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

Ask him when you see him at Fontana.
(He did run it last year at Milw)

Tom had that car at our Desert Classic Concourse last month and I believe he said it is now en route with a few others to Indy for The Centennial, not sure if it was one of those he said was then going from Indy to Goodwood. (What a life eh? I'm pinching the pennies for Miwaukee)

http://s1011.photobucket.com/albums/af233/carl44s/DesertClassicConcours 2011/

 

Yes, that makes perfect sense. That car having to be at Indy and Goodwood; not you and I having to pinch pennies.

I guess we'll have to wait at least until next year's Route 66 Classic to have a chance to hear the scream of a Novi V-8 Engine echoing through the halls of AAA Speedway.

Great photo of a great and important car, Carl. We'll see in a couple of weeks at Fontana.

JOHN

 

I'm new to this thread, but have now gone through its 720 superb pages. They're a credit to you all who have done so much to compose them, and of course to the great men whose efforts and exploits they celebrate. I apologise for having nothing meaningful to contribute to the thread myself, but I just don't.
I wonder if I may ask a question and tap your collective wisdom: why did all these cars have such big steering wheels?
There wasn't a lot of weight on the front axle, the front contact patches were small, and no downforce. I thought maybe for some reason they used a lot of mechanical trail, but it appears that front caster tended to be moderate (3-5 deg?).
Judging from the videos, the cars look to have had very quick steering ratios, which would make for heavier steering. Was that it?
I wouldn't think that you'd want quick steering on a big-track roadster, which also had big steering wheels, but perhaps it was compensated for by the much longer wheelbase. Also, in the longer races, fatigue would be an issue, and the roadsters appear to have a good bit more weight on the front axle, so perhaps those factors explain it for the bigger cars, but it's not obvious to me why such big steering wheels for the sprint cars, unless it's explained by the SR.
If anyone could enlighten me on this, I would appreciate it. In any case, thanks to all of you for helping to keep alive - and kicking - this very special part of our culture.

 

I think you've done a pretty good job of answering your own question, New Britain. Welcome, and kudos for getting through all 720 pages.
I think we all need to give a big thank you to Josh for getting this thing started. It's the one thing on the web I make sure to check in on every day. The photos, the discussions, a great part of which are peppered with the contributions of TRUE LEGENDS of the sport, it all just blows me away.
Good on you, Josh.

 

You got it right. The larger diameter steering wheels made it easier for the driver to steer when the cars didn't have power steering, which is a fairly recent innovation in racing cars. If I remember correctly power steering started being used in sprint cars in the 1970's. One of the major reasons that people were reluctant to use it was the power it took from the engine and whether that was a good trade-off for having a driver that didn't get worn out in 50 or so laps. The midgets didn't use power steering until after that time, as the size of the power steering units and the power draw were bigger concerns in an engine with much less horsepower. Welcome to the site!!

 

Well said.

 

Back before power steering, the spindle of choice was the old I-H 10 deg. kpi spindle. The reason was that, in the sweep of the spindle, there was more drop of the spindle (raising the axle) thus transfering RF weight to the LR. So, not only was it turning the car it was jacking weight. Probably not a real big factor but I'm sure it added some to the steering effort.

 

Actually, the IH spindle had a 9 degree kingpin inclination. As wheels got wider and more offset they switched to the 10 degree Ford Econoline spindle to get their kingpin steering axis pointing more toward the center of the tire tread.
This made the tire rotate on its centerline rather than steering in an arc with the steering axis pointing at the inner edge of the tire.

mac miller in INDY

 

Back before power steering there were no 13 year olds driving and most drivers had forearms like Popeye.

 

Ford econoline s were 5% I, ran them and made my owen axles , the late style after markts were 10 % and I, still make them with diffrent camber from left to right makes the car stick in the corners . the old cars ran a 17in steering wheel with a short pittman arm . my 2 cents .( If ya , dont think about it it make sense )

 

Yeah, I was confused (its been a while) the IH was 9 deg. and the Ford 3/4 T. truck was 10 deg. The Econoline was much less as I recall.

 

Bob: Power steering on sprint cars was developed by none other than Tommy Lee for Don Brown's Mechanical Rabbits. Tommy was a machinist and had a shop three doors down from Don's shop and he worked on the Rabbit's in the evenings which was of course the time of the day that the Prince of Darkness worked. The first steering box was a Saginaw passenger car box and in pic's of the cars you will notice a very long pitman arm so as to quicken up the passenger car ratio. Many people wondered how the Rabbit's worked so well on dirt! It was because they ran a ton of caster that could not have been steered by conventional means. I believe Rootie has posted these pictures which brought back great memories. The first is Don leaning over and I don't remember the guy's name in Little Joe's car and that's my Dad in the background looking at them. The second is Don at Whiteman Stadium in his cars maiden laps at a private session during the filming of a Ford TV comercial. Tommy Lee would finish that day with backing the car into the fence! Notice no injector stacks, thats another great story!
Dan Ruth

 

Great drawing of Brown's roadsters

 

With respect to large diameter steering wheels, and power steering; I can only draw on my own experience.

When I was a kid, in high school, a buddy and I built a "Jalopy Racer" out of a '33 Ford tudor. In the aftermath of my wrecking it the first time out; we found a lot of things we did wrong. One of the mistakes was not lengthening the Pittman Arm, and/or the steering arm, making the steering quicker. Had we done that, we would had had to go to a larger diameter wheel.

In subsequent race cars, I've modified the steering (and checked for proper "Akermann Effect") for faster, more precise steering. Ex: my '32 AAA Camp Car's steering wheel travel is 3/4 of a turn, lock to lock. It has a 17" steering wheel.

When I was younger, "the conventional wisdom" was that; power steering on a race car deprived the driver of the "feel" or "feedback". I've never thought that, in my own case, to be true. I think a driver can get enough "feel" through eyes, ears and butt. I'd love to have power steering on my aged Champ Car. It'd save me having to do daily upper body strength exercises on my aged body

 

I never raced a car with power steering and yes they were hard to turn. I allways thought it was the caster that made them turn hard not the kinpin inclination. The more caster the harder it was to turn in the corner but was easier to drive straight down the straghtaway[which sometimes was not easy].
Jim Graybeal

 

I can speak from experience, having driven sprinters and midgets with no power steering back in the day and now having driven a midget on both dirt and pavement. The "feel" is still there. It would have helped back then but I'd never be able to cut it today without power steering (at 72 years old). Denny Z.

 

I am a more recent inductee int0 the driving world.(1986) My first sprinter(My Stapp 4-bar) came with a 17" wheel,a modified GM steering box, and a wayyyy long pitman arm.I never raced that car. A 1 year respiratory ailment gave me time to find car #2,which had MANUAL steering,with a 17" wheel and a short pitman arm. I raced that car for 2 years with the manual gear,with 5X5 top wing and 3X2 nose wing. Talk about tough! I push pencils for a living. Richard Lupo told me I was nuts! Years later, in a better car,with power steering, I was running in a qualifying position in an All Star B-main,and when I turned the car into turn 3, the steering gear housing split right up the side,causing immediate loss of power steering,although the car still turned. After 3 more very busy laps, I had to park it. The wings definitely add to the need for power steering.I have used IH spindles,OE Ford econoline,and 10 degree aftermarket ford types,and now have the trick"Red Devil" articles. I dont think I could steer the car for very long without the power assisted steering! John S. p.s. Notice the car in my avatar. With no wings,It steers almost as easy as a wing car with the wheels OFF the ground!!

 

Actually both kpi and positive caster achive a similar effect, but in different planes. If you had -0- kpi and -0- caster the spindle would swing without any elevation change. If you tilt the kingin to the rear (positive caster) the spindle will then swing in a arc gaining/losing elevation. If you tilt the kingpin in (to the center) adding kpi you will also then cause the spindle to swing in a arc gaining/losing elevation.

 

I think the first power steering units to be used in openwheel cars came from the Saginaw Steering division of GM sometime in the mid to late sixties and only a few of the elite champcar guys were able to get them. The first one I remember seeing was in the Dean Van Lines dirtcar that Andretti drove in 1969. As i remember it GM did not sell the units but gave them to just a few teams.

I think Lee's units came about after he got a look at the GM units and he saw how easy it would be to duplicate them.

 

Rootie,
You are smarter than me, but I agree with you. I remember when we checked the weight on all four wheels we always had the front tires pointed straight ahead. Remember we picked up each wheel by hand and knew exactly how much differance there was between them? Now they use scales! I do remember that if you turned the wheels all the way one way the left was heavy and if you turned it all the way the other way it was real light. I remember if you wanted to check how much cross weight you had you would jack the car up with a sockett on the jack and put it in the center of the center section and look or measure the differance of how far the rear wheels were off the ground. Forget how much an inch differance was[am sure it was just a guess anyway], but it made us think we knew what we were doing.
Jim

 

Came across this a while back, seems they may have been messing with power steering fairly early on in the 60s.

 

I remember getting one of those weight checkers that looked kinda like a pole jack. You would stick it in the wheel and lift it up and read the weight on the dial. Doubt it was all that accurate but it was probably close enough for race car work

 

Oh my God! where did you get those? I remember a drafting table in the shop and remember the plywood fixtures that Don used to create the sides of the frames. Don created wooden bucks for the bodies which were then sent to LA Metal shaping for ruff out and then returned for welding with cobalt blue lenses and a gas torch. What followed was hours of file work and hammering. Man was he an Artist!
Dan Ruth

 

Dan,
These plans, drawings are framed and hanging at the Woodland Museum in Paso Robles. Not sure where Woodland got them. There will be an open house car show at the museum Sat. May 14, with the Estrella Warbirds Museum on the grounds of the Paso Robles airport. www.ewarbirds.org

 

Rootie, The Hopkins dirt car got Saginaw steering after Trenton in 1961. Bettenhausen was gone and Branson got the ride. I have a photo showing black tape over the hole for the Halibrand unit. The left mount is still in the car and the side panel hole is welded shut. Also have Saginaw manuel that was sent to Yunick in 61.

 

I think I know the connection!
They also have the Billy Wilkerson #2 sprinter that they say Don built in 62! It's a beautiful restoration and has great lines and a tremendous race history. Here is my memory of that particular car, some of the details may be stretched or skewed but this is the way I remember it.
In that period of time when that car was built 61/62 Don was racing the IMCA fair circuit during the summer and would not return to the shop until the season was over, so the shop was missing "The Prince of Darkness" but there were still projects under construction. One of those projects was this particular car which was actually Al Bartz's car and Al and Don built it together while Al was working days at Hilborn & Traco Eng. Al was meticulous as was Don and therefor it was a very slow process and it often got pushed into the corner so rent paying jobs could be completed. If I remember correctly it was sold so Al could open his own engine building business. The first picture is Al at Ascot winning Rookie of the year, the color pic is the restored car and the other pics are of Wilkerson at Ascot.
That's my story as I remember it.
Dan Ruth

 

Anybody know where I cad get a set of plastic adapters to convert a 2&3/16" hilborne injector from angled tubes to straight ups? I think "Nish" in Utah made them in the mid-late 1970's. John S.

 

Dan
Your memory of the car in the Woodland collection is correct. I remember the Brown car being in Kansas City the summer 66 and it was garaged in the shop that became the original WeldWheel shop. Here are three pictures I have of the car when it was owned by Keith Barker, with Tom Corbin (43) Jay Woodside (3) and Eddie Leavitt (2) . The car is in Nebraska some where.

Curt Grogan

 

Probably a dumb question, but did you try Nish? They're still in SLC, doing the LSR thing these days.

 

Excuse me for being so dumb, but what is the handle that Jay Woodside has his left hand on? Is it a weight jacker? In the 60's had they not got away from outside brake handle? Real pretty car.
Jim