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

Yes Bill Van Dyke, but when you forget to lock your harness for landing on an Aircraft carrier and kiss all the instruments, you are thankful for that uncomfortable oxygen mask. Saved my teeth.

Only did that once in 450 traps.

This brings up a whole other topic that shouldn't derail this magnificent thread.

 

I have a similar story as well, ran the last tem laps of a feature with my belt un-done. The difference is you, me and Rootie did it once, by circumstance. I shake my head at the guys that do it EVERY RACE!

When I'd strapped in, I'd pull my belts as tight as I could, then Id have dad reach in and REALLY crank them down! It would be SO tight, but if we had a yellow after a few laps, I'd be amazed when I would get another inch out of them! Stuff settles..

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INDYBIGJOHN!! THAT PICTURE IS AMAZING!!

looks like the guy down low might have her hung out a little bit too!

 

http://www.jimmysamsracingphotos.com/

Lots of early midget photos, along with an album of drivers.
Pick the slideshows from the left side of the home page.

 

Thank you, Jim, and thanks for all of your posts. YES, there was a high banked 1/4 mile track just west of our strip...they ran a bunch of stuff there...I ran 6-7 laps at Sebring 24 hour with my belts off while I grabbed a towel to clean off my windshield off because we had no defroster...can't say that my lap times were worth a shit!!!!!!!!!!! But we finished!!!!!

You have some cool stuff and I love your business card!!!!

Best,
E

 

Every time I've tried the Sams site lately it's been down, good to see it's back up, great pics.
Here's a couple of short dittys on early day midget racing:

http://www.auto-history.tv/filmarchive/racing/LJYRVFSD/

http://www.auto-history.tv/filmarchive/racing/TQ95NH4B/

 

Great films!!!

back to the seat belt thing, the first time I went to Sun Prarie WI. (angel park speedway) was pretty much by myself didn't have any help, but as we were buckling in I see all these guys walking up to the cars with these big meat hook lookin things, they hook em to the belts stand on the tire and pull like crazy, as I'm sitting there I'm thinking damn these guys don't f*ck around up here. One guy ended up stuck up in the top of the catch fence for like 30 minutes and I mean AT THE TOP of the catch fence, If you have never been to Sun Prarie you owe it to yourself to go, best weekly midget show anywhere.

 

Josh or anyone else who wants to chime in, if you could have raced in any era in any type of car what would it be?? I will hold my answer for a while.

 

Roy it would have to have been the 40's and early 50's in a big car

"Doc" Parsons

 

* 1925 thru 1929 - Millers and Duesys on the "boards"
* 1956 thru 1964 - USAC sprints and Indy roadsters




.

 

* 1960's Sprints and champ cars.

 

1960s IMCA/USAC sprints/midgets, ideally, but I would be quite happy to just re-live the 70s now.

 

I agree but I'd really like to re-live the IMCA & AAA during the Offy/ small block transition; just want to watch Chet Wilson spank the growlers one more time.
PK

 

My first exsposure to auto racing was attending IMCA state fair races in the upper midwest with my dad in the early 60s. I'm a chevy man through and through, but there aint quite nothing like the sound of a Offy at full tilt going down the front straight. Sure got me hooked.

 

I got to do the 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, and early 2000s but it would be fun to do it again

"Doc" Parsons

 

[quote="Doc" Parsons;3286908]I got to do the 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, and early 2000s but it would be fun to do it again

"Doc" Parsons[/quote]

If I got to do it all over again, about all I would do differently would be to bring more...........MONEY!!! $$$$

 

Favorite racing years: Early 50's through the roadsters era. That time period was the best of the post war racing and mainly focused on dirt. The open wheeled cars had evolved from the primitive pre war cars to classic beauties with tremendous back yard engineering. The time period was greatly influenced by California but due to Indy was spread east of the Mississippi and throughout the land. It was also the finest period of the American hot rod.
The large drawback was the loss of so many drivers. Man, I miss those Offys.

 

Elbows out, sawing the wheel of a Offy sprinter. Doesn't get much better.

 

all those years I knew I was missing something and it was the MONEY

"Doc" Parsons

 

I'm so there... started going with my Dad around 57 or 58 to the big car races at the old Tampa Fairgrounds to kick of the IMCA racing season. Lots of great racers called Tampa their home. I miss them and my Dad too.
PK

 

I can remember to this day the moment I got incurably hooked on this racing deal:

The midwest IMCA guys, for the most part, were pretty workman like, and didn't spend a lot on chrome and fancy paint. By the time the midwest fair circuit got going in Aug./Sept. many of the cars were pretty well used up and not show quality by any means. Now every year there were usually several Calif. cars that would come out to the midwest and try to cherry pick the big money fair purses. Typical of about all Calif. car guys, they couldn't throw enough money at their cars chrome and paint.
It was probably about 1960-61 and I was about 10-11 years old, sitting in the grandstands with my dad at the So.Dak. state fair and I look across the track to the infield where the cars were pitted, right along the inside rail. There sat the most beautiful racecar I had ever seen. Obviously a Calif. car with the most beautiful orange paint with white scallops. What wasn't painted was chromed or polished alum., bumpers, nerfs, rollbar, polished Halibrands full black upolstery and 4 highly polished injector stacks sticking out of the Offy that looked to be the size of dinner plates. All sparkling in the hot So.Dak. sun. From that moment on it was all downhill.

 

I'm with BZNIEL 60's Champ cars, I think it would be a suicide mission for me in an 40/50's car...

 

Everything Foyt did until '77. By the early 70's I would have dipped my toes into the NCRA supermodifieds, time allowing.

 

Dirt cars or INDY cars 1920-1940, they just look so right to me.

 

50's-60's Midget, Sprint, Champ Cars. Was lucky to drive USAC midgets before rollcages. I think thet had some of the best drivers ever. Back then drivers drove in all the USAC divisions evan after they made Indy. Sad that we lost so many drivers then[6 or 7 in 66 alone]. Rollcages made the drivers more brave than before [hard to believe] but they saved a lot of lives. The 60's cars had the greatest lines to them and I think overall the best drivers. But I respect all racedrivers, not many people can do it and they are going so fast now.
Jim Graybeal

 

Not speaking as a driver, but as an official. I will admit I enjoyed being on the flagstand at places like Michigan, Atlanta, and Bristol for stock cars, and being a guest with Nick Fornoro Sr. on the flagstand for CART at Michigan and even being flagman during a practice session - but going back I have to admit that my most enjoyable times were on the short tracks. Some of the most fun was with the UMRA TQs on those little bitty fairgrounds tracks which I'm sure Jimmy recalls. Eight second lap times keep you on your toes and quicken your reflexes. When somebody asked me how I handled ASA cars at Anderson when they were running in the 12s, I jokingly said I had been working from the track at the Madison fairgrounds two nights before, and I had to slow down my response time.

 

I have to say that the UMRA tq's are tougher than people realize, 80 plus cars a night is the norm, your lucky to make the show. I was lucky enough to make every race I ran with them (not that many)
and one of my personal highlights was winning their big race at Rushville, the very last race I ran of any kind was a UMRA race at Putnamville, ran second shoulda stayed on the bottom instead of trying to run the cushion and I think i woulda won it if I had.

 

Don't want to Hijack this thread but just wondering with all the knowledge on this subject, who is still messing with sprints and what are you doing. My son runs asphalt sprints in Florida. Post some pictures or lets start a new thread. Ted

 

Start a new thread Ted..I'll post a few.

 

The white car in the photo below is "Fido." Harry Hyde went out to Arizona from Louisville in the 50s and purchased this as a champ car, brought it back and cut it down to sprint size, then made a supermodified out of it. With Andy Hampton driving, it was virtually unbeatable at the Jeffersonville (Ind.) Sportsdrome. In 1960 or 61, he loaned the car to Roy Robbins of Little York, Ind., who is driving it in the photo. Roy won the first Knoxville Nationals with it. Last I heard, Joe Baird of Shelbyville, Ind. had obtained it, and was planning to restore it to the condition it was in when Tony Bettenhausen Sr. drove it in the 500.

 

I ran across this photo of Jerry Blundy at the Florida State Fairgrounds in Tampa FL. He was getting ready to race in the winter nationals which kicked off the IMCA racing season.
PK