Club Cobra - Who is Jerry Heasley?

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- - Who is Jerry Heasley? (http://www.clubcobra.com/forums/shelby-american-inc/87736-who-jerry-heasley.html)

Who is Jerry Heasley?

I don't know very much about the rift between CS and SAAC, but it's certainly been covered a bunch in the magazines I subscribe to. I just received my July issue of Mustang & Ford Trader, and this gentleman's take on the issue was very different than what I've read here and on most of the other forums I read. I don't have any influence one way or the other, but I usually just like to here both sides of an argument. I'm curious as to whether or not anyone else here has read it? Thanks guys

...so what's the gist of what he says?

his quotes, " I think the lesson to be learned is don't bite the hand that feeds you. You don't tug on Superman's cape. Unlike most clubs SAAC is a profit-making business. Rick Kopec and Ken Eber are not the victims, as they try to characterize themselves. This is a for-profit club, prior to SAAC Kopec was a high school shop teacher."

The gist of it reads that each year they take in more money and give its members less benefits. They should return CS's property (documents,checks, and etc) and move on.

Like I said in the first post it just caught my eye because it was written more opionated than most of these "trader" articles. They are usually just re-prints of articles from Ford and Mustang mag's.

This article is also followed up with one praising Carrol Shelby's many accomplishments. It also states no one man has done for FMC what CS has done, and who knows where the mustang would be without him. It was written so favorably I guess that's where my initial question came from. Is this guys connected with SAI or is this just his unbiased opinion and I have only been reading from one side of this thing?

Who is Jerry,

He has written a few automotive books, most for profit. Allows others to feed him his research and like another certain author allows the facts to sometimes be obscured by his own lack of fact checking. This must be another of his fluff stories for any number of the Primedia family of publications. More details on his publications can be found at the following url:

Jerry Heasley

Bill S.

Back in the early to mid nineties I worked part time at a place called the Ford Performance Shop in San Antonio TX. The owner of the place knew Jerry and would occasionally get calls from him asking if anything new was going on. At one point we were doing a 9" conversion on a Fox body which was pretty new at the time and Jerry came down to do a story on it. I wound up being around Jerry for about a day and a half while he took pics and wrote down info on the install. My take on Jerry is that the man definitely has no lack of ego, but then that may describe most of us here on this board as well. When it comes to his comments on SAAC and Shelby, I have to say that most of it is true but with the normal Jerry slant. For instance, SAAC is a profit-making business not a club in what we would think of it in a real sense. And when I was a member this statement; "each year they take in more money and give its members less benefits" seemed very true to me. However that "don't bite the hand that feeds you" and “superman” stuff is typical Jerry showmanship. I will say that I don't think that he's in SAI's pocket or anything like that but one should always be aware that he'll have his own agenda in just about anything he writes.

Steve

Bill, Steve thanks for the info.

Sure SAAC is a "for profit" operation and the cost/benefit ratio was one of the things that made me give up my membership some time ago. And regardless of Kopec's prior life as a teacher (and it wasn't high school shop) the problems with CS are pure profit issues, nothing more, nothing less. Shelby needs control of the records to allow his version of "history" to be accepted as the official one. Kopec, Eber, Pardee, et all stand in the way of his revisionist plans.

I have no particular love for SAAC and the operators and I disagree with the fundraising/mudslinging methods they are currently employing, BUT, I disagree with the Shelby camps actions even moreso.

Think about this authors posistion......he stands to write several future stories about Shelby products and have some nice, fun "test drives" in them. What can SAAC offer him?