{"id":52868,"date":"2018-06-28T08:30:13","date_gmt":"2018-06-28T15:30:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/?p=52868"},"modified":"2018-12-19T15:33:25","modified_gmt":"2018-12-19T23:33:25","slug":"1956-pontiac-star-chief-is-no-joke","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/1956-pontiac-star-chief-is-no-joke\/","title":{"rendered":"This 1957 Pontiac Star Chief is No Joke"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"1956<\/p>\n

Greg Stelse\u2019s racing car is called \u201cThe Joker.\u201d Today, the two-tone green \u201957 Pontiac Star Chief two-door hardtop is usually on display inside his new business, Greg\u2019s Speed Shop LLC. But the project that involved turning the \u201cPoncho\u201d into a nostalgic drag racer actually got off to a dismal start, according to his wife Leah.<\/p>\n

\u201dGreg purchased it from a man who had it stored away in an old garage in Missouri,\u201d Leah told RacingJunk. \u201cIt had suffered in terms of rust and deterioration from all the years it was stored. In fact, the \u201957 Pontiac body was just a shell back then.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"1956<\/p>\n

Plucked from what Leah describes as \u201cthe depths of despair\u201d in 2014, the Star Chief fit into a vision that Greg had in his mind. \u201cHe wanted to make The Joker a worthy vehicle again,\u201d Leah recalled. \u201cAnd he wanted to be the one behind the steering wheel when it was racing down the track again.\u201d<\/p>\n

Greg brought the car into the shop at his GS Trucking Company in New London, Wis. That was before he opened Greg\u2019s Speed Shop in Waupaca, Wis. He and his crew tore the car apart and put it together as a \u201cstraight axle\u201d dragster designed to compete in nostalgia drag racing events.<\/p>\n

\"1956<\/p>\n

Since opening Greg\u2019s Speed Shop in the spring of 2018, Stelse has been working pretty much 9 am to 5 pm seven days per week. \u201cHe\u2019s here at the Speed Shop most of the time,\u201d said Leah, \u201cbut three or four times a year we take the car racing. On those weekends, a lot of the guys from the Speed Shop go with us.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Joker project has been pretty successful. Leah reports that the car \u201cHas participated in several races over the years and will continue to race for many more years.\u201d The Joker will be the featured vehicle at the 15th<\/sup> Annual Pardeeville Community Car & Truck Show on Sept. 1, 2018 (www.PardeevilleCarShow.com<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

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Greg Stelse\u2019s racing car is called \u201cThe Joker.\u201d Today, the two-tone green \u201957 Pontiac Star Chief two-door hardtop is usually on display inside his new business, Greg\u2019s Speed Shop LLC. But the project that involved turning the \u201cPoncho\u201d into a nostalgic drag racer actually got off to a dismal start.<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":52871,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3700,3697,3470],"tags":[5566,4396,4892,6063,6062,304,41,1468,4888],"class_list":["post-52868","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured-vehicles","category-galleries","category-news","tag-car-features","tag-featured-cars","tag-galleries","tag-greg-stelse","tag-gregs-speed-shop","tag-john-gunnell","tag-news","tag-pontiac","tag-slideshow"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/DSC_0474-min.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p42YSK-dKI","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52868","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52868"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52868\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":57785,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52868\/revisions\/57785"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52871"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52868"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52868"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52868"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}