Forum: Racing From The Past (go)
Moderators: Racing From The Past

If you like these, more are coming! Plans and cars are being executed as we speak and next year there WILL BE MORE.

Gilbert Hudson made the trip WITHOUT HIS CIGAR! Turns out he gave them up 30 years ago and doesn't miss them.

Lloyd was gracious enough to pose with a few cars. Bob Johnson I'm thinking brought in this sprinter.

Harold Lindsey's Nance no.5. There are those that say this is not a real Nance. WELL, the very people that bought this car when it was NEW, went to Laverne Nances shop and bought it from him.If it was not a Nance, he never told anybody. I have to see where Laverne would bother to sell other new race cars but his own.

This picture means a little something to me. I'll take the time to explain.

Lloyd doesn't know my name nor does he really need to. I betchya he's got a lot of people who want his attention daily. He couldn't get back into the building without us asking him to stand by our cars for what always seems to be "one last picture, if you please".

My Dad and my Uncle didn't have many toys to play with growing up with the exception of the junk others had left behind. In those days people used what they needed and discarded it when they were able to move on to something else. A lot of times it involved junk cars that we wish to have today. When they got older and got to making a little money, they got to messing with these race cars that were running out in Lawton. My Grandfather didn't much care for them racing since they took so much money and time away from home.

Yet my Grandfather(Ray) did have one racing icon in mind that he knew from the old days, Lloyd Ruby. If Lloyd was racing, Ray was interested. Ray used to go over to his Half-Sisters abode, Ancell Ranch(I guess that's what they named it). Ray would pull in and stay there from time to time and even met my Grandma there before WWII. They were married until he died in '95.----Anyway they used to have motorcycle races out there and then the dirt track opened up in Wichita Falls. Lloyd went from there to everywhere.

This old car was brought in to our neck of the woods in '67. the back was dropped into the trunk of a '55 Chevy, there wasn't even a tow bar. My Uncle had bought it for peanuts at a time when they were getting to be expensive. I guarantee you, he only bought the parts he needed. These bodies were hard to find around here anymore and others were coming out of the woodworks to buy this car at peak market value. They would hit up my Grandfather to sell it when my uncle was gone working. He didn't like race cars in the family, but he knew his boys were real proud of it, so you couldn't get him to sell it. It was raced for 2 years and even managed to win a few heat races as well as drag a line of fence through the pit area unseen before(LOL). We kept this car all these years, since '90 I've kept it everywhere I've moved to for the exception of about a month.

So here is a picture of Lloyd Ruby, and the car that Ray Satterwhite wouldn't sell,

I don't know which decade, probably in the '60s, but the Phelan brothers of The Falls ran this car for a time. It ended up somewhere flattened and discarded before it could be taken to the scrapyard.

John Chadwell has been pulling it back out.

This is a little off topic for what we've been doing here on this forum, but it does relate. I don't know the history on this car, but I'm certain it's able to top 200mph. It's from in town, built by racers who know what a supermodified is.

It's an example of what they're willing to do down here. It's a Bonneville Salt Flats car, and it's not a stock Studebaker.

Since he was a kid, Harold Lindsey has been involved in racing in some form or another. He even has his first race car, a quarter midget he drove at the first speedway in Wichita Falls back in the late 40's. He's lost and gotten back so many times in this hobby it's hard to count. IF, that is "if" he wanted to, he could own an original Watson Roadster, 427 Cobra, or anything else that would tempt a man to hide a car from those harmful ultraviolet rays that damage precious paint.

Instead he loves all the race cars from the area, and the thrill of the drive itself. At the same time he motivates others to build and get their cars back out there. He's not looking to "be in charge" of anything but his own cars. He knows all too well what it means to feed the kids instead of going to the races as he's done it so many times. Show up with a pipe frame car that's been done well, he'll like it. In contrast to what some people might say of him, he does not high hat anybody. The efforts you see him put forth are from him, his son, and a lot of good friends like the Hatchers, and Kuykendalls. There are many more that make up this deal down here, in fact it is a community.

It all got started again when the town wanted to name an overpass to honor Lloyd Ruby.

So, they did.

He invited a few old friends

For a 1 hour on that day, Roadsters were street legal in Wichita Falls.

Outside a few cars from the eras the local drivers ran with were starting to come back out again.

Inside Bob Phelan, James Skinner, Freddie Street, Steve Young and many others were contemplating doing this on an annual basis. It definitely has been working. The inside of the Elks Lodge was inundated with loads of pictures, programs, helmets, souveneers of all kinds. Legendmakers, legends, and their fans got together just fine. Does anybody have pictures from inside?

Looks like a ton of fun and something they should do every year. I sure hope they include their other favorite son, Eddie "The Texan" Hill( and Ercie). Just like LR, they put Wichita Falls on the motorsports map. Eddie may be the only fuel drag boat racer to go through the traps at about 200mph. At the time, his boat was in another part of the lake. And that was before safety capsules on TF boats. Must be something in that north Texas water.