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

Hope he wears his HELMET! Better wear his helmet.. "Ever heard of a stuck throttle?"


(Bill got on me one time cause I wasn't wearing a helmet Firing off a car in a Parking lot. So... I gotta take this time to get my jab in)

 

I was not clear before... his 32 is a street car and he has taken it to GG / NSRA shows in the past, but I see him at Zephyrhills running his midget, helmet and safely equipment covering all the important bits. Sorry, Gary.

 

Oh no problem Gary! I know his Sedan as well.. Killer car. I was just teasing him.


INFACT.. Here is VIDEO of the night I'm talking about. I fired off the #23 HART/JONES Sprinter.

again... TURN UP THE VOLUME!!!!




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2MEFZlI4OpU&feature=player_embedded






Thanks man!
...and tell Bill I said howdy!


J Shaw

 

Where was that parking lot? Man, a cackle fest! I love the people cheering afterwards.

 

My Childhood friend and Co-Racer Joey Kerr's shop in Indy. He had an OPEN HOUSE party and he asked us to bring a car up to make noise.

http://www.jokerrfab.com/main.htm

Jo ran Sprinters for a while, ran USAC and had some good runs!

(Jo is filming, and that's his dad "Captain Ron" in the Front engine car)

 

Josh,
I have a pair of small Rileys on an offy. If you need to borrow a set I can send them out to you.

 

Thanks for the Offer!! We have a REALLY nice small (1.5") Riley loaned to us now.

but, If we need anything, or have questions.. I'll be in touch!

J Shaw

 

If I'm not mistaken, the "well used Kuzma springer" #83 that Dick Atkins is in was the Aggie 98 that Ruttman won Indy with in '52 (note the "A" in the front bumper?). So, both of Atkins' Sacramento rides were in Aggie 98's, technically. 3 years later it was the Aristo-Blue Spl. under Roger Ward that triggered the Vukie accident when the front axle broke. It went on to become (at least) the Greenman-Casale Spl., and as the red, white and blue 83 was even driven by Big Al on the pavement at Phoenix (as a side note, I know I've seen photos of Al at PIR, but I can't find evidence in the stats on Chamcarstats.com; am I hallucinating, or can somebody back me up?).
I think this was its last iteration as a competetitor before it was restored back to its glory years.
It was great to see Parnelli take it around the Speedway on race morning this year; all three Indy-winning 98's were on track at one time or another this May. Here's a shot of Rufus, complete with Mobil t-shirt on race day, and in Calhoun, wearing a crisp white Hinchman uniform with a big "98 " embroidered above the right chest pocket, commemorating his 150 qualifying run on Pole Day.
Fittingly, when PJ parked in front of the Pagoda after his run, Calhoun unceremoniously puked some form of liquid out onto the Yard of Bricks!

 

Yes, it is. Don't know if Al ever drove it, but Bobby did several times early on.

 

Thanks, for the Offy noise, Josh. I was reminded of something an old friend said early in the 60s while watching qualifying at Salem:

"These damn forked eights have taken all the sound out of racing."

 

Not saying your wrong but here are a couple of shots that you may be thinking of. The 83 is Atkins, the 87 is Dee Jones, both at PHX.

 

I should also add that my research shows that the #40 Big Al is wheeling was previously the famous DVL #9 that Jimmy Bryan (among others) drove to fame and fortune.

 

I just wrote a short piece about going to Tampa as a kid. If anyone is interested in reading it, just go to my profile page and click on "Tampa" in the album section. Let me know what you think. Thanks. Bob Easter

 

OK, I'll say it; I was wrong. At least about the Big Al part, but I knew I'd seen pics of it @ PIR. Could be the photo was mis-captioned at the time (that never happens ), or I mis-captioned it in my head (never happens, either).
Car had a long life, as many did back then. One of my personal favorites, along with Calhoun, the most beautiful roadster ever turned out, IMHO...

 

Good stuff Easter. Never been to Tampa, but now I feel like I have.

 

Recently there was some talk of production v8s in the indy cars. So here's a bit of a segue that may be of interest.

For Indy 1955 Al Dean sprung for a new roadster for Bryan to drive but brought along the ol #9 upright also. However it seems they plunked a little Red Ram hemi in it for the occasion. Bryan had it well up to speed in practice but qualified the roadster. They put Bob Christie in it and he promptly crashed it and it was a DNQ.

 

John Sawyer has NOTHING on you,sir.

 

Easter,
You made my day, what a great article. I will copy it!!! well done.

 

Thanks for the positive comments everybody. I don't write for anyone, I'm just a carpenter. But, for some reason, over the last number of years I feel like I'm moved to write about things that really matter to me. Most everything I write just goes on the hard drive or gets lost in the shuffle. Hell, I flunked English in school. There were some times in Dad's racing career that are very much still with me and I have to tell others. Thank you everyone for reading and commenting. I still see those times through a ten year old's eyes. (and hear them, smell them, feel them, .......)

 

I know exactly what you mean Easter.

 

Good job Easter

Curt Grogan

 

easter......the 'BARD' could not have written anything that good......

 

That's because they didn't have sprint cars in the 1500's! If they had, instead of "Othello, King Lear, Hamlet, and MacBeth", he might have written "Opperman, King Foyt, Hinnershitz, and McElreath."

 

From "Indy 500 Chronicles" by Rick Popely, with L. Spencer Riggs:
"Following the 1952 Indy 500, the AAA announced that stock-block engine displacement would be increased to 335 cubic inches for the '53 event. With this information, many teams began developing production passenger-car powerplants for racing. Among the earliest and best-developed programs was Roger Wolcott's stable of Chrysler-powered roadsters.
For years the story was told that a Wolcott Chrysler, driven either by Joe James or Joe Sostillio, took part in a "practice" 500 and averaged 134.5 mph. Since that was more than five mph faster than Troy Ruttman's record-setting time from '52, The Offy owners began to lobby the AA to reduce the limit on the stock-blockers. Sure enough, in January 1953 the governing body made the Detroit iron conform to the same rules as the race-bred Offenhauser.
For once, the AAA had been tricked; The "practice 500" had been nothing more than a rumor. "We never ran more than 10 or 20 laps at a time." veteran driver George Connor said. "That practice race business is a bunch of stuff." according to Herb Porter, Wolcott's chief mechanic. "The OFFY guys just didn't want those cars to run."

Kudos to the DVL gang for putting a Hemi in the car 2 years later, and at least giving it a go.
As a side note, JR Hildebrand took one of the Hemi Roadsters out at Indy last year on Vintage Day; way to rock, JR!

 

I really haven't been able to come up with a lot of info on the DVL hemi deal. It was just a one time deal and didn't last very long so it didn't get a lot of notice I guess. Near as I can tell the engine was built by Tony Campanna of WilCap engineering and was a private deal without any factory involvement. I've been on the lookout for a shot of the car at a distance, with that engine in it, but only have a couple of engine shots.

BTW - it was 270 c.i and it seems they ran it on a pretty heavy load of nitro.

 

Interesting stock blocks include the Quad Cam Studebaker concieved by Willie Utzman in the 50's.
What a beautiful looking engine.
Dyno tests done , and at the Brickyard it kept breaking starter shafts and nobody thought to push start the car .Go figure!!
No development laps meant it was eventually a no show.
Whatever happened to it??
Credit to Joe Scalzo "City of Speed, Los Angeles and the rise of American Racing"
Picture on page 41
Maybe someone more computer savvy than me can post a shot for others to enjoy.
It looks like about a 130 degree V-8 with 4 valves per cylinder (note bifurcates at the start of the headers),dry sumped , single plug fired by a Spaulding Flamethrower and fitted with Hilborn injection.
This begs two questions, and this is the place to get the answers.
Being Studebaker ,were the Granatellis involved??
Which car was it fitted to and does anyone have any period photos?
This one has bugged me since my tow car was a '63 Studebaker Champ pickup,
Anybody out there with an update?
Thanks Greg

 

Speedy Bill has it in his museum: http://www.museumofamericanspeed.com/Studebaker-Agajanian-DOHC-V-8-Indy-Car,15762.html

 

An excellent read! Good job! Kinda reminds me of when I first started going to the races a long time ago!

 

easter, Great story. Kind of reminded me of how I got hooked on racing....it's all my Father's fault...I'm thinking it was about 1950 and that would make me about 11 years old. We lived in Connecticut and every summer during my Father's vacation all five of us (my Father, my Mother, my brother and my sister and me) would pile into Dad's Studebaker and drive to his friends house in Nazareth Pennsylvania. His friend had a boy about my age and that boy had a brand new bicycle and his old bike was better than the one I had at home, so we were having a great time riding the bikes up and down the sidewalk in front of their house. On the weekend our Fathers decided we were all going to the Stock Car Races (Nazareth half mile dirt). Nether I or the other boy wanted to go to the races it was much more fun riding our bikes. Well we didn't have a choice we had to put the bikes away and go to the darned races (at that time I had no idea what a car race was). So off to the races we go, we sat up on the hill between the first and second turn.......HOLY SMOKES..all the noise, all the dust, all the dirt flying, cars all bright colors sliding around, going super fast...WOW that looked like more fun than bikes and I was hooked. Of course I had to get a little older before I could do that but I knew right then what I was gonna do when I grew up.

Denny Z.

 

Finally figured it out!!
Great help from Rootie with the Speedy Smith link.
So ,Studebaker quadcam commissioned by Agajanian (before Granatelli) at a cost of $225,000, designed by Leo Goosen (which is why it looks so good) came about in 1952.
First ran by Allan Heath,
The failures were due to the high torque starter turning the nose off the crank
not breakage of the starter quill,
tried again in '56 with Rathmann, also failed
Cheers Greg