60'-70's Vintage Oval Track Modifieds

John56h: That car was John Hoffman's '66 Cutlass Street Stock. If you ran a bigger, heavier car like that, you could use a 400 c.i. engine.

George M.: Tilley did drive that car, and so did Bill Rafter (in '69), before Ted got the ride.



Here's what Bill Rafter did with the car, April 1970, at Lancaster. Guess you could say he was really flying that day! According to the story inside Gater News, Leo Lewandowski spun in Turn 2 and Rafter caught his wheel, sending him over the guardrail. He landed in the staging lanes of the drag strip.

 

Here's the other half of the front page of that issue of Gater News: Gordie Treichler suffers a stuck throttle and goes over the fence...

 

Charley Trombley at Lancaster (NY) Speedway, 1968. Gordon Reinig photo.

 

Yep. That's the ones. Great stuff! It's like Mr Peabody's Wayback Machine !

 

Love the 5 7/8's mod!



Scott Sasso

Scott Sasso

Scott Sasso

Scott Sasso

 

Scott Sasso

North Wilksboro Marshall Teague

Sharkey's Hauler

Shawn Lewis

Sherm Saunders

 

Sherm Saunders

Sherm Saunders

Sherm Saunders

Someone's shop!

Not mine! lol

 

Silas



SJ Evonsion

SJ Evansion

SJ Evansion

 

Neil Truesdell at Lancaster (NY) Speedway, 1968. Gordon Reinig photo. In 1967, promoter Ed Serwacki paid a bonus to Modifieds that did not use "jalopy" (coupe, coach) bodies -- he wanted to upgrade the class so that people would not refer to the Modifieds as "jalopies" anymore. Serwacki owned a collision business and convinced Cam Gagliardi to shed his coupe body by offering a free Mustang shell and a free paint job!

 

Rochester's Bobby Hudson at Lancaster (NY) Speedway, 1968. Gordon Reinig photo.MAY 15, 2009 -- I'm planning on doing a little Photobucket spring cleaning this weekend. I took a look at pages 82-152 of this thread and some of the same pics are showing up as many as three times! This is mostly my fault, because sometimes I post pics without realizing that I've posted them already (long ago) -- not to mention those who pulled Gordie's pics from VintageModifieds.com and posted them here too. No, I am not complaining or pointing fingers! But I think I should pull the multiples of my pics that appear here more than once. If you see a pic has been deleted, don't panic -- it simply appears elsewhere on this thread...

 

Canadian Lloyd Holt at Lancaster (NY) Speedway, 1968. Gordon Reinig photo. Since Lancaster opened about a month earlier than other tracks in the region, the month of April ususally was populated by "invaders" from Merrittville, Cayuga and Shangri-La.

 

Lloyd Holt's car would make for one badd a$$ street car. :O)

 

Maybe a dumb question to a lot of you guys, but 'splain to an 'ole Texas boy why so many of the tracks in the north are pavement? Does it have something to do with the weather, or just preference? Thanks, Mike

 

Unfortuatly they are a dieing breed, yes there are a few new ones but the cost of repaving VS profit is a real tough nut. Not to mention real estate value...

 

SJ Evonsion

SJ Evansion

Skip Ziegler

Sonny Hutchins and Ed Crouse

Speedy Thompson car

 

Speedy Thompson

Stan Disbrow



Stan Greger

Stan Greger

 

Stan Greger

Stan Greger

Stan Greger

Stand Hawk

Stan Landis

 

Stan Ploski

Stan Ploski

Steve Danish

Steve Elias

Steve Elias

 

Oh! So you mean this one! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kkqn7O1lHFI&feature=related

 

Just my theory and I'm not sure if it holds much water or not but many of the smaller Northeast paved tracks pictured in this thread were originally built for midget car racing and were located near densley populated, major metropolitan areas. (Islip, Freeport, Seekonk, Danbury and Norwood come to mind). “City folk", whether they are a paying spectator or a neighbor living near a speedway are not as tolerating of the dust associated with dirt tracks so these race tracks, either started out or later became…blacktop.

<O</OAnother reason: Auto racing in the 1960’s was all about “speed” and making stock car racing more “professional” in appearance. Nothing exemplified “speed” and “professionalism” more than racing on asphalt. There was a huge trend in the Northeast toward pavement during this era. Many dirt tracks were paved over such as Langhorne PA and <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com</st1:Street><st1:address w:st="on">Stafford CT </st1:address>and brand new paved tracks purposefully-built for racing started popping up like <st1:City w:st="on"><ST1Fulton, </ST1</st1:City>Utica-Rome, and Albany-Saratoga in NY.

<O</OThere were still a large number of successful dirt tracks the Northeast back then too. But in the 60’s into the early 70’s, especially within the pockets of New England, Long Island and upstate NY,<ST1</ST1 pavement was king.

 

Also...I think the types of native soils were a factor too. New England has an awful lot of sandy soil conditions and not much natural clay deposits. That made it difficult to get a good dirt/clay surface, so sometimes pavement was the best alternative. Less dust, less track prep and no more expensive than trucking in clay from 100's of miles away.

 

Yeah, us dirt track guys out here in the mid-west kind of forget how lucky we are sometimes.

You don't find much better dirt for racing than what we've got on the ground around here.

 

I don't have much personal experience with dirt tracks but I think you are right about the soil here there are several dirt tracks father north in New Hampshire,Maine and Vermont.We had a couple N.T.P.A tractor pulls here and all the drivers I got to talk to complained about the clay of the track being "beach sand" etc.I remember when the local racers used to say they needed a car for Stafford (dirt) and then another for the paved tracks so even if you had a real good surfaced dirt track in lower New England you were competing with several paved tracks for drivers/cars.As far as I know Thompson was paved way back in the early 40s.I think the paving was a cost factor all around for lower New England tracks pave it once or keep having to haul in good clay to maintain a dirt surface.Something for all you guys lucky enough to have good dirt tracks around you I'll never forget the first time I heard tires squeal on a dirt track and leave rubber on the turns enough to leave black marks on the track !!

 

That makes a lot of sense to me.
Here, about 20 miles north of Dallas, I have so much clay IN MY YARD that I can dig a hole with a post hole digger and fill it with water, and come back the next day and most of the water will still be there!
Most of the dirt tracks around here get the minimum of prep during a night's racing, the prep before the race being good enough.
We don't have a lot of paved tracks in Texas. I guess it's too easy to get the dirt to work here. Thanks, Mike

 

I don't mind dirt track racing, but for me pavement is where it's at! Dirt tracks seem to change too much with weather and duration of the day, such as grooves. Pavement grooves get settled in more easy, but wash away with rain. But can be built back up with more rubber. I also notice sometimes the track changes with heat too with pavement!

Steve Elias

Steve Elias

Steve Elias

Steve Luse

Steve Munn

 

Steve Newman

Steve Orcuttbones Clay Colluzzo

Sorry for the new mod, but it was in the mix, I've feauted his pops Bob Park here along with his uncle Bill! Rich you got to remember this kid starting in mini-mods at Islip!

Stitch Maiurano

Stitch Maiurano

 

Stitch Maiurano

Chick Stockwell

Al Sanders swiss cheese

Al Sanders