Where are they now? Bill Casler

National Dragster, Feb 7, 2003 by Jodauga, John

Yesterday

Bill Casler, one of the more prominent West Coast Jr. Stock racers in the early 1960s, founded Casler Tire Service, which pioneered the use of the recapped cheater slick. In addition, Casler played a major role in turning Hooker Headers into one of the leading equipment manufacturers in the high-performance industry.

Oddly, a football injury diverted Caster from his original goal to hot rodding.

"I graduated from Chaffey High School in Ontario, Calif, in 1950 and received a football scholarship hom [the University of Southern California], but I got hurt and joined the service instead, " said Casler. "I tried attending the university again, but after spending time in the service, I didn't have the mind-set to be a scholar anymore. I was married, and my primary concern was finding ajob. I ended up working at a tire shop in Ontario. "

Casler's restless nature led him to form his own business.

"I bought an operation in Pomona, called Mason's Tire Shop, and it was there that I got involved with drag racing tires, " he said. "A couple of my customers, Wiley Cossey and Gil Flannagan, drove construction trucks during the week and raced in Pomona on weekends. At first, they came by for tires for their street vehicles, but they later began asking me about different tire applications for racing.

"At the time, everyone ran Atlas Bucrons, which had a tread design similar to my recaps," Casler added. I had my recaps made with different compounds from various suppliers, and pretty soon we came up with some stuff that worked well. In those days, Stock classes were limited to seveninch tires, so any improvement in traction made a big difference. "

Casler began racing with a '59 El Camino and shared driving and mechanical duties with Cossey. Racing in an era when there were only two national events, the NHRA Winternationals and NHRA Nationals (Casler and Cossey won both), winning a class trophy at that time produced almost the same amount of fame and notoriety that winning a major event does today.

"It was tricky to drive those cars off the line with the seven-inch tires, " said Caster, "but you either had to learn how to do it or cheat. Some guys did both, but they were eventually caught. We were proud of the fact that we always passed tech and were never protested or disqualified. "

As his business grew, Casler surrendered the drivers seat to Cossey, who won the Jr. Stock title at the 1966 Winternationals with Callers 427-cid B/S '65 Chevrolet.

"I kept making recaps, " said Casler. "Marv Ritchin at M&H was making brandnew tires for racers, but I didn't have enough capital at that time to get into that kind of production. "

His original design, the Casler cheater, which got its name from the two tread cuts that qualified it for Stock, was later joined by the Spraling model, which used 40-ply nylon textile blanks (worn-out passenger-car tires) equipped with caps ranging from 5.5 to 8.0 inches. The market for recaps was big at that time; some of Casler's clients were Hayden Proffitt, Butch Leal, the Sox & Martin team, and Shirley Shahan.

Casler's career changed when Gary Hooker, who lived across the street, approached him.

"Gary's header shop had burned down, and it had wiped him out," said Casler. "He asked me if I wanted to be a part of his business and help him rebuild. I looked at it as a venture with some potential, and agreed. We leased some property on Brooks Street in Ontario from the Dawton Berry Construction Co. and went on from there. Not long after that, Dennis Holding [of the Frantic Four Top Fuel team] introduced me to Stan Goldstein, who had an advertising agency, Graphic Things, on Calvert Street in Van Nuys, Calif. Stan came up with the Hooker heart logo, and I knew right then that we were on to something. The logo's shape was easy to recognize, and it had a distinctive lettering style. I liked the red and yellow colors. "

By the late 1960s, Hooker had clients such as Bill Jenkins, Dick Landy, and the Sox & Martin team, and its sales rose dramatically.

"We had our own development shop, and we worked closely with racers to come up with a better product, "said Casler."Plus, we were tired of Doug Thorley coming up to us and beginning discussions about who had the biggest list of back orders. "

Hooker became one of the more popular brands in the country, and many of the top racers used its facilities as a work area when they traveled West to attend the Winternationals. Casler took pride in the fact that he was involved in two very successful businesses without the benefit of formal business training.

"Some people liked to read books on how to run things, but 1 just went out and did it, " he said. "I always felt that on-the-job training beat any kind of schooling. Things got so big with the header company that I decided to close down the tire operation. Though I had the capital to begin introducing brand-new tires and recaps - by that time, Firestone and Goodyear were heavily into it - I decided it would be too much of a gamble."