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

Yup, you are correct. And then they all started losing them in 1964 when the tires were guaranteed to go the distance without any tire changes. 1964 winner Foyt and several others had their air jacks removed to save weight. And the rear engined cars never had air jacks in that period. There were almost zero tires changed anywhere on the Championship Trail between 1964 and 1970. And it took Penske to bring back air jacks in the late 1970s.

 

Getting back to the hole on the right side of the cowling it might also be something as simple as a fuel shutoff for the mechanic to use when the car came in after a run. Since whatever is in the hole shows up as hexagonal it still makes sense that the hole is to insert a socket and handle of some variety. The correct way to shut off the engine is to shut off the fuel to make it quit instead of just flipping the mag switch and running the chance of unburnt methanol washing down a cylinder. Maybe Christiansen had his driver come in after every practice run with the engine still running and simply put his tool into the cowling hole and turned off the fuel to stop the engine himself. Chief mechanics in those days never really trusted any of their drivers too far. Whatever shows in that hole is definitely hex so one way or another something was likely being turned using a socket.

 

Thanks guys , all questions answered except the date for the first 8" rims.
As usual ,the collective of members and interested parties on here are the "font of all knowledge"
Cheers Greg

 

trentesept: 8" wheels were probably used on sprint cars from the 1960's and on into the present day, 8" wheels are still used on modern dirt sprint cars on the front. We ran them one the left rear most of the time in the late 60's and early 70's. Bill

 

anyone recognize this car or driver? thanks in advance

 

Thanks once again for all your help.
The car I have is the Flloyd Demmitt Shilala-Chev
Probably only driven by Roy Prosser for Flloyd and probably only at Whiteman Airpark in CRA???
Does anybody have any other knowledge?
According to Walt James and Jim Cini a black car, red upholstery and red numbers -----------either #89 or #98 they were sure about the didgits ,but not the order and by the time I got it the paint had been stripped.
The Ruiz/Travelon spring front car #65 is owned by my friend Richard and is nearing completion.
The only photos I have are 3.0MB and wont load on here , but it is a cracker.
It was for some time the Vermiell Offy out of Calistoga and prior to that we have a photo of Joe Guisti driving it which can be found on "Turn 4"

 

Do not know the car or driver but the track is Armscamp Speedway in Alexandria, Indiana

 

thanks!,
anyone else?

 

This shows the mid upright 4 bar mounts pretty good. The 62 Ruby Thompson car in 63

 

Yes it does. And the photo also shows that there are no front shocks mounted to either side of the external shock towers where up to four shocks were in previous years. There must now be a single shock on each side with the top mounted inside the bodywork. And Stephens is holding a book titled "Two For The Road". I can't make out who wrote it but I have to wonder if there is some connection to the sponsor.

 

An interesting story is Bob Harkey drove a midget for Edgar Stone and took his rookie test at the speedway in this car in 1963.

you can see where the shocks mount on that cross tube.

 

I got these today and thought they were interesting

 

Guess that answers the "Fiberglass or alloy" question...
Wonder if the frayed look in the crash pic was the paint separating from the sheetmetal?
Anyone know who the panel-beater is wielding the ball-peen hammer?

 

Yup. Bob Harkey ran ARDC midgets for awhile and reportedly beat an up and coming driver named Andretti on a couple of occasions.

 

Everyone that raced at Knoxville in the 60's. I hope you might remember this car that Slim Gutnecht owned. My Dad drove when he returned to racing in 1965 a couple times after his terrible crash at the Iowa State Fair grounds. I am posting of a picture of it on the trailer getting ready to go racing. It was also driven by Norm Waddley, and Butch Smith. I even heard Slim drove it once. I have not figured out yet on how to post several pictures at once and not make them a PDF file. I will post a couple pictures of the car. I got the pictures from Norm who still lives in Milo Iowa.
Ow I also forgot to say I have this car in my garage and plan on restoring it. I have spoken to Bob Trostle and he told me he build 6 Roadsters in 1965 after Greg won the Knoxville Nationls. I am going to show him the car when I go back to Iowa and see if it is one that he build.

 

Racer5c...I am going to make a SWAG (scientific wild ass guess) and say the driver might be Mark Henn from Marion, Indiana and the year would be 1949.

 

thanks!! If that's the case I knew him when he was a lot older I will try to contact his son to see if he knows

 

I feel the need to build my little guy a quarter midget to match my midget. If anybody has a body or leads on a body that would be great. I plan on building all the chassis my self but do now want to build another body from scratch like I did on my full midget.
Thanks!

 

JDW.....welcome to this great discussion. Slim Gutnecht's family held an estate sale years ago and I still have pictures of all the stuff that was on the auction. As I remember, I had an oppurtunity to be at Indy (in the pits !!) for time trials so I simply gave a list to the auctioneer of "stuff" I wanted. I ended up with several quickchanges and other parts.....but, I also got the 32 Ford 5 window coupe body that Slim would put over the sprint cars once a year to run as a "coupe" at the State Fair races.....sadly it is long gone.....but, somewhere in my basement I have a video tape that Mrs. Gutkneckt did which includes lots of old black and white photos of cars and cars being built......including a picture of the garage floor at Slim's with a chalk outline of a frame he was building. PM me and I will try to dust off the old stuff wherever it is.

 

Sorry if these are not pre 60, I dont know for sure. You wont find these anywhere else, can anyone name the driver ?

 

There's Foyt at one of the Pocono World Series of Auto Racing events. He made his first USAC midget starts for Bob Higman and here he's also making one of his last for Bob.