Forum: Racing From The Past (go)
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When Eugene Hair drove it,

Once again, how it looks today,

At the saturday meeting we had a week ago I came across a picture of a familiar car. I thought I had seen this car in USAC form. I think I know what it was. This car (driven by Tommy Brunson) I think used to be a Silver Crown car back when the dirt cars were still part of the main title chase. I'm thinking Bruce Walkup may have driven this in the Hoosier 100 of 1970, color, number too. In '70 it may have been a JC Agajanian ride. I used to think this car was ugly.....now I would be willing to lose a few teeth for it. Wonder whatever became of it?

By the way,

I was asked today about a Richard Powell, USAC rookie of the year 1973(?). Anybody got his story?

Do remember a little bit. Early 70's Jim Powell was the promoter at Enid Speedway. Richard was his son & seem to remember he drove a yellow # 77 super around here with limited success. Might have been a Jelly car?

Any how the kid did pretty good locally & got himself a USAC midget ride & really did good, rookie of the year & so forth. Don't know all the facts, but rumor was he got involved in things other than racing & just went away.

I'll do some digging, may have a picture of Powells super around somewhere.

About that same time we had a whole group of young racers I believe could have gone to the top. You know they were all successfull & if they had pursued racing any of them could have been great.

Not to take anything away from any of them, they all had great local success & are outstanding people, I just really wished more of our locals had done the Shane Carson deal & gone full tilt!! We coulda had some big stars I think.

Just a few: Terry Doss, Bobby Walker, Larry Madden. Larry actually won an NCRA feature his rookie year, Believe if his dad had not got burned, Larry was gonna be a great one!

Who else do you guys think would have been great if they had pushed??

At the bottom of the midget section Richard Powell is driving the famliy #43 yellow with red numbers. Richard's dad was Jim Powell, racer 50's and 60's and promoter of the Enid track in the 70's.

I still wonder if they still run the go kart track just off of turn 2 at Enid Speedway.

Richard also ran a late model in the late 70's. It's on the Oklahoma Late Model Page 1. I think he also ran some modifieds and supers too.

Posted from Topeka, KS

Warren Vincent
Cans 4 Kansas Heroes

Does anybody know whatever happened to Tommy Brunson?

Was his dad Roland Brunson?

I often wondered if J.L. Nash would have made it to the big time, but his career ended early and another I always thought could get the job done but just did not have the funding was Jr. Bruner, he was always running at the top in the points at Lawton back then every year and won a points title as well, ran consistent every year.

Another one that was not that young at the time but just wondered "what if" was Eugene Hair and have stated this before in a previous posts James McElreath had the talent and the funding and was on his way to the Big Time, just sad that his life and racing career ended so early.

That is Jim Powell behind the car.

Warren Vincent
Cans 4 Kansas Heroes

Tough deal about Tom "Sluggo" Sanders , had heard last week he was in the hospital and had surgery , never realizing it would be Cancer and be the cause of his death , Sluggo had the most difficult job at SFS , Was something to listen to him on the scanner and how he dealt with situations on race nights , had a very difficult job and had to respond to racers (who were mostly upset) and deal with officials who were not on their A game on certain nights as well as the promoter , I always thought he did a good job at SFS , did what he thought he had to do at the time and moved on and stuck with his decision. I seen a program last week from '88 I believe with him in his Modified on the 1/4 mile then, #70, RIP Sluggo.

Jim, You would know this , when did he start working for Holtz at SFS in 89 or 90? , was wondering that last night.

I started at Fairgrounds Speedway in 81' as a track official. Tom was still driving then, he drove the yellow # 70. This was about the time they did the V-6 deal & I believe Tom blew up more V-6's than any-body. I remember going out on the track & there were pieces of crankshaft, pieces of camshaft, pieces of pistons & Tom would always laugh about it & say at least it blew up big time.

One year he got up-side down so many times, he actually had a T-shirt made with his car up-side down on the front of it!!

Tom actually started working for the track when Bud Carson was still there, & when Bud made me tech director it was nice to have Tom working with me as backup. For a lot of years it was just me & Tom doing inspections, rules meetings, we handled all the protests, did the tear down etc. There were times we started working @ 3:00 pm. & didn't get finished until 3:00 am.

Our kids grew up together, my son used to go spend the night with Tom's son.

Tom took a lot of crap & a lot of people didn't like the way he always did track buisness, but you know what, being an official is tough buisness & somebody had to do it! I totally RESPECT all that Tom did for racing in OKC, as long as he did, & I will miss seeing him every Friday night.

I have lost a very good friend. RIP Tom.

Then I guess he worked at SFS as an official as well as drove his Modified #70 still at other tracks in the area? I believe I remember the T-shirt deal back then and the V-6 deal I remember Charley Ford ran with his boys Barry and Bryan in the V-6 and inlines and had a lot of difficulty with keeping their V-6 together as well.

It sure was interesting to listen to Tom handles things in the last 5 years over the scanner when I was not running at SFS and would sit in the stands, I have a lot of respect for him as well and he was a good person, just had a very tough and difficult job running a racetrack.

Sluggo started out racing with steve gastineau randy floyd and myself. Im tom johnson use to drive the #1 car. I recall a night in lawton we had a motor that a drag racer from durant area built think it was glen self anyways we had lapped darn near the whole field in the feature when it came unglued. From what I understand sluggo downed a full bottle of wild turkey or wellers before they pulled us back to the pits we loaded up the car and sluggo and went to the i-hop there sat ricky jack and betty walker.Sluggo kepting begiging ricky walker to weld the motor back up for us and things went down hill from there. By the time we left he had the whole place in the floor laughing. The tow back home the night was very long with a very drunk sluggo

Does anyone know when or where the funeral will be held. I just read about it in the sports section.

Sluggo will be greatly missed

I have read that it will be in Edmond,Ok. and it will be a private burial service.

Talked to glen hunter last night he said they will have a viewing and meet with the familey saturday from 1:00 pm to 3:00 pm and then on sunday at baggerly funeral home in edmond.

I would call the funeral home and check with the exact times and such

Paul Ott

Don Engel

Jim,

Just got back into town from vacation and see where Tom passed, Man I just talked to him thursday the week before thanksgiving to see about getting into the track to P/U all of the GDYR scrap tires, he said he was at hospital having tests run but didn't indicate he was having any major problems. Shit when I looked online at obit's I'm 2 days older then he is.

I wouldn't say we were best friends or pals but he always spoke, I don't always agree with things that happen at OKC but I realize that there is alot out of his control, we discussed that before as we both have been official's and it is a thank less job for that I highly respect him for especially under the control that the track is under know, I just don't think he recieved alot of support!!

I remember when he was turning over alot, one time when I worked turn 1&2 he flipped hard going into turn 1 and landed upside down on his top, I ran over to his car and kneeled down to look in and he was mumbling something, I thought he wanted out so I reached up and unhooked his belts well to say the least we both needed rescued after that as he pile drived me into the ground. After we got apart and turned the car over he was laughing about the size of my eyes as fell on top of me!!!!

In another turn 1 wreck he and Dutch got together causing Tom to spin and somebody piled into Tom taking him out, well Dutch's front end also was knocked down but he went on around turn 2 before spinning into the infield, Tom jumped out hopping mad at Dutch and started over to his car with me in pursuit, Jack Davis worked turn 3&4 in those days and was running up behind Dutch as he realized there was a problem Jack was hollering on radio to stop Tom so I made a last desperation move and leaped at him from behind catching the top of his pants and almost depant's him his shorts were showing and his heels were kicking me in the face as I was being dragged along, I finally was able to spin around and dig my feet in to where he had to stop or his bretches were going to be ripped off!!! He turned around with this funny look on his face saying WHAT ARE YOU TRYING TO DO, well you know Dutch he was jawing and about the time I thought I had Tom stopped he turned around so I rode piggy back the last 15-20 feet but luckly the just did a little shoving and yelling.

I remember those T-shirts, I knew he broke alot of those V-6's but didn't he finally get 1 from Carbone or Sweat that was a good piece? I remember him winning a couple of races and running pretty good in the pts.

RIP TOM!!!!!!