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

The past month just seemed to drag,but the waiting is over,and my new Duratec Ford motor has turned up.It has been converted to rear wheel drive,and uses a RS 2000 four speed gearbox.The engine mount plates have been made,and I cant wait to drop it in and weld it up.It could do with different cam covers but I'am happy for the moment.Hope it gives you a smile.

 

Almost forgot,took a few photos of a great little sprint car at a local hill climb driven by a very nice lady,it was 'B 'Ford powered with a Crager head and twin SU carbs,and Evans steering box....a little OT, but dig the two hill climb specials!

 

I worked with Ed when I promoted the 'burg and we ran CORA Midget split shows with our sprint cars. CORA was sort of a family affair between Ed, his wife Jane, and the owners and drivers. Ed was always up front, fair, honest, and always had that cigar.

RIP Ed

Blacki-Suede
aka Carroll Hamilton

 

WOW!!! .. What a great looking engine for your street worthy sprint car, over on the other side of the big pond.

I'm sure you'll find away to colour those cam covers to match the rest of the engine.

Don't forget to keep posting pictures, as your project moves along.

 

going to find a scanner for slides....my kid hit a home run yesterday at a auction. ended up with a box full of color slides from 61/62 of indy cars and usac sprints from a track up in ohio and a couple local dirt cars . hope to post up some soon.

 

Very cool! Can't wait to see them!

 

Had a really nice day @ Winchester. Got to meet some H.A.M.B.ers face to face and the BS was flyin. The cars were spot on and if Obama finds out about it, he's gonna tax the s#*t out of vintage racers. We obviously have too much money.

 

We have a Ford Focus Ztec in our midget with the plastic cam covers. Several guys have powder coated them in various colors. The shop that did my Edmunds chassis and nerf bars had some great looking "aluminum" powder available.
BTW, a club member is outfitting Chevy Ecotec motors to look like an Offy. It comes from the factory with die cast covers & looks more like an Offy than the Ford motors. Add a 4 into 1 exhaust & Hilborn injection and you are ready to go.
Chuck Schultz
Winfield Illinois

 

Hi ya Black Vette 59,
The stock Ford Duratec-Mazda MZR engine is available in many street cars with companies such as Cosworth making performance parts. Formula Atlantic and SCCA Formula Enterprise use this engine.

The story I heard was Cosworth had designed this engine for Formula One back in the early '90s when displacements were small and boost was out of sight. However, Formula One went to larger displacement, naturally aspirated engines so the project was shelved. In the late 90s, Ford and Mazda took the design and realized that it would meet many demands for it's smaller vehicles... Focus, Ranger pick up, Mazda 3 and 6, Mazda 2300 pick-up, etc. It replaced the dohc Zetec and sohc Ford Lima engines.

Circle Performance, a company located in Brockton, Mass has several Mazda MZR engines installed in winged Midgets racing with NEMA (N.orth E.ast M.idget A.ssociation). Check out the 26b car driven by Greg Stohr and owned by Bruce Beane. I know for a fact that older Duratec engines (early to mid 2000) had alloy cam covers. Perhaps that might be an inexpensive option over a pricy Cosworth cover??

PS... Jon Ehrlich of Al Tech Precision Engineering in Denver, Colorado makes a variety of transmission and transaxle adapters plus various intake conversions for Duratec, Zetec and Oldsmobile Quad 4 engines. His "roots" are in Hot Rods and Bonneville racing tooo! I have one of his creations to mate a Duratec to a Ford C-4 automatic transmission that I'm going to sell.

Gerry Dedonis
"KSGerry"
Kansas Engines (R.I.P.)

 

You'll never forget who your friends are on this site.....all you guys blow me away with your kindness.The knowledge and information you give me is priceless .....make no mistakes, without you gang, I would not be building this car.Although there are a few imported early midgets in the UK ,no one is building a sprint car,at least not that I know of .....I am on my own...these pages are my inspiration.Every one who visits me,loves the car,but thinks I am mad...you are my sanity.Again thank you all.

 

Just found this message board by Googling my old man's name, and had to join. What unbelievable photos and stories shared on here!
I have attached some pics of my Dad, Doc Dawson, from my collection. Hope everyone enjoys.

 

Welcome!!!! I remember Doc racing USAC sprints!

The photos you posted are terrific!

 

Thanks Buildy.

Found a couple more "oldies". I'll keep digging, may have to take some out of frames and scan.

 

I know this is not pre-1970, but it's pretty cool. Official Entry List for the 3rd Annual Jerry Weld Memorial, 8/1 & 8/2, 1975 @ Lakeside Speedway.
Eddie Leavitt went on to win the race. He also won the Knoxville Nationals that year.

 

I haven't posted in awhile.
I have been in the shop finishing up my latest project !
Thought I would share.
If I could just get Josh to do his magic it would be complete.
More information on the car can be found in the Classified section :<(

 

There's a name or two on that list I recognize

Curt Grogan

 

Fresh in from Winchester. Great Weekend..

Saturday got to turn some good laps and help dry the track cause we had grooved tires on. My Ol' man must have made 50 - 60 laps in his "SHAW SPL. #2 He was thrilled!

The Ellison made about 3 laps and I new something wasn't right.. so I sent it back to the pits with Mike Whitney (Richcraft Mike) to tear down and diagnose, meanwhile I jumped in the #10 car that Mike had just ran. Mike said it was good at first but got worse, I ran it a couple laps and it got real bad and quit.. so, the work began.

The Ellison car kicked off few rockers and bent two push rods, so.. a trip to three different parts stores and a hour and a half round trip by my old man and we had all new rods and parts we needed. Threw it back together, and it wouldn't hit a lick. We were not getting ANY fuel outta the pump, so Mike Whitney "Called it" again and said "I bet this Mother Fu@%er sheared the drive rod off the fuel pump" I didn't believe him, and we made a friendly bet.. WHICH I LOST! Sure enough, it was sheared. Luckily I had thrown a spare in the trailer at the last second. We switched them out, and at 8:30 pm as the sun was going down she fired on the entrance road and sounded GREAT!

The #10 car was a mistery for a while, we checked plugs, injectors, fuel filter, and then decided to check timing. That's when we realized that the Mag had become COMPLETELY LOOSE!! In doing so, it road up and ate the drive gear off itself. Well, parts stores were closed, and we decided NOT to take a trip to town looking for any "abandoned Monte Carlo's" to "Borrow" one out of.. Instead we waited till morning when a fiend brought us one from his house. At 7:30 a.m. we once again we threw it together, shoved it down the entrance road and she FIRED! Sounded good again too!


As for Sunday, we made a few parade laps.. Whitney pulled in early cause the slow pace was a lil hard on the #10. I stayed out and proceeded to just fry the tires for about 20 - 30 feet to clean the Ellison out when it needed it. (left real pretty black marks on the front straight)

Then the "gift" came.. Through a simple "Mis-comunication" I was sent out to make a couple "Hot Laps"!! No pace car, no one else, keep it safe and stay comfortable "hot laps"

Those Two laps were worth every drop of blood, sweat and tears building and working on that car.. It was quick, loose, sliding, engine cleaned out and ready to go FASTER! ..and so was I, but the rear gearing and the USAC officials waving there arms for me to stop kept me from doing so.

-----


Once again, THANK YOU HARLEY GENE!!!!!

What a great experience!

J Shaw

 

Here are a few pics..

Rooman got to run dad's car. That made my day too!

 

Great stuff !

I wish I could have been there.

Cockpit photo of the #49 is awesome. Move those 4 wheelers out of the way and I`d swear that was back in the 60s!

 

Doc18jr
Didn't see your dad's name on that list but he was there here's a pic of him at Lakeside 1975

Curt Grogan

 

Check these out..

 

That`s what I mean.

I Hope someone got some good photos of you on the track,as well.

 

Welcome DocJr.......great pics.

Josh.........great cars.......great setup.......great weekend by the looks.
Thanks for the report. Your are lucky to have repaired both problems and got a run. Like u said.......worth every drop of blood, sweat and tears.

Pic of the Benny Rapp at Infineon IRL races. On display in the Historic Formula 1 tent. Thanks to Phil Reilly. Sadly was the only USAC-style car in the entire racetrack.
Not a runner yet but working on that, Cub Barnett building a 327.

 

I found a new scanner with a fixture to do four slides at a time on e-bay a while back and have used it to scan a bunch of my old drag race slides for the "Drag cars in motion" thread. It was less than $100 including shipping.

Roo

 

I had a great time at Winchester! Talked with lots of Hambers and met a few new ones. Tried to get pics of all the Hamb cars on the track. Josh's "hot Laps" were exciting, I was standing on the front stretch and all the USAC officials were trying to figure out how to get him to stop.

I have to get my midget done for next year!













The End!




Here is a link to a short video.




Here is a link to the rest of the pics and another video.
http://s212.photobucket.com/albums/cc127/bzneil/Winchester Old Timers 2010/

 

Does any one rember this rear engine midget? I rember the # 00. Cant rember the driver or the owner? Reminded me of a spider, Ha,Ha

 

Roy, this photo is for you and all that knew Ed Adair. This is from the Mt Lawn Speedway Old Timers June, 2006. That's Jim Hines on the left, ED and Bill Holloway, Dave Weir in the back. HG photo, use it as you wish.



Thanks to all of the HAMBers who stopped me to say 'hello'. I wish that time would have allowed me to BS longer but as you could see things kept me hoppin'.
Dan Shaw was the coolest of the cool this weekend...He strapped in Charlie Shaw (the owner of Winchester Speedway) in the black duece so he could get some laps in and on Sunday "allowed" Eldon Rasmussen to drive the pickup in the parade laps. Then the Rooman drove over from Indy to be strapped in the Duece... class act there Dan.
Josh and Mike worked their tails off to keep the cars going. Roy had a good time in Dave Weirs car again this year. We had a good time and Mother nature ended up being our best friend with rain on Saturday opening a big door for the Vintage track dryers....thanks to all that came to watch and the car owners that brought cars. Couldn't do it without you!
Quality BS was the order of the day on Sunday...and we were not disapointed. The truth even slipped in some times...
Donald davidson came over to help us out and.....I could go on...
Hope to see more of you guys at other vintage events.
Gene Ingram
Winchester Old Timers aka HG

 

Thanks for posting that photo of Ed, Gene. And I sure wish I could have been there.

 

Gene my wife and I, would like to thank you and the staff for a great weekend. The hospitality of the staff was beyond words. This was my second year bringing a car , looking forward to many more, Thanks again . Deek

 

The car is currently awaiting restoration by its builder, Gregg Kishline of Kenosha Wisconsin. It is intact less engine & trans. Was built in 1979 in Chicago.

Gregg restores vintage race cars and builds fabulous large [1/2] scale models of Indy roadsters. He has a backlog of 1/4 midgets to do so the RE car may have to wait a bit.

Chuck Schultz
Winfield, Illinois