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

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Mario Andretti in Watson's DOHC Ford Ford

 

That Watson cammer is one nasty (in a good way) looking machine with those, sewer pipe size, injector tubes sticking out.

Big Al in his Johnny Lightning version cammer:

 

Bringing em down...

 

This pic shows that Grant King cages were on the scene in the last days of cageless.

 

Don Hewitt, 1962.

 

I can't tell if Al or Mario is in the number 1 car, it depends on the year as they traded championships. But, did anyone notice how the driver of the number 1 car apparently wiped some of the mud of off the wind screen?

By the way, I believe those grant King cars ran from '69 through '75 with Al and Mario, and who knows how long after that. Not like today's throw away cars.

Great photos!!

Blacki-Suede

 

It's the 74 Hoosier 100 and that's Mario in the 2 working on Al.

 

If anybody's got a photo of AJ in that No. 6 car without the fold mark in it, I'd love to see it posted so I can copy it. I've got a diecast of that car and I'd like to set the photo behind it.

 

I'm sure no ace with the photoshop stuff, but maybe this will work for you.

 

A 460 built specifically for towing race cars, to be possibly replaced by a 523 torquer when time permits. I tow my drag cars in a closed trailer but I want to make a single axle minimalist trailer for the champ car, you know, the kind where the ramps arch up over the trailer wheel and create a cradle for the car's axles. Can anyone relate how they were built and how they towed / loaded? Did most tilt or use ramps? I'm thinkin short ramps.

 

i think i may have asked this question before, but would anyone know whos design this tail tank cover is, this is the only item im missing, also would anyone have an old cover that they would be interested in getting rid of.... i dont know if its an edmunds or a watson hopefully one of you all will know...

 

I dunno, but it sure is a beautifully proportioned piece. And the length of that pitman arm - that car must really have "twitchy" steering.

 

Third from left is my step dad

 

yes

 

looks kinda short, kinda like James McElreath ran

 

My step dad was the chief mechanic on BOTH those cars, I use to go down on waterway blvd at Vels Parnelli Jones shop and help him take them down to the bare frame after EVERY race, each car had two engines and two rear ends they got a fresh engine and rear every race, everything else was completley rebuilt. between the two cars they won EVERY dirt race for TWO years! and on top of that My step dad's day job was being Joe Leonards Chief Mechanic on the Indy team, and they also won the National Championship those same two years. I think thats a record that wiull be pretty hard to beat EVER

 

Iddings car

 

I also backup my diecasts with photos. I bought this one from Al Consoli even though the number's different, it's the same car.

Al is a HAMBer.

 

Great shot of the Old Tampa Fairgrounds. It looks like Al Sweeny the IMCA promoter is in the background... he's the one in the brown coat, yellow shirt and tie wearing the white cap. Boy does that take me right back. Thanks for posting this one.
PK

 

racer5c
Roy;
Your step dad is a legend in all of racing!
BTW, back when i sometimes went along and helped Dick Soubirou with the #89, i met a guy whom i will never forget!
We were up at Syracuse for the 100 miler. The night before, at the motel we ran into a friend of Dicks who was a real charactor for sure! He owned a great looking car, number 55 with "Pizza Hut of St. Louis" on the hood. It had a Cammer in it and Jerry Weeks was the driver. Did you know any of these guys?
His name was George Middleton, and it seemed he had deep pockets! George paid for dinner for everybody that evening; over $700.00 worth! As i remember, Weeks didnt do much; the equipment looked better than the result that weekend.
One thing tho; the chief mech didnt seem like the brightest bulb in the room either. You most likely know who i mean. lol.

 

Anybody working on these things knew Jerry Weeks in the 70's and 80's. I lost track after that...Anyone know if he's around ? working ? He did the best aluminum fab in those days...tanks to tails. Repaired bashed in aluminum body parts as well as anyone. He even did one of Foyt's wrecked tails in an article...forgot the magazine, but it showed how he did it in steps. Decent driver, but more famous for fabbing.
Jerry's repro bod on the Bowes car
http://www.fitzgeraldengineering.com/bowes.htm

 

Jerry is still one of the most regarded metal men in our area. He is still banging out works of art in his little barn on the north side of Indy. He opens his shop to us all just about every December for the annual Blanket Run and has short demos regarding metal shaping. I love going to his shop and looking at the old pictures stuffed everywhere....Tons of History.

 

I recall Will Cagle in the Pizza Hut car in the mid 70's at Syracuse.

 

Spike! 'Thanks for bringing up Mr. George Middleton and Pizza Hut. 'What a great gentleman he must have been. You could probably ask Racer5c; his brother won the 1975 USAC National Dirt Car Championship with the Pizza Hut car. And when he passed away at the end of '75, one of the drivers who drove the car in later years was...the one-and-only.

 

Great pic! Can anyone enlighten me on what those things are hanging on the front of the roll cage

 

I think they're squirt cans used to prime the injectors.

 

Exactly what they are. I used one exactly like those to prime the Hilborns on my roadster in the 60's.