Yoo Hoo Too II

Wayne Jesel Recreates His Legendary Chocolate Junior Stocker

- Geoff Stunkard

Junior Stock was the place for the little guys in the heyday of the mid- 1960s, and while the costs of everything has gone up since, few who have seen this sedan-delivery tribute would disagree that Wayne Jesel’s “Yoo Hoo Too” is breathtaking in its execution. Jesel, who is well known in the motorsports aftermarket for working with Danny’s valve train development company and racing at Bonneville, remembers his youth fondly when he and his older brother were among the tough guys in the NHRA Northeast Division 1.

The Jesels helped stoke the hotbed of Atlantic coast action out of New Jersey, where Atco, English town, and Great Meadows roared to life every weekend. Long before Danny had created Competition Machine Service in Freehold, New Jersey, he and partner Dave Smith were running a machine shop in the back room of Bob Duffy’s Performance Specialties in Red Bank. Teenager Wayne hung out and got a chronic dose of speed spirochetes.

“We would see guys like Jere Stahl and Jenkins/Spanakos in these cars, and I liked the Junior Stocks. I could not afford a blown Gasser. We were over at Stahl’s shop in York one afternoon. Me, my brother, and a racer from our area he did some work for, Tony Massari, who raced a heavy ’62 Impala convertible in G/SA,” Wayne said. “We told Stahl we wanted a purpose-built ’56 body, with the 265/225hp, dual-four setup, also for G/SA. Back then, we used the current NADA book to get the factory shipping weights, to find the best combination for the class. After checking on it, I said, ‘What about a sedan delivery?’ Well, we couldn’t find it in the NADA book under cars, but it was under trucks. That fact made all the difference in the world.”