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

Agreed, great pics. If the last batch of pics were taken at the same race, I believe it may be 1967. The Sterling plumbing car (4th pic) came out of retirement that year as the #3. The photo you refer to is, I believe, the Lang #28 driven by Mickey Shaw and was out of Mich. It does look like it could be a Wally car, but I really don't know its history.

 

Hi Little Faus,
I have a letter from Doug Lang stating that he bought the car from Wally at Manzanita on 11/27/66 after Mario won the feature in the Wynns #1. He campaigned it for 4 yrs. in USAC

 

Al, it is Nichols

 

Hey Rootie: can you tell us anything about the #81 in the photo? I am always curious!!!

 

That's Don Thomas out of Calif. in his own #81. I believe that is the car he built and ran with the CRA before going back east to run with USAC in 67. Did pretty well with it, finishing 6th in points in 67.

 

Isn't the Lang #28 from above and the #17 car in this pic the same car? Sure looks like it.

 

No, they are 2 different cars, both from 1967. Coincendentaly, the Lang #28 finished 15th in points and the Smith Trucking #17 finished 16th that year.

 

2011 Reading Reunion Show at Reading Fairgrounds Mall! enjoy!

 

2011 Reading Reuinon Show! Here's one of Lynn Paxton's old rides!

 

2007 Reading Reunion Show.

 

Vuky II in the Smith #17, I think maybe Jim luebbert in the #84 (?), Shaw in the Lang #28 (with some roll bar added) and Ziggy in the 22. T/H 1967.

 

baltertireman,
The Thomas upright is alive and well at the Woodland Museum painted as Woodland drove and owned it, no.93. Don built the car from most of the parts off my sprint roadster,and used a CAE fiberglass body. I have a photo of my car on it's belly behind the upright being built in 1964. Don used the Buick the first year and changed to a small block the next. The car not only ran CRA but won the championship in 1966 as no.44. Now some confusion starts. That winter Don and Hank Henry together built a body for the 1967 year. Don takes the car to El Centro for the first race in 1967 as no. 1. Don takes the car to the midwest to run USAC, no.81. 1968 car is No. 6 for his points from 1967. Don gets upside down at Eldora and gets hurt. He takes his broken car and body back home to Ca. and stops racing. Don sells car,He can't remember who. The car showes up in the late 90's as the BEECO San Diego Auto Wrecking, no.33. It is now thought to be a Hank Henry car. The car is restored by Buzz Shoemaker and Billy Willkerson for Dick Woodland and painted in Woodland's colors and No. 93. The car is now in the museum. A few years ago Don confermed that the 93 car is the one he built. Something interesting, I think the front axel could be the same one taken from my roadster in 1964.

 

The Snider No. 22 is now owned and vintage raced by Larry Pfitzenmaier. The car was Steve Stapp's house car and is restored to 1967 as the black no. 4

 

FWIW- Thomas also wheeled Ray Smiths #51 at several races during the 67 season. If you look close at the Terra Haute pic you can see, what appears, Smiths signage on his #81 car also.

 

Rootie, you come up with the coolest avatars! Although I'm not so sure the driver in that one would agree.

 

I was thinking Rootie's avitar was pretty cool too. Denny Z

 

One of those "Oh S**t" moments At least he had some roll bars to hold on to on the way down.

 

Been there a few times,myself. After the first few, it became" Oh h--l,not again! Lucky me-no damage in the first 23 years!

 

Back in 1967 we were at an IMCA race in Mt. Clemmons, MI. Karl Busson had set fast time (so far) and then Dad went out. He was faster on the first lap and we were standing and screaming because his second lap was going better. He had the Howell car right up against the fence - actually brushing it with the rear nerf bar. There was a hole in the fence in turn 4 - yep - about nerf bar high. He came through 3 and was looking real good. Into 4 - completely sideways - against the fence - and then he hooked the hole in the fence. It spun his front end to the right and up the fence. He went straight up. I remember sitting at the start/finish line and seeing the car perfectly from the top. He was launching - like NASA. The car got pretty high and slowly rolled and landed directly upside down. Those roll bars are to roll the car onto it's side. However, there was a little guardrail inside the wall - I think it started in 4 and ended in 1. Anyway, the front wheel hooked over that guardrail and didn't allow the car to roll onto it's side. Which also means the roll bar dug into the dirt a few inches. Dad's head was jammed down (or up - depending on how you look at it) into his shoulders and he could hardly breath. Some young guy ran over and reached up into the car and pulled the belts loose. Now he couldn't breath at all and couldn't tell anybody about it. Somehow he squirmmed out. His neck bothered him the rest of his life from that. He loved sprint cars with no cages, but I'll bet he would have liked a cage that day. That's the car in the pic on the left and it was the same year.

 

.....'Hey Rootie! Thanks a lot for the clarification on the Smith #17 car. I know that the Mad Russian's kid didn't run too many sprint car races, so pics of him running in USAC's 'Thunder & Lightning' Division are rare. 'Aside from the winning streak that Vuky went on at the end of the 1967 season in Alex Morales' Tamale Wagon in CRA, I wonder what other sprint car owners he drove for besides the Smith #17 and Wally's Competition Engineering #15? I do know that he also drove a beautiful, new sprinter that Don Edmunds built for Doug Caruthers that they ran at the old Irwindale/Rivergrade Raceway/Speedway 605/San Gabriel Valley Speedway.

 

Vuky drove this car at Reading, PA. at least once when it belonged to a guy named Smith from Scranton, PA.

 

Drivers have always been "Drivers". Sometimes they "Pilot" a car. But, remember when the really smooth ones were called "Chauffeurs"?

 

Hey Spike (Ruth) it's real good to see 'ya back here again. .... We've missed 'ya!!!
Sure hope to see you posting more often.

Hope you're doing OK???

Now where's that other Spike .. that Gillespie sign painter guy???

 

Drove Mutt Andersons #51 some in 68.

 

Sounds like your dad was pretty lucky could have been a lot worse. Back then a lot of those tracks were about as dangerous as the cars and driver safety wasn't always a real high priority. Of course, then, the inherent dangers of racing were just part of the deal and accepted by those that raced. "When racing was dangerous and sex was safe" as they say.

 

Sex was safe? You never met my sister. (Actually, I don't have a sister, but that sounds funny.) Whenever we'd get to a track, I would check out the rail system: guardrails you could barrel roll on - not good; guardrails too high - you could go underneath them - not good; wooden rail fence usually nailed to vertical railroad ties - could splinter and go through the cockpit; tall catch fences were OK - it would keep you from "leaving the ballpark" and would "give" a little; no wall at all - better than some walls but your concern was: Where are you going to land? There was a track in Marietta, Ohio that was in the middle of a junkyard - hope you weren't allergic to rust and sharp metal. Pennsboro, WV had three old wooden bridges that crossed streams - yep - deep enough to drown. Of course, there was always Dayton and Winchester - enough said. I think Tony Stewart just had an issue with track safety in Australia - he cracked a track owner on the head with his helmet. It happens.

 

I'm reminded of the track where I started out at back in the later 60s. Pretty much one of those rinky dink "hometown" kinda joints where it was often 'survival of the fittest'. No guard rails, so if you went out of the track you just kept going until you got stopped by a tree or light pole. Invariably a car would get run off the track coming out of turn 2, try to get back on, hook the berm, and end up barrel rolling down the back straight. Also the grandstands jutted out several feet at the start of the front straight and sooner or later somebody would manage to clip that and do endos down the front straight. Of course barrel rolls and endos down the straightaway sold tickets so it didn't seem anybody was in any big hurry to change anything. As Hemmingway once said: "Theres only 3 real sports, Auto racing, mountain climbing and bull fighting, everything else is just a game"

 

I've had a few of those kind of discussions too,and they usually reasuted in " If you dont think it safe, go back home" There is still a big 1/2 mile near my home that has 8 inch long.1/2" BOLTS sticking that far out of the boilerplate wall. What to do? We are about out of places to race around here> John S.

 

Track owners and promoters and politicians - never trust them. Remember the promo signs "Thrills and Spills!", or "Hell Drivers", or "Death Defying", and they weren't talking about Lucky Teeter or Joie Chitwood. There always seemed to be a drawing of a car flipping or at least bouncing off the ground. I never wanted to see wrecks - just good - fast - tight racing.

 

.....'Ken Schou, You took the words right out of my mouth--SO good to see Spike back! It's not the same without him. 'Always appreciate a guy that's been there and done that. And Spike definitely has!

Also, Ken, unrelated to these matters here, I see where that guy turned down $8200 for that midget Offy engine. Man, that thing was in awfully rough shape!

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