Educated at the General Motors Institute, Herb Brinn eventually became the Chevrolet carburetor engineering group's senior engineer. Unfortunately for GM, the seed for Brinn's departure was planted only a year following his start in 1967.

- by Karl Fredrickson (April, 1996)

Herb Brinn's engineering degree has educated him on two parts of the design process. One is how to do it, the other is to respect those who preceded him.

Herb Brinn, second from the left, was the engine builder for Ben Wenzel's Stock Eliminator Win at the prestigious NHRA US Nationals.

"I drag raced most of the time I was at GM," says Brinn who had several national record holding cars, including a big block Camaro that out-qualified Ronnie Sox, Bill Jenkins, Jere Stahl and Don Nicholson to earn the top spot in the Super Stock division at the 1967 World's Finals.

Herb Brinn (left) & Omer Lozo before leaving for the 1967 NHRA World Finals in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Their Camaro qualified #1 in Super Stock Eliminator.

Amid that success, Brinn took in some stock car races and became interested. Later, a chance meeting with one of the drivers would eventually change the sport. "Ed Howe and I had machine work done at the same shop and we got to talking one day. He had a big block Chevrolet like I had, but he wasn't making as much horsepower as he should so, we teamed up in 1968."

It was the start of something very big. "We built some pretty good engines, but immediately got interested in the chassis end of it. One thing led to another and around 1972 we started building chassis at Howe Racing Enterprises." Brinn left GM the following year to work with Howe full-time. "Our chassis business got very, very successful," says Brinn in a bit of understatement.

After nearly twenty years together, Brinn and Howe went their separate ways in 1987. Howe continues to market chassis and components, but Brinn went in a totally different direction. "I'm not sure why I got interested in transmissions," he says of the career change. "There was a need for a transmission that addressed the inertia issue."

The most practical method of reducing inertia in race cars is to move the clutch inside the transmission. Although he was unaware of it at the time, Brinn says there was a transmission being offered that had an internal clutch. "Bert's transmission was already in existence," says Brinn. That's not all he discovered. "I also found out that putting the clutch on the [transmission's] countershaft is patented by another man named Tom Hager."

Call it professional courtesy if you like, but Brinn says, "You need to sleep at night, too, so I found out who owned the patent and called him to see if we could negotiate a license. That's what we did." According to Brinn, his is the only auto racing transmission that does not violate the United States patent laws (which are extremely difficult to enforce outside American borders) regarding clutch placement.

For the rest of the transmission, Brinn developed some unique features. "I looked at some little things," says Brinn. "For instance, I elected to take the reverse idler out of mesh because I don't want that to be turning when in direct drive."

Car owner Mike Spatola says he switched from another brand of transmissions for his three dirt late models to the Brinn because he was fed up with breaking reverse gears. He says he has not experienced any trouble at all since.

Brinn says that's no fluke. "The fact that Mr. Spatola hasn't broken a reverse gear may not mean much to some racers, but other transmissions run the reverse idler when they are in direct drive. I went to great lengths to design my shifter arrangement to get the reverse idler out of mesh.

"It costs more money to do it, but I did not want to put any power on the reverse idler anytime other than when it's in reverse because of horsepower loss and durability. Mine is the only one I know of that doesn't leave the reverse idler in mesh. If you're turning that input shaft 7000 RPM, I think that idler is probably going 10,500 on a brass bushing!

"I also separated the dog clutch, the low gear speed gear and the reverse speed gear. That way, I was able to get the inertia of the low gear speed gear and the reverse idler totally out of the picture. Those types of things had never been done before."

If there has been a stumbling block, it may have been with some of the very first transmissions-some racers claimed to have reliability problems. Brinn is eager to discuss those situations because he knows they are long gone. "The only reliability problem we ever had occurred in 1988 and that required a change in the dog clutch.

"I increased both the outside diameter and the cross section of the front rail and dog ring because you could fatigue the teeth, particularly on rough tracks. So, I made a material change and a cross section change. We haven't had a problem since."

Brinn's statement is backed up by chassis and parts dealer Larry Shaw who says, "We sell a lot of Brinn transmissions and we have never had a problem." Shaw believes he knows why. "Today, when somebody has something new, the first thing they want to do is get it on the market and sell it before it has time to prove if it's good or bad. But, Herb took the time to do some really good testing."

And, he did it with some really good drivers. "[Scott] Bloomquist had one, Kevin Claycomb had one and I had one in my house car," continues Shaw. "We all ran them the entire summer then sent them back for Brinn to check.

"He was able to see what was worn and what was getting in trouble, then he was able to make the adjustments required [before] he started selling them. I think that paid off in the long run because in all these years I think we only had one transmission that gave us trouble.

"It wasn't even Herb's fault and it never has come up again," adds Shaw. That's the only thing that I've ever had go wrong. I don't know how many we sell, but we sure have sold a bunch."

Two-time World 100 winner Donnie Moran switched from a regular Muncie to a Brinn when they were first offered and is still quite satisfied with them today. "I run 50 races a year and only tear the transmission down at the end of the season," says Moran. "They are very dependable."

And durable, Moran uses a Brinn in his race school car. "We get all sorts of different customers," he says. "Some have been racing for ten years, others have never driven a [race] car before. When people use them for the first time, the transmission sees more abuse than somebody who is used to running them. " Still, Moran says for all the first-timers, the transmission never gives trouble.

Landrum Spring's Russell Landrum sells transmissions among other components and he runs his own late model. "We sell both the Bert and the Brinn," says Landrum as diplomatically as possible. So, which one does he run? "I run the Brinn," he says before adding, "Brinn's United States location and Herb's determination to make customers happy results in people getting the parts they need when they need them. "

Those parts are usually for maintenance according to the racers we spoke with. Shaw adds that maintaining a Brinn is simple, too. "We just tell them to fill it to the proper level with the recommended [fluid] and how to shift them. Boy, I'll tell you, I don't know if people mind good or what, but we don't have problems at all with Herb's transmissions."

Brinn takes a real world approach to insuring that racers use a good oil. "I have discovered over the years that you don't need automatic transmission fluid. Originally, that's what I recommended because the twelve disk (six drives and six drivens) clutch system is an automatic transmission type.

"Now, we recommend a good grade of very low viscosity gear lube, such as B&M Trick Shift," continues Brinn. Still, he says, "I have my best success telling customers to use a good multi-grade or straight-grade racing motor oil, as long as it's not synthetic. "I recommend they change the transmission oil every time they change the engine oil-just get out one extra quart and put it in the transmission. Racers will always have good engine oil," says Brinn. "They don't have any junk because they paid too much for the engine.

"So, while there probably are some specialty lubes that would be a little better, and I've tested a number of them, the overall program operates better to me if they just put a good racing motor oil in there and forget it."

That's because there are minimal components requiring the black gold. "All you need to lubricate when you're in direct drive is the two big ball bearings the main shaft runs on," says Brinn. "They are gigantic for the job they are doing, so they take very little lube. "

There's more that requires less. "Since you're not putting power through any gears when you're in direct drive, they also require very little lube. They are still turning, but there's no load on them at the pitch line, like there is in quick change gears or a ring and pinion. You'll never spall the teeth like you do on quick change gears. So, what we're doing is finding a gear lube that gives you the right cushion when you apply the clutch and motor oil seems to be that. It lets it slip just enough so that you don't have a violent lock up."

The bottom line, according to Shaw is minimizing maintenance and problems is paramount for today's racers. "It seems like there's always something on the race car that you need to spend more time with than anything else," he says. "It seems like nowadays everyone is concerned with trying to tune the engine and get the right tires on it.

"So, if you got a transmission that is giving you trouble-it's, jumping out of gear or leaking or something-that's just another problem that you have to contend with. If, on the other hand, you can bolt that transmission up and not have a problem, that becomes [an advantage].

"You can run that thing all year long and at the end of me year, just take it out and send it back to Herb. Or, do it yourself. All you have to do is look at the clutch disks-you may not even need to replace them, but that's the only thing you have to do-if you have to do anything at all."