Hot Rods Vintage roundly round pics

Love those old race cars.

 

Cool beans Mark!

 

Gees them early un's were high..

 

Great pics! Thanks for posting.

 

GET A ROPE !!!!

 

I spent MANY weekends at Raceway Park. I remember those cars in the pictures like it was yesterday. I had a lot of great times at that place. Sadly the track is gone. THANKS for posting. Bob

 

Westboro Speedway, 1/4 mile high banked oval,1958 photo shoot

 

Cool pics! Looks like the 2bi4 had faux woodgrain paint...

 

Future NASCAR Late Model Sportsman Champion and Busch Series star, L. D. Ottinger, around 1961. Newport, Tennessee.

 

L.D. Ottinger, race winner, Tennessee-Carolina Raceway, Newport, Tennessee. 1962.

 

Just a cool picture I found on the internet. Don't know anything about the cars.

 

Tulsa Speedway in the good old days. I shot the pic using a 4x5 speed graphic camera

 

One heck of a photo.

 

Super Supers! Gary

 

Late 1950s in to the 60s,I really had some heros,my fav. #30 Mel Pain,an #119 Rod Perry,at our local oval tracks,by early 60s started racing myself with a good buddy of mine Rob Bean. We built the #57 Hudson for cyclone class. Later after crewing for Lou Whites racers going into the 70s I was given the fun job driving Lou's #312 at Hialeah Speedway/Miami Fla.{ Bobby Allison drove it for Lou White an after Bobby want up to Alabama. Lou tryed out a few drivers before he had me drive it the next few years.
It seemed just a normal thing to do,built a hotrod or two an then also build some race cars an drive them. [

 

Didn't see a pic of my Dads car at Raceway Park, Copper colored '40 Buick coupe #56, powered by the "Famous" Fireball Eight with "twin" carbs!! He was sitting in the grandstand one Friday nite drinking Beer with a Buddy when they pulled his Program Number from the barrel. Anybody remember the "Spectator Races" that they had on Friday nites?? If you won the race you got to keep the car that you won in or you got $50.00. The idea was to get more people involved in Hobby Stock Racing. If any of you were ever there you know how that idea took off like GangBusters. I remember seeing cars lined up for the Feature Race from the start/finish line to the exit of turn two. Roy Stein lost a lot of his hair during those races!! Anyway, the old man won his race and the rest as they say, is History. He found an old dirt car from the original Raceway Park (1/4 mile track just west of the new 3/8 track) and started his Race'n Career! That winter we built a new '41 Buick coupe, like Jim Anderson and Bud Helm drove. Ours was Nailhead Powered unlike they're Straight Eight's. That was a Sportsmans Class car, Midnight Blue # 9, then onto the Super Modifieds. He bought a Sprint car from Jerry Kauffman, stretched the frame to make it legal, put a '34 Chev sedan body on it and scared himself half to death! The first couple of weeks that we had the car out it still had the in and out box in it, the Officials were pretty good about giving the guys "time" to get things up to par. Well 467 cubic inches of Fuel Injected Buick Nailhead with an In and Out box was a little more than "Buck The Flying Plumber" could handle, if I remember right, my Mom threw the shorts that he was wearing in the trash!! He sold it and the last we heard it was running around the Jackson, Mn. area. He's in that big "Pit in the Sky" now, RIP Dad!!

 

1952 Culver City Speedway in Southern California. The jalopy of "Steady Eddie" Gray in the pits. Those are homes just on the other side of the wall. The home owners would sell food to the crews in the pits over the wall.

 

Great stuff, Dana. Gary

 

Jalopies





Hope this fellow below made it...









Credit to Owners, Photographers &
Original Posters


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Its a good thing they chose the
lesser models...
























Credit to Owners, Photographers &
Original Posters

​

 

Dana I have a question on the 119 super. did the turbos have very much lag on restarts or did you keep it spooled up? Your late model photo looks like it was just before the big import money became involved. Kenny Andrews who now lives in Tennessee told us about the time all this happened. Kenny is still active in open wheel racing.. Keep them coming.

 

Rod Perry drove #119 Hamke mod too the win nearly every race he was in,yes there was a little lag,but that car was way ahead on design,leftside WT,split "I"beam axle up front ,twin turbos on twin 4bbls, 12volt drive waterpump,lower CG an the best driver of the time. http://www.memorylaneracing.com/rod-perry/

These super amzing super mods I really loved the most ,were gone as a class as car count droped off at end of 1960s and replaced by Late Modals as top class in Florida. Coming up to 1980 drug$ came in to Miami big an found its way to many of the racers, fellow racers that had been building there own stuff,no longer came by my little shop to get things done. They had new Howe cars an,mega $$$$$ engines from up north,the car count droped from 20 to 30 cars,down to 10 or 12,the show started to suck I think. It was taking too much time an $ of mine to run going to 1990s on my own $,I was always in top 5 , when I felt I couldn't,I stopped Late Modals,lay off a few months. But racing is too much fun an had to do ,so with only low bucks,I built some ministocks an had fun with out braking the bank.My last Late modal was mid 1980s an still winning some.

 

You really won't like this story.
They raced the coupes at my home town track until about 1966. The rules were pretty specific, they had to use cars no newer then 1950 model year. An interesting note here is that they ran 2 classes, a Ford flathead class, and everything else class. The Fords put on a good show, but when they had to compete against all the other modern V8s, they didn't do so good. Most of the guys that were running the coupes had been complaining for years that good bodies were hard to find, by then already.

My dad's friend always ran 32 Ford coupes. He ran a bulldozer by trade, and did junking to support his racing. On his way to jobs in his dump truck, he would be looking for piles of scrap sitting on farms, to go back and try to get. The outcome of that was he found a lot of old cars. Whenever he came across a 32 Ford, he offered cash money to buy it. He promised the seller he was going to use the car for a stock car, and it would never be on the street again. When the track finally decided to go to late models instead of the coupes, the rules stated they could use any American car made after the 1950 model year. My fathers friend crushed 4 32 Ford coupes he had waiting to be stock cars! He got a lot of flack from a lot of guys that wanted to buy them for street rods, but he had promised the original owners the cars would never be on the street again. He crushed down the roofs with the bucket and ran them over with the D-9 Cat bulldozer. His words were, "I bought them as junk, and junk they will be." 4 thoroughly flattened 32 Ford coupes went on the flatbed, to the shredder one day. Dad and I were there on that day. I think most of us present shed a few tears that day, but not because of the crushed Fords, but because it was the end of an era in racing that would never be again. I was 10 years old. Gene

 

Ouch that does hurt a little...any pics to rub the salt in the wounds a little more...​