History Vintage/period correct roll bar photo thread

fantastic photos Robert; thank you. i've never seen, or even thought of, combining square & round tubing in the same ***embly. [obviously never done any fabrication of the sort]

Q: is the piece on the drag link (3rd picture from bottom) to control/ stop the link from vibrating?
Q: last photo; are the brackets on the split wishbones for "aircraft" shocks?

thanks again; you always come through!

sid

 

The following car owned by Ken Gypson, it was built and raced in the early 50s and competed at Bruton Lake also known as Ups and Downs Speedway (Watch the attached video and you will understand), Route 66 Speedway (named for NY state 66) and Pine Bowl.

Route 66 or Pine Bowl was later now tracks as Hollywood Bowl.

 

ha ha - "ups 'n' downs' indeed.

Q: was that track particularly short or just camera work made it appear so?

those interior pictures are a great help not only for the roll bar/ cage, but to see how the inner body steel was configured.

as always, thank you for helping my continuing education.

s.e.

 

Circa 1960

 

"i told my best gal i had a bench seat; she cooed like a dove.
when i picked her up, she was a little frosty . . . "

 

I believe it was a 3/8 mile.

 

Close up view point along the starting line fence for an anxious teen.



Hello,

A wide variety of roll bars were shown even from the early days of our drag racing involvement. The FED roll bar style was popular and copied the ch***is research mode. Parallel bars up and over the head of the driver. Measured and fit for the original driver. If a new driver was necessary for some reason, the seat was already in place and since it is over the rear axle, not much room was left to adjust for the new driver.

But, as one can see, even as early as 1958, adjustments had to be made for different styles and space for different folks.

Jnaki

So, does the original dual parallel bars in an upside down “V” formation cover the new driver to the rules? NO… so an additional tube curve was installed to be above his head. If the case of the roll bar being the top part of the roll over if it ever happened, the motor or tires are the front end of the triangle of safety. Does the little arch addition of a curved pipe have sufficient clearance to be safe?

The original “V” design touch point Yellow line to the triangle.

The addition of the little arch is the blue line in the triangle roll over. Each time, original or additional, it does not keep the helmet inside the roll bar in case of a flip over. YRMV

NHRA 1958 rules for rollbars:

The ruling would be up to the tech inspector at each dragstrip as far as safety.

By 1965:

 

it's kind of a wonder either jalopy, or quarter milers, survived the early days.

 

Well despite what many people believe it wasn't just beat and bang by most racers or tracks, there were unwritten rule of engagement.

It used to be unless you were to someone's door and they could see you the line was theirs's roll out and try again in the next corner.

The same goes for driving in too deep and shoving someone out of the way, you could give them a tap and move them out of the line but allow them to recover.

 

This car is own by some friends of mine, it ran in the lower Hudson Valley of New York State driven by a female driver "Doll" Macintyre in the late 1950s and early 1960s.

 

well . . . . the roll cage is still in tact; there's that.

 

Hello,

Safety was a main concern in those early drag racing rules. The roll bars were required for all compe***ion cars in every cl***. Street legal cl***es the rules were relaxed somewhat due to those cars being mostly daily drivers away from the dragstrip.

So, the early days, were over in a flash, although it seemed to crawl in horrendous speeds, at times. Ha!
****tershields for all race cars regardless of full race compe***ion builds or street cars, they all had to have ****tershields.

But, the placement and types of roll bars were all there, they were just questionable at times.

Sometimes, the actual roll bars were well away from the helmeted head and allowed plenty of area in case of a roll over.

Other times, the helmeted head barely covered the top of the white Bell Helmet.

Jnaki

As nice as the build is/was, the records fell, but the safety rules were always in question. Roll bars for protection?



You be the judge… YRMV

 

wild stuff

 

Who is that wayward teenager in the red Pendleton shirt standing at the starting line fence barrier?

Hello,

One of our favorite racers was the C/dragster of the Tapia Brothers. It was a family thing + brothers racing their home built race car on Saturdays. It all seemed familiar and good for us.

Mr. Childers sitting in his one-of-a-kind, white two door Pontiac Ambulance...

The whole concept of early drag racing was to find and build a great powerful motor that would allow a family to go racing at the local dragstrip. The Tapia Brothers lived in Wilmington, CA and it was only a few miles to the entrance to Lion’s Dragstrip complex. Wilmington was the "official" city of Lion's Dragstrip in the northern area. The city goes all of the way down South, to the Long Beach/Los Angeles Harbor.

The low, slung, FED was seen almost every weekend at Lion’s Dragstrip. My brother took this film as I was given a break to go get something to eat and get back after wandering around the dragstrip. The teenager with the red Pendleton shirt was close to the starting line as the Tapia Brother FED rolled back into the staging area after being pushed down the dragstrip to start up.

“ALMOST GROWN”

Bobby Tapia and the Tapia Brothers were names in hot rodding and drag racing from a long time ago in So Cal. The photo posted shows the Injected SBC motor, Isky cam, Joe Hunt Vertex Magneto and a first edition of individual, equal length side header pipes to push the exhaust out and beyond the driver’s compartment. The name of the fast SBC powered dragster was “ALMOST GROWN.” The “AL” is visible in the B/W photo above.

A lot of information was given to me from Dr. Richard Tapia reaching back through his family history.

The small, low slung FED was not one of the big Hemi supercharged motor race cars. But, it put on a show for everyone to enjoy weekly in their own cl*** and eliminator runs. In looking back, it was probably the precursor to the junior fuel cl*** FED race cars. Thank you for the memories and up/close and personal adventures from some wayward kid at Lions Dragstrip in 1958-60.

Jnaki


But, the ch***is was one of many built during this time period. How light was it?
a family effort...
photos from the Tapia Family collection

Thanks for the weekly show…

 

i have often wondered why more rear tires were not incinerated by exhaust pipes' discharge.

 

It most cases it was done to heat the tires and make them sticky for better grip. In the early days the tires were one step above rocks and the tread thickness was very deep, which is why those early race tires are so heavy!

 

Hello,

Lets not get the time period wrong. In all of the photos from my old films, no one heated tires one way or another. Everyone with slicks came up to the starting line as the gates opened. When they were ready, a pit crew guy wiped off the slicks. The towel was clean and all they were doing was to get the little surface pebbles or "stuff" off of the slicks. No formula or specific cleaner was added. Did it help? Well, we did it and the slicks were always clean when our 1940 Willys Gas Coupe was ready for the red to green light change.
671 blower on 292 c.i. SBC blower spec motor + 7 inch Original Bruce Slicks

Jnaki

As for the FED and other cars that needed a push to start, they used the dragstrip to fire up and then when they got to the starting line position, the pit crew wiped off the slicks to clean off the "stuff" picked up on the dragstrip. What was the "stuff?" anything that a tire can pick up from a smooth surface.

Some push, others wipe as the centering of the race car in the specific position at the starting line.



As for the headers near the tires, they were always pointed away from the tires due to possible moisture or heaven forbid, oil coming out.

Now, as the time period changed, this one set of pipes changed all future header pipes:


The design was the first of its kind in 1959 and the top racers all “borrowed” the down tube/away design on their builds. The exhausts were directed down and away from the tires, but also, in some later versions, blew away any “stuff” on the immediate area near the tires and staging areas.


“Weed burners” was one name that quickly came onto the scene and if any weeds were in the area, (which they weren’t) of course, they were heated and burned…YRMV

 

did redirecting the zoomies improve drivers' hearing or was it not enough to make a difference?

their breathing must have been helped a bit if nothing else.

 

I was referring to oval track car, there was befit of the exhaust blowing the tire smoke away.