Performance Trends, Inc.

In Memoriam - Friends We've Lost

When you've been around a while, you meet lots of people who have a big influence on you, or are just great people.  Unfortunately you can loose those people over time also.  Here's some acknowledgement to those friends who've had connection with Performance Trends no longer with us.

 

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Viola Simonson Gertgen  Like my Dad, Mom was a depression era farm girl.  Picture Judy Garland in the Wizard of Oz and that was my Mom.  She was a real Rosie the Riveter during the war, and did a great job raising me and my brother.    for the eulogy I gave at her funeral.  I love you Mom.

 

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Don Gertgen  My Dad was a depression era kid, where you would put your ear right up to the radio to hear the The Lone Ranger, or The Shadow as the batteries were going dead.  He had a great sense of humor.  He would recount his Dad (grandpa) telling him and his brother if they were sitting in the shade during summer haying or thrashing "Why don't you water the cattle while you are resting."  Or the story about:  "Every year, plant 3 acres of potatoes, weed 3 acres of potatoes, pick potato bugs off 3 acres of potatoes, dig up 3 acres of potatoes and haul them into the basement.  Then every summer haul 2 and a half acres of rotten potatoes out of the basement." He couldn't convince his Dad that maybe 1 acre of potatoes was enough.  He always had a joke for most any occasion, for most anyone he met.  We actually considered putting his favorite "Ole and Lena" joke on the back of his gravestone.

When I was growing up, I didn't realize what a huge influence my Dad had on me.  He was determined I had an easier and better life than he had.  My Dad worked very hard, farming 240 acres and working a full time job also.  And because we didn't have a huge income, not like "town people", you worked very hard for what you did get, and took good care of it.  All that rubbed off.  He wanted me to go to college so I wouldn't have to work as hard as he did.  Many thanks Dad.

 

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Bob McNall  Back in 1970 or so I was reading a car magazine article about a couple of Ford engineers drag racing the new, light Ford Maverick.  They were the Williams and McNall team.  Fast forward about 20 years and I'm working for Bob McNall at the Ford Dyno Lab in Dearborn.  Bob was a great guy, and racing and automotive enthusiast, racing in both NHRA and SCCA.  He encouraged me to pursue my ambition of starting Performance Trends, for which I am very grateful.

 

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Jacque Vizard  Jacque was the beautiful, talented daughter of famed automotive author David Vizard.  David has been a friend of Performance Trends going back to the early 1990s.  Jacque was taken way too soon at very young age.   for a loving memorial piece David wrote about Jacque.

 

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Bill Mitchell I only met Bill once when we both gave a talk at a gathering at the old Motorsports "Hall of Fame" in Novi, Michigan.  Bill was a competitor of ours, but I have to acknowledge that Bill made a huge contribution to how racing teams used software and analyzed data to tune their vehicles. 

 

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Ken Moe  I first talked to Ken in the early 90s when he ran a magazine called Competition Proven from South Dakota.  He was a big Ford racer and engine builder, so we got along very well.  Like the magazine title, Ken wanted to see data and facts, not marketing.  I finally met Ken about 9 months ago, when he borrowed one of our Cam Test Stands to do work on a book he was writing.  He was now living in Michigan.  Ken and I talked about 1 hour or more as he recalled the good times in small town South Dakota and racing.  Then I got the bad news Ken had died.  I will miss him, his experience, and his fun stories.

  for a link to his facebook page.  Not sure how long it will stay up.

 

  Dave Manzolini   Dave was president of Depac dyno systems and was known as "Depac Dave" in the industry.  I first met Dave at the PRI show several years ago.  We were similar in that neither of us were into marketing frills.  We concentrated on the product.  There appears to be about 700 Depac systems on dynos around the world.  Dave was a competitor of ours, but we got along very well.  His controller was on some of the dynos with our DataMite loggers.  Dave had his quirks like we all do; but no one doubted his technical abilities.  The dyno testing community lost a real giant with Dave's passing.

  for an obit I found on line.