60'-70's Vintage Oval Track Modifieds

Just to clear that up, I had absolutely nothing to do with that car or it's restoration. I don't even know those guys. I was just posting a pic of what's being done these days with some of the old modified coupes besides letting them turn back into dust in some field..

 

Well whoever (I'm sure there were quite a few guys) what a great neat job!!!!
KUDO'S TO ALL!!

Makes me wish I knew where my sedan went

 

Hey Ted, Tim's friend Gary here. Nice car. Hope you put it back as the coupe! Gary

 

The 7-11 coupe was built buy Larry Larivee. He is active with the Daytona Antique Auto Racing Association ,DAARA. They have their own website and you can see those photos and others pertaining to the the clubs activities at various tracks in Florida. Looks like they have a great time and they do race!

 

I don't remember Troyer flipping but I do remember all the different "Aero" body styles the mods had on them for the Race of Champions in '77 when it was moved to the 2 1/2 mile Pocono track. I was there shooting for Gater Racing News and Illustrated Speedway News and there were some wild looking sheet metal creations.

I believe Wesnoske crashed pretty heavily in the tunnel turn that year.

They also had the USAC stock cars there as a support division.

Yeah, moving to the 3/4 mile track was a good move.

 

Our dear friend Rich lost his wife the other morning.

http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=419205

Please leave your condolences.

 

10 cents bug after flipping down back strech at Riverhead, Mousey Kemster was driving it. Picture was taken by chuck pecora. I think I was about 11 years old. I think it was around 1963.

 

J.Reinhard just had a post on 3-wide about this 10 Cents car. It was brought up from Florida by Mousey. There doesn't seem to be many photos from Riverhead on the net from the early years. I wonder if somebody ended up with the negatives? I only got to see all of the top Riverhead Sportsman drivers once,the night they invaded Weissglass here on Staten Island in 1964. All Flatheads and six cylinders. They ran good for first timers ,although the local drivers helped a few of them find the fence. It was a wild night.

 

This thread is great! I just caught the end of coupe modifieds, they were switcthing to the pintos, vegas and gremlins at that time. But luckily I got to see a few coupes run! And I have been scarred ever since. But keep up the great work. The stories and photos are great. Does any one have any photos of Deer Park, or does anyone know if they ever raced mods there?

 

Actually the support division cars were Late Models. I was there with a car I helped build. It was a yellow and orange Barracuda number 43 with a Hemi under the hood. Dick Donaldson owned and drove the car. It said UnChevy on the quarter panel's. Paul Fess led a bunch of laps in Piney Laskey's NASCAR sportsman car until he cut a tire and hit the wall in turn 1.

 

I think Chuck pecora in Riverhead Has alot of photos from riverhead. Iam looking for a picture of the 119 0f Russ DeVoe, from around 1960.

 

If you search back a few dozen posts on this thread you will find the Russ DeVoe picture. I'm pretty sure it was posted by Ken Schou.

 

We must be about the same age. I'm 53 and that was my experience as well. One year it was all coupes, then some guy showed up with a "modern" modified that used either a Gremlin or a Pinto body (can't remember). By 2-3 years later almost all the old coupes were gone.

 

I remember a wheel coming off a Street Stock & ending up in the swamp. It completely disappeared .. never to be found.

Near the back of the Riverhead (NY) Raceway property there's the remains of an old house and just off that area .. a small lake.

Before public water was available .. wells of course were used. I remember when we drilled two new ones ourselves (easy in the sandy soil) .. we hit good water in 20 or so feet.

 

Here are a bunch of pics from the Vintage Celebration at NH Motor Speedway from last year. They do it every year and it's freakin incredible. LOTS of old mods among the cars. Indy 500 winners, sports cars, etc too. Please ignore those pics if they aren't you cup-o-tea. http://www.racerhub.com/photos/showgallery.php?cat=1066

 

You have to keep some things in mind when you think about the losses of Charlie Jarzombek, Richie Evans & some others. .... Two things especially.

1 - Occasssionally power valves would fall deep into the carbureator .. sticking the throttle wide open.
Today they are safety wired, preventing this from happening.

2 - The front chassis clip was heavier, thicker .. engineered to be more rigid, stiffer, so that the suspension itself would work better .. BUT in a wreck that involved the front .. there wasn't near as much crushability .. energy absorbtion. The driver ended up absorbing most of the force of the impact/wreck .. instead of the car.
This was pointed out (complete with drawings/plans) in a magazine (Circle Track maybe?) shortly after we lost Charlie J.. It took some years, but NASCAR finally dictated changes to the front clip .. lighter materials, etc., etc.. Even existing cars had to comply and install an entirely new front clip.
Plus, one major thing that caused throttles to stick was elimated.

Implimentating these changes .. throttles less apt to stick & the increased crushability, equalling more energy absorbtion by the race car itself .. has probably saved many drivers involved in front end wrecks from serious injury OR WORSE!!!.

I don't know what the cause of death was for either Charlie Jarozombek or Richie Evans (and some others), but one or both of the above might have been contributing factors.

 

In the mid 70's, around 1975, Bowman Gray Stadium in Winston Salem, NC was paying $500 to win each of the two 25 lap modified double header features and the track operator Joe Hawkins offered a $100 bonus if you won a feature in a late model bodied car after Ralph Brinkley started running a Vega body. In about 3 years, all the modifieds had their bodies swapped over or new cars built using Gremlins, Corvairs, Vegas and Pintos, the rest is history.

 

(From Wikipedia)
Richie Evans' 1985 death at Martinsville, along with other asphalt Modified fatalities such as Charlie Jarzombek (in 1987), Corky Cookman (1987), Tommy Druar (1989), Don Pratt (1989), and Tony Jankowiak (1990), led to questions about car rigidity with Tour Modifieds, and safety changes.<SUP class=reference id=cite_ref-Bourcier_3-2>[4]</SUP> In particular, straight frame rails were phased out, with new chassis required to have a step which could bend in hard impacts rather than passing the force to the driver.

I think George Kent gave up the mods for this reason. It was a similar situation as to the demise of the Roadster era of Indy cars. The cars were so strong that all the force of impacts were passed on to the driver.

Bruce

 

Prior to the Pinto revolution as they called it, there were also Vegas and Gremlins, as were there Cameros, Corvairs, Falcons, Mustangs and other muscle cars of the mid 60s. That style only lasted 2-3 years and then came out the first Pinto. I believe one of the first was Wayne Anderson. I could be way off on that call. Charlie J with a Vega was one of the first and Freddie Harbach.

 

George Kent did not "give up" modifieds for that reason. Doug Hewitt did, after Richie's crash at Martinsville.

 

The Bob Judkins owned 2x, driven by Ed Flemke, is credited with being the 1st Pinto bodied mod.

 

The first "late model"bodied modified to run at Thompson was Frank Bates' 65 Barracuda I think it ran only 1 season The Bates' also went to independent front ends in the modifieds real early and they ran MoPar torsion bar frames under their coupes before building the Barracuda modified.Several of their old cars still sit in the family Family owned junk yard here including the wadded up Cuda car.Back then there were stock cars all over around here I lived 3 miles from Thompson Speedway and a 1 hour bicycle ride would bring you past a dozen different stock cars sitting in drive ways out here.

 

"Albany Saratoga Speedway" is going back to Blacktop. Grew up there, as a kid hanging on the Pit Fence in the Seventies for hours on friday nites w/ Th Bugg, Richie, Freddie, Eddie, Jerry, Geoffrey, Guy.
First Pinto i ever saw - 2X Eddie Flemke
First Dual Car Hauler i ever saw - Jerry Cook, Cabover Ford.

http://www.cvra.com/
5th picture down , is Pretty cool . Considering the Blacktop been covered with Clay for Many Years.

 

Ya' left out " The MONK " !

 

I think Brian Ross also gave up because of the deaths that were happening in a couple of years.

 

Ross I heard also hated the speeds they were getting and the safety issues from it!

 

RaceMad, you Olde Timer, i am Sorry I forgot Your "Monk"
Brian Ross, lives close to "Albany Saratoga"

 

Brian Ross will be a guest Speaker this coming saturday.
http://www.saratogaautomuseum.org/events.php?CID=86

 

Thanks guys, I was referring to Islip Speedway. I have sort of a "One Track" mind, ROFLMAO!

 

Seems that they scraped the clay off .. ran a few shows on the old asphalt surface and have since repaved it. ... the tire test were on the NEW asphalt surface.

From their News Releases ... http://www.cvra.com/pressreleases/asnews.htm

"A new era of racing will begin on the Champlain Valley Racing Association in 2010, as both Albany-Saratoga and Devil's Bowl speedways will make the transformation from dirt to asphalt.

Albany-Saratoga Speedway has already run two shows on its original asphalt surface, and is scheduled to be resurfaced beginning Nov. 9. A sub-base has been put down at Devil's Bowl, and the track will be paved in the spring.

The transformation actually began as an experiment, when Albany-Saratoga Speedway promoter Bruce Richards decided to remove the clay in September and run some shows on the original asphalt surface. At that time, he also booked dates with three asphalt touring groups (American Canadian late models, ISMA supermodifieds and True Value/ROC asphalt modifieds) for races in the spring, and the plan was to put the clay back down in May 2010."

~~~~~~~~~~

"The new asphalt racing surface at Albany-Saratoga Speedway got its first big test on Thursday, Nov. 19, and the results were ... fast."