This car was driven by a friend of mine's Dad in the late fifties / early sixties. He unfortunately was killed racing another car. The original builder of this car had heard where this was located and we all went upstate Pa to look at it. My friend Chuck wanted to buy it and restore it, but it was in very poor shape. It's owned by a racing family who campaign several dirt modifieds so I'm sure it will never be crushed, but sadly will probably remain as yard art!
If you like seeing old rusty unrestored race cars, this links to the Mid State Antique stock car club's projects page: http://midstateantiquestockcarclub.com/odds_ends_projects1.html
Here's a photo of Don Ely of Kingman, Kan. Used to run some ASA with us back in the early 80s. This photo was taken at I-70 Speedway, which is where I "lost" this car once during a race. It was a Saturday night 50-lap preliminary to a 300 lapper. The outside wall at I-70 in those days was perpendicular to the earth rather than perpendicular to the bank of the track, which resulted in cars going out of the park rather often. This night, we started with 24 cars in this preliminary, lost two of them early, and at about 20 laps I noticed we only had 21. Checked over the pit area real quick, and only found the two that we had lost earlier. I told the tower we were missing a car and got a neat response - "You're sh*ting us, right?" About the time I said "No," Ely pops up on the outside of the wall in the first turn waving that he was OK. Nobody had seen him go out. I apologized to him, and we had a good laugh over it.
Johnny Rutherford with Smokey Yunick's "Mystery Engine" Chevrolet. In qualifying for the 500, Rutherford was the fastest qualifier and set an astounding new record of 165.183 MPH. That was 6 MPH faster then Fireball Roberts Pontiac record of the previous year! - -
This photo is from lakewood ga. Woody said the reason for wearing the shorts was "" If I go into the lake it will be easier to swim out" Lakewood speedway had a large lake that was filled with sewage and was very dirty.
Hey, Dog! I need some help on this one. I don't remember that car. It looks like a 66 Dodge, but I thought Cotton Owens' 66 was a Charger. Also, does anyone else remember the football field?
Owens and Pearson ran both Coronets and Chargers in the '66 season. He switched completely to the Charger for '67. Nice pic of Don Ely, John. He was a neat guy, and the last asphalt track champ at I-70 before Greg Weld put dirt on it in 1980. Don owned a big junkyard in Kingman, Kansas, and got significantly less compe***ive the less he was able to use junkyard stuff to run, unfortunately. That Mustang was one pretty piece.
Thanks, Racewriter. I suppose they used the Coronet on the smaller tracks. I remember the Charger at Daytona because Gordon John**** in our K&K car drafted behind it a lot in the qualifying race.
Saw this on the interwbez the other day, des anybody know what it is exzactly? Looks like a old sprint car?
You should have been in Atlanta to see Keselowski's first attempt at ARCA racing. Without a doubt the wildest looking Monte Carlo to ever try to make it through tech inspection. Needless to say it did not p*** tech. They loaded it back up and showed back up at Talledega a few weeks later with the same car, but it had a legal body on it. Bob was always the center of attention when they unloaded their cars. It would take them 4 or 5 tries to get their car through tech. Checking the limits of the rule book every week. My dad had a ARCA car at the time so we got to see the show first hand. I'd like to see some pics of those cars again. Kevin
This gal was a pretty good racer in her own right in ASA and All-Pro - Robin McCall, now Mrs. Wally Dallenbach Jr. And she wasn't hard to look at, either.