Hi

I am Dave Clark; I had the great fortune to have met Nye when I was 17 years old. I was working at Fumio’s cylinder head shop. Nye had a motor for Danny Tompson’s class 1 buggy. As the months went by, I got a chance to get to know Nye. One day Nye asked me if I wanted to go to a race… little did I know the implications of that question. Here we are, 30 years later to celebrate his life and his accomplishments. Nye brought me to that first race and I was hooked ever after. He showed me what it was to be a mechanic and a car builder.

Nye had a brilliant race mind and possessed a keen sense of logic. He built things a certain way, he had this “Nye philosophy”.

Over the years, working side by side with Nye, I came to realize that he didn’t just do THINGS, he DID them for very specific reasons. One way to describe Nye’s technique is to say, “ He did things philosophically proper”. According to his way of thinking.

When working in the shop, he looks like he is moving slow, but his moves are always deliberate and to the point. At the end of the day, he gets a lot of stuff done.

He could whip out a complex alum part in no time. The way he worked with metal was simply amazing.

When you would watch him make a part and see the way he did it and the steps he took, he made it look easy. That’s because he had true talent and didn’t need to struggle.

He had this incredible work ethic. He made his moves count. He always wanted to reach that day’s goal.

He introduced me to Mexico, to fossil hunting, to diving and spear fishing. Once while driving down to Cabo, Nye said to me “see those hills over there? That color looks about right, see the light tan with a hint of gray? That dirt might have fossil shark teeth in it, let’s go look”, we stopped the truck and started looking, and sure enough we found some teeth.

We went spear fishing several times, Once I came back with this 15 inch fish and I was thinking “YA” then I Look over and see Nye with a 3 foot fish. He wouldn’t say anything about it, just put the fish in the boat and go get another one.

Once he told me about the time he was scuba diving in the Sea of Cortez, stocking a fish with his speargun, he had the fish in his sights, when all of a sudden a big shadow past overhead, he was concerned and he looked up to see a whale shark swimming by. He said it was a marvelous sight.

We won some big races and had our glory time in the hot sun but some of my best memories of Nye are the simple ones, like being caught in a flash flood driving down Baja. Changing a hot transmission in waist high grass in the middle of no ware. Having a hole in the radiator and needing to find water every few miles so we could keep on moving. Setting off fireworks and skyrockets in downtown San Felipe.

I have received a lot of calls these past few days. One really stands out in my mind, George Klotz, the team manger for a winning Indy car team could not make it here today. He said to me “ Dave! Where would I be? What would I be doing? What kind of person would I be? The five years I worked with Nye on the Mazda deal up there changed my life”

George echoed my own thoughts.

When Nye asked me to go to that first race with him when I was a kid.... I am so glad I said yes.

Nye Frank has had such an impact on my life. I am so grateful to have met him. No words can express my gratitude to Nye Frank.

Nye was my all time best pal.