60'-70's Vintage Oval Track Modifieds

Yeah, Bowman Gray is more of a WWE type spectacle event than a race sometimes.

However, every once in a while, someone does something truly awesome there.

Towards the first of that race, Burt Myers passed his brother Jason on the outside, and it wasn't on a restart, he just powered around him. I thought it was a good move.

The race winner LW Miller put a hell of a move on Burt to take the lead too. On such a tiny track, it's real hard to hit a guy just hard enough to move him up the track but not hard enough to loop him. The tighter the turn radius, the hard that move is to pull off, but that Miller did it perfectly.

The commentators I can deal with (bitching is one of my hobbies ), I just wish they'd show the whole race.

I guess they have to fit them into a set time slot though, so they edit out the "boring parts". ( )

 

Right now they only have an hour to fit a race that about an hour and half. Spencer is getting better with names, The Riverhead race was great, they cut out one thing Rowan Pennick passing Kevin Goodale for the lead, which was the pass for the win!!! Speed does a better job then Versus, but Versus production is much better, announcers and coverage better on Speed!!! okay pictures!!!!

 

talladega

 

that 38 nova just screams mod

 

I believe that both these cars raced at Hinchcliffe Stadium in Paterson, NJ.
Hinchliffe was once a true hot bed of both midget & stock car racing.

Strong efforts are underway to revive the stadium and for auto racing to return to it.

The annual Race Car Expo will be held in the Hinchcliffe Stadium on Sunday, September 5th. Both vintage and current day race cars will be on exhibit .. plus many racing heros from days past .. including some who actually competed at Hinchcliffe .. will be on hand.

More on this event soon .. meanwhile check out the attached flyer.

 

Real good to see this car again, but I wish that it was still here on Long Island, NY (where it has such a rich history) in the Jarzombek fleet of their restored modifieds .. rather than in the Talledaga Museum.

 

I wish I had gone to Catholic high school, pretty girl.

 

Arute has been announcing for 30 years and he's been terrible for 30 years too. Spencer was not known for his brains either. I like him and he speaks his mind. But he needs to have some cheat notes in front of him. At the Riverhead race, he continiously call Ryan Preece, Ryan Pierce. The Mike Joy crew is ten times better. His knowledge is not surpassed by anyone.

 

Defense to Spencer, he got to the track extremely late stuck in traffic from Poconos and Long Island Expressway. Arute was there early in the day.

 

Hey CoolHand and Terry1, I disagree with your comments on Jack Arute. I read your post yesterday and thought....hmmm. So I watched the Indy Sonoma race today and payed particular attention to Arute's commentary. I thought it was good. So your entitled to your opinion but I think he did good. Denny Z

 

Here's an explaination of Jack Roush's crash from a friend of mine (a retired corporate [jet] pilot) who was there at Oshkosh.

~~~~~~~~~~
What happen to Jack Roush was he was suppose to land on the north / south runway toward the south (18 right)
When u r assigned that runway u come in from the east to stay south of the east / west runway. rw9 _________ rw 27

I rw 18R
I
I
I
I rw 36L

Well what he did was to overshoot rw 18R in his turn to the south.
He then corrected to back toward the runway but overshot to far back to the east (left).
When he tried to come back toward 18R his right wing was to low and hit the dirt and that knocked the airplane to the ground and then slammed the aircraft onto the runway and then bounced off to the right side of the runway ending up in the little ditch.

Tha, tha , thatss all folks!
So much for his flying days.
At least I hope so.

A shop at New Smyrna (FL) airport just south of here just built him a P-51.

I do know of three people that still had their license with sight in only one eye.
Matter of fact there is a fellow we fly with now that only has one eye. It can be done.
~~~~~~~~~~

Unless captioned .. photographers unknown

 

Additional pictures

 

Now if NASCAR would let them run without the restrictor plates. It's bad enough they have to run that tiny carb, but I guess it wouldn't due to have such an inferior class running about a second a lap faster than the CUP cars.
I can't imagine that there is any advantage to running a big block any more.

 

I don't think they'd let you run it, advantage or not.

Pretty sure the reason they keep choking the motors is to keep folks from getting killed.

The speed has to be controlled, or guys start to die.

There's a reason they don't run modifieds on the super speedways. There is only so much impact that a sub-3,000 LB car can withstand before guys stop being able to walk away from it.

Same reason they don't run the sportsman cars at Daytona anymore. Too much speed for that type of car construction. LMS and modifieds aren't meant to be hitting things at >150 MPH.

 

That's fine with me. I don't know why, but he just seems to get under my skin.

 

the fastest car ever at daytona was richie...almost 220

 

WOW, after an exhaustive several evenings of going through this thread and reliving all these great memories, I have reached the last page. Great pics everyone. I feel blessed to have grown up at Utica Rome and Fulton, watching all the greats and of course my local heros Evans, Seamon, Lazzaro, and Cook.

One Vernon NY based car I didnt see on here is the beautiful #77 Pinto of Chip Lanz. It was the last car framed ( not 2x4 tubing) modified that Sonny Seamon built. Original power was a Boss 302 Ford and the front suspension was torsion bar. The Boss was later replaced by a B/B Chevy, and suspension changed to coil overs.

Alan Weaver owns the car now and has restored it for shows and parade laps. The first pic is from the day Alan brought it home. The following pics are of the finished restoration. Take a look at all the detail in this car including all the hand done pin-striping. That is exactly the way the car was raced, and wasn't done just to jazz it up for show. Where ever this car raced it had few rivals in the looks department.

 

Exactly.

The Sportsman cars were the same way, consistently in the 200 mph bracket, but built like short track Late Model Stock cars.

The two can't mix. Either you build a speedway car and run speedway speeds, or you keep the short track cars on the short tracks. Seems like someone died in a Sportsman car every year up until they stopped running them.

Hell, guys get killed in Modifieds at Martinsville.

There just ain't enough race car there to run 'em on the big tracks.

Of course, I'd love to see the Modifieds race at Daytona, I just don't want someone to have to croak it so I can do so.

 

Alan and my brother have been very close friends since they were kids. Everything he works on he does that kind of detail intensive work. It was a thrill for me to see the car for the first time after the restoration. I could be mistaken, but I believe the same artist that did the hand pinstripes when the car was built in the mid seventies, re-did them all by hand on the restoration.

 

OVER 1 MILLION HITS for this thread!!!!!
The photo that started it all!

 

I agree with Denny!!!

 

Big blocks are allowed, just check the NASCAR rules. The only thing is that you must run the required 390CFM carb, and pay a penalty.
"For all engines with a cubic inch displacement of 358.000 cubic inch

displacement or larger, a minimum weight requirement of 6.9 pounds per cubic inch plus 175 pounds will be required." ​

Whelen Rules

That's why I wrote that I didn't see and advantage of the big block engine.

While I'm not sure that they belong on today's high-banked 1.5mi + super speedways, I think unrestrected at Bristol would yield top speeds comparable to Oswego or even the DIRT cars at Syracuse and Eldora. Even Lebanon Valley records top speeds in the 150-Neighborhood. Remember, the bigger tracks have SAFER barriers now and these cars are much safer than what Evans ran.

 

0 car with Tony Siscone and starter Sam Estlow(sp.) Wall Stadium