More Long Island'ers , Eh Gads.............

Thanks,

I`ll check that Crossbay stuff out.
Uncle Jerry did mostly TQs,Midgets and Sprints and then moved up to Indy cars.
He did start out in stock cars at Freeport in 1957 and won a bunch of races in the Novice division.
He also street raced a Fordillac 49 Ford with a Cadillac engine,and he also drove for rich guys who had cars but didn`t know how to drive them.
My Dad was his mechanic and car builder for many years.
Jerry was killed in a highway accident last Feb.
Here is a photo set of my Dad and Jerry.
There are some Long Island oval track photos in the set.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/millerracers2000/sets/72157603720064481/

I don`t have any photos of Uncle Frankie,but he drove the De Seta & Berger Willys Gasser
It was about the same color Blue as the second SWC car.

 

Hey guys, Patty D here! Just found this thread been on HAMB a lot. Living in the beautiful Hudson Valley of NY. 3miles away from the Rhinebeck Fairgrounds I just saw a bunch of LIers at the show May 2-3. I am restoring the MG in my avatar that we raced in the early 60s. PM me if you want to.

Pat

 

Levittown Here, I raced at Freeport towards the end ! 56 f100 Now and a Streetglide

 

Fritz-somehowI missed this post.I am in Great River-Between East Islip & Oakdale.

 

Merkonic a friend that was also in Vintage Tin Rene Archambeaut lived in N. Great River he had a 39 Merc convertable with a SBC and an adapter to the ford trans. Gerry Burger was also in Vintage Tin and is the Editor of Rodders Digest

Pat

 

Sorry I missed you, I have since moved out to Kansas city MO
FRITZ

 

Wow. This post has been around for a while, but I'm just catching it now. Another Island boy here. I know some of you mugs...the rest I would like to meet some day! I'm glad to hear of some other rodders close to home, like Old Bethpage, and Syosset.

 

shirley long island...

 

inverness,florida by way of hicksville

 

Never saw this thread before ... Elmont for 50 years and now Franklin Square ... Love this site ... I have gotten more parts and insight from the "HAMB" then car magazine.

 

I hate to be "that guy" that hijack's a thread but has anyone in L.I. seen this car around?
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kustom55/sets/72157604424800702/

 

wow...old thread! The originator of it doesnt even live here anymore. Anyway, i'm here in Valley Stream. Hey, 55chevr...we're neighbors.

 

I havn't seen it yet. I'll let you know if I do. You've been looking for that one for a while.
Bil

 

I'm from Bellmore. From Cross Bay to Westhampton, I have a lot of memories of Long Island hot rodding and drag racing. Still involved with racing, I'm the lead announcer at Raceway Park.
WF

 

lol, I have been. Im in no rush so I figure i'll keep looking until something comes up. Thanks again

 

This is old I just saw fritz down at the lone star round up in texas
Oh yeah long beach here

 

eastern l.i.

 

You bet its an old post, LOL I have been In Kansas City MO for over a year now!
Fritz

 

Been in North Carolina for the last 6 years but lived on Long Island for the 50 years before that. Worked on Modifieds at Islip, Riverhead, and SCCA at the Bridge. My wife misses it alot . I miss the food,tuff to find good food down here.

 

Canman, if you miss the racing action on Long Island, check my son's site out, he is a Hamber also. Pitstoppitbull.com it is where the action is with interviews and more.

 

Long island hea! Smithtown

 

Thanks for the link, I put it in favorites. I live in Mooresville now and modifieds are not the big deal here that they are back home. Still get to see them at Concord for the shootout though. When I was teaching at NASCAR Tech there was only one other instructor with modified experience. To them it's a job,and the money is Late Models and of course Sprint/Nextel Cup.

 

I have so many old hot rodding buddies down on Mooresville that have moved down there in the last 25 years it is amazing. We were going to move down there ourselves but Northport has the best VA in the country.

Everyone of them made our very well there, there are no better work ethics then NY ones. Sorry guys, but if you want hard and dependible workers in any state out side of NY, then you want workers, builders, fabracators, sheetmetal right on down the line to sweeping floors. We do it best.

 

Mooresville is a good town to live. The traffic is a bit much at times but overall not bad. I live in a house that looks like the place my boss lived in on L.I. As far as car stuff and racing it certainly has alot.My neighbor is a Sprint Cup fabricator. home for lunch everyday. I work for Concord Fire and spend alot of the race days at the track on duty,I just don't care much for cars with fenders. The folks down here are literally the salt of the earth, great place to live but the economy beat up the race business some.

 

More memories;

At the gas station opposite the Stony Brook LIRR station, there was a nice green traditional glass tee bucket that i think was called "T for Two". This was around 1965 to 1967 or so? I was told it was a magazine car, but I never managed to find it in any magazine of the time? It really jazzed me up. I thought hot rods were awesome when i was that young! magical

back up to 1973-76. i was trying to be a good custom painter and my masterpeice - probably of my life, was for a guy named jimmy romano that claimed to be a guitar player for Joe Walsh's James Gang, because he looked like a guy in the picture on the album cover.

he was from the north shore and the car was an early 70's big hughmongous torino with a big ford motor. it was gold brown metallic with candy brown traditional panel paint and some ribbon stuff on the hood. it was a massive race only car and i never got any pics of it! it was the custom paint masterpiece of my life!

i hung out at "Fast Eddies" place on sunrise highway right near the end of Nichol's road. I was going to repaint Fast Eddie's black corvette, but that deal fell through. I got to meet "John the Starter" from NYNS and saw his 57 vette get painted at fast eddies place. I passed on a steel topolino drag car remnant for $50 that was in back of eddies shop.

Fast Eddie would drive his full race vette down to the hot bar at the time down there "Vanishing Point". Eddies younger brother gave up a promising baseball career path to work for Eddie. I always found Eddie to be quite intimidating, in a mafia kind of way. I'm glad in some ways i did not ever paint his car!

I also worked for a few years at "Eastern Coach and Restoration" run by Steve Sessions in Lake Ronkonkoma back then. I wish I had been nicer to Steve at the time. I fought him a lot about how things were run in his shop. we did do some magnificent cars there, though. i remember a 36 auburn boattail that we did a ground up on. imron. lots of imron on the chassis back then. acrylic lacquor single stage for body color.

but, at larry hoffmans backyard garage in farmingville i got to do paint work on a black mercedes gullwing and roger earl's 67 stingray. he was in foghat, which lived on the north shore back then.

Larry knew all the street rod guys back then. He was a former drag racer that actually ran westhampton in the early sixties. he was also new york state gymnastics champion in 1962!

i remember seeing his anglia at westhampton back in 1964. absolutely the hottest car on the grounds that day. and the only car that could carry the wheels jsut like the famous magazine cars of teh day. prior to the anglia, he had a steel bodied tee bucket with injected sbc. Larry turned on drag racing because of the danger and expense. he knew the guy that got killed in an early dragster when they ran in the roosevelt field parking lot in the early sixties. guys head got crushed when his dragster rolled.

Larry was the best sheet metal gas welder i ever met. he was magical.

i do remember the name "Pickle Howie" from my hanging at Little John's patchouge shop, though!

One of Long Island's biggest claims to fame for motorsports were those fire truck races! blown trucks carrying fireman that had to hang on to what was in essence a drag car with handles, jump off and hook up a fire hose. I'm quite sure it's no longer around because it must have been incredibly dangerous! it was always on wide world of sports.

thanks again for the memories.

jim

 

I knew Stevie pretty well. One heck of a guy too. I had my office for my rag just down the road from him and he used to hold car shows in a schoolyard. He asked us if we wanted to take it over, he was tired of running it for so many years, so Tom and I said sure but, we won't do it in a schoolyard, we want it on Main St.
Tom did a lot of foot work with the town counsel because he lived in the town, Long story short, it became one of the best shows on the Island spectatorwise then most any other.

It is still going on but not like it was the 4 years we ran it.

I also knew Hoffman well, he had so many cars, back in 1967, I think it was, he had a 56 Chevy Nomad. Pretty much looed stock but I believe he had the front bumper off. I come cruising up to the light and it was just going to turn green and i got on and so did Larry. That Nomad just stood up and shot forward from a stand still and was going as fast as I was when I had just hit the light bevause i wasn't going to stop. I saw the yellow from the side.

He also had that brow 37 Ford sedan he ended up selling to Jimmy Hendrickson, son of the modified driver. Larry and Jim were tight, I had lost contact with Larry from high school day until Jim brought me to his shope in Bellport. Larry painted Jimmy's (now) 37, silver with some graphix.

Some yokel had run up the bike path on Old country Rd and i was pulling into a 7-11 before our LISRA meeting and hit my 40 Ford coupe.
Larry asked me what ride I had and saw the damage, said bring it in tuesday and I'll take care of it. Which he did.

He had a beautiful house and we'd go over and just hang with him, he wasn't one to waste words but boy, could he do body work and paint.

Did you know gary "The Brush" from Bellmore? One of the most fantastic painters you could ever meet. he developed the 3D flames, no, not those airbrush ones. he also hat that C-Cab SD with the Red Rose you could only see in the paint job from certain angles in certain light?

Long island was full of talented builders, painters, fabricators, etc. Most went to Mooresville, LOL

Gary Fioto went to Fla. Others are just gone. We are losing more and more of the old timers everyday. I ran into an old LISRA member, I left the assoc. years ago. I couldn't believe how he had aged.

Enjoy while we can, I gave it up due to my health, I have thought of giving my 37 Packard Super 8 to Stevie to clean up and sell on consignment.

OH yeah, the fire trucks, my buddy Gary Fontana was big into them and built the engines for the Central Islip teams. He was a big Hemi man, with hemi's everywhere. He had a shop on Suffolk Ave, in CI I think, getting fuzzy now.

BTW Lil John, sold his shop and moved down to Myrtle Beach.

 

Long time gone from L.I. but not in the heart. many a weekend spent at Islip, Freeport, or New York National Speedway. actually drag raced a 49 pontiac hearse at NYNS and took home the trophy in D/mp that's what I get for shoving a straight axle under it. sure wish I could locate a pic of that.
some pic's from around 1970 in Glen Cove. A friend snapped them and sent them to me. I was a little busy in SE Asia. Enjoy.

 

It's funny that there are alot of Islanders in NC I am looking in Boone NC now this state has just bankrupted me. Will the last one out turn off the lights (if its in your job description)

Pat

 

hairy canary. hmmmmmmmm national speedway, hmmmm oh yeah

 

Man you pulled this one out of your hat!!lol
Great picture.
JimV