KCTA - Kansas City Timing Association

' Mickey Mouse Special" --Buzz Riley

 

This is Buzz Riley- "Cranktwisters" club -1956-Olds powered;"MICKEY MOUSE SPECIAL" Helmet complete with Mickey Mouse ears -info compliments Of Ray Erickson-- Pres. of cranktwisters & KCTA At that time.......

 

1955 GREAT BEND KANSAS '' RED LUND from Vallejo calif flat towed his full fendered flathead powered 32 roadster and won the B-SR cl*** 96.15 mph. the car is still in napa cal today . ck out DEC 55 HRM.

 

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Ray Erickson here-----This the 'Mickey Mouse Special" owned & built by "Buzz Riley",,a Member of "KCTA CLUB" which became the "CRANKTWISTERS CLUB"- after we started the actual KCTA ***c. to build the strip. the car was Old's powered and Buzz had 'Mouse ears" on the Helmet.

 

----------------------------------------Buzz Rileys-" Mickey mouse Special-:- Olds powered- Cranktwisters club

 

Here's a newspaper article from November, 1955 ***led:

How To Lick The Hot Rodder: Join Them
K.C. Police Build 'Wildcatters' A Place To Work Off Speed

I'll host the pdf file for as long as possible.

http://www.dar-co.com/triplenickel/KCTA.pdf

KCTA will hold a special place in my heart as it was my dad's first place to race and where my mom and dad raced while my brother and I spent time in our playpen in the pits.

 

Just to let everyone know, the Cowtown Reunion KCTA will be May 16-18, 2008 at KCIR.

 

Any idea on the cost for the Sat. show? Or more info.........I have been the last couple of years and debating this year.

Chris

Oh yea, Ray if you need to email me more pix feel free to.......It may take me a day or two to upload them.

 

those coupes knock me out

 

I have a couple of KCTA club plaques on our website.



I also have 2 club plaques and wonder how many more clubs belonged to this ***ociation. These are identified as KCTA clubs on the plaques......





Cool post and pictures too.

 

ooooooooooo

 

Here you go. Hope to see some of you there. I'll be hanging out with the Rear Gears Nostalgia Funny Car this weekend with my buddy "Rapid" Randy Baker driving.

http://www.kcir.net/~kcir/content/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=87&Itemid=39

 

Hi! Ray here Ed Cortap***i Was owner of the Gl*** Slipper

 

Hello KCTA (friends),

Just some words for history... My name is George A. Ross, and in 1964-65(?) my uncle John C. Ross (whole family was in paving business) either resurfaced or built the drag strip surfaces. The location was just on the west edge of I-435, and from Front St. goin' north. The entrance I believe was the end of Front St. at the time.

It could be that they were just graveling the parking area to get the public in. Maybe this is the old original strip. The front door of Smuggler's Cove would have been close to the end of the strip.

They set me under a big tree on Front St. and had me sign the dump truck driver's delivery tickets as they pulled up.

Then in 1965 for sure, Lee Dorell (sp?) was President of the KCTA, and his family and I and my friend Jim Lawson, ran the concession stands. Hot Dogs and Cokes. Maybe some chips.

Yes, they had some Run-What-Ya-Brung races. My uncle Gene Ross won a trophy with his NEW Barracuda. Wow that curved rear gl***... He had no opponent. Ha!

You could get up close and personal with your camera. If I can find some pics I will sure get them to you all.

I can still hear it... BE THERE! SUNDAY... KANSAS CITY TIMING ***OC. BRINGS YOU BIG DADDY DON GARLAND(sp?)... SUNDAY! BE THERE!

After that, I was a paramedic and we rented our services to the NEW drag strip on Noland Road, north of 50 Hwy (or 350 now??). Maybe early to mid 1970's. Met Evil Knievel and his dog.

Lastly, I was back up in Kansas City, maybe 2005-6, and while listening to the radio, I hear someone crying (really). It was on the radio. The folks that bought the old NEW drag strip, had just been shut down because of noise. Imagine that. People were living in those surrounding hills. THEY DID NOT LIKE THE NOISE. The new owners must have invested a lot (maybe everything).

Met a cousin of a friend (sounds fishy already, but I think it's real) in 2004 in St. Louis that let me touch-feel the FASTEST vett in the World (so they say)...a GM Certificate was present. It was in a private garage, and it had a bullet proof blanket on the engine with chains, and a hole for the blower. I was impressed.

It's felt good tellin' my story.
Thanks,
George A Ross

 

Thanks George for bringing this back up. Did anything ever become of the reprint books? I would be interested for sure.

 

Just found this post! Damn...what cool history that I knew zero about. I'd love to learn more about theKCTA I'd love one of those books too!

 

WOW........
Thanks for the photos and history you guys.
Nothing better than getting the words from the guys that were actually there.

 

Hi KCTA Friends,

George Ross here with a News Flash...

I looked on GoogleMaps at I-435 and Front St.

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=s&ie=UTF8&ll=39.132141,-94.500747&spn=0.004477,0.007092&t=h&z=17

If you look between the 2 cul-de-sacs, south to north, you will see what looks like a road outline in the farmed land. My best guess is that this is the remnants of the old KCTA drag strip.

I have this request... would someone volunteer on this forum (I'm in Texas, but will transfer $20 to the kitty via PayPal). Please, don't everyone go do this and piss them off. We need one or two buddies to tackle this. Some gas, and some time, and buy the maps. Might get everything you need in one trip. Just a couple of maps to share. Take a printout of the map in the link above for their reference. Suggested resources:

1) KC City Hall. Be kinda formal and see Stan Harris and tell him the importance of your quest for KC History:

Stan Harris is the director of Public Works. His office is located on the 20th floor of KC City Hall.

Ask him to point you to the correct dept for maps (most likely the sanitation dept). That way when you get to the map dept. they will have received the request from the top (strategy for results). You will have to make the decision for which maps to get for the group. See if you can get Chouteau Tfwy and the river in one of the shots for reference.

**Get the 1965ish (or varied years) map(s) in a format that can be emailed. Ask them to email it to you while you are there. They have the big map printers and its mostly digitized. And you may want a paper copy. They do street overlays too. It's like being in a candy store for me. I love maps.

2) Jackson County Court House in Independence. The map building is 1 or 2 blocks north of the south courthouse entrance on the SW corner. No KC History story here, they are engineers and per your request, will provide aerial maps with street and/or property boundary overlays. Same as ** above.

3) KCMO Fire Department. Put on your teamsters hat here. Century Towers
635 Woodland Ave., Suite 2100. Phone: (816) 784-9200, kcfd@kcmo.org. They might give you what you need via email. Same as ** above.

Make it simple. You almost have to go to these places and stand there so you can look at the maps live.

So, contact all of your hot-rod buddies and get a buzz started. Put the word out on different forums.

Wouldn't it be cool to create a KCTA Time-line Presentation for the hot-rod world?

SUNDAY!! BE THERE...

Questions, Issues, Comments or Concerns?

That's all for now.
George

 

You know, I drive past there like EVERY SINGLE DAY...

Maybe I'll stop by and check it out on the way home, or sometime soon, and snap a few camera phone pics.

I think there's a warehouse there, now. Check out the maps on http://www.bing.com - they're WAY more updated than the Google ones, and have a cool feature called "Bird's Eye View" that lets you rotate the map and see aerial photography from several angles.

~Jason

 

Holy **** Jason,

You're right!! Not that I had any doubt.

Now we really need the old maps.

Better save a copy of the 'outdated' Google map for history. (ha)

George

 

Lol! Yep - it's the Staples warehouse. Checked it out tonight...

Bing maps are pretty cool. Unfortunately, it's all I use Bing for.

~Jason

 

Hot Rod or Car Craft ran a letter from a reader featuring some old pictures of the KCTA strip a few years ago. I can't remember exactly but the pictures were probably from the fifties. You could see the grain elevator in the background so some of them were looking to the north. Lots of power lines. My Dad used to attend there in the early to mid-sixties and he recognized the place from the pictures. I don't mean to jump anyone's thread but can any of you Kansas City guys tell me if there was anyone who took pictures, offically or otherwise, at KCIR in the late sixties? I'd like to find a picture of our old next door neighbors '56 Chevy. He raced at KCIR and Bethany, sold the car in the early seventies.

 

I live by those grain elevators... Drive the kids past 'em to go to daycare!

I'd love to see "then" pics that I can identify enough landmarks to set up "now" pics of the same location...

~Jason

 

Try to locate Bill Densmore (sp?) in Bethany. He ran Thunder Valley in the late 90's and remembered everybody & everything.

Another shot might be KTTN radio, call when Dave Miles in there. I think he will have contacts for some of the old guys (he is a younger guy).

David

 

What a great thread, and incredible historic pics. Thank You.

 

Hi Wrench Turners,

Here are the pics of Evel Kneivel from the early 1970s, at KCIR on Noland Road in Kansas City.

Enjoy. Download. Save. Give 'em to your grandkids.

George

 

Re the Google Earth pictures, the area between the 2 cul de sacs appears to graded with no remnants of the drag strip.

Back in the early '60's, starting about 1960, my friend and I used to walk to the drags on "Sunday, Sunday, be there, be there!" from our neighborhood a few blocks from where the Sports Complex would eventually be built. Rarely would anyone give us a ride, so we would walk both ways. Took awhile but good exercise.

On Friday or Saturday nights, people would take turns starting each pair of cars with their arms, no flags, no lights anywhere except headlights, and only street cars.

I saw Garlit's a couple of times there for match races, including the Red Car. Saw some A/FX match races with Arnie Beswick, ****ie Harrell, and who knows what else.

 

Howdy guys! Theres a facebook group now. please join and post anything pertaining to!

 

Any more history and pictures?