History So all Stockcars were crudely built junk? You better think again!

For all of you who are sure we are cutting up perfectly good cars to build race cars, the is the car fellow Mohawk Valley Vintage club members Jimmy Hyde with the help of Jim Fugel built over the winter.

Starting only with a roof and quarters!

 

Worked out very well! Not a big fan of the rear bumper, but I do understand.

 

Where did they get the body? I lost track of this one in 77. It had been on a couple of cars by then, starting some time mid 60s... 37 Chevy coupe, before opening night 1974, and its 1st win. Jim built the ch***is using Tobias ch***is plans. The body came from Jimmie Ogle's car, that was old school 54 Chevy frame, split wishbones and leafs in the rear. It had been around for a few years in that iteration. And it had raced with the 37 frame and a big 6 prior to that.

So Robert is correct. That's recycling at its best. And the rest of the car is still around with a Gremlin body racing in one of the vintage circuits up here, numbered 34, formerly driven by **** Hansen.

BTW I'm biased but I still think the 54 coupe was one of the best looking cars at the Valley in the coupe/coach era...

 

My dad remembers one night at Malta (Albany-Saratoga) after the races Richie’s car was loaded up, two guys knelt down and were looking over the rear suspension.

Richie came out of no where and was yelling something at them.

‘When he got to them he handed them a tape measure, and said “You’ll need this.” and walked away.

 

This happened to us at Islip. We were away from the car and come back to 3 sets of legs sticking out from under the rear of the car. My buddy walks over real quiet.. slaps a hand on the deck lid. I heard at least 1 head hit the bottom of the car.

 

Driver: Rex Carr

 

HAMB member NOBILLETA's stock car inspired hot rod and one of his family's many stock cars. Bill learned to weld on the racecar. Ron
William Albright
10:38 AM (19 minutes ago)

to Ron

Ha ha! Who says there weren’t any high end beautiful stock cars built in the day. How about the water pipe combination Nerf bar/exhaust system, pretty innovative in my mind.It probably only weighed about 100 pounds. Lol.

 

The division I ran in the rules said NO COW CATCHERS for front bumpers. The figure-8 guys had them out of necessity and survival. Some of those were gum-ball welded. I never saw one come off.

 

There are all kinds of people here who insist that stock car racers were drunks who beat and banged who ruined perfectly good cars.

This is George Proctor was a family man (family friend) patriarch of the Proctor racing family.

This car is a late 30s Ford with a Chrysler flathead 6.

He won a lot of races; he was winning $500.00 a weekend his regular job paid $72.00 a week.

He quit his real job and supported his family with the racecar!

If he beat and banged and tore up that car he lost his source of income, and the family didn't eat!

He was far from the only person in that era who supported their families by racing.

 

On Long Island, some guys raced 3 to 4x a week. The ones that ran up front, that was their living. Some hustled car repairs or built cars for other racers. Most had a 2nd or 3rd car waiting in the wings... just in case. Maybe mot complete, but a big jump if you needed a "new" car in 2 days time.

This is when the purses came out of the back-gate admissions, which was roughly 40% of the take. On a big night, a win was worth $400 or more, big bucks in 1966.

 

Most everything in this part of NY (near Albany) was NASCAR Sportsman until mid year 1965 when the tracks went NASCAR modified to break up a driver boycott, around here the front gate paid the purse.

I don't think people realize how popular weekly stock car racing was post war until the mid 90s to early 2000s

These are weekly races at Fonda (my home track) from 1959 to the mid 1990s the grandstands were always packed on a Saturday nights!


People even sat up on ladders outside of 1 and 2 to watch the races!
This led to a higher fence, curtains latter traps on the fence.

 

Lebanon Valley was not a NASCAR track. Once the flatheads rulled, but those cars from that neighbor track, Fonda, came in on open nights and from other tracks where those pesky overheads ruled, and stole all of the opens. Frankie Schneider was one of the bandits of that era. Those red and white #2s were just plain fast!

Will Cagle, Pete Corey and others kept Valley regulars from winning an open show for a long time. But once Lebanon embraced the modern engines, they became hard runners. And a lot of the drivers made their living running on the tracks of the northeast.

 

We had 3 local tracks by the time, 4 if I count the Westhampton oval, I was old enough to attend the races. Dexter Park in Queens closed in 1955, Deer Park Speedrome in 1946.

By 1966, any track I went to was jam packed with big car counts in any division. In 1981 I spread my wings out to upstate NY racing. The season opener at OCFS was a sell-out despite the April chill. I went back there for the 2006 opener, it was hard to tell if the track was even open. For the 1st time I could park inside the fairgrounds.

Car counts were dismal with 4 cl***es of modifieds... maybe 9 cars to each main.

 

I made sure to say most everything, the Southern Tier NY tracks (5 Mile Point, Shureburn, etc..) and Penn-Can in northern Penn. were a non-NASCAR circuit I can’t remember the name, but they had some weird rules and cars.

 

And what was interesting in that era was seeing a car with a strange name on it for the driver. Hiding the iden***y of a NASCAR driver running on an "Outlaw" track.

Of course everyone knew better, but it was the game they had to play for big race payouts.

 

Re** Carrs, Flex Hose, and “Rebel” Flagg are a few of the best I have heard.

 

Richie Evans had a flap with NASCAR that eventually got resolved.

 

Yes, he was suspended. Utica-Rome got rained out so he and several other the NASCAR guys went to Fulton. Richie won, Jerry Cook finished 2nd, Lou Lazzaro finished 3rd in that race but only Richie got fined he refused to pay and was suspended and raced outlaw, and “Steady” Eddie Flemke ran Richie’s 2nd car at Malta and Utica Rome (Nascar) with Richie’s name still on the roof are often winning!

In 1970 he entered the car in the New Yorker at Utica-Rome with Eddie Flemke as the driver, since Richie still suspended and not allowed in the pits they pitted the car in the parking lot, and Eddie Flemke would show his pit p*** every time he drove though the gate.

They won that year too.

Pitting in the parking lot



Eddie Flemke in victory lane with Richie’s car!

 

Those were the days. Throw some dirt tires on and jack some weight around and run it on the dirt. Next night, reverse the changes, run on asphalt. And those guys made a living doing it.

If you look close at the 3rd and 4th pictures, specifically the frame, you'll notice it's hat shaped, with a flange on the bottom. 53-54 Chevy frames were one of the favorites of the era.

 

Yes, I have had and sold a handful of them to vintage racers and racecar restorers over the last five or ten years, it drives me nuts to see these street rod guys ruin a perfect 49-54 frame with Nova/Camaro clip or Mustang II front end!

A Flemke with a Ford axle is the only way to go!

 

Yes, and street rodders thing Posies invented the quarter eliptic spring! Legend has it that Flemke got the wrong spring for his modified, when everyone was still using the Ford buggy spring front and rear. So he cut the spring in half, somehow made spring eyes on what used to be the center of the spring, and viola, the Flemke spring was invented. No more need for wedges to get wedge, or rocker front spring mounts. It survived into the 70s, so it must have worked a little bit...

 

Those frames were popular locally too. Another one circa 1973-ish was a Scout ch***is, flipped upside down.

Evans later incorporated a left-side weight box in the frame rail. He simply moved the weight fore and aft, other guys did it the hard way. A couple of guys on Long Island bought cars from him.

 

Flemke was quite the innovator of the era. Some set of front spring jackers however. But it worked. I read somewhere that he sold some of the front ends to other racers.

 

Utica-Rome and Fulton were still asphalt at that point, but dad has talked about those guys would race Malta Friday night (asphalt.), Fonda Saturday night (dirt), and Utica-Rome Sunday night (asphalt)

Dad told me about when he was working with Jack Miller in 1973, at a fall race at Brewerton NY.

Miller built a power steering set-up (center steer car) he didn't like the way is felt in warm-ups so they looped the hoses and made in through an early heat.

Between during the heat races the bleachers feel down, the races were stopped, and a convoy of ambulances took people the hospital.

They restarted in the wee small hours of the morning, Miller ran enough laps in the feature to get his tow money.

They got back to Schoharie (NY) about the time they should have been waking up (Two hours from Brewerton to Schoharie) cleaned the car, removed the whole power steer set up, converted in back to manual.

They finished up just in time to load up and go the Lebanon Valley! West Lebanon NY (Schoharie to Lebanon Valley one hour)

 

Finally got my Hilborn Injection .

 

You're right, the Scout frame was very popular early '70s but it was turned around not flipped over.

 

Nice! Throw in 20 % nitro for qualifying, and hang on...

 

A new one on me. I knew a guy that told me about his on a Pinto mod he ran at Freeport and Islip around 1977. I'll have to ask some of the old guys if any of these are still around.

 

Great old Isky cam ad!

 

1940 coupe dirt track racer, runs, stops. Merc 8BA flathead, new 12V charging system, raced in Pennsylvania, have ***le

Don't know how this got from PA to SoCal but maybe @anthony myrick would drive it
https://inlandempire.craigslist.org/cto/d/norco-1940-mercury-coupe/7658986677.html