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Isn't Mike the one that does the models? If so, does anyone have contact info. for him?

John Stewart

Retro Racing Custom Model Cars
405.922.6163
[email protected]
Oklahoma City, OK

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I know what that is like, i went out of the park at the 94 state fair, i know there was alot of silence between hits, i went out between 3 and 4, and never touched the chainlink fence, when i stopped i was on asphalt and i looked beside me and i was sitting next to a black caprice, by the time they got to my car and pulled it down the front straight i was in the stands drinking a beer watching it.

Thanks to Brian posting this photo, this is one of my photos I took at Lawton in 1968 ironing the track. the driver in Clinton Herring's car in front is Gilbert Hutson. Merle Bettenhausen drove Clinton's full body coupe in 1966 which was Wayne Cox's number 141 in OKC during 1965. Sorry Brian, I just had to correct your information. Brian has my e-mail address, he has my permission to give it to you if you can contact him.

Mike Monatoboy

Welcome aboard Mike glad to have you join in!!! Your photos are really helping to preserve the history and we thank you!!!

Warren Vincent
Cans 4 Kansas Heroes

Mikes knowledge and preservation of history is why I've been looking so smart these days.

THANK YOU MIKE FOR CLEARING THAT UP. ............................any chance of having the negative flipped? LOL

you have mail

Jr,

I'm sure there are more then I remember but I know of 4 drivers who left the track and wound up outside the chainlink at OKC on the 1/2 mile, 1- yourself, 2-TA, 3-Ricky Jennings & 4-Danny Wood

I remember several who have left the track and landed on the 5/8's or close to it, a few of these were lucky and kept on going (Leep) or could continue on a restart (Jarvis). The ones that I know couldn't 1-D.E. in the Hill/Morey #11, 2-Jon Johnson Nance's #1N, 3-Marcus Jackson in his own #00, 4-Hahn in the old mans #76s these are in no paticular order just as they came to my mind.

On Hahn's deal I had been drilling out everything including bolts, the old man had drilled bolts before but I was taking it 1 step further, after Pressley's crash I knew I couldn't drill 1/2 in. bolts out to 7/16's so I dropped back to 13/32's and after we broke some of those I went down to 3/8's which worked out 80% of the time. It was in the A-Fea and Hahn was running about 5th-6th Stone was right behind him the track was fast and tacky, about 1/2 way through Stone put a slide on Emmitt and clocked him pretty good breaking the drilled out bolt on the LF radius rod, the front end dug in and ole Emmitt started for a ride he flipped end over end 6-7 times then hit the guard rail on top the cage in turn 4, there was a track offical 1 of Hill's buddys standing out there on the 5/8's and he started to run to get out of the way, we were on the pit side of the chain link and this offical is yelling RUN MF RUN, by this time Emmitt was flipping down the 5/8's chasing him, we started backing away from the fence as it looked like he would flip through it, the official ran into that chain link fence wide open bounced off and ran into it again just as Hahn stopped against the fence with the official standing between the 2 of them, if the nerf bar had not been tore off it would have broke his legs. Jim you might remember that officials name I think it might have been Butch, I know he was scared as his eyes were big as silver dollars and he was shaking like crazy. It broke every drilled out bolt on the front end so after that we had to run solid bolts on the front or Emmitt would have a cow. Don't say as I blame him as it busted his ass.

Mike, In that pic which is shown , that is right were me and my dad and mom use to sit every Sat. night just right south of the Res. Sec. about 5 or so rows up , the guy in the White Shirt kind of looks like my dad from the back and my mom sitting right beside him, in 68 I would have been 5 or 6 yrs. old and my dad had quit taking a wrecker from Tompkins Auto Salvage out to the track in 66 and we sat in the stands till I found a way to sneak into the pits at Lawton in the 70's. How about that Ambulance in the infield , the Ol Landers Ambulance/Wrecker service , That Ambulance sit in that infield for many a year on Sat. nights at Lawton Speedway and that Pipe Fence along the front and back stretch I don't think their was anything tougher.lol

Ive had some of that pipe fence, my steering wheel came off one night and i went almost straight into that fence coming out of 4, i dont even think i scratched the paint on it, but it did a number on my car, and i flipped on top of it down the front straight another night and actually hit the flagman in the flag stand, it didnt hurt him but scared the hell out of him.

If I was there, we would have been down by turn 1. I had a volunteer job as a diaper tester(i was a few months old).LOL--I wouldn't know where I was , but I damned sure didn't mind!

Odd how all these years later an odd picture comes out and JD's Mom and Dad(makes it all the more special) are in there as well as my Dad. That coupe(26) is right outside as I speak. Wish it looked as good, but it will.

Jerry , I remember that flip down the pipe fence on the front straightaway, was sitting in the south pit grandstands and had a straight on view of the whole deal, when they use to let the openwheel cars pit over by the entrance to the pit area, yep I remember the flagman (who name I don't remember maybe Monte E.?) but whoever it was he was bailin out of that flagstand and good thing for him it was not as high up as it is now or he really would have been in trouble. It also proved one other thing just how tough those Nance frames were and how they held up cause it seemed like you went a ways down on that fence , was it on the start of the Heat or A Feature when everyone was bunched up and you got the bad end of the deal that night?

Brian , I am almost sure that is my dad and mom, I might have been down in the gravel in front of the grandstands with my Hot Wheels winning all sorts of races back then, Heck I think most of that gravel is still there today at the place.

I noticed one other thing about the pic the infield light poles , never understood why he does not put a couple back in the infield and give more light on the backstretch, sure would be a better deal for the place.

Jr,

Didn't 1 time you drop your LF tire into that culvert going into turn 3 and go for a nasty ride? I remember in '83-'84 somebody in an orange car hit that thing and there car went so high other cars were driving under it, finally came down on the back side of the bank and landed over by the pit gate.

When did he widen the front stretch? That fence is way out there in this picture.

Brian , I don't think he ever widened the front stretch, I think he when he put up that newer tall chain link fence he moved it back some so the area between the pipe fence and catch fence was closer, I thought I remember him replacing that fence when he built those restrooms down on the south end under the bleachers, I think he told my parents one time back then that he wanted to give the fans more walking space in front of the bleachers , guess he was trying to be more fan friendly back then, I don't think he even moved the front stretch we he redone the track several years ago and poured those concrete walls to replace the pipe fence.

How about the way he use to police the Reserved Sec. with that fence in front of the Section and now he has those gates on each end of the walkway, I remember he use to have trouble with people just going up in the Res. Sec. without a ticket and sitting down and that created problems , remember several incidents on Sat. nights that led to blows in the Res. Sec. and then he came up with the gate on each end of the walkway and no more being tempted to walk in front of the Res.Sec. and take a seat , he made sure he got your money at the entrance under the grandstands, ya just gotta hand it to Lanny , knows how to get into your pocket book even before you sit down.

Brian,

Lanny enlarged the track both length and width after the 1970 season so the 1971season opened to a new look. It made for better racing action even though the old quarter mile track had great racing too, but the new track was made for the supers and just in time for the "new NCRA season". I made a mistake on the date of the photo, it is 1969 not 1968.

Mike

Lanny is a lot smarter than people even know. I'll just leave it at that.

Mike,

Very tempted to get back in your part of the country soon. Word has it there is a frame closeby cheap. Just need to get the unction to go see it.

I know Mike told me this before, but also I was told again by another race car afficianado that this picture is good proof of the first narrow body style in the area. Notice all the steel bodies and the one "Narrow Body" of AJ Little. WA Gregory had 2, and IL Smith had 1. They were the first narrow fiberglass bodies that made it into Lawton and Wichita Falls. Thus they were termed "narrow bodies". It had only been 15 years or so since GM came out with the Corvette in production fiberglass form.

This also ties into the issues surrounding the orange 26 being one of the very last steel, wide body cars, built new to run in the late 60's, which were a few that could be counted on one hand --The rules up to then had been like this "Ford frame, Ford engine, Ford body or Chevy frame, Chevy engine, Chevy body".

By now the sbc and 6 banger Chevies were taking hold pretty strong. Problem was finding a 30's Chevy body. Those production numbers were low compared to the offerings from Ford as well as the fact that 30's Chevies were braced with wood. Wood rots, body collapses, then it went to the scrap pile.

Then many were just adding stock frame rail pieces to purpose built tube frames (square, rectangular, round).

By the late 60's a good donor body for a Chevy Coupe could bring $200+(about $1,800-$2,000 in todays money). Before fiberglass was known as the next big thing, we had a heck of time turning away others needing that coupe body. But then the rules changed to accomodate fiberglass bodies and progress into what these cars would become.

Here's a whatever happened to question- What happened to this car?

Brian,

I orginial bought this car from Jr's dad in early '77 if my memory serves me right it was a cold SOB when we picked it up in Whicita car looked just like this picture but the motor was apart, at the time I worked at Lynn Hickey Dodge and they let me keep it there, this was the second Purple & Silver #01 that Lyndon Moss drove, we ran it a few times and broke a couple of engines and I was out of money we parked it and Lyndon bought Shot's #94. Toward the end of '77 I finally put another engine together and Charles Jarvis (my brother in law) drove it a few times we won an A-FEA at I-35 SPDY, we almost won an A-FEA at Tulsa on the big track led the A-FEA for 18 laps and Hahn went by so fast Charles spun out going into turn 1. I finally sold it to Butch Roberts and he ran it as a Red #36 I don't know what finally happened to it. If someone thinks they have this car it has some very distinct marks that would varify it's identity, most ovious is the RF shock mount on frame has been repaired, Charles crashed at OKC and it riped the RF shock tower off, Herb Jackson did the repair, the upper rail was thin .083 so he split a piece of 1-1/2 tubing about 12" long and scab patched it on top of the frame rail then welded the tower to that piece. After finding out how thin the upper rail was I had Herb also weld a gusset on at each cage post as they were just saddled to the top rail. This car was also straight stacked tubes on the rear with swinging shackles. Jelly built a few cars this way and they worked well, later on we would use a similar set-up on Shane's J&J and Donnie Bishop built several cars with a stack tube configureation. My orginial intent was to take the components off of this car and put on the new Parson frame but things just didn't work out which led to me selling this car to Butch and putting the Parson car in storage.