South Whittier about a mile south of Telegraph Road. In 1971 there were three houses on the street and a green water tower across from my house.
Here are a couple of pictures, thanks for asking. The 57 is a Juniorstocker I completed 15 years ago it represented Jrstockers at the NHRA Museum from 2000-2003 with great pride. I looked for years for a Jrstocker to restore but that was before Ebay and never was able to find any. So I had to build my own. Alot of the parts from the 57's engine was from Walt Toews Special Delivery I. I'll be racing it at the Nostalgia Nationals in Beaver Springs PA July 11 & 12th along with my 55 wagon, The Gypsy Wagon, that looks like a Jrstocker.
Skip Asay, another blast from the past! I think the last time I saw you you were working for Greg X. at teardown just after the change to the "new" stocker rules when a guy I helped out a little set a record. Glad to see you managed to escape Jersey also. What are you doing now?
Great picture,Tony. Always liked that 56. Where's Big Daddy Crader now? You guys were all good friends with Marv. Could you explain the Rossi converter connection?
JMason - I sold my car and truck at the end of the '72 season and, besides Skip Asay Enterprises, I worked Div. Tech crew for the '73 and '74 seasons. Then I foolishly got back into it. Being a one man band and busier than a one armed paper hanger, I wasn't able to spend as much time on the car as it needed. So it went slow. Customers don't like that so some of them went elsewhere. Add to that the fact that I was losing the passion so I decided to bail out and open a carburetor rebuilding shop. Did that for 15 years, sold it, and went into business designing and manufacturing electronics and hardware for radio controlled model boats and submarines. Sold that in '04 and went to work as a maintenance mechanic....the kind that keeps the machines running. Then we sold the house and moved to NC. Best move I ever made!! I'm now semi retired working part time. Skip Asay
3000+ posts and still going strong! Keep the memories and pictures coming. Sorry to say I didn't save one picture of our old '58 Chevy G/Stocker. Lee
Butch; The Gypsy Wagon looks as good as the '57. Hope to see them both at York. FYI it looks like you have the front fender moldings on the wrong sides on the '55. The one on the right fender is a left side molding. A common mistake as I found when searching for moldings for my '55 convertible. Ken
I hope to see ALL of you at York! Darwin said that he will set up an area for the Jr. Stock guys to meet and BS. I will go up on Thursday and offer assistance in set-up. Another thing I hope to accomplish is to get a good start on building a data base of contact info for everyone. I might be a good idea to add recent photos since most of us have changed just a bit. I would hate to think I missed talking to someone because they could not be recognized after thirty or forty years. Next year will be a lot of fun if we can bring out some of the old race cars (or recreate them) and a large number of racers.
I have the issue of Super Chevy the '57 was featured in. You did a great job of it. Hopefully I'll see you in Beaver Springs.
Chuck Norton wrote in a recent (#2903) post "at our age, sometimes it's not always a good idea to ask too many questions." Reading that chillingly valid remark struck a chord. It made me think of the folks Ive known who have checked out way too soon. And following this thread I still find it amazing to see how many of the pre baby-boomer car guys have survived. Its been a hazardous journey for most! 　 Many of the children of the 40s were offered diets of lard-fried-Chicken, Pork Scrapple, raw milk, fried Chicken livers, and, in my case, the dreaded monthly special meal of pigs tails and Sauerkraut. Alas, my Crisfield, MD-raised pseudo-parent Grandmother kept her coveted 'Chickatee' Oysters all to herself. Vegetables? Well there was cooked-to-death-in-Bacon-fat String Beans, cooked to sodium-enhanced mush lima beans, fried Potatoes, mashed Potatoes, shredded (fried) Potatoes, Potato Pancakes and, on very-special occasions baked Potatoes. And even with WW II rationing, 1940s kids ingested massive quantities of salt and sugar daily. In those days the preteen future car guys intellectual indoor activities included watching (for instance) Terry and the Pirates on the radio and, as this was the pre Hot Rod Magazine era, rereading those old Popular Mechanics how to pieces like "Building a Soap-Box Racer." Chemistry Sets were very popular too, with detailed instructions (and small portions of ingredients) for making gunpowder and other dangerous products usually included. But outside another even more-exciting world beckoned. Climbing (and falling from) trees while attempting to emulate Johnny Weissmullers jungle adventures was a popular pastime. Then there were the various and death-defying wheeled antics. Wild helmetless rides through city streets clinging to the back of the older kids unsafe-at- any-speed five-hp Cushman scooter was a popular activity for our fledging racer. When, in the very-early teen years, many kids were freed of direct parental guidance or supervision, they almost always lit up. The smokes of choice were usually Lucky Strikes, Camels, or as was the case with the generation-older, more-sophisticated smokers like Kurt Vonnegut, the preferred coffin nail was the ominously-named Pall Mall. Vonnegut, a lifetime smoker made that brand sound even deadlier by calling them "Pell Mells." Alas, he died in 2007, at 84, due to injuries related to a fall at his home! "So it Goes," Kurt often wrote! This hypothetical stereotypical future racer was usually not too keen on (as Brock the assassin Yates once indigently scribed) "stick and ball games." Our boys recreational passion, like Yates, was wheel related. By the time our young hero became truly independent at fourteenish, he typically used his meager entrepreneurial earnings to buy a car. Some kids had understanding adult supervision, but others kept the prized possession secretly stored at a secure location. My clandestine garage was in an alley, a block away. The rent was an astronomical buck a week and the car it housed was a 1947 Ford that an older friend sold me when he *joined the Air Force *to go faster! I paid him the seventy five bucks he asked for the car. The Ford was a nondescript faded-grey four door sedan and it was sans half a tooth on the second cog of the cluster gear. But on the plus side it had a Mallory dual-point distributor, finned Edelbrock heads, adjustable tappets with a moderately-lumpy Isky cam, and a pair of Stromberg 97s atop the dual-carb intake. Oh, and the J.C Whitney exhaust system exited through a pair of Smittys glaspacks Im not sure if the term Sleeper was coined yet, but a Sleeper it was. I was a happy 15 year old! But sorry, I digress back to the issue of the curiously-long-longevity of the typical car-obsessed pre-baby-boomer of the early/mid 1950s. Ill try to wrap this dissertation up quickly! Our car-obsessed lad then grew up and embarked on an adult lifestyle that included ingesting, inhaling, or wearing paints and paint thinners of all descriptions, body-lead shavings, asbestos dust, brake fluid, antifreeze and assorted oils of all compositions. The oxy/acetylene outfit he had access to had tanks, hoses and gauges left over from the Spanish American War. Of course welding gloves, and dust or fume respirators were either unavailable, too expensive, or bothersome. Jackstands, eye protection? sometimes. Work gloves, hearing protection? never! Still breathing after all these years simply amazing!
Steve, You really summed it up well! I'd expect to read this type of article in the editor's column or page of you-name-it car magazine. Wonderfully written as well as professionally written. Thanks for taking the time to type-up and share with us your thoughts! Pete
Without a question this is the best thread on this site! There is so much history in here, Jr. Stockers ruled!
Ummmmmmmmm............ Dennis Ferrera, former A/MP driver turned marine engine builder (in hiding, I'm told).
Ken, We're not taking the car to York this year instead we'll be racing 2 days in Beaver Springs with both cars. Darwin likes to have a variety of cars at the show, we've taken the 57 for the past 6 years so we decided we'll just take both cars to the Nostalgia Nationals in Beaver Springs. Thanks for the info on the fender trim on the Gypsy Wagon. It's the way I got the car, I thought it looked kinda weird now I know why. Will we see you at BSD? -Butch
Better, more fun (and affordable), and not as stressful times. Just my observation, as I was just a mere lad in the late 1960s. Peter
The Jalopy Journal
