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This is the 33 car in 1976. Notice the dual webers.

To All,

At the end of '82 at the OKC Fair races we parked in the infield man it was packed we were parked right at the north end of the stage I think there was about 50-60 Champ cars. Sewell was in the 3rd heat and started on the back we made a couple of laps and crashed so we had to go to the C-Fea. There was about 10-12 cars in it and we won it handly so moved to the B-Fea. started last and in about 10 laps we were up to 5th the track was wide and slick, cushion was right against the fence and Sewell had no problems running against the rail everybody else was running on the bottom. We had to get up to 4th to move to the A-Fea. but by now the cars were pretty spread out we needed a yellow and got one on the 12th lap, on the restart Jarvis was running 4th in his Jack Rich car his crew had been signaling him on the yellow to move up, on the restart Jarvis stayed low and Sewell went in High and almost completed the pass but not quite so they ran side by side into turn 3 Jarvis had one of the old man's early Big Bore/Short Stroke motors on loan and that thing would fly on the big tracks, as they came off turn 4 Jarvis started moving to the top by the flag stand Sewell was against the front stretch wall and wasn't going to make it into the turn if he didn't let up, he waited until the last possible second and stomped the brake and turned left going inside Jarvis but still right up on him, at the guard rail they both were wide open and in Jarvis's words if Sewell's Rich could run in there wide open so could his, well the results were spectacular, Jarvis hit that guard rail a ton maybe 2 tons cause it went under the rail on the right side up to the injector's cut the #2 & #4 cylinder rocker arms right off the head, that was the last set of iron 292 Mondello castings we had, anyway Jarvis and his guys were mad they thought Sewell had put him in the wall but one of the photographers had a series of pic's that proved differant. We went on and won that B-Fea. and started last row of the A-Fea. it was a 50 lapper we changed tires and gears and put some STP in the engine added fuel and crossed our fingers we put on a brand new D1692 RR Diamond M-15 Compound and a 95" M-25 LR Drag tire, track was rubbered up pretty good by now so it was going to be tough cause you could pretty well run all over, took until about the 20th lap or so to crack the top 5 but then they had a couple of yellows so by lap 30 we were 3rd and looking good, Stone was leading and Ewell was 2nd on the restart they ran that way for about 4 laps and then it looked like Ewell & Sewell had there rythum going on the top, Pat and I were standing on the stage as they came by on the 38th lap and as they went into turn 1 I saw the oil pressure light flicker for a second at this point you could have put a blanket over all 3 off us by the 40th lap the light was staying on just a tad longer, the old man says to me were not going to make it she's going to blow up, well on the 46th lap coming off of turn 4 she let go and HtD coasted to the infield ol Pat was a chasing him as the car came to a stop the old man was thrashing his butt because he kept driving with that light on, Sewell told him he never seen the light and it just blew up, when we tore the motor down the the rods had been so hot that the little brass dowel's that retained the bearing had sank into the rod cap.

During the winter of '82/'83 we went into a major development program on that Big Bore/Short Stroke combination and even though we kept a couple of the std 350 pkgs after this time 90% of everything we did motor wise was BB/SS, the old man had a good understanding of Cams and high RPM and by '84 we were turning those things 8500 RPM all the time and by the end of the Gambler deal '87 we were turning them 9300 RPM those RPM's were unheard of in those days, if ol Pat were alive today he would be turning' em 10,000 RPM or stay at the house!!!!

David,

This is some great shots, in the pic with DE in the #68 I can't place the guys name that is standing behind DE and next to Larry, this pic also shows some good detail of the rear wgt hanging on the torsion tubes at this time we didn't have a wgt rule so that wgt was bias.

The shots of the #33&96 are also great, alot of engineering went into this car it was the first space frame parallel front cross rear torsion that Walker's built, it also had the 2nd inboard brake system that I had seen, along with the roller bearing slider rear sway control but the big thing here is the way the torsion was hooked up on the front axle it hung off of shackles on the front side of the axle lengthing the spring base by 3-4 inches this car didn't hop the front end like alot of the earlier main rail parallel front cars that Walker built.

Even though I was a HUGH Parson follower I sure liked your dad he was always great to work for and tought me alot when I got started, I remember coming by the house and helping work on the car and your brother's riding there dirt bikes over in that sand pit, I will get with you on the wing in a few days I've got a test in TX thursday so be in touch after that!!

The pic says it might be John Herald? It doesn't ring a bell with me.

David,

Noticed some other things the tire combination an R-1 RR & a 13.5 R-125 LR, at this time this was a pretty hot set-up when it dried up you just put an other 13.5 or Big Jaloney on the RR. Notice Bo's shoes pretty racy for pit work and he was a good crew man, also notice those fireproof racing shoes DE has on along with his nomex sox's. This is also a great shot of Hill I don't think he ever wore white pants, I remember when we had to pay a dollar if we didn't have on white pants!!!!

David,

This manifold was a work of art, wish I knew where it was today just for nostaliga reasons, your dad brought it over to Dale's and we cut the topoff of it with a band saw it was an Eldebrock I took it down to Industrial Ignition and glass beaded it to clean it so Dale could weld the plate on top of it for the Webers, Dale made the plate out of aluminium 1/2 inch thick cut it out on a band saw, after he welded it on I ground on that thing for hours cleaning it up then took it back and re glass beaded it then went over to D&K's got some polishing supplies and then spent a few more hours polishing it, after they ran it some Dale had to do some more work on it and he was cussing me as all of that polishing compound was in the pores of the casting, he must have called me a big dumby 20 times while he worked on it. This goes right back to what Jim says about working out of the box, man nobody had a Weber manifold like that and to get it today would probably cost in the thousands, it's like the inboard brake Walkers built it, used GM parts, now you have to spend $500.00/$1200.00 for an inboard brake set-up.

Some times I think we should go back to iron every thing but these modified guys have came up with some pretty trick iron parts so I guess that is probably not the answer either. It was a whole lot more fun back then because you got the thrill of making it and winning with it, you just didn't go buy it!!!!

David, Still name my car and have stickers on both sides "Hog Wagon"

JD & David

We never named our cars so much but we did name our motors, we had Jake (our first 350 built from 1 of the converted 302's), Big Jake (a 377 that we were embarassed by at the Bowl), Shakey Jake (a crank that I cut the counter wgts off), Lucy (everthing was set-up so loose it rattled at idle), Thumper (1 of Pat's early BB/SS combo's), Flash (it was monster fast but wouldn't run more then 12-15 laps), Flash Cadillac (this was a std 350 combo and 1 of Sewell's favorites), Tyrone (our answer to John Johnson's drilling engine), Fast Fred (not named after Larry's Dad), Rowdy (BB/SS 1 of our best engines, my current shop dog is named after it) Frank (a twin to Rowdy, Pat's pit bull was named after it), Sonny Honey Bear (a BB/SS that won Shorty alot of races) & The Motown Missle (this was the a cumalation of all of Pat's BB/SS work and the best one).

There were alot of other engines but to achieve name status it had to run fast or do something that turned Pat on, which usually was alot of RPM, if it didn't achieve name status we tore it apart and started over. At 1 time or another we supplied engines to Jack Molton, Jim Bean, Charles Jarvis, Tim Thomas, Stan Constant, Steve Denton, Larry Hill #10 car, Mike Spivey & a couple of more. Most were motors we had ran or Pat was testing with at, 1 time we had 8 complete intake to pan motors and enough parts to build a couple of others or make induction, cam or head changes on the existing combo's we had. In '82 thru '85 our engine budget was outragous ($100,000.00 +) but this is what the old man lived for the motors were his thing and he would work his fingers to the bone to make them run, man what an education I recieived in those days (PRICELESS)  

David, I name my motors to and started out with Hank in 87, Brian can tell you about Hank, we dam near and should have bent every stock rod Hank had when we hydrolocked Hank up at Lawton and pushed it and pushed it around all over and it would never turn the wheels and good thing or it would have bent rods, just beginners luck back then I guess , but he lasted till 91 and blew a hole in the side of the block , those 4 valve relief TRW Pistons had had enough and decided to yank a wrist pin out and Hank died at Fairgrounds Speedway at the Fair Races.

Godzilla was created in 92 and got my first experience in building a motor from getting to do the machine work to assmebly and the only thing I did not do or understand and still don't to this day is Degreeing the Cam , just can't never get it right where you want it at , I guess it is just mental but just struggle with it to this day. Godzilla was a good one when Solid Cams were the rules in the Modifieds on the 1/4 mile and won some races and she lasted till 97 with some new parts in her along the way and then changed up to lighter stuff in 98 or as much as I could afford to and Godzilla II was born and it won some races when Tommy Holder drove my car and ran up front most of the time.

In 03 built "BUP" and well it never really had what it took , tried different cams and stuff and just never did any good , Bup sturggled throughout his entire short motorized life and Bup expired from a dropped valve.

In 06 Bertha was created and she had her ups and downs , run up front some and at the back some and she seemed to be the most tempermental motor I ever had , she would run hot one time and not the next , but last year Lil Joe Wood made Bertha do a little bit of everything , he ran the piss out of her and I felt dam lucky she made it through the whole season, but one thing was consistent with last year if Bertha did'nt get hot and with Lil Joe runnin her so hard at times that her tongue hung out sometimes, but she would run up front and even get a win and Bertha lived to tell about it as she is now on hiatus and retired until we might need her again,cause Bertha is old in the bottom end and she needs a break.

Working on a new one for 09 and not sure what to name it, still got some time maybe Lizzy or Harriet, just not sure yet.

I am like you David from Hank in 87 to Bertha in 08 , I had a good time watchin em all run.

Yep, I remember hydrolocking Hank! Thanks to the help of a pushtruck, I made 2 laps around Lawton with the rear wheels locked. That was my fault. I got my head up the wazoo, and forgot to shut off the fuel pump when I cut the engine off. Mike Bickel saved that night for us, and I think that was the night I tried to wipe out the contents of the infield too. It was not an easy night for JD.

Heck Brian , Was'nt it a great learning experience,LOL, yep it was help from Mike Bickel that saved us and Hank from sure destruction. Ya know I still got 2 things from that car , the rock screen and the hood scoop and I should of kept that Holley Blue Elec. fuel pump as a momento as well.

Me and Larry Carter was talking about that car Sat. at the Auction, Told him you had it and had brought it back to life , he was surprised.     

In 1975 Norman had a 300 inch six cylinder that he was going to run with the supers. Jerry wilson made a manifold for two side draft webers for it. It even had a nerf bar around the webers. It was real pretty but it never did run real good. We we ran the 300 with the HolmanMoody manifold and a Holley dominater that was cut in half, just like on the 240 inch modifideds. At 81 one Sunday, Mike Peters was driving the 17 with 300 and we could not gear it high enough to stop from spinn ing the tires of the corner. All the Tulsa drivers thougth that we were running the big engine against them. We Never did, we were protested several times and it was always legal.

Ray

Bkcr,

I remember alot of guys running 6cyl Fords, Normans trio were fast and maybe the most known. Seems like at Tulsa Big Track you had to run those Fords if you wanted it to live very long and run up front all of the time. At OKC we had Larry Wilson who ran the 240 Ford I believe and Larry was awesome when it dried out, believe he was the 1st NCRA Modified Champ. Gerald Atterberry also ran Fords but I don't know for sure which combo. In the later modified years Curtis Waller ran Fords that he drove some along with Billie Riggle&Charles Jarvis, I remember 1 time when Charles was driving it over at Tulsa man that thing would run on that big track but it shook so bad Jarvis could hardly drive it, if I remember they had the wrong flywheel. Jarvis had told me the brakes didn't work very good either but you didn't use them much at Tulsa so it was no problem. Well Curtis fixed the flywheel and they decided to run OKC before going back to Tulsa, in the Heat Jarvis ran down into turn 3 and everybody stopped but him and he busted his ass, on the way over to the hospital Jarvis kept asking me what happened, I kept telling him you crashed and he kept repling I was standing on the brakes as hard as I could, later on Jarvis found out Curtis was running a 300 and I guess the required a heavy flywheel if they weren't balanced internal, so besides the crank being heavy it also had this 45lb flywheel, probably couldn't stop it in a parking lot with the brakes Curtis had!!

Dave

Almost every time that the 300 was ran the flywhell would vibrate loose, I don't think that we ever got that fixed. In 1974 Don engel blew about 8 Chevy engines on the Tulsa track. In 1975 Norman and Mike race over 60 times. I think that Mike blew about 8 of the ford engines. Gene See in the the 117 blew 2. That seems kinda fuuny because Mike always ran 10-40 point higher gear than Gene did. Norman was almost out of engines, he had to buy one from Jim Tombs for the 71 for the Enid Fair races and it blew up.We had to take the engine out of the 17 and put in the 71 for the races at tulsa the next night

Ray

Question-

Does anybody know the Lawton Speedway champions from '61 to '94?

The drivers for the three cars are Dave Moore, Gene See and Mike Peters.

Norman gave a thousand of these away after Mike won the 1975 Tulsa Modified Champtionship. The picture was taken in April. The 1 was just taped on. Norman had it painted in later. Also, that is not Mike's signature on the picture. It was the photographer who signed it with Mike's name.

-Ray

Hey that 'Peters' guy, did he ever do anything after the 6-banger deal? Kidding.........

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Just got my e-bay firesuit on! It's tight but it fits! Now if I was 20lb.s lighter, 20 years younger, and half as full of the crap my girlfriend says I am.

OH- JD I threw away those office loafers in favor of driving shoes!

Front and back from the 1977 program from Dewy. The cover picture is mechanic Bill Humphrey, Norman, myself and I forget the last person's name.

-Ray

Myself in front of Mike's car in April 1975. My, how we have changed.

-Ray

p.s. - thanks to my son kevin for helping me with these postings!