Features VINTAGE SPRINT CAR PIC THREAD, 1965 and older only please.

Oops, He took over Spider Webbs ride in 1954.

 

The #55 was driven to many wins by J,D Leas and Larry Dickson

 

A few more, taken by Joe at his shop. And, just for fun, one of Joe driving his beautiful #98.

 

Might want to add Cassella to the list also.

How about some pictures of the Altfater car?

 

Well.. it starts tonight! I'm heading outta here around 3:00 to go to the USAC opener at Eldora tonight, Then at 10:00 tomorrow I'm heading to Lawrenceburg for open practice where I think I have a ride in a Mini Sprint and then leave there and head to Twin Cities for a $4000 to win show.. If only Kokomo was opening THIS sunday I'd have a Quadruple Header!



Great pics by the way guys on the last few pages!

 

Once again, thanks for the response on the Sumar car! Great shots and perfect for my needs..

 

J.D.Leas. Probably from the Jim Carmichael collection. Photographer unknown.

 

I can only imagine what it would be like to walk into a shop like this with such great cars and say to myself 'What do I want to work on today?"....very nice.

 

Yes, I agree about the Vel's car sounding off. I was there that night and was hoping to hear it really sing like the one Louis Senter had in the early 70's with Don Hawley driving it at Ascot.
About the Farmer incident, I've been told a bolt broke that secured his shoulder harnesses and allowed him to come partially out of the car. Ironically, that was the very first race CRA ran with mandatory roll cages.

 

That one is theTrevis chassis car.

 

somewhere in the earlier pages I posted a picture of Larry Dickson in the car

 

A few from Reading....Rich

 

Cool. Saw this car in the clip.

 

1. Who was the driver who went over the fence ?

2. Who was the driver of # 35 ?

 

No car over the fence in that clip, I s'pose you mean this one:

1. Bob Sweikert at Salem in 1956

2. Cotton Farmer at Pheonix in 1960


I believe I can identify the following:

0:00 Jim Hurtubise ("Herk") at Du Quoin 1960
0:09 Jimmy Bryan at Langhorne? 1956
0:15 Bryan and Langhorne '56 again
0:24 Don Branson, 1964
0:28 r-l Bryan, Tony Bettenhausen, A. J. Foyt
0:33 Shorty Templeman at Phoenix? '61?
0:41 Sprint Car action of the sixties, I believe that's Salem Speedway, that's the Leffler/Dunseth car leading from the Colvin/Shepherd car, drivers changed too often and the pics are too blurred to ID
0:46 Bob Sweikert wheels out his Sprint Car...
0:49 ... and meets his end
0:59 Johnny Thomson in '57
1:03 Indiana State Fairgrounds? 1962, the blue #1 is Foyt
1:09 Foyt again
1:13 Sprint Cars at Terre Haute? 1966, I'd say: Colvin/Shepherd #3 (Bobby Unser?), Anderson #51 (Roger McCluskey?), Dunseth/Leffler #16 (Greg Weld?) and Meskowski #1 (Mario Andretti?)
1:23 Dick Atkins?
1:27 Branson again
1:33 Bobby U
1:37 Herk!
1:43 Greg Weld with Paul Leffler?
1:46 McCluskey with Bruce Homeyer
1:51 Tony B at Phoenix?
1:55 Branson at Terre Haute? '64
2:04 (too dark)
2:11 Troy Ruttman (Surgeon General's Warning: Smoking costs at least two tenths per lap)
2:16 Parnelli Jones
2:20 Elmer George (fancy hat!)
2:24 Eddie Sachs
2:32 Indiana State Fairgrounds? 1964, blue #17 (same car as 1:03) is Bobby Marshman
2:39 unknown beauty
2:42 Cotton Farmer at Phoenix, 1960 - I'd seen pictures of this one before, but this is SCAAARY!
3:04 Langhorne finish, that's Foyt winning - probably June '62
3:08 Gary Bettenhausen?
3:15 Sprint Cars at Salem? again, look at the rubber marks left by the last one!
3:22 Jud Larson (also at Salem? did he ever win there?? and is that Wally Meskowski with him???)
3:30 Bobby Marshman with Rodger Ward, Phoenix '62
3:36 Sprint Cars at Terre Haute? again, 1967 Anderson #1 (McCluskey?) on the outside, Morse #91 (Bill Puterbaugh?) on the inside
3:42 1965 Meskowski #9 (Johnny Rutherford?), followed by Stapp #4 (Carl Williams?), again TH methinks
3:46 Templeman again
3:48 Ward
3:52 Parnelli
3:55 Branson & Herk
4:03 Farmer is OK, but visibly shaken (as well he should!)

Comments?

 

Appears to me that much of the footage in that vid was taken from Dick Wallen tapes. On a side note, the person filming Sweikerts crash from the infield was Jimmy Reece.

 

Four wide at TH-I love it.

 

1985 USAC vs CRA at OkC
http://www.hoseheadforums.com/forum...f6436b177-F373BDA0-E7F2-6999-0F31CF93B56693BC

 

I once compiled a pretty good history of Salem races back in the 70s, and I don't think Jud Larson ever won there.

 

Rootie,
I do not think the first picture of the #48 is the same car as the second #48. The first has a flat tail, different windsheild and you can not see SUMAR on the car. When Pat O'Conner drove it it had a headrest on the tail. What do you think?

 

Ron67,
I do not know who "SUMAR" sold to car to but do know a little about what happened to it for awhile. When E.T. Morse of Frankfort, Ky bought the car, it was the WRD Spl. #92 or#93, Maroon I think. E.T. cut it down to a Sprint car. Made it a #21 Ballentine Scotch [? can not spell] Spl. It was cnady apple red. My couison Bernie Graybeal dove it at Winchester in an IMCA race in 64 or 65 and made the throphy dash. Butch Smith [Ckick Smith's son] drove it at ST. Paul. A few others drove it. Do not know who he sold it to. E.T. then bought the KEY car and made it the E.T. Morse #21 and then the #91 and he then bought the Grant King whiskey bottle car.
Jim Graybeal

 

Ron67,
By the way I got to drive the car one time. I went with E.T. and Bernie to a 1/4 mile paved track so Bernie could practice some and E.T. let me drive it some.
Jim Graybeal

 

Indybigjohn,
I do not remember Larson winng at Salem but he did win at Winchester.
Jim Graybeal

 

Can't really explain it for sure, but that is W/G and all the Champ car races there show #48 as the Sumar Spl., Blough chassis. My guess is, at some point the tail from the Kurtis upright car was put on the dirt car. (?)


Going back a little further (51) I found that Ward did indeed run a #48 at W/G and that was the Bromme car. But that car isn't the Bromme and doesn't appear to be Ward either.

 

.....''MichaelFerner, Wow! Thank you, Sir, you hit it out of the park! I wanted to sit down and go through that video but, couldn't have come anywhere near as you did. I can confirm that, that is Dick Atkins at 1:23. I somehow missed this video the first time around so, thank you to Brian26 for posting it and RimRyder for commenting on it so we could re-live it again. It's incredible and very revealing and shows us that even way back when the guys still congregated down in turn one to check things out, as The Ol' Cigar Smoker, The Panzer and SuperTex were doing. It also changed my perception of a lot of those guys. Jud Larson looked like the most gentle of all gentlemen and all I could ever think about Tony Bettenhausen was pulling out at Indy in '53, looking so haggered and like he was ready to drop dead. Instead, he was a super-classy, clean-cut, well dressed hero. No wonder he was so well liked and loved. I will now print out Michael Ferner's post and watch that video another 25 or 30 times!

 

jimg12,
Thanks for the background info on the car. The shop photos and the storage photos posted earlier work out great for me, as that is the configuration of the car I was familiar with. Thanks to you and the others for digging up the info!
I am rather surprised nobody had any input on the Les Vaughn car, as I think it ran in the midwest and eastern events in 57 or 58..Once again, thanks to you all !!!!!!!

 

Larson did win on the high banks driving for AJ Foyt, the #21 Lesovsky chevy. It is chronicled in one of Dick Wallen's videos. I can't remember if /where it was.

 

Larson won Winchester twice; 65/66 for Watson and Dunseth.

 

Rootie & jimg, re post #10427/522;
per D.Wall. 50's, pg. 325 shows car w/o hdrst while pg. 370 shows car with hd/rst.
I would say Rootie is correct in his assumption. The major parts of the car appear
to be the same except for the tail.
also, pic #2 is the Kuzma car, which would be the car Mr. Fiore restored.

 

BRAIN FADE! It just dawned on me the roll bars would make it around 58, which I'm seeing is listed as a Kuzma and not the earlier Blough chassis. Didn't realize they had updated.