
to a road-racing team.

	 
  	
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Shortly after moving, he developed a reputation at Kenny Ross 
Chevrolet as a premier Corvette mechanic. When Bob Fryer, driver for 
the University of Pittsburgh Student Auto Racing Team, sought an 
instructor and chief mechanic, he was introduced to Dvorchak.

"I was a student at the University of Pittsburgh and I was into 
racing as much as I could afford," Fryer said. "Some of the kids at 
school started helping me with the car, a Corvette convertible. I 
remember we had these big plans to race the car, and we went down to 
Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course in Mansfield, Ohio and we ran one lap and 
something happened to the car. There was a newspaper reporter with us 
from the Pitt News, and he wrote an article about all the hours we 
put in and it only ran one lap. Then 400 people showed up at a 
meeting and wanted to help."

Working with the team at Pitt, Dvorchak developed revolutionary 
systems in power steering and power braking, key to success on road 
courses.

Dvorchak's success with the Pitt program got the attention of Don 
Yenko, who owned a Chevrolet dealership in Canonsburg and an SCCA 
racing team.

"As we traveled farther from Pittsburgh and moved up in scale from 
amateur to professional in the SCCA Trans-Am series and the IMSA 
series ... people started becoming aware of Dvorchak," Fryer said. 
"He was picked up by the BFGoodrich Tire Company racing team, they 
were running in Europe, and then the John Greenwood Corvette racing 
team out of Michigan."

In fact, Dvorchak built such a reputation that Roger Penske took 
notice. Dvorchak adapted a carburetor system for an AMC Javelin, 
which legendary Penske driver Mark Donohue was running in SCCA, and 
put a Chevrolet manifold on an AMC engine, which Donohue raced with 
in his Matador in NASCAR.

Dvorchak, who had settled in Wilkins, was 59 when he passed away last 
week after a five-year fight with cancer. After competing across the 
globe since the early '70s, he had returned to his first love -- 
working on Corvettes at a shop in North Versailles.

Speedweek replaced



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