The Yenko Era
When I was 7 or 8 years old my mother enrolled me in the You Are There Book Club.    I was completely enthralled as each month's book arrived and placed me in the midst of important events such as the Normandy invasion, Thomas Edison s lab, etc. I used to wonder if the people involved realized the significance of the events as they occurred. I suspect they were too closely involved to see the larger picture.    I grew up near Canonsburg, Pennsylvania and knew about Don Yenko's racing exploits. I had pressed my nose against the showroom window late at night, looking at a Stinger on display. I scraped together enough money to buy Stinger YS037 and returned to the dealership often to look at the cars and performance parts on display.    Visits to Yenko Chevrolet became routine and since no one made an effort to throw me out, I wandered around the shops, talking to everyone and looking over their shoulders as they worked. Everyone was friendly and outgoing, especially Warren Dernoshek in the performance shop, who didn't mind answering my questions and working around me. I remember sitting in a 1964 Impala 409 and kicking the starter while he adjusted the valves or helping him put a Camaro on the chassis dyno. I became acquainted with Donna Mae Mims, Jim Spencer and many others, not realizing until later that they were nationally renowned. I ran errands for them, shuttled cars and even drove Donna Mae's pink Fiat to Company Headquarters in New York.    As the Yenko era wound down in the 1970's the crew at Yenko began to move on to other things. I kept in touch with a few of them including Warren Dernoshek.    Two years ago Warren, Donna Mae and I got together for the first time in 30 years and the idea for this book took root. As various people heard that we were planning this book many of them asked me if I had written a book before. I replied that I hadn't but I was not really writing this one either, but rather assembling it from boxes of parts. This project was never intended to be the know all and end all of Yenko production and serial numbers. God knows, others have spent years researching and documenting such things. This book was done just because. Just because we could. Warren, Donna Mae and I had memories, some better than others, we had boxes of stuff that was interesting to us, letters, invoices, photos, and we thought other people might enjoy our scrapbook. We hope you have as much fun looking through it as we did in putting it together.    Mark Gillespie