Back in the mid 90s at our local track I was told the scorers wrote the number of each car each lap as they came by the start/finish line. If it was too hard to write your number, or they couldn't catch it at a glance, you may loose a lap or be really screwed on a restart. Tripple numbers took longer to write down, unless they were simple numbers. Being a broke racer running towards the back of the pack, I couldn't take a chance of not getting recorded for a lap or a position, the difference at the pay window might mean racing next week or not. I had simple numbers to write down. Might have been all BS, but it made sence to me, esspecailly the way they ran our local track. Gene
I've done some line scoring in my time, and it is better to have all two-digit numbers for convenience. However, I've never understood the idea of adding an "X" to one car when you had duplicate numbers. I always asked them to add a "1" before the number on the car that had to change. It was one stroke of the pencil instead of two.
one of the tracks I raced at the scorers used a adding machine with a tape. that way it was easy to check and the record was on the tape. helped a lot on chechs..
yes sir mighty fine pictures the 62 ford looks like tcs. the last time i saw the back seat special was im thinking 1968 could be wrong it was white and had de judge painted on the side it would scream.thanks for great pictures
Found these Nascar Great American series race shots from Flemington from my father's collection while uploading....
Hello everyone......What a great site. Took me over two weeks to catch up from P1 after I was referred to this site by a poster over on the TR forum. I have lived in Southern Calif since 1966 and spent many a happy hour at the old 605 Speedway, Saugus, and Ascot short tracks and the now defunct Riverside and Ontario big tracks. Before that I lived in Northeren Calif and attended "Champion Speedway" in S. San Francisco. Also been an NHRA member since 1963....lots of time at the old Half Moon Bay, Fremont, and Irwindale Raceways if anyone ever wants to talk about that. I have a smattering of photos from the 60s and early 70s (not great ones as they were taken with an old "Brownie" and Kodak "instamatic", all I could afford or borrow in those days). I will try to figure out how to post some of them on this site (might need some help)....am working with a very tired 8+ year old Dell setup. I would, in particular, like to thank "allstarrracing" for his wonderful old shots from 605 Speedway and Ascot. Till I can figure out how to start posting my photos, I'll try to earn my keep by filling in some information that was sought by some other posters.This shot of Lonnie Pebworth's race car inspired me to join this board. I was well acquainted with Lonnie and ended up scoring for this team a few times at 605. This car was powered by a 383 motor which made it plenty fast, just as you said. Being a big-block, it was heavy and harder on tires than the small block powered Chevies and Lonnie would often fade in the longer events. It did win at least one main event, if I'm remembering correctly, and several trophy dashes and heats.
allstar..the driver you are thinking of is Bill Spencer. Yes, this was a killer car. Bill was a great driver, a heck of a nice guy and very funny. Although the car was Petty Blue and carried #43, he had no relationship to the Pettys at all, other than having gotten some info from them on how to soup up the old Mopar slant 6s since they had run them in the old Nascar "compact" races. There was a photo of the Petty Valiant early in this thread. Bill's main competitor at 605 was a '57 Ford 6 driven by Ed Moss. Bill and Ed were both in HS when they began racing. When they got old enough for the Sportsman class, they both built 383 powered Mopars. Bill had a '63 Belvedere and Ed had a '66 fastback Charger (sorry....I don't have pictures of these). Bill's was Petty blue and was #43. Everyone was sure it was an old Petty car which was part of Bill's prank. The cars ran well at Ontario Speedway in the early 70s. Bill's talents got him a ride in the very hot red Chevelle.....I think it was the same #67 that you showed that had been driven on & off by Chuck Becker. That is the car that he got killed in out at Riverside.
DDRE.......could this be a picture from Ascot Park in Calif? Walt Price drove a Buick #65 in Winston West for a few years. It was the only Buick powered Buick (not Chevy powered) that I can recall ever seeing on the west coast and looked just like your picture. If the picture is from Ascot, the bird is probably a duck, not a chicken. Ascot has a pond in the infield and people whose kids had gotten little ducks for Easter and didn't know what to do with them when the ducks got bigger, would then waft them over the fences at Ascot during the week when the track wasn't operating. There was a flock of over 50 ducks that were living there the last time I visited the track. Ocassionally a race car would end up in the pond and ducks would scatter everywhere.
That car was owned by Gary Sigman. He and Bill Butts then went on to Winston West with a Dodge Charger. The interesting thing about their Dodge was that it ran with a MAX Wedge type motor when the Hemis ruled Winston West. The motor was built by Norm Palmer who performed magic on Mopar wedges. That, plus Sigman's chassis building skills made the #6 Dodge a top runner that won at least one W West feature race plus several trophy dashes and heats, if memory still serves me. Some other poster here asked about Norm Palmer so I'll have to find that thread again and get into that.
Any west coast fans have any pictures of the #9 Plymouth that ran at Saugus in the early 70s and was a killer car at that track in Sportsman? The car was driven by "Wild Bill" Foster (later to become Ron Hornaday Jr's father-in-law) and always had to start from the back since they ran their main events inverted start. I went to Saugus 15 weeks in a row to watch Sportsman racing back in '72 or '73 and that car won 13 of them.
I wanted to chime in on the triple digit subject. I was told by an old racer that back in the day they ran two classes together and that is how they kept up with who was in the other class. i think he ran a flathead against the other engines and he had a triple digit number.
Bentherebefore it is good to hear from someone from Califonia and that was into racing from the days I was there. You may have seen some of my cars back then. That was when racing was fun and it is good to have someone to fill in information that I don't remember. I think you are right on the Frank Deiny car. If I am not mistaked Gary Sigman started Stockcar Racing Parts didn't he? Do you remember the coupes? They were phasing them out then. I raced against them back then. Do you remember Don "Crash" Cragar? he had a 180 Flathead in a coupe and destroyed it at Ascot Park then put it in 61 Comet. It was wild to see a Flathead in a late model body as most of the coupes had later v/8's in them by then.
I didn't get to SoCal till late 1966 and I think that the flatheads were pretty well gone by then (I did own one in a '53 Merc street car for a short while in 1965). I only attended Ascot for the big Nascar Sportsmen or PCLM (later Winston West) events. There were some still at Saugus in the late 60s, along with a few 6 cyl Hudson Hornets. Amazingly enough, they ran in the regular sportsman division and were still moderately successful...decent mid packers and sometimes sneaking into the top 5. As you may remember, Saugus was small (1/3 mile) and tight with reverse camber turns so good handlers, like Hudson Hornets, could power through the turns and not suffer too much on the short straights. By about 1970, however, they were all gone. As to Gary Sigman, I know that he had several things going. He was a real thinker and innovator. A company called "Stock Car Engineering" started to build short track race cars from the rollcage out starting in the mid 70s and that quickly became the way to go for top cars out here. I don't know if he had anything to do with that company or not.
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