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

Thats pretty.
Dave

 

Yes it runs very well too. Lucky for him, this car came with an onboard starter saving a lot of trouble.

 

Josh,

"Anyone know BILL HOLDER. Does he have an E-mail address?"

Don't have an EMail address, but phone is 937 233-0924 .

Tom

 

Mike Andersen, a member of the Midwest Oldtimers Vintage Race Car Club, and who lives in Mt. Auburn, IN; has a CAE pavement car that looks like an Indy roadster with a short tail. It has a severely offset Q.C. to go with the offset S.B.C.-the driveshaft is not "open"; rather it has a bell on each end of a torque tube. Obviously it doesm't do much for rear axle location but it DOES keep that spinning shaft out of touch with the driver.

 

There was a roadster with that formula, called the 'bent 8 ball special'...?

The idea was to get the driver and engine on the left side. Roadsters on dirt were said to be tempermental sometimes.

 

One day left.. I heard it fire about 30 min. ago.. 1:00am Wonderfull!

She'll make it. THRASH THRASH THRASH..

 

Ok heres a nice 30s flat tail sprinter ,looking good in the garage, was a car built in thr Fresno, Ca area and raced around there, thats all I know so fare.Chris

 

Josh or anyone else. Have you ever heard of John Zink? He raced a car at the Indy 500 in the early 50's.

Thanks,
Chris

 

I don't know if he ever drove race cars, but as a owner/sponsor he was a fixture at Indy most of the 50s-60s and his cars won a couple of times IIRC. He had many of the big name drivers of that era behind the wheel of his cars at one time or another. On the local Okla. scene he was quite dominating in super modified racing with guys like Emmet Hahn at the wheel. I'm sure brian26 could elaborate further.

 

Why yes I can.

John Zink wanted to drive just like the guys at Tulsa Speedway when they were running midgets. His dad was very wealthy from his own heating and cooling business and of course John was to take over someday. The old man didn't want John to drive because of the dangers, yet he wanted to support but only in a way to keep John out of the drivers seat. So, he bought John a Kurtis midget with the stipulation that John hire someone to drive it. I was told it was this car here, although without a cage-

 

He hooked up with Cecil Green and then Jimmy Reece while he trying to get a foot in the door at Indy. They all came from Oklahoma but Cecil got killed and Reece went his own way.

1955 found Zink, AJ Watson, and Bob Swiekert together for Indy, with a Kurtis roadster. Vuky got killed in that race and Sweikert inherited the lead and the win.

'56 they came back with a car built by Watson, Pat Flaherty did the driving chores and he won easily. Note- Just as the car crossed the line, the throttle spring broke and the car had to idle back around the track to winners circle. When asked as to why AJ's car had broken he replied-"Well, I only built it to go 500 miles!"

By '57 they had 2 wins in a row and were on a charge. But then things took a turn by '58 and in that year AJ and Zink split. After those days in '55-'56 Zink got close but never won another Indy(officially).

By the late '60s the rear engine cars had taken over and Zink was looking to off road racing as his new passion. So what does he do? Well, what any rich, pampered idiot would do- he raced a Husqvarna motorcycle in the Mexican Baja race. Yes, just a bike and a few tools! Sure he had support, but still-one man, one bike. From there he grew into the buggies.

All the while as this went on, he owned a supermodified team in Tulsa. With Buddy Cagle, Jackie Howerton, and Emmitt Hahn(Dennie Moore was mechanic, builder etc.), his team won many championships against the toughest likes in the south central US.

By the '80s he took to Yacht racing winning the country club event so many times, they finally gave him THE TROPHY, not just a copy. He was said to be very intense, almost unsportsmanlike. Very competitive.

 

He died around 2 years ago and kept just about every race car he could from those years at Indy.

He had the distinction of having the last winning Kurtis, and the first winning Watson. Both are still in the family.


One last thing. As rich and priviledged as he was, few knew that he had the ability to REALLY drive a race car. An early NASCAR race came thru Oklahoma and just for kicks, he took a car out just to see how he would do. He timed faster than the likes of Lee Petty, and his colleagues! He then took the car back into the pits and got out, honoring his promise to his old man that he would not race. He had the skills to be a wheelman.

 

Denny Moore built super- courtesy of Racingfromthepast

 

Jud Larson 1958- this car is Watson that won in '56

 

On the dirt somewhere-Langhorne?

 

I suspected you might have a little more to add, Brian. I think it would be safe to say he was kinda like the Penske of his time, money was no object and everthing was done first class.

 

Sweikert, Watson, Zink-1955. Story has it Sweikert got mad when he heard Zink took out a life insurance policy to pay for the damages in case Sweikert got killed in his race car.

 

Reece 1958. It was quietly said reece was miscored in that race and he actually crossed the line first instead of Jimmy Bryan. It was too late to do anything by the time the issue was discovered.

 

Reece and Zink working over the midget, early days

 

The no. 5 making history and scaring the hell out of the Europeans

 

I wouldn't say money was no object to Zink, but it was close. For a short while he was on top of the world.

 

Quite the innovator also. This, at a time when FE 4 cyl. Offys and beam axles were the norm.

 

Stole this picture, but oh well. I do it all the time

 

Any guesses?

 

I'm stumped.

 

Me too, at first I thought it might be a radio antenna, but I see no evidence of that in Rutts skid lid, and why would it be on the nose where it could be easily damaged? I know if I was driving it, it would be "accidentilly" broken off about 5 min. before the start of the race. That must have been disconcerting as hell.