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David, That story is quite funny and sounds just like Bill Bishop.

Curious Brian what kind of clutch you going to use?

Brian,

If you have all of the kit you should not have much trouble, main thing is make sure that the output shaft is drilled and tapped some of those kits didn't have the output shaft drilled and tapped and it's tough to keep the yoke on with out a bolt and washer, usually they are threaded for a 3/8 SAE bolt I use to have a wrench 9/16th that was bent just right and you could get it between the yoke and cross to tighten this bolt up with. Is your adaptor cast iron or alumn? On some of the alumn. ones you might have to do a little work on it to get the bearing race to fit right seems if I remember right some of those adaptors weren't machined deep enough for the race to go in right. Jim might also have some tip or idea's also.

Yeah all the units I ever hooked up were the aluminum power-glides, still the same basic principal. Gotta drill & tap the out-put, should be pretty basic set-up.

David your story at Bishops kinda reminds me of a deal over at A&A. Couple years after the fire, my brother was working for Aaron. One day he decided he needed to change the grinding wheel on the crank grinder. Course with all his fingers pretty much gone, it was hard enough. Any-way, Aaron tried sockets, wrenches, everything, couldn't get the nut off this grinding wheel.

Long story short, he got a 3 foot pipe wrench, put it on the nut, wedged the pipe wrench up under his arm pit, & called Ernie over & told him to hit the on switch. Ernie looked the deal over & told Aaron he didn't really think that was a great idea. You know Aaron, he says " It'll be all right just bump the switch on then right back off. Get the picture here?

Ernie hit that switch, Aaron flew about 8 feet in the air, landed flat on his back, knocked the breath out off him. Ernie ran over to help him up, Aaron got up dusted him-self off, chewed his cigar a little, look at Ernie & said " If you would of done something like that I'd fire your ass"!

For 3 or 4 years after he got burned I got to spend a lot of time with Aaron, some of the week-ends at lake Texoma were priceless & have some great stories right there! More later, Jim.

A great friend of mine (Danny Presnall) told me to get on here and read some of these stories you guys have been telling. Still havn't read all of em but I have to tell you some of em are pretty good. I don't know who everybody is by name but I'm sure I know most of you guys. My brother, (George Armstrong) started haulin me to OKC when I was about 10 and from then on I didn't miss many races from about 1971 til about 1986. I would hang off the end of those big ol' grandstands all nite and watch what was goin on in the pits and never sit down. George drove for Mr. Suchy and we would always come early and go by his tranny shop. Pat was a special guy and always had the best lookin deal goin. I remember the 1/4 mile races on friday nites bein the best, Billy Patton, Dutch, Danny Daniels, Don Engle (cool trailer) and when Terry Doss was gettin started. I can remember a steering rod breaking on my brothers car while he was leading the main ( after winning the make-up main,heat and trophy) and wound up over the guard rail in 1 and 2. Went to somebody's shop, stayed up all nite and fixed it and went on to Hutch I think the next day. I have a million memories from that place and made a lot of great friends. I have 2 sons that wrestle there at the fairgrounds at some tournaments so a year or two ago we drove around what was left of what will always be one of my favorite ol places. Man it was a thrill to run their when it was fast and tacky. Great stories guys

Tony Armstrong

Great to have you on here Tony. I always enjoyed watching you race(except for the night you left the joint). Keep telling those stories guys.

So good to hear from you Tony. You probably don't remember me, in 1972 when George drove Suchy's car my dad, Steve Messmer was the head mechanic & me and my brother were on the pit crew. George was always a lot of fun, when he drove that blue Ford car, that was about the rowdiest bunch around!

It was great when you raced around here too. I've got some kick ass pictures in my personal collection, I will put on here for you soon. It was bitter-sweet when you left here to go drive the #23 car with the All Stars, but also great that a local guy was out there. Kinda lost track of you after that, hope to hear more from you.

Here's a weird 1 for you. I'm the guy in the white fire suit in front of the car.

Everybody always remembers that crash but for some reason I never saw any pictures. I know for sure it did some air time because I remember it was a long time in between hits and I was blind for awhile because of the blood forced to my eyes. There was a big lawsuit for a time from the people outside the fence. Thanks for the picture. You guys ever here from Johnny McDade? Always thought alot of him and his family.

My cars ran the KC Area, Topeka, Knoxville but occasionally in the dry slick area like 81 Speedway , Oka Fair & Tampa Fair in Feburary. The tracks up north were mostly black gumbo & we were used to them. Anytime we ran dry slick, the Wichita, Oklahoma & Texas drivers had the upper hand on us. They realy had the dry slick figured out. They would run OK Rubber Welder recaps & compounds we tried to figure out. Dale Reed used to run a right rear that looked like a saw tooth Sears all weather tread for passenger cars.

You guys probably know what they were! We favored Goodyear or Firestone Diamonds for damp tracks & M-H groved slicks for smooth ones.

Luther

When Mike Peters and Norman started coming to Tulsa in 1975 they would run the Firestone sawtooth when it was tacky and put a Jaloney on when the track dried. Marsh loaned Gene See some Humpers. Jon Kalb didn't want to loose their business, he had Mike try some Drag Tires. They were great. We found out that you could run them when the track dried out. You would run a real good drag tire in the heat, for the feature we would run a drag tire that was almost worn out, increase the air pressure and less stager, that worked better than a jaloney.

Ray

I usually see Johnny 2 or 3 times a year. he just called me last week, needs a trans worked on for his sons Jeep. Let me know if you want to call him & I'll get his number to you.

Got any suggestions on the clutch? Have yet to get one. I need something reliable. Wanted a Ram Coupler but I figure those wear out too much just moving the car around the place!

I have a new kit and an old used one. I'll be comparing them.

Brain, maybe a Tilton Mini Clutch if possible but NO Ram Couplers they are a BIG Headache if you ask me and yep , you'd wear one out quick moving it around a bunch.

Welcome Tony Armstrong and that Budweiser car of your brothers was really a nice car too, maybe you could make it to the next get together.

TA,

Good to hear you on here, jump in and tell us some of your stories this is a neat thread that JD started alot of good 6CYL Modified/Super Modified/Champ Dirt stories and you and George were a big part of this ERA!! I remember that night you went out off turn 1 at OKC but what I most remember is 2 races you beat me out of, NCRA at '81 SPDY in '85 and at Hutch in '86. Man in those days we had some great races. Do you ever hear anything about Mr. Bill or Lela, been a couple years since I've seen Butch Mays and he always kept me informed on them. Keep reading I get some time this afternoon I'll tell the story about the '85 NCRA Whicita race.

My Dad still talks about the time you and Stone left the OkC track for a show at Tulsa via helicopter.

Lots of interesting history going on here about Halibrand. Pages 3 and 4 get better when a close friend of Ted Halibrands talks about a few things we never heard.

http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=312153&highlight=sprint+car

Guys,

In '85 Shorty and Ewell were in a torrid battle for the NCRA championship, it was getting late in the year and after the USAC/NCRA deal where we were DQ'd it was brutal of course I had overloaded my ass by telling Bob we would win all of the rest of the NCRA events in '85 we did win the next 2 (Hutch & OKC) but Bob beat us at Tulsa when he won and we ran 2nd but if we had another lap or two he might not have won, anyway next NCRA was at '81 SPDY, on Friday Shane won the last point race at OKC, ran 2nd to Werthen at Tulsa on Saturday nite almost winning it on the last lap even though we had knocked the LF torsion arm off on lap 16, so on to '81 we ran 2nd to TA in the heat which gave us enough passing pts to start 4th. The track was very abrasive we had a hard time deciding on which RR to put on but I told Shorty I didn't want to run anything harder then a M-40 as I didn't want to fight blistering problems, we finally decided to go with a M-30 RR that we had scuffed at OKC earlier in the season it was nice and had orginially planned to use it at Hutch Nat. for the heat but the track turned out to where we didn't need it. We knew it would make it 50 laps as long as he could run the car pretty straight around the corner. On the start we went to the lead pretty early lap 3-4 and were easing away when Ewell had a flat RR about 1/2 way through, on the restart Shane was leading MP was 2nd and TA was 3rd, Shane and MP raced hard pulling away by about 1/2 a straight on TA they swapped the lead almost ever lap for about 7-8 laps, I was standing going into 3 and was signaling Shane that he was smoking the RR tire I knew then we were in trouble and might not finish, MP had a flat with about 10 laps to go so on the restart Shane led over TA, we pulled away for about 4-5 laps but then we developed a push entering the corners, TA closed right up and passed on the 47th lap for the lead he pulled a little ahead but on the 49th lap going into 1 JJ passed us so we wound up 3rd our RR was on the canvas the RF was also slick that damn MP came off the back and still finished 4th. TA deserved the win I think they ran an M-62 and TA drove a smooth race. So there it is, we did manage to win a couple more NCRA's in '85 but didn't beat Bob for the Crown it was a great rivalary, it put me to work with a venegence we came back in '86 and had an awesome year!!

That's good stuff David, Kind of grew up admiring Bob Ewell after my all time favorite Shady McWhorter retired from racing, Ewell had a lot of bad luck when he first started running Super Mods (blew a lot of motors and most of em seemed to be at Tulsa on the 5/8) but turned out to be quite a racer, had that nickname "The Bullet" but also would hear fans and others say the nickname "Bumpin", I guess like him or not , he won championships NCRA and others and even that USA Sprint show at Hutch in 89 I believe and when he use to come to Lawton in the mid 80's and just looked like a men among boys racing those Champ Dirt Cars just about every Sat. night, really good story David.

Isn't that Bobby Craft behind Messmer and Jim Chesnut on the back of TA's car. Wasn't this race the Firecracker Nationals? I remember my late uncle Charlie talking about how he had the Cor Vett pace car parked behind the graders on turn one and all he saw was an orange ball fly over the top of him and hearing people running and screaming. Seems like that happened at the start of the feature?

John Stewart

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John,

I believe your right, I know that is Jim Chestnut in the other firesuit, Jim's brother Ernie is the other official standing there looking at the guy in shorts, it does look alot like Bobby behind Jim & Ernie. It was during Firecracker Nationals, if I remember right Stone won and Shane ran 2nd this would have been in '84 as Shane was driving the Rich car. I know this much that TA left the house in a split second, he was on the track then in the parking lot!!!

Thanks to Mike Monotoboy, I now have this picture- From what we can tell it must be 1968. He is in the 26, he sits left of center--in '69 he moved the seat and steering to the middle. AJ Little is inside and I think Clinton Herrings coupe is just ahead. If it's 1968 and that is Herrings car in front, that could very well be Merle Bettenhausen as he was stationed there in those years somewhere..........

Now if I could just reverse the picture..........................