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Here's my Top 10 list combined Super Modified/Champ Dirt I judge this off of differant things then off the 2 seperate series Top 10 picks.

1st Harold Leep I'm judging this more on overall career, wins and just sheer driving the shit out of it. Harold was great in Sprints, Super Modifieds & Champ Dirt. This guy could care a car, spin you out and make you think it was your fault, any type or size of track didn't matter to him, one thing that did was the money $50.00 in purse money was like 20 extra horses!!!

2nd Shane Carson he was good as a pup growing up in the 6cyl modifieds, pretty well moved right to the sprints he was very good there before coming to the Champ Dirt cars and he was nothing short of Awesome there before moving back to sprints, track types or size didn't make any difference to him either, if he had 1 advantage over Harold it would be driving with any size wing but don't let that confuse you I rate this guy as one of the top 10 non-wing drivers of all time, his passion and heart for this sport is still very strong!!!!!

3rd Mike Peters this guy was also one of the preimer 6cyl modified drivers in this part of the country, he was great in the Super's and as I have already chosen the best Champ Dirt driver in NCRA, he moved on to sprint cars and after a rockie start he became a very good sprint car driver even to this day, don't every let this guy fool you, he is good on any size or type of track with or without a wing. I'm so very proud of him for winning that NCRA Sprint Championship in '08 and to top that off it is his and his sons own deal. NOW THAT IS PRICELESS!!!!!

4th Bob Ewell man this guy is almost a copy word for word to the 2 guys right above him I rate him here only because I never felt he got to show himself good nationaly in a sprint car but don't get me wrong if he had a couple of the rides that SC or MP had he would be in a 3 way tie, he could drive on any type of track with or without a wing, he was always a great competitor.

5th Emmitt Hahn I know people will think he should be higher then this but Emmitt didn't do as much driving with a wing or in sprints, trust me though he would have been tough, unfortunately I probably shorten his career by a few years with all of those drilled out bolts. Emmitt was good on any length track wet or dry and my god look at all those races he won at the big Tulsa track.

6th Jerry Stone the only guy to be in both my SM & CD Top 10 lists Stoney was a good driver on all sizes and type tracks and wing or wingless didn't make any difference either, I again just don't think he was as tough without Offixco.

7th Jon Johnson again another young Super Modified driver who was very good in Champ Dirt and moved on to sprints and did well regionally, he was also very tough with or without a wing and who knows if Vogler hadn't have stuffed him he may have won that '86 USAC/NCRA race.

8th Ray Crawford what can you say bad about Ray, he was good on any type or size track and I don't know of to many guys that would race you as hard and clean as Ray did. He was great in Supers and I have every reason to believe he would have been in CD or sprints also but his time just passed him by.

9th Frankie Lies the main reason I have Frank this low is he also retired before the end of the Super's and before Champ Dirts but in the Supers Frank was tough anywhere, very good on the dry, alot of people don't know but Frank was a fairly good sprint car driver back in the early days also.

10th Herb Copeland he was tough in a Super on any type or length of track and damn good in the Champ Dirt cars and again what can I say about that great USAC/NCRA win in '83.

Well there it is, again there could be alot of changes if Jackie had stayed or Harkness or McElreath hadn't lost there lives early or an untold other things could have happened and changed it all. The 1 big common thing in my mind about these 10 guys they all could drive a car on the slick without a wing!!!! just not something I think alot of todays guys in NCRA could do.

And Grady retired after the 75 Hutch Nationals. Grady and Roger in the Schippert cars were my favorites along with Big Frank in the #55.

Didn't 6&8 (Isaac) Speed Shop sell copy kits of the Edmunds. I know they had the original molds. It got to be all the cars at McCarty looked alike. They couldn't all be actual former Isaac cars.

Warren Vincent
Cans 4 Kansas Heroes

Welcome to the forum Lee. You been a long time viewer and supporter!!

Warren Vincent
Cans 4 Kansas Heroes

Happy Thanksgiving everybody!

Good picks there David, agree with most of them. Not sure but I believe I put Leep as # 1. Guy won races for 3 decades & was tougher then a keg of nails. 84' or 85' when he dumped the missle on the back straight, I was the first guy to his car & he was OUT! His head started swelling so bad we thought we were gonna have to cut his helmet off. It was pretty bad. But the guy always came back!

Here's a pic of Aarons car from 74', this is the piece he got burned in. Talk about tough guys, this cat had more lives than a cat. Aaron, Stan Constant & harold, that had to be be the 3 toughest racers ever. Mike P. has been there too, & he's still goin strong.

GREAT!!

I guess I also got the book Win It Or Wear It waiting also when I get home.

Warren Vincent
Cans 4 Kansas Heroes

Warren,

They very well have sold kits, I know the were big into Edmunds stuff. Do you remember George Mullenburg? He managed 6&8 Speed Shop for a while. One thing is for sure to me the 6 the 8 and the 4 all were sharp looking cars and all fast, I always thought the 04 had a little differant look to it like the top & tail weren't quite mounted the same.

It's interesting how you can change the attitude of an Edmunds body by just moving things an inch or two.

Jim,

Back in the late '60s Aaron had another Super Modified that I believe was a stretched CAE sprint car, it also had a bolt on cage going to guess this would have been in '67/'68 Hank Malone also had that pretty Red & Gold #99 at the same time. I know Aaron sold this first car and Carl Ferguson drove it it was a pretty Maroon & Gold # 10. My question is did Aaron get this car back or is this a differant car. I know Hank's car Brotherton's ran as the #39 with Ronnie driving it, then Stan Schoenburg ran it a little and Benny used it to finish '73 season after crashing the old mans car. Just never really knew what happened to that orginial #1!

Your right about Aaron being tough, alot of people don't realize he about lost his leg to that driveshaft, then to endured the fire and come back and race again and almost kill himself on the front stretch wall at Tulsa after that whew most would have gave up over the leg. I was to young to know much about the leg incident but heard plenty of stories about it from Bob Brotherton, Pat and others and it sounded bad enough.

Know days our kids don't know much about driving in pain, hell they turn over and it takes forever to get them out of the car, when MP powdered that concrete wall this year most of these kids wouldn't have climbed out of that car without taking a ride to the hospital or pissing there pants!!

Could you imagine guys these days trying to race without power steering and red devil brakes??

David, the best I can remember, Aaron bought this car from some-one in Texas & when he got it, it was still actually a sprint car, I do remember he hot lapped it a couple times at OKC as 86" inch car, before the season they streched it to 100".

I remember dad talking about the driveshaft deal, like you say, even dad said he thought Aaron would quit after that. Actually he did quit for about a year & 1/2, before maling his first comeback in 71'.

Got the pleasure of spending a LOT of time with Aaron after the fire, got some great stories there! I do remember his telling the reason he was trapped in the fire so long, was the slick soled boots he always wore. On the initial impact, his right foot slipped so hard, it went past the body work, foot got trapped between the frame rail & header.

I still just can-not imagine the pain he went through, I do know dad said, when they picked him up off the track, flesh just peeled away!

Aarons stories of being in the burn center in Tulsa, his whole body immersed in ice are just incredible. NEVER met anybody with his mental toughness!

More later, Jim.

David,

First you missed a good get together, hopefully you can come next time!

You might not remember but I know Jim will and the old timers Halibrand had those Magnesium brake calipers Lobster style on the frt and dual piston rears they would corrode around the pistons and half the time the pistons would stick or the magnesium would swell from the heat and the seals would blow out or the pistons would cock so they didn't work 1/2 the time anyway. The airhearts weren't much better sometimes I thought they were made out of all the melted down shavings off the floor, I only used them because they were easier to maintain in my opinion. Back in those days 90% of the time when a guy crashed you out and said I lost my brakes you could believe him!!!!

On the power steering man what a bunch of whimps we would have know days if they had to run those 90" RF tires I know people will say we didn't run the caster that we do know and the cars were slower but 110 mph down the back stretch on the 1/2 mile at OKC with a 90" RF tire on 4-6" stagger with no wing to help turn the car is not much differant then 100 mph on the little track were running on know and we used to do it for 50 laps!!!!

A little triva story in '77 at Enid NCRA Leep broke the motor in Pats car so he drove Bean's old #5 Modified who Pat had loaned a motor to, now that was a B&T Walker copy it had a Schroder 6-1 manual steering. Leep had to start scratch in the B feature (20laps) which he won then started last in the A feature (50laps) well about lap 35-40 he was running 6th right behind Stone in Jelly's #24 man Stone was holding Leep up blocking chopping him off, well about 5 laps to go Leep sailed that Stone off turn 3 man it was an awesome move, so Leep finishes 5th probably if Stone hadn't jacked with him would have ran 3rd. Leep climbs out of the car and says well old man that was a blast casualy smoking his cigerette!!!! 70 laps at that place with the track rubbered up most of those laps.

Wouldn't find to many that could do that today!!!!!!!

Remember Hutch early 70's, always a daytime race. 108 degrees, blazing sun, no shade anywhere. All open trailers, when you even pick up a wrench it burns you. Race was always when the sun was shining, no night time deals.

Harold, Frankie & Roy had run of the place. Man 50 laps of dry slick, rubber down racing, if you had power steering, you were Cadillacin!

71' I believe, Ron Fowler in Schipperts car led 48 laps & blew a radiator hose off with less than 2 laps to go!! What a heart-breaker.

They used to fill those 55 gallon drums with water so we would have it handy to try to cool the cars. 1 year I remember Aaron & Dale Reed got out after the 50 laps & were just soaked with sweat & just dunked their heads in the water barrels!!

Also remember some of the guys wiring a block of dry ice in front of the radiators before the race started! Also when we ran the little "trickle pump" to run water down the front of the radiator during the race. Guys really used to use their imagination back in the day.

Jim,

Wonder what happened to this car I know Aaron ran it some more in '75 did he sell it or scrap it?

As far as mental toughness I would agree Aaron, Sodeberg & Petty all had to be tough, anybody that has been burned in any way knows that it hurts but to be burned as bad as these guys were we have NO idea of the pain that they went through!!!! On top of that you add on all of the complications that go with it and the guy comes back and races the next year, they just don't build to many like that anymore!!

When Constant was burned so bad on the back of his legs from the Hydrozine fire I could not believe the pain I saw him go through, we would go up to Baptist burn center and they would take him in to those saline baths and scrub that hide off and he would just cry, Stan was tough but seeing that just made me sick.

Hereing the stories of Aaron being packed in ice brings up another great driver who was viciously burned Doug Wolfgang, alot of people don't know when he got burned we packed him in ice because Roger and I both knew thats what they had done to Aaron, I don't really know how we got him out of that car I remember Roger, Karl, Jerry Maxwell & myself standing along the fence when Doug crashed, of course it seemed like an eternity the car was on fire and Doug wasn't getting out, there were several people trying to get him out but it was burning good by this time,Roger started to run down there and Karl told him to hook a chain on to hit and drag it out of the puddle of fuel so as Roger took off I took off after him to keep him out of trouble, when we get down there Roger hooked a chain on to the back bumper and they pulled the car forward which got it out of that puddle but unknown to us at the time was the fuel line was knocked off the pump so the fire went down a little but started building right back up, Steve Biteluer was on the left side trying to get the steering wheel off, Doug was out cold I honestly thought he was dead, Roger was trying to get the belts off the fire started getting bigger so we pulled it forward again,I really don't know what was wrong with the steering wheel they were trying with all there heart to get it off, I was on the Right side and some how got the rock guard ripped off and was trying to help Roger get the belts undone but the fire started getting bigger again so we had to pull forward another time, about this time Doug started moving around alittle which renewed all of use into getting him out, it was Hot somehow they got the belts undone but we still couldn't get that damn wheel off, I managed to get the seat wrap bent back on the right side and Roger some how got him pulled up to where Steve and I could get a hold of him and pull him out. We got him on the ground and they got his shoes off, I remember from the knees down his uniform was mostly charcoal he had on Nomex socks Steve got them off his toes looked like boiled wennies they were split open. Roger and I started tell the officials bring us all the ice you can so we packed him in ice from the knees down and flew him to the hospital, I never saw Doug in person again until 4 yrs later!!

If we had only realized what the problem was we could have vice griped the fuel line at the tank or it might have had a shut off valve for all I know but in the heat of the battle we just never figured what the problem was, this tought me a big lesson and Jim knows from being an offical you can't let emotion cloud your common sense, which would have told all of us there that day we shouldn't have even been on the track as they didn't have there whole safety and fire crew there because it was a practice. They finally put the fire out with a water truck from the concrete plant next door.

What were the rules that NCRA ran under in the 70's? Did they run sprints and supers? Were the sprints 86" and the supers 100"? Were all motors supposed to be 305? Did the supers have to be self starting, and is that why the longer WB? If they were self starting, was any clutch/tranny combo allowed?

The reason I am asking was brought up by pictures in the Speedy Bill museum website. They show the 4x that Opp won the Hut 100 with, and say it is the original 305 motor. I figured that USAC was probably pretty well unlimited at that time. Were the big block cars only running in limited areas such as Pennsylvania?

NCRA ran 305 cu. in. and under until until early '80's the were 100" WB from '71 thru '80 for the Super Modifieds in '81 they changed the name to Champ Dirt Cars but retained the 100" WB, USAC has always be 96" WB in Champ Dirt Cars all along as far as I know, they also ran the 305 cu. in. limit for along time but I not 100% positive when they changed to 360 cu. in. NCRA went to the 360 rule in '82 I believe. All of the USAC/NCRA races were run under the 360 rule and they used the rest of USAC's rules basically! Supers and Champ Dirt cars always had to be self starting and have some type of clutch in NCRA, generally in the Supers most ran a Lakewood steel bell housing with a 3-speed tranny in the later years a few ran powerglides or crowerglides with lenco tranny's, a few ran in/out box's but they were fairly expensive so just your upper end cars had them. When NCRA went to Champ Dirt there were a lot of differant combinations availible so you had an assortment of everything!

USAC was never unlimited,they slowly raised the bar as things required them to. Big blocks were plentiful in the Pennsy area because they were cheaper horsepower, even if they had steel blocks.

The Speedway Motors 4x that Opp drove never ran with the NCRA. It MIGHT have run at a track that also held NCRA races, but even then it would be under IMCA/USAC sanction.

The Speedway Motors USAC Champ Dirt was #64 wasn't it?

Warren Vincent
Cans 4 Kansas Heroes

brian26 I have the Isaac #8 which i am rebuilding and i just wanted to let ya know that # 8 was the #88 King car that Frusher won the 79 NCRA with ! They changed the roll cage and then a guy had it and put the big sprint tail on it and put a 6 cylinder in it and took it to the salt flats to try and set a record but the 6 cylinder blew up so now it has its Edmunds roll cage back and it will come back as # 8 . I sure have enjoyed reading this string anyway i'm not the greatest with computers !

Very nice to have that mystery cleared up. Confusion sometimes runs amuck in these circles.

Thanks for the info. From pictures on RFTP, I knew Opp would show up in this area on ocassion, but driving whatever was available. When he hooked up with the Speedway sprinter, I think they were going where the big money and action was.

What about carbs? Was NCRA limited to 4 barrels(1x4, 2x2, 4x1)? I believe that the 98 Walt McWorter super now has Hilborn, so was wondering if that was allowed back in the day. How about fuel? Gas only or was alky allowed? I think earlier in the thread, was posts about mixing fuel, and then about a hydrazine fire. That was pretty wicked stuff.