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

My vote (although you didn't ask for a vote) is to put it back in the car (the speed limit sign). That is just cool! Gotta be some good stories about where they 'borrowed' the sign.
HG

 

Thanks guys for the input on the floor pan. You'll be happy to hear that we will be putting it back in the chassis!

I'll use an old car show trick with mirrors under it if he ever wants to show the car somewhere...

 

Quite a few instrument/gauge panels &/or dash boards were made from material from that same supplier!!

 

Makes you wonder if there are any old state highway department workers now figuring all those stolen signs didn't go on kids' walls after all.

 

Regarding the Beletsky Watson that Jim Maguire drove, I remember the car well. Though I believe it was built by Ron Ward [beautiful car], Walt actually placed an ad in N.S.S.N. requesting if someone could transport it to the East coast. Ibelieve that Bob Tattersall did the deed. Walt sold the car to Kenn Brenn in late 1964 for Jiggs Peters and Wally Dallenback to drive in URC. In early 1967, Ken sold it to Jim Shaw, again with Jiggs driving[one of the 4 cars involved in the Joe Csiki fatality]. Jim campained it for years with Tom Price, Gino Swarthout and Harry Benjamin. Jim sold it in the early 70s to Vern Osgood and do not know where it is now. I heard that during the heavy flooding in PA and NY in the mid 70s, that a building came down it. Spike, you raced against it a lot. Hey Old Bill, can you add to this? Any photos?

 

I know this is midget stuff, and I posted it on the midget thread, but the historians are everywhere.

I need your help again. I believe we (Don Edmunds and I) are finally closing in on the lineage of my midget. Several false leads showed that we were doing a good job of finding out what car it was not, and where those cars are.

Don gathered the following:
King Kramer (Lansing, MI) bought the car from the Kenyons (Lebenon, IN)in the early-70's. Kenyons obtained the car from Badger Midget racer, Gary Schooley, Schooley got the car from Bob Lithcow (Steator, Ill.). Lithcow was a Howard Linne customer, and apparently purchased the car from Linne as a 'new' Edmunds in the mid to late 60's. Linne, in addition to racing midgets, was an Edmunds dealer at that time.

In '74 Lithcow purchased a 4 bar (space frame) Edmunds midget from Don, this is an earlier car than that.

As a refresher, the car is a single tube, half-cross torsion rear, spring front, Edmunds. May have had a SESCO or Chevy II when Schooley raced it.

Any info out there on Schooley or Lithcow?

Any info would be helpful, images would be great.

Blacki-Suede
aka Carroll Hamlton

 

I'm thinking this is the Schooley car your referring to Carroll.
edit
or maybe not, but this is the only car I remember him driving with the Badger club. 1972 thru 1981 I'll have to do some more digging.

 

.....'Hi Carroll, 'I can offer some input on what might be your car. Actually, the guys' name was Bob Lithgow (with a "g") and he was a mainstay in USAC midgets in the 60's and on into the 70's. However, for the 1971 season, Lithgow had already switched over to a Don Edmunds space-frame, 4 bar chassis with a SESCO-Chevy engine. ( '71 updates:Cage inside the hood, coil over shocks, etc.) Also, the car that Lithgow ran in 1969 and 1970 had an Offy engine in it. And, the picture of Lithgow's Offy in 1970 was him racing in the Houston Astrodome.

 

Thanks, I really appreciate the images, but my car was "pre cage" originally and then had a bolt on cage. My car is also a single tube chassis with front hairpins. The car pictured is an Edmunds, but looks like a space frame with an integral cage.
Any idea what car Schooley drove before this car?
Thanks Again
Blacki Suede

 

Thanks, this is getting us closer to the lineage of my midget. The later Schooley car in the previous post above, looks like the later Lithgow car you show, but obviously that car is not my car, but the Lithgow Offy could be, but...
Blacki Suede

 

Here are some pics of my street legal Watson Indy Roadster called the "FOYTSTER".

 

I got a call yesterday from Bill Taylor and he told me that John Cramer had passed away on Dec. 27th. John had been in failing health for some time. His name may not be a household word to most people, but John was the shop foreman for CAE. Most of the stuff to come from Culbert had John's watchful eye if not his hands on it. John, Bill Taylor, and Jim Culbert were the crew for the CAE house car. Jim Wood and Carl Adams the most notable drivers. John was also a SCTA member, a failed Ardun cost him a 200 mph club record at Bonneville in 1970. Bill Taylor is very much around and has photographic work can be found regularly in Sprint car & Midget especially the recent Steve Lewis article. He is also the starter on the short course at Bonneville. So all you guys that have old CAE cars, pause and give a word of thanks to John Cramer.

 

sorry to hear that. John Cramer and Jim Culbert were both, if I remember right, members of the SCTA San Diego Roadster Club in the middle 1940s. Lot of people in that club!

If I remember right, they got into the racing scene about the time that Kelly Petillo had the mile track up on the mesa! One and only one race on the track! Jan 1947.
8 Cars showed up!

and that track was where Rajo Jack flipped and retired!



Trader Jack

 

to help you out a little his name was Bob Lithgow, Howard Linne's son Buster is living in Phoenix he might remember the car

 

Hi Wynns # 1:
Walt Beletsky had four sprinters starting in 1957 and 1958 with the No. 22 Chevy which I believe you restored. Was that one a Hillegass? It went to Al Chamberlain in 1959. In 1959-1962 he had the former Hickey-built Traylor No. 25-4-7-55. That one went to Mel Nelson in 1963. He had the ex-Rose Trucking car briefly in 1963. Then in 1964 had the 1963 Watson No. 4 Offy which Foyt, Grim and Hulse had driven. Maguire and Marshman drove that car for Beletsky (No. 22). It went to Ken Brenn in 1965 and eventually to Shaw. I'll try to scan some photos later.

 

Maybe this is the car? This is 1968, from a Ed Watson yearbook.

 

beautiful car's are they yours?

 

GEORGIOUS!
I'm jealous...
ZOOOM

 

Anyone have any images of Bob Litgow in the 1968 version of his number 28 midget. This image shows him, but I am looking for a clearer, more informative image. There is little doubt that this car is the midget that I now have.

Blacki-Suede

 

That car was an Offy I believe. .. If I'm correct, Brenn had a hard time selling it as a whole, as the small block Chevy was dominating sprint car racing by then.

Brenn had to brake the engine & car apart & then was finally able to sell them seperately.

 

I believe this is Wally D. in the Brenn #24 Offy, appears to be Trenton.

 

Yes, Trenton (NJ) .. the only track that I am aware of that used WWII steel as guard rail. Steel that was used to quickly make landing runways during the war.

 

Went Goodwilling with the Missus out in Avon yesterday- usually not one of my favorite activities (except bein' with you, Buttercup ), and certainly not usually on topic for this thread, BUT:
I found this poster and figured somebody on here must have seen it in someone's shop, or garage, or living room.
It commemorates 25 years of the Gilmore Roars Again party in 1996 and is signed in the bottom right by the artist, Joe Henning (someone who's work I've admired for years) as #223 of an edition of 750. This leads me to believe it belonged to someone hard-core, possibly one of the attendees of the party. The individual pictures are apparently the invitiations, and the guest list was made up of "Gilmore participants, their spouses and specially invited guests".
Anyone have any idea who this might have belonged to, and what it was doing in a Goodwill?
P.S.; Sorry for the blur- just got the camera, and no tripod yet.

 

Ken, that steel used for airstrips is called Marston Matting. Was used mostly in the south pacific on the islands during WWII.

 

The photo on the left is in fact Gary Scooley racing at Rockford Speedway with the Lockard (Spelling?) Badger in the backround, the right hand photo shows Gary in the infield at Sun Prairie Wis. (Note: Just love the Firestone Diamond Treads on the rear in the RH Photo.) I seen Johnny Parsons Jr. wheel the Lockard Badger at Rockford one night and if I remember correctly he made a three wide move and passed a bunch of cars on the outside just after taking the green for the start of the feature.

 

Cincy Ken This photo was given to me to post for you by Mlight

 

Thank you soooooo much for posting the photo of Ross Smith in the Oakie Special.
Now we need "OlBill" from PA. to chim in and see if this the car in question in earlier posts. I would really appreciate it.

Do you know where this picture was taken?

There was always a rumor going around that this is the car that Bobby Marshman ( or another driver) lost his life in........ I asked Ross about this and he said that he wasn't sure.

If anyone has any more photos of the car I would love to see them.


I hope to have lunch with Ross next week and find out more.
Thank you everyone!
CincyKen

 

Didn' Bobby Marshman receive injuries that proved to fatal in a rear engine Indy car tire testing session? John S.

 

Yes, at Phoenix 1964.

 

what picture are you talken about with the lockard badger