Features VINTAGE SPRINT CAR PIC THREAD, 1965 and older only please.

Thx Black!

 

I did not. Do you have a link per chance???

 

Oh Boy! Amelia Island pics are great! SVRA put on a race in conjunction with the concours. I had a notion to tow back there; but had been plagued with persistent colds to the point where I missed events near home. Maybe next year.

 

catching up with Josh Shaw and Bob McConnell,and a few more shots.. [ATTACH=full

 

Correct - Clare Lawicki was the wheelman on the Benovich Sprinter for the USAC pavement races during the 1969 season and destroyed the car making an outside move heading into turn one on the initial start (after multiple aborted attempts) at Dayton on April 12th, 1970. The front end of the car was seared off all the way to the front of the engine and it hit so hard the rear center section shattered. The front pumps landed adjacent to the top row of the grandstand. Not much was left and Clare suffered numerous broken bones and was lucky to survive it, then promptly retired. Clare was a fantastic shoe who couldn't qualify very well but always went forward in every race he was in. At the time of the wreck, a small boy jumped off a trailer in the pit area and caught his eye on the one of the ramp rods, which pushed his eye out of its socket. The car also hit a couple of spectators taking pictures that were told numerous times to get back from the fence. The car was purchased from Bud Tingelstad.

 

Willie Davis died yesterday (4/16/17) at age 86.

Looks like he'll be wrenching for GaryB again.

 

QUESTION:
Where do those coolant lines coming out of the top of the radiator lead to?
A liquid cooled Harley? Tell me more.

 

That is a Drake Knuckle engine and they had liquid cooled cylinders. Gary

 

NOT SPRINTCARS : THOSE "HARLEY" ENGINED CARS ARE MIDGETS!!!!

 

Viking Craft roadster 1/4 midget by Doug Caruthers. Not a lot of these built.

 

Sorry to hear Willie Davis has passed away. A total gearhead, going back many years.

 

Zane, Were does the Carlheim Twin fit in this Midget History? One of the dumbest things I ever did was sell the Bill Schindler Harley Knucklehead powered "Catfish" an hour after I unloaded it back in 1978. Bopb

 

Pufff: From the outside you might be close on your observations, HOWEVER , they are ENTIRELY different classes of racecar, & these are Midgets(based on wheelbase & motor displacement). HUMOR FOR THOSE WHO KNOW : I'd like to see(from a good distance, of course, as I would like to be able to report it later) you walk up to Steve Kinser immediately after he finished SECOND to Sammy Swindel in a World of Outlaws main event , & comment something to the effect "You sure drove a good Midget race"! Considering the rivalry between them, & knowing how any racer HATES second place, it could get interesting RAPIDLY, especially if Sammy threw a 'slide-job' on him coming out of turn 4 to take the checker! Any comments from the other Sprintcar guys on here?

 

The small picture of the rough car amongst these jewel midgets is of course a TQ or 3/4 midget with a 45 cubic inch flat head Harley.

 

That little Viking Craft car is awesome. Some one had/has a really cool ride.

 

Gus Carlheim used English JAP 1000 cc twin engine case with I think his barrels and heads. They were used in some midgets. The 500cc single JAP was a popular engine in the Formula 3 racers in England and Europe early post WWII.

 

Pordugiel & Smiley produced speed parts under the name P&S. If I remember correctly they are mentioned in the Roy Richter book and worked for him at Bell Auto Parts. They split off and had their own shop close to Bell. Not too many years ago I sold a pair of P&S spindles to an indoor midget racer who explained the desirability of those spindles for indoor use.

 

NO !!! By you're reasoning a F-16 fighter and a Piper Cub are the same because they both have wings and fly in the air and the USS Enterprise and a tug boat are the same because they have the same boat shape and float in the water.

 

Here it is with Johnny Zeke. It was chain driven. I sold it because it was a MIDGET, I couldn't fit in it. I like BIG CARS that were called SPRINT CARS later on. Never had a chance to buy a CHAMP car or INDY car. Bob

 

It was within a year of selling it that the history started to come out. It was a Pop Dreyer built car with a very unique wiggle front end using Model T parts. I've still got the two extra front springs that came with it. That was one of the largest Sprint car parts buy outs I ever made, stacks of Dayton wire wheels, two ROOF overhead cam heads for a B block, a half dozed drilled C cranks and the center piece a DO GREEN 16 valve engine that is now in the Bill Smith Speedway collection. Bob

 

This is the Joe Fiore single over head cam ROOF powered car, I had the head and header from this car and a spare. Sold both to Doc Pruden in LA around 1975, wonder were they are now? Bob

 

The Joe Fiore DO GREEN this engine is now in the Bill Smith Speedway collection, painted red. Bob

 

The J.A.P engines were based on the H-D flathead bottom end to avoid the pushrod angles of the Knucklehead. Neat stuff, all of the v-twin engines used in midgets.

 

Jeff is still at it. He runs mostly with the ASCS ( 360 winged cars ) national tour.

Kevin has become a car owner since he broke his back a couple of years ago and is confined to a wheel chair.

Sammy is still Sammy. If you can't pass them, crash them.

 

Ah, the memories. When I was in grade school in Indy, a friend of mine raced quarter midgets and I was his stooge. We ran against this car. Several kids in that group had ties to the speedway and champ cars.

Brad Marvel was the driver and his father, Bill, was a public relations guy with several racing related accounts including Bryant Heating and Cooling.

 

Actually, the midget race comment would have been secondary at best. If Steve would have been at his limit after a slide job incident, he would have clocked Sammy a couple of times and things would have been good until Steve had had his fill of Sammy's sliders again.

The interesting part in the days when Steve drove for Karl Kinser would have been Karl. He didn't care much about the sliders, but the payout difference the slider cost him would have been a another matter. Karl was funny about his dollars and he didn't like it when someone cost him part of "his" money and tended to take such things personally.

As for the " clocking " part, Steve came by that honestly. His father, Bob, usually had an unlit cigar sticking out of his mouth and when sufficiently provoked had a somewhat ritualistic move where he would reach up, grasp the cigar between his thumb and forefinger and drop it from shoulder height. In central Indiana sprint car circles, the prevailing wisdom was that the offending party would hit the ground before the cigar did.

Those were the good old days.

 

Pufff : No Harm/No Foul: just drew some humor out of presenting a "classic example" of when it would be a good time to find some 'cover' in a hurry, & at the same time point out the differences in the cars. And, if it's an open wheel car & races on dirt, count me interested, whether it's antique or modern, & whether it's Go-karts or Champ-cars(Silver Crown for the 'newbies' LOL). To stir it up a little more: "In a 'real' race car the driver is able to see all 4 wheels while seated in the seat !" RACING IS RACING!!

 

I'd pay big money to have that kind of peripheral vision.

Unless I'm driving a FED I can only manage two.

 

"See all 4 wheels" meaning can be seen while sitting in the seat. Sure, the driver needs to turn his/her head & look at them, but clearly exposed ("Like they are supposed to be"!! LOL!!).

 

I knew - I got it.

Open wheelers are my favorite in any genre of motorsports.