60'-70's Vintage Oval Track Modifieds

In regard to the discussion about Jarzombek's coupe being as fast with little practice, and why the racing seemed to be better up to the early 70's I feel it is entirely a function of acceleration and deceleration.

When Charlie debuted this car it was not at all like he was running in the 12's and everyone else was running 13.8, it was very quick BUT Charley could not come close to tapping it's full potential because the tires were not as good as what was bolted on at the exhibition, the set up at the exhibition was considerably better due to all that has been learned in regard to using electronic scales, roll centers, bump steer etc.

So that being said, even the most dominent car on any particular night up until the small block/390 carb rule era had to slow down on the way in and accelerate on the way out. Well....that is where passing opportunities present themselves, two grooves appear and the pack doesn't freight train.

I believe the straightaway speeds are no higher now then 40 years ago but the corner speeds certainly are. No matter how much HP one had, it still was a real accomplishment getting the car that was going faster at the mid point of the straightaway to make it through the next turn. In fact I recall that one night there was a restart at the end of the feature at Islip where Charlie took the green with this car and set sail into one like jack the bear, slid up and began sawing the wheel to save it and Eddie Brunnhoelzl in the basically straight up 333 coupe drove under Charlie and won the feature.

Acceleration & deceleration.....

 

Ken, it was Tommy Baldwin a few years back before the tour guys took to the track for time trails, that he hoped into the coupe and could have set the car in the top 5, if he ran that car for time trails that day.

This year a few drivers sat behind the wheel, I believe J.R. Bertuccio was the fastest this year. Chuck Steuer usually sits behind the wheel of rebuilt Lew Hennesey ride, chuck really gets on that sucker!!!

 

Muffy -

I know where the 121 coupe is now. It's in Claremont, NH owned by former modified driver Ernie Bodreau.

 

Is the 110 Jiggs Beetham?

 

Muffy,
Great photos. Several I've not seen before.
A little info: the 119 is Win Barrows. He may have been an associate of Moose Hewitt.
The airborne # 7 is Roger Shaun in 1969. Don Collins in the Simons Excavator Special 9, '36 Plymouth coupe, goes by.
The Big Wreck was in 1971. There is a single picture of it in the '71 yearbook. Also, Mike Beebe only had the 09 Mustang for 1971. The J-7 was owned by Joe Santangelo and driven in '71 by Danny Hyde from East Hampton. It was the former Simons' Excavator 9 in the airborne #7 shot. The 110 was Bob Potter. The 14 was Don Kibbe as you noted. The Fred Beaber 716 coupe was driven by Jerry Glaude, Bob Potter's brother-in-law, in '71 and '72.
Was your father's first 122 painted gold? I'm pretty sure I remember it in '68. We know he had the red 122 in '71. The '40 Chevy coupe 122 is pictured in the '73 yearbook. I don't recall the blue 122 at all.
Thanks again,
ChrisL

 

Here is a nice pic of Ernie Gahan in 1957 at the Cheshire Fairgrounds (Safford Park) in NH. He was already a top modified racer at this time and drove a number of different cars at this track. Already noted by a post last week, Ernie passed away on Nov 28th.
Here is a link to a nice obit.
http://fanzonesports.net/nascar/2009/11/former-modified-champion-ernie-gahan-passes/
Among other notes it remembers:
"He was bestowed the Buddy Shuman Award for outstanding contributions to NASCAR following an incident in which he helped Tiny Lund rescue Marvin Panch from a fiery crash prior to the 1963 Daytona 500."

 

do you have any photos of Bob Mcginnis from danville va. he was a modified driver won championship 1965 mods Southboston speedway southboston va.

 

Back in the day parts & pieces of all sorts or many different types of race cars were fabricated at .. "requisitioned" from either Grumman &/or Republic.

Add to that .. over the years .. so much of auto racing technology has come from the aircraft industry.

 

Guys,

Great post! Please keep it going. I just finished going through the entire thread... all 189 pages absolutely great info.

Dr

 

GREAT POST!!
I'll try to answer (as best I can ) between the lines below.
~~~~~~~~~~

I'll add something else to the mix. The more years you go back .. the less competition there was entertainment wise. Less movie theaters .. less on TV (long enough back no TV) .. .. no computers .. no internet .. no DVD's .. no video games .. no water parks. .. The list of what's available today - entertainment wise - can go on almost to infinity. .....................

UNLESS there is almost constant heated wheel to wheel battles on the track .. meaning UNLESS there is a true entertainment value .. HOW does a race track even begin to compete for a persons &/or a family's entertainment dollar$??????????

I'd like to hear what YOU ALL have to say on this.

 

Here's a photo of the late Buddy Krebs in his first ride, the 502, and another taken of Buddy and our recreation of the 502 during "Buddy Krebs night" at Riverside. The next shot is Hoppy Jensen and his 302 Jimmy at Candlelight Stadium in Bridgeport.

 

Thanks for posting all these great photos, I love them. Back in the late 50's and early 60's most of us high school rodders had to go with the post war cars as we could not compete with the adults who wanted the pre-war coupes for race cars. Great photos!

 

Some pictures from the annual Warren, NJ show this past summer, that Ken Brenn (of midget ownership fame) is involved in.

There was something for everyone there .. hot rods, customs, antique cars, you name it and of course a seperate area for race cars of all kinds .. Indy cars, sprints, midgets, TQ's, Jr. Dragsters, stock cars of all sorts, whether dirt or asphalt. Here are only a few that were there.

To give you an idea of the size of this annual show .. there were probably near 500 vehicles all told in it .. including 80 to 100 race cars.

Something to put on your calendar for 2010.

One of Wally Dallenbach, SR's early rides #XL-1
A Gremlin bodied dirt modified #74
The Ferante X-3 that was driven by Gentleman Jim Hendrickson
A current micro stock #07
The Butch Museika #18 coupe a Fred "The Flying Dutchman" Harbach ride
A dirt late model #51

Again only a FEW of the many race cars there .. new & "Historically Preserved"

 

At the same show .. Chris Economaci of National Speed Sport News (NSSN) & TV announcing fame .. about to look over the race car portion of the show with Ken Brenn (Sr.)

 

That 07 cart is hard core awesome.

It's a cart full of win, all by itself.

I've gotta ask, what manner of deal is that thing?

By weight, it looks to be about 50/50 wing/race car.

 

Many years ago Duke Donaldson managed to do well at Freeport Stadium with a limited Modified (No injectors, Racing tires or Quick changes) and a stock class (bombers) racing three nights a week and if my memory is correct some very reasonable entry fees. I remember my older brother actually making money with his Bomber car!

 

...and speaking of the Waterford Speedbowl:

 

It's a "Micro Stock" .. sort of a go cart of sorts (I guess) .. that's bodied to resemble our dirt track modified stock cars here.

You can see some of them racing on the flat apron on the inside of the Wall Stadium Speedway in NJ .. 2007 I believe.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lw5gYyI3Gj0

 

I can remember back that far!! LOL

I was a young guy & lived in the city (Brooklyn, NY). Freeport was some 40 miles away in the suburbs. Just about every gas station in Brooklyn & Queens (NY) had a yellow stand up sandwich type sign advertising the stock car races at the Freeport Stadium. (Donaldson & Kedenburg gave a seasons pass to the gas station owners.)

A lot less entertainment around back them to compete with enabled them to be able to run three nights a week.

Yes, inexpensive divisions were part of the key too.

In the late 70's at the Riverhead (NY) Raceway we tried something similar. We took a spruced up street stock class .. made sure they had GOOD LOOKING cars .. limited engines, no quick changes, a passenger car tire rule & ran them as "Grand-Am Late Models. We had a good field of cars & paid them a nice purse. Excellent racing. .. Both they & we made money.

We also had a real entry level - hobby stock type cars as the support division.

As a great promotional tool, we also had a gal that ran very well in the Grand-Am's and we'd advertise .... "Come see Peggy Smith compete against a full field of MEN .. AND WIN!" .. which she often did. .. That seemed to help draw the fans in.

Peggy was our Champion one year.

Peggy had developed quite a following .. that division was growing nicely & really gaining acceptance with the fans .. but then the speedway was sold.

 

FROM PAGE 100 HERE .. The late Bob Lee & the late Pete Caras (both worked on the flag stand for me at Riverhead) just pulled into the parking lot at Wall Stadium (NJ) as they were cleaning this spectacular wreck up.

Although we spent the rest of the day in the pits watching the race, we never got to actually see the car .. but (second hand information to us of course) one of the Wall Stadium officials told us that the front clip had been replaced and that the welding had beein inadequately done .. not enough penetration.

 

Thanks, Slippery! I collect .jpgs of old program covers.

 

I have an opportunity to purchase my father's old car and I live in Fort Worth TX. I am interested in finding some vintage oval track racing "near" by. The closest I have found is in Florida where the car is today. It needs to be driven on a track (dirt or asphalt). Thanks for any input. It's not going to be competitve with any newer technology. Thanks, Dan

 

So many great pictures
Does any one have Don Stives in the 8x
I remember one nite at wall lf tie rod broke and
did not slow him down

 

I'm with you, Dan! It would be great to have some nostalgia dirt track around here. Keep searching!

 

Krash63, you might ask Don if you go on 3widespicturevault. Don goes by Dondownsouth (Fla)

 

Dans28TDR, if the #98 is the car you are referring to, it ran at Orlando Speedworld Sat night. It was involved oin a crash and the left rear was shoved back. I believe it broke the U bolts on the spring and pushed the right rear forward into the body. Not sure about the driveshaft or anything else. It is a real nice coupe and is a good example of a 60's northeast modified. The car is owned by JT Dunn.

 

Do you know about "Vintage Oval Racing" magazine? I'm in Florida for the winter and don't have access to any of my copies, but they have virtually ALL of the vintage clubs , associatons, and races pretty well covered. I seem to remember that there were some in Texas. Also, depending where in Texas you are, there's a lot of action in Kansas and Missouri. I'm sure you can find some place to run. Also, most of the vintage racing associations have websites. Have you tried a "google search"?

Tubman

 

We have an outfit forming right now for the north Texas/southern Oklahoma area.

 

Thanks for the input. I've been down to FL twice this year to "visit" the car. I'm going to subscribe to "Vintage Oval" magazine (photos of the car were in the magazine earlier this year). I grew up in the northeast and vintage oval racing is still very active (along with FL where many of the drivers have retired). I've done some searching on the internet and TX is full of Vintage drag racing, SCCA cars and MX.
The car has had a rough life and needs to be restored to how my father had it. The dent on the drivers rear has been there all year. JT is a great guy and he races the car like my father always told me "Race it till it breaks.. then fix it". I'm 90% sure I will buy it. Thanks.

 

I've been tracking this thread for quite a while; lots of great pictures and info. Thanks to all of the contributors. The thread started to die down a bit and now it is roaring back to life like Jarzombek coming from the back of the pack in a 30 lap feature.

You got it, another Long Islander. Started going to Islip regularly when I was between 5 & 6 years old in 1970. Got hooked on that neat white coupe with the big red, white and blue # 1 on its door panels. Didn't miss many races until they closed the place. Although, being a big Jarzombek fan, I did take a few trips to Freeport in the mid to late 70's when Islip & Freeport started the purse wars. Followed Charlie when he left the island and then got the wind pulled out of my sails when we lost him. I haven't seen anyone else like him since then. I Have only made a race or two a year at Riverhead since then, but have always longed for the memories of the late 60's, 70's and 80's: when the cars and drivers were unique. Thanks again for bringing that back with this thread.

Now that I've finally figured out how to post a response (hope this works), time to start contributing. I've got an excellent memory of cars, numbers, and drivers, so I'll start chiming in when I feel I can add something.

I Kept a lot of scrapbooks of the Gator Racing News and Speedway Scene. Have some old programs (someone says they collect covers) and I have a few pictures that I purchased over the years. Some are from the Calinoff's Novelty Booth (don't know if Len Calinoff actually took the pictures-- might have been Ed Appoldt, Rich Oakley or B & G Wurthemann). I have some other pictures of the upstate NY drivers that I believe I purchased from a Fred Smith (Bodine, Troyer, Treichler).

And to top it off, I'm another "Bull" on the thread. Great stuff Bullfather.

'Till next time,

JBull