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[post_content] => Editor's Note: One of the biggest thrills of running the web's largest online community for Nissan enthusiasts, for me, has been the opportunity to meet some of the influential people who made the Nissan nameplate what it is today. By simple happenstance, I recently had the great fortune to be introduced to Kas Kastner, one of the legends of Nissan Motorsports history, and he was gracious enough to indulge me in what must have seemed like hundreds of questions. I'd like you all to meet him as well, and I'm proud to be able to share his story with our loyal readers.
I was born and raised and went to school in Batavia, New York. This is a little town of about 17,000 folks that is older than any of the cities around it. Batavia was started by the Dutch in the early 1600s where they sold the Indians' land to enterprising farmers brave enough to stand the weather and the threats of the wildlife (and wild people too). It is about 40 miles east of Buffalo, New York, the snow capital of the USA. Batavia got its fair share of snow, which is probably what prompted me to go head out west.
I graduated high school in 1945 at sixteen, but as soon as I turned seventeen, I signed up for a 2 year stint in the Army. That got me to Colorado - the wonderful West... Denver, Grand Junction, Delta, Montrose, working various jobs, generally as a salesman of some sort. The most fun was running the big pool hall portion of a great bar in Grand Junction, “Moslanders”. I had learned to hustle pool in the Army, a knack I had in high school, so it did provide an escape (and a bit of cash, too). From there, I moved to Delta to sell cars or something, then on to Salt Lake City, Utah (again to escape the weather). When I moved from Delta, Colorado, it had been a bit cold, the snow was not too bad but the warmest it got for two weeks was ZERO degrees. Salt Lake was a balmy forty degrees, which means t-shirt and moccasins weather - or, more importantly, driving weather.
In Salt Lake City, I worked more sales jobs - Then the revelation of my life occurred. I bought a new 1952 MGTD. It was perfect. It was fast (for the times), handled wonderfully, and was an inspiration to me to be a top-notch driver. I practiced very early in the morning in the canyons before most people we out of their beds. I wore out the tires just over 4000 miles.
The dealer started a club for sports cars. I joined and got into timed events, hillclimbs, and autocrossing. I started right off to win. Then I entered the first real race, which was through the city streets of Aspen, Colorado. I placed second overall and first in class. I helped put on races in Salt Lake, then traveled to other states for races. Fort Sumner in New Mexico, Grand Central Airport in Glendale California, Pebble Beach in California. Some of this was in my first Triumph - a 1954 TR-2, and more in my MG Special I had built onto the frame of the MGTD I owned at that time.
By that time, I had owned about eight MGTDs. I'd buy and sell them - fix, repair, and tune and off they’d go to someone else. I did the first big repair on my MGTD, replacing a piston with the tools that came in the little kit with the car. In those days, there were no tools that fit the weird English-sized hardware, so it was always a fight to find the correct sizes. I was learning to be a mechanic.
Kas and his 1951 MG race car
I got pretty good at repairing, and tuning especially. There was very little information available in those days, and no tools that fit the strange English sizes - so I sent to England for workshop manuals and for tools that would fit the English size hardware. I also acquired a full set of taps and dies for the English threads (which were also different). Before I knew it, I had a lock on the business - I could repair the stuff that other people broke.
Kas pulling away from the pack in his Triumph at Santa Barbara, 1960
After a time as a manager of a service facility for the MG/Jaguar distributor, I opened my own shop. That's when things got really hot with the modifications. The racing was hot too, and I was very successful, winning lots of the local events. My search for power eventually overstepped the durability of the engines. It was pretty sorry for a while - Fast for a few laps, then sit and watch everyone else still racing - at a slower pace. I still had a lot to learn about this stuff.
Kastner's MG Special (1955)
I built two MG special cars - Special body on a standard MG frame, and that taught me about how to really make stuff. I taught myself to weld, I learned about gearboxes, suspension, and all the other stuff needed to be a successful racer.
NEXT: Los Angeles and a sharp change of direction... Join us for Part Two!
[post_title] => Legends of Nissan Motorsports - Meet R. W. "Kas" Kastner
[post_excerpt] => I recently had the great fortune to be introduced to Kas Kastner, one of the legends of Nissan Motorsports history, and I'm proud to be able to share his story with our loyal readers.
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[post_content] => When I moved to Los Angeles, it was the beginning of being a small fish in a BIG pond and it was great. I ended up as the service manager for Triumph for the western USA and that gave me plenty of experience dealing with cars and people. Before long, I started the first Competition Department in the USA for a foreign manufacturer. I wrote books and pamphlets on how to do it correctly when you wanted to build a successful racer. Lots of years and experience were paying off, with wins at the Sebring 12-hour event in class, and also winning the team trophy. Things had come a long way from the days when my cars had no lasting power - Now it was a full trip until the checkered flag ended the event.
Triumph TR4A leading its class at Sebring, 1966
I was there when the opening of the Datsun Competition Department shadowed my endeavors for Triumph. Dick Roberts, their manager, was an old friend from my Colorado racing days and it was a lot of interesting times. I never thought I'd be working as a racer for Datsun or Nissan. In fact, in those days, Nissan was not even mentioned - who was that? It was always Datsun. I had lunch a couple times with Mr. Katayama, the head of the Datsun enterprise in the US. Nice man, very friendly, but again - I never expected to be in their employ.
More time passes. Triumph fades from my interest, to the point that I resigned. Kastner-Brophy Racing was formed soon thereafter. Two teams of Triumph cars, a Formula 5000 car that had fair success and did win the USAC Road Racing Championship with Jimmy Dittemore. Soon, the oil crisis loomed into sight and cost me sponsors right and left, so it was a dire time to keep going.
Then came a merger with Roy Woods Racing, a deal to race Can-Am, F-5000 and the three Indy 500 races for the sponsor Carling Black Label Beer. David B. Hobbs drove the Can-Am McLaren and the Gurney Eagle Indy car, and Tony Adamowicz did the job in the Formula 5000.
David Hobbs in the 1973 Black Label Beer Can-Am McLaren
By now, the Triumph cars were gone for good, and right about the time we were putting all of our effort into the "big-boy" race cars, the oil crisis won out after all - and we were soon broke. In a very short time, I was back on the streets again. I went from having a big busy shop full of race cars and personnel and drivers to just me, alone, against the world.
Along the way, as a hobby, I took up sailing. I found the same things that make you good at car preparation and racing applied to sailboats as well. After a few years I was pretty good - Good enough to win the National Championship title for the 13-foot Cyclone boats against about 40 younger guys. Another championship came in the 30-foot keel boats class. I tried a couple businesses in the boating niche, but it was not a place where my talents were appreciated - except as a sailor - and that was no way to make a living. Before long, I was out of the sailing business.
Then I talked with my old friend Hugh MacInnes, widely regarded as the father of turbocharging in the USA. He wrote a couple of books on turbocharging and I knew him from other contacts. At Hugh's urging, I found a place for myself back in the high-performance automotive industry. I built aftermarket turbocharger kits (including cast manifolds, adapters, and piping) for all sorts of production cars. Diesel Volkswagen Rabbits, Mazda RX-7, Toyota and Mazda pickups, more than 20 models were covered (even my old friend, the Triumph TR-6). It was a good business and after several years of expansion, I sold the business, complete.
Several months went by after the sale of the Arkay turbocharger kit business. I still did not have a direction. One day, John Borgen, Marketing Director for Nissan, called me on the phone and asked if I knew anyone who might be qualified to be their new National Motorsports Manager.
Anyone want to guess how that turned out? Join us for Part 3!
[post_title] => Legends of Nissan Motorsports - Kas Kastner (Part 2)
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[post_content] => I thought about this for about five seconds - National Motorsports Manager for Nissan? Naturally, I told John to put me at the head of the list. John and I were acquainted back in our early Triumph days, as he was a employee there also. He was amazed that I would be willing to do the job, as I had not been "under a corporate banner" for a lot of years. Nissan's priority at that time was to get the GTP program out of the doldrums and give the company some bragging rights. That particular program had become very unpopular with the executives, as it was not running in the front of the series or even near the middle.
The meetings in the beginning, before I was hired, were rather interesting. Nissan was retiring VP personnel at the age of 55 - and I was 56 at the time. The V.P. of marketing had a big meeting and asked me my thoughts. During my interview, I came right over the top with my observations of the team, and efforts, and the whole management of the program, as being really dismal. Particularly, I reacted harshly to the race car being painted black. I told them when you beat everyone and are the top dog in the league, then you can paint it any color you want, but until then I think a better scheme would be a red, white and blue pattern.
The Lola T810 California Cooler Nissan
I really did not know if they were going to hire me or not. If they had passed on hiring me just because I told them their program was junk, then they did not want to face the truth. I found out - after I was hired - from other people that were in that meeting that they were rather taken aback by my outspoken manner and blunt criticism. The director of H.R. was surprised that I was willing to come under a corporate umbrella after so many years as my own boss. I explained carefully to him that I viewed this as a challenge and that my interest in that racing series matched that of Nissan's - He bought that story.
The first days were tough on everyone, but especially me. I did not know a person other than my new boss, John Borgen. Frank Honsowetz was the acting Motorsports Manager while Nissan was trying to fill the job. We talked quite a bit and seemed to be okay with each other. Frank was a racer - and that helped as far as I was concerned. That meant he liked his job and will work hard at it. It took a little while before everyone became comfortable with me, as I do tend to be a little short when dealing with stupid trivial things. Over a rather short period of time, I think the motorsports crew bought into my vision. I raised the level of the department from a hidden away non-entity to a position of respect - A department that had a sharp bark and a deep meaning to the company. I think all the people in the department enjoyed having someone who would go to bat for them and the department.
I was more than a little concerned, though, when I found that several of Nissan's directors and upper management really wanted to just ditch the GTP program - Worrisome to say the least. So I guessed I'd better get after it with a big stick. My mornings were spent in the Nissan buildings, but at about 11AM each day I would go over to El Segundo and spend the balance of the day working with the Electromotive GTP team and the people responsible for building and racing GTP cars. It was time well spent. The primary thing I found in the very first big meeting with the managers of the Electromotive facility was that they were grossly under-funded and that they were expected to maintain a schedule that was next to impossible - If they were going to have any chance at good results, I was going to have to change that immediately. I cancelled their next events, endurance races at Daytona and Sebring, and turned that time into a testing session to focus on development for the sprint races. One of the big assets I had was the owner of Electromotive was Don Devendorf. Donny and I were great friends, as he had driven for me for several years when I was running the Triumph program. He knew how I looked at things, and that I had no time for listening to excuses.
The Electramotive Team went through several team managers in quick succession, perhaps as many as three in less than a year. None seemed to have the spark to bring the team together. That is, until one of the team members, Ashley Page, agreed to take over the post of running the team. He was terrific and brought out the best of the entire group. With the team working together it was possible to make some longer term plans and see the GTP car through to its full potential. With a smooth-running team, more talented people were were drawn to work for join the company.
I hired Trevor Harris as the team engineer to work specifically with the drivers in understanding and bringing the car to better results. Having Trevor work for me instead of the team gave me the control I needed, and he was quite a big help right off. He and I worked alone on my plan to update the chassis to a new configuration. The original chassis had limited scope for tuning and was a nightmare to change engines, taking as long as eight hours for a change. That is simply not sustainable for a successful racing chassis, so the new chassis was designed and given to an independent California company for manufacturing. I had to find the funds for this. At my request, there was a big meeting with all the Nissan department heads and vice presidents to discuss the future of the GTP program, and even the continued viability of the entire Motorsports Department. Some Nissan executives still wanted to scrap the entire program, and send me along with it.
In this meeting, I asked to have a loan of funds from the following budget year, to fund this new project so that the team could advance. It was a closed session of about twenty people. I made a long speech and after much discussion, in the end, my request was granted. I had unexpected assistance from a couple of the Japanese VPs, and that turned the tide for that deal. Years later I found out that one of the top managers in the meeting (who I happened to report to) was directed by the Senior VP of Nissan to make sure I was NOT successful in my requests. But, he missed his chance - I was a better salesmen than he was a blocker.
Of course, we had plenty of other racing programs at Nissan, most of which were running okay without too much intervention. The off-road truck programs and the amateur racing program were on schedule and giving good results. To spark up the showroom stock racing programs, I offered a first prize of $5000 dollars. The other manufacturers were offering $250-$500 for winning, so my offering was unheard of at that time. I wanted more participation and to show that Nissan was a company interested in the people racing its cars. Frank Honsowetz, the top manager under my direction, thought I was crazy. We laughed about it at length when he said he might want to run a 300ZX turbo stock car himself. That was not allowed of course, but I was very glad to see how the idea grabbed him - that meant that the idea would grab other enthusiasts as well, and it did. Ultimately, we wanted more participation from 300ZX owners, which would lead to more results for the advertising and promotional departments.
The Electramotive GTP team & the Bob Sharp racing team at Laguna Seca - in the middle are Jim Fitzgerald and Paul Newman, and in back of them, Kas Kastner
A brief aside: Before I came aboard, there had been a fast change of National Motorsports managers. The executives at Nissan in Japan were a little slow to invite me to Japan for any consultation on the programs. I was not offended by this delay - I understood they had worked with the previous manager, only to see him resign six months into the job. He was not a racer and found the people in the program impossible to deal with. Racers are tough folks and are not reluctant to speak their minds. I remained patient, knowing that when I starting showing results, everyone would want to be part of the team in one way or another.
Years of hard work finally pay off - Join us for Part 4!
[post_title] => Legends of Nissan Motorsports - Kas Kastner (Part 3)
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[post_content] => Tires were a problem for the GTP car. Bridgestone was a partial sponsor for the tires but never really bought in with the team. I figured they helped the team just to appease the board of directors in Japan. The team received what might be left over after they had served the Porsche 962 contingent of racers. They finally gave us some radial tires and worked on the car. We changed the settings on the suspension to make the best use of the new tires. We won a race in Miami. This was the first real advancement, and everyone was stoked about this success. I had found some more money to help the team in purchasing the proper gearboxes and this made the car much more reliable and easier to tune for any track. We were testing on a regular basis. Faults were fixed, and the crew approached races with a mindset to win, not just finish.
Running in the front brought a higher caliber of people to the team. Professional drivers who were performing successfully in other sanctioning bodies, such as the Indy League, were brought onto the team. We had a quality machine that was mechanically capable of beating the best. Adding guys like Geoff Brabham, Elliot Forbes Robinson, Derek Daly, Bob Earle, Arie Luyendyk, and Chip Robinson gave us the caliber of driver we needed to be successful.
But regretfully, while running in the front at the next race at Riverside California, the car hit a turbine wheel from a Porsche 962 on the front straight, blew a tire and and crashed hard. The Bridgestone people thought it was a tire failure and they took away the radials. At about this time, the crew was on top of their game, and the car was really coming around - and now Bridgestone had taken away the new radial tires that we had tuned to the car so successfully. They were also stopping their sponsorship of the Nissan team for the upcoming (1988) racing season. Dreadful news to hear at first - but things could not have worked out better for us.
It just so happened that Goodyear was looking for a hot team to combat the up-and-coming Jaguars and their Dunlop tires. Don Devendorf and I were both in good shape with Goodyear from past dealings, and they agreed to furnish all our tires. They also agreed to furnish tires for some of the other teams I was starting to field in both the GTO category (with the 300ZX turbo) and the 2-liter 240SX cars that were being fielded by the Bob Leitzinger team.
The first GTP test we did at Riverside raceway in 1988 with the Goodyear tires was an entire TWO SECONDS faster, with the same exact same setup that we had been running with the Bridgestones. The team knew that yes, we were going to be a big problem for everyone from now on.
I was in the midst of lots of negotiations in Japan. They loved us now. After all the work and worry, trying to get sponsorship funding for the team to supplant the terribly low contract from Nissan, a new president came to Nissan. Tom Mignanelli, a straight-talking national sales manager from Lincoln-Mercury, started off as VP of Nissan Sales, but shortly was the President of Nissan USA.
We liked each other, and he liked the way we had developed the team's spirit and winning ways. He decided that Nissan would sponsor the team in a manner befitting a big corporation. [Editor's note: Fans of the Infiniti brand may recognize Mignanelli as the man responsible for signing off on Infiniti's ill-fated initial ad campaign, the "Rocks and Trees" commercials of 1989.]
This opened the door for the GTO team and my working with the engineers in Japan to have the complete drawings for the yet-unseen new 300ZX turbo production car (Z32). Having this cooperation was almost unheard of in the past. I was one of the very few to see the new 300ZX car in Japan long before it was introduced. The Japanese loved our new-to-them “winning ways.” This allowed me to have a full team of GTO 300ZX turbo cars ready to race on the same day the car was introduced in the USA. The cars were built in California by Cunningham Racing and kept secret for almost the entire year it took for their development.
Electramotive had designed and machined a new cylinder block that was all-aluminum for the V-6 engine. Lighter weight, much stronger and best of all, our team was in control of the part. This helped the reliability a great deal, but IMSA, the sanctioning body, implemented rules that restricted the size of the inlet for the turbochargers. This reduced overall power, but it really made the engines much more reliable - as they no longer could turn the high revs. So the 1000-bhp engine was gone, but the 800-bhp engine was still there - and very very reliable.
This was the start of the 1988 dream season.
Continue to Part 5!
[post_title] => Legends of Nissan Motorsports - Kas Kastner (Part 4)
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[post_content] => In the past, there was really no thought of entering the endurance races at Daytona and Sebring, as that would be expecting too much for a single-car entry that was just beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel. But, the light came on strong - We won EIGHT races in row. That set a new IMSA record. Out of the 14 races we ran in 1988, we won ten. Brabham easily won the Driver’s Championship, even though we skipped Daytona and Sebring. This was such a big deal, to have come from a 'nobody' car to the 'dragon in the closet.' By the time we got our 8th win, the Nissan executives were standing in line to be part of the Motorsports victories. The National Headquarters hosted special Motorsports days, with all the desert truck teams, the GTO and GTU teams, and of course the GTP team. With all the cars present, posters, driver speeches, food, it was a truly big deal and was a really special day for Nissan each year.
Geoff Brabham in his Nissan GTP "office"
I was presented a special fountain pen by the company president engraved with the inscription “six in a row” about mid-season, and a model of the GTP car that had been specially made in Germany. We came home from one race after winning and there was a big "Congratulations!" banner all the way across the 190th street in front of the eight story National Office building. It was terrific.
Kas and Geoff discuss strategy
The Nissan home office in Japan was interested. How did we do this? The factory had never won anything of note and this was a spectacular event. They invited me several times to Tokyo to give speeches and tell about how this all happened. It was even better the following year, starting the season by winning the 12 Hours of Sebring overall. We were no longer just a sprint race winner. To cap it off, we swept first and second the following year, with a total of ten wins, another Driver’s Championship for Brabham, and the Manufacturer’s Championship for Nissan. Now everyone in the Nissan family was on our side and wanted to be associated with the powerhouse, the Nissan Motorsports Department.
1990: Full team - Japanese, English and Americans at the Nissan Testing Facility in Arizona prepping Lola prototype for Le Mans
There was not as much fighting about budgets. I put in for more money and planned more activities. I was asked to present a 5-year plan for Nissan Motorsports at the headquarters of Nissan in Japan. We were in the big time.
It had been my plan all along to get complete control of the team, meaning to buy out Electramotive, as they always had struggles with money. Nissan, at a high level, agreed with me and in fact the team was purchased outright and a new company formed, Nissan Performance Technology Inc (NPTI). Don Devendorf remained with the team as Senior VP of Research and Development. Buildings were purchased and the team was given every advantage in the way of equipment and backing. I expected to be offered the job of heading up this new company, but that did not happen at the beginning.
One of the six buildings that housed NPTI - this is the Engineering building
The top executives wanted me to be available to give speeches and keep control of the other avenues we were contesting. They wanted me to remain involved with the GTO and GTU teams, the amateur teams, and of course all the Desert Truck racing. Everyone at Nissan was winning. We had achieved something the company had never seen before.
Nissan dominates on the world stage - Join us for Part 6.
[post_title] => Legends of Nissan Motorsports - Kas Kastner (Part 5)
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I had a friend, Ron Nash, who did my castings when I had my Turbocharger company (Arkay Inc), make up a cylinder head for the V-6 engine that could be used for the normally-aspirated engines used by the Bob Leitzinger team of 240SX cars.
When the Motorsports Department had tried to get a new head made up in years past, the price was way way too expensive, so the cheaper castings I had arranged made it possible for big improvements of the engine and the teams could now afford the parts. They were powerful and successful, and of course all of the technology and advancements we pioneered eventually trickled down into improvements to the cars and trucks that Nissan was selling worldwide.
While at LeMans in 1990, I was asked to head up NPTI as Vice President of Operations. Along with being the new Vice President of Operations for NPTI, I was National Motorsports Manager for Nissan.
In 1991, Brabham won his fourth consecutive Driver’s Championship, and we claimed our third Manufacturer’s Championship. We were dominant, unbeatable, and a model (and target) for every other factory team. The following year, we performed relatively well, but a pair of devastating crashes at Road Atlanta and increasing pressure from Gurney's AAR Toyota entrants prevented us from maintaining our position at the top of the pack.
I had, of course, already made big plans for the coming years. On the horizon was building the Sports Car World Championship car for the factory in Japan, the P-35. This car was to be fitted with the Nissan 12-cylinder normally aspirated engine. The car was completed. We had factory engineers at our premises all the time watching to see how we were doing things. The chassis was successful, but the new 3.5 liter VRT35 V12 engine was down almost a hundred horsepower from what the factory claimed. The car never really had a chance to get a winning record. We tested at Daytona and were fast enough to set a record lap time, but the money to keep all this infrastructure running was being cut off by Japan.
Suddenly, there were no funds. Nissan felt the brunt of a swift downturn in the Japanese economy, high austerity was forecast, and Nissan internally decided to focus its racing efforts on production-based IMSA classes. The new, never raced P-35 cars were shipped to Japan. The tooling was destroyed. At this time, we had over 220 employees working on the new car for Japan, and racing the present GTP cars and supporting the engine programs. We were told to cut back immediately. All plans for the next season were cancelled. Driver contracts were cancelled. Also during this time, I had a team of engineers working in secret, designing a car for Indianapolis to contest the Indy 500 event in two years. Our long-range plan was also to build our own Indy engine. This was all in that same time frame, and was all part of the long-term plan devised three years before.
The axe fell. The team was disbanded, cars and equipment were sold, people were laid off - and within the span of a few months, all of the equipment and buildings were gone. As of March, 1993, NPTI was no more.
Frank Honsowetz had, in the meantime, been promoted to Motorsports Manager for Nissan in America. My choices were to move back to Los Angeles and take on another position with the company, or retire.
I chose retirement. I was 65 years old, and had fought the corporate tiger long enough...
The story doesn't end there - Join us for Part 7
[post_title] => Legends of Nissan Motorsports - Kas Kastner (Part 6)
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[post_content] => The first year of my retirement, I just laid back and worked on little things at home that had been neglected for years, but somehow, the allure of racing drew me in again. My wife of 46 years had passed away after a long illness the same year I retired.
Another three years passed, and I married again - to an old friend who had done the timing and scoring for my team of Triumphs years before. Peggy was a racer. She talked me into to going to a vintage sports car race. I was really reluctant to bother. It is hard to go from being THE BIG MAN in the center of the action, to a virtual unknown, reduced to spectating and trying to beg for a pit pass. Anyway, we did go to the race. It was astounding.
I was overwhelmed by a Triumph contingent of racers when we went to the track the first time. From then on, I was back to my old stomping grounds, back to the cars that ignited my passion for racing. Soon, I started to write books about the preparation I had done years and years before for these same Triumph cars. You can check these out at kaskastner.com.
The Nissan days were over, but it still is a lot of fun to remember those times and the work it took to make a huge difference in a world class company.
We at Nissan competed against the best in the world: Porsche, Chevrolet, Toyota, Buick, Mazda, Jaguar, Ford... and beat them all soundly.
World Champions, from 1988 through 1991.
Looking back, it seems like such a long time ago... but it happened, and I was proud to be involved.
__________________________________________________________
These days, Kas is still very much involved in the racing scene - In fact, the Kastner Kup is held annually and is a Triumph-only vintage race that draws the best and fastest classic Triumphs from all over North America.
Kas hasn't lost his feel for a fine piece of Nissan engineering - His daily driver is one of Infiniti's finest:
Editor's note: I hope you've enjoyed this retrospective on one of the legends of Nissan motorsports... You can follow Kas on his Facebook page here: Kas Kastner on Facebook, and if you see him at a vintage event, take a minute to shake his hand and thank him for his contributions to the motorsports community.
On behalf of myself and the rest of the staff at NICOclub, we'd like to thank Mr. Kastner for indulging us in this interview, and wish him many, many more years of making things go fast and making people smile. Godspeed, good sir.
Greg and Becky Childs, NICOclub.com
[post_title] => Legends of Nissan Motorsports - Kas Kastner (Part 7)
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[post_content] => Editor's Note: One of the biggest thrills of running the web's largest online community for Nissan enthusiasts, for me, has been the opportunity to meet some of the influential people who made the Nissan nameplate what it is today. By simple happenstance, I recently had the great fortune to be introduced to Kas Kastner, one of the legends of Nissan Motorsports history, and he was gracious enough to indulge me in what must have seemed like hundreds of questions. I'd like you all to meet him as well, and I'm proud to be able to share his story with our loyal readers.
I was born and raised and went to school in Batavia, New York. This is a little town of about 17,000 folks that is older than any of the cities around it. Batavia was started by the Dutch in the early 1600s where they sold the Indians' land to enterprising farmers brave enough to stand the weather and the threats of the wildlife (and wild people too). It is about 40 miles east of Buffalo, New York, the snow capital of the USA. Batavia got its fair share of snow, which is probably what prompted me to go head out west.
I graduated high school in 1945 at sixteen, but as soon as I turned seventeen, I signed up for a 2 year stint in the Army. That got me to Colorado - the wonderful West... Denver, Grand Junction, Delta, Montrose, working various jobs, generally as a salesman of some sort. The most fun was running the big pool hall portion of a great bar in Grand Junction, “Moslanders”. I had learned to hustle pool in the Army, a knack I had in high school, so it did provide an escape (and a bit of cash, too). From there, I moved to Delta to sell cars or something, then on to Salt Lake City, Utah (again to escape the weather). When I moved from Delta, Colorado, it had been a bit cold, the snow was not too bad but the warmest it got for two weeks was ZERO degrees. Salt Lake was a balmy forty degrees, which means t-shirt and moccasins weather - or, more importantly, driving weather.
In Salt Lake City, I worked more sales jobs - Then the revelation of my life occurred. I bought a new 1952 MGTD. It was perfect. It was fast (for the times), handled wonderfully, and was an inspiration to me to be a top-notch driver. I practiced very early in the morning in the canyons before most people we out of their beds. I wore out the tires just over 4000 miles.
The dealer started a club for sports cars. I joined and got into timed events, hillclimbs, and autocrossing. I started right off to win. Then I entered the first real race, which was through the city streets of Aspen, Colorado. I placed second overall and first in class. I helped put on races in Salt Lake, then traveled to other states for races. Fort Sumner in New Mexico, Grand Central Airport in Glendale California, Pebble Beach in California. Some of this was in my first Triumph - a 1954 TR-2, and more in my MG Special I had built onto the frame of the MGTD I owned at that time.
By that time, I had owned about eight MGTDs. I'd buy and sell them - fix, repair, and tune and off they’d go to someone else. I did the first big repair on my MGTD, replacing a piston with the tools that came in the little kit with the car. In those days, there were no tools that fit the weird English-sized hardware, so it was always a fight to find the correct sizes. I was learning to be a mechanic.
Kas and his 1951 MG race car
I got pretty good at repairing, and tuning especially. There was very little information available in those days, and no tools that fit the strange English sizes - so I sent to England for workshop manuals and for tools that would fit the English size hardware. I also acquired a full set of taps and dies for the English threads (which were also different). Before I knew it, I had a lock on the business - I could repair the stuff that other people broke.
Kas pulling away from the pack in his Triumph at Santa Barbara, 1960
After a time as a manager of a service facility for the MG/Jaguar distributor, I opened my own shop. That's when things got really hot with the modifications. The racing was hot too, and I was very successful, winning lots of the local events. My search for power eventually overstepped the durability of the engines. It was pretty sorry for a while - Fast for a few laps, then sit and watch everyone else still racing - at a slower pace. I still had a lot to learn about this stuff.
Kastner's MG Special (1955)
I built two MG special cars - Special body on a standard MG frame, and that taught me about how to really make stuff. I taught myself to weld, I learned about gearboxes, suspension, and all the other stuff needed to be a successful racer.
NEXT: Los Angeles and a sharp change of direction... Join us for Part Two!
[post_title] => Legends of Nissan Motorsports - Meet R. W. "Kas" Kastner
[post_excerpt] => I recently had the great fortune to be introduced to Kas Kastner, one of the legends of Nissan Motorsports history, and I'm proud to be able to share his story with our loyal readers.
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"
Article Series
- Legends of Nissan Motorsports – Meet R. W. “Kas” Kastner
- Legends of Nissan Motorsports – Kas Kastner (Part 2)
- Legends of Nissan Motorsports – Kas Kastner (Part 3)
- Legends of Nissan Motorsports – Kas Kastner (Part 4)
- Legends of Nissan Motorsports – Kas Kastner (Part 5)
- Legends of Nissan Motorsports – Kas Kastner (Part 6)
- Legends of Nissan Motorsports – Kas Kastner (Part 7)
When I moved to Los Angeles, it was the beginning of being a small fish in a BIG pond and it was great. I ended up as the service manager for Triumph for the western USA and that gave me plenty of experience dealing with cars and people. Before long, I started the first Competition Department in the USA for a foreign manufacturer. I wrote books and pamphlets on how to do it correctly when you wanted to build a successful racer. Lots of years and experience were paying off, with wins at the Sebring 12-hour event in class, and also winning the team trophy. Things had come a long way from the days when my cars had no lasting power – Now it was a full trip until the checkered flag ended the event.
Triumph TR4A leading its class at Sebring, 1966
I was there when the opening of the Datsun Competition Department shadowed my endeavors for Triumph. Dick Roberts, their manager, was an old friend from my Colorado racing days and it was a lot of interesting times. I never thought I’d be working as a racer for Datsun or Nissan. In fact, in those days, Nissan was not even mentioned – who was that? It was always Datsun. I had lunch a couple times with Mr. Katayama, the head of the Datsun enterprise in the US. Nice man, very friendly, but again – I never expected to be in their employ.
More time passes. Triumph fades from my interest, to the point that I resigned. Kastner-Brophy Racing was formed soon thereafter. Two teams of Triumph cars, a Formula 5000 car that had fair success and did win the USAC Road Racing Championship with Jimmy Dittemore. Soon, the oil crisis loomed into sight and cost me sponsors right and left, so it was a dire time to keep going.
Then came a merger with Roy Woods Racing, a deal to race Can-Am, F-5000 and the three Indy 500 races for the sponsor Carling Black Label Beer. David B. Hobbs drove the Can-Am McLaren and the Gurney Eagle Indy car, and Tony Adamowicz did the job in the Formula 5000.
David Hobbs in the 1973 Black Label Beer Can-Am McLaren
By now, the Triumph cars were gone for good, and right about the time we were putting all of our effort into the “big-boy” race cars, the oil crisis won out after all – and we were soon broke. In a very short time, I was back on the streets again. I went from having a big busy shop full of race cars and personnel and drivers to just me, alone, against the world.
Along the way, as a hobby, I took up sailing. I found the same things that make you good at car preparation and racing applied to sailboats as well. After a few years I was pretty good – Good enough to win the National Championship title for the 13-foot Cyclone boats against about 40 younger guys. Another championship came in the 30-foot keel boats class. I tried a couple businesses in the boating niche, but it was not a place where my talents were appreciated – except as a sailor – and that was no way to make a living. Before long, I was out of the sailing business.
Then I talked with my old friend Hugh MacInnes, widely regarded as the father of turbocharging in the USA. He wrote a couple of books on turbocharging and I knew him from other contacts. At Hugh’s urging, I found a place for myself back in the high-performance automotive industry. I built aftermarket turbocharger kits (including cast manifolds, adapters, and piping) for all sorts of production cars. Diesel Volkswagen Rabbits, Mazda RX-7, Toyota and Mazda pickups, more than 20 models were covered (even my old friend, the Triumph TR-6). It was a good business and after several years of expansion, I sold the business, complete.
Several months went by after the sale of the Arkay turbocharger kit business. I still did not have a direction. One day, John Borgen, Marketing Director for Nissan, called me on the phone and asked if I knew anyone who might be qualified to be their new National Motorsports Manager.
Anyone want to guess how that turned out? Join us for Part 3!
