Forum: Racing From The Past (go)
Moderators: Racing From The Past

Tim,

This show is 'treatment' for 'fendersuckalosis'........ We may not cure it, but we can have our own disease now.

6 months ago there was a lot of concern about letting long wheelbase cars in that were built after 1980. There will be a few, however the pre-1980 car count is still dominant. 95% or better of all the long wheelbase cars are 25 years or older.

There is one car that is only 20 years old, but it's an old Foyt/Snider USAC Dirt car, and I ain't turning him back!

The newest car I have is a 21 year old Nance sprinter that falls into the guidelines of what the others in this corridor, south of OkC, have indicated to be okay. Wouldn't take much to get it ready, but I have 2 cars already slated and I only have one trailerhitch to pull them with.

JD,

not trying to hijack this thread, but many only come to look up this thread.

Tim, here's a flyer for our Wichita Falls show

No problem Brian, Hope both this one and the one in May are a BIG success.

Luther, At the '77 sprint race at Tulsa Mike Peters was driving the Forshee car out of Wichita.The back suspension was different that any super that I had seen, it had parallel torsion bars and Cross bars also, they would un-hook one and hook on the other. Was this common in sprints of that era and why would you change from one to the other?

Tim I don't think that we have ever met, I am really looking forware to your pictures.

Ray

Ray,...I would say it was very uncommon. The only car I ever saw with both was the cross bars acted more like a stabilizer bar on pavement. I think Benny Rapp had one like that. I don't think Forshee ever ran pavement so it was probably an experiment. I have only seen 3 sprints with parallel bars on the front & cross bars on the rear. Greg Weld drove one @ won the USAC title with it (He told me he did not the parallel front) , Darrel Harrison drove cars owned by Alfatter in IMCA @ Larry Cannon drove one in IMCA....Luther

Luther, David, Brian, anybody with a racing story, we sure would enjoy reading them.

Ray

Ray, are you talking about the IMCA sprint race in Tulsa in Oct, 1967 ? I was there with the 7 th car I built. It was a Watson 4 bar that I built from AJ Watson blueprints I purchased through National Speed Speed Sport News. I had taken the front axle & cross bar front off & replaced it with a cross spring front end the week before. Jerry Richert (Waggoner's #63), Jay Woodside (Ted Hall's #9) and Ray Lee Goodwin in my car. They timed and finished in the same order. I was unloaded & waiting for Ray Lee to show. Jack Belk came by & set his helmet bag down beside the car & said if Ray Lee did not show up, he would like to drive it.

I just looked for the car & it is not on the link with the other cars.

Ray, most of these guys on here raced after I quit. I built the last 2 cars for the 72 season. The T coupe car was built late 65. Jack Belk was driving for me in 64 & 65 and I was building that car for him. I felt my cars up to that point were mediocre at best & I had the best driver around & I should build the very best car I could. I sold the 64/65 car the last race of the season in Topeka I didn't even take it home. There was a MoPar powered sprint that blew his engine that night. I bought it for the open tube, knock offs & mag wheels. I sold the chassis & Mo Par injectors. It is a long story, but I had less than $1,700 dollars in the T Coupe when I put it on the track in 66.

Luther

  You want a story i got one.. After knowing Al Weiland for 50 years ,Al has had many Championship cars with several drivers.Being known for his Black and Red #37 in Tulsa ,KC, and across Kansas. Anybody that knows Al knows that he is a quite Man and a man of few words. When Al talks you pay attention and you learn. 

    Al at the sweet age of 93  after ajusting a carb for one of the locals at the races at Humboldt Ks.,i ask him ,,,Al you sould right a book about the 100 most important things to do to a Race car before you get to the track to make it fast.

   Al looked at me and said I know what the first thing is.........i said what is that,he said ............You need a 6ft nut for the steering wheel because i aint driven  it.     TIM  

Win as if you are use to it.And lose as if you enjoyed 
it for a change.Its hard to get to the top and alot 
harder to stay there.

Ray,...it is awful quite on here today,...Luther

Guess I am anybody/JD, Here is a story and it involves another poster on here, It was the late 80's , I just had purchased my first 100" car from SE part of Kansas and being a newby car owner filled with ideas of winning races and so on LOL at that now, I had seeked advice from Bob Ewell about who to get to drive the car , he suggested someone in close proximity and someone interested and he suggested I find someone that you could both grow together as a race team and so I made that decision and well we made our debut at Lawton Speedway and well we kind of got off to a rough start to the night as both Driver and Car Owner just a tad bit nervous , well the Car Owner was really , really nervous of what all could go wrong , we were running a Holley Blue Elec. fuel pump and well we forgot to turn it off after we fired it off to put some heat in the motor and well we tried to get her to start up for our Hot Laps and she would not , so we tried to push start it and it was pushed and pushed and pushed some more , I think we made at least 5 or so laps around the pit area and a lap around the track so everyone could see that we had made it I guess and she never turned over the wheels one time (if it would have ,no telling how many rods we would have bent) , Anyway all 8 cyls. was full of fuel and a guy by the name of Mike Bickel (who to this day I still can't thank enough) suggested it might be Hydrolocked and well we pulled all the plugs out at his suggestion and fuel shot out of all 8 cyl. and then we turned it over with the starter which would work now and I think another 3 Gal. of fuel came out (might be exaggerating a little) but at that time it looked like a lot and then he said , well I hope you have'nt bent a rod and well all I could think of is first night out and already junked a motor and it has not seen one lap on the track yet and well it got better as we fired her up and she still run and then the shoe/driver at the time ran his heat I believe (Help me out shoe/driver/other poster), and made his way through the infield in a cloud of dust and finished the night and we got $40 for our efforts, The car owner made his debut that night with his first driver and is still friends some 20 + years later and well I would not have traded that debut into race car ownership for nothing, but one thing that the car owner wished his car had was a mechanical fuel pump instead of an electric one.

Been through the Good,The Bad and The Ugly since then and fixing to jump into my 22nd season as a car owner and make the 09 debut this Friday night at SFS in OKC in the Champ Sprint class and well I feel a little more prepared and know a few more things than then, Still get nervous of the unknown and is everything right on the car and so on, guess that is just part of being a car owner, but still remember back then and look back and remember just how much trouble we had that night and really how lucky we were to have things turn out the way they did and load it on the trailer in one piece with a motor that still ran and to this day still have the shoe that drove my car that night as a friend of some 20 + yrs., Guess you can't ask for more than that and the friendships you develop in this sport.

Another Al Weiland story,,, Many of the people in Tulsa knew Chick Shaddox he was the 71 Tulsa Champ and 74 Muskogge Champ. Chick was known as the JOKER.Chick would do almost anything to anybody.

In 1969 at Muskogge one night. Chick was Pitted next to Jack Belk . Al had built both the cars that year that Belk and Shaddox were driving.. So Chick always Pitted near buy.

Al always had on a clean pair of white overalls , and almost never got a spot of dirt on them.People always asked how he kept so clean. Als cars were always ready to race when they got to the track.

One night Chick the Joker walked up to Al Weiland and dumped invisable INK all over the front of Als clean white overalls.........Chick ran about 5 ft away. Everybody was speech less. Al turning red and looking upset enough to Kill Chick.. Chick realized he better do something and quick...... Chick said dont worry Al it is invisable ink it will go away..... Al said if it dont you better.

To get back at Chick one night Belk and friends put an Auto fooler on one of Chicks Sparks plugs. It would go off and smoke like Hell. They did it for the Hot Laps. It did not go off. Forgeting about it thinking it just didnt work. Chick was pulling out for his heat race. Belk got to thinking he would not feel right if it went off during a race. So Belk chasing Shaoddoxs car on foot to stop him. He got there just in time to take it off the car. Chick was a little less proned to what he did the rest of that year,, and could never leave his car afraid of what someone would do to it. There are many storys about Chick the Joker maybe i will tell more or somebody else has some. TIM

Win as if you are use to it.And lose as if you enjoyed 
it for a change.Its hard to get to the top and alot 
harder to stay there.

I was only 10 or 11 years old when this happened so I can't remember the details but this is pretty close. My brother (George Armstrong) was real scared of snakes and just about everybody knew it including Chick. One night George was strapping in to go out to race and was sitting in his car without his helmet and Chick walked by and dropped a fan belt over his head and yelled "snake!" George freaked out, bailed out of his car and took off running. He jerked the fan belt off so hard it cut both his ear lobes. Those guys all had a lot of fun back then and I as a kid I had a lot of heroes especially my brother.

I don't think I have ever met Luther Brewer but I recognize his cars and most of his drivers. I read where he had a bad experience with an Ofixco crew member back in 1984. Ron Shuman was my mentor and I knew most of his crew back then since we drove for the same guy and I think I was at that race at I70 that he was talking about. I apologize for that knothead and I wish I knew which one said that Mr. Brewer wasn't all that good. Most of those guys were good guys so I can't imagine who it could have been. Anyway there was one race at I70 that we ran NCRA on the same day as WoO. Shuman talked Lloyd Stephens in to bringing an extra 100 " car for him to drive. He was always trying to make extra money. Well Billy Anderson took my old wore out Stanton and an old wore out motor and old used tires and took it to Odessa. I'll never forget on the pace lap for the main Ronnie pulled up beside me, banged wheels with me, gave me the finger, then got back behind me and lined up. That was the first time most of us had ever ran a place like that so we didn't know how to keep the car up on the hig banks. Shuman won the race goin away and gave us a lesson that day that I will never forget and showed me that you don't always have to have the best equipment to win. He was always good to me and taught me alot and he laughed about that day for a long time. Haven't talked to him for while but he was one heck of a "Shoe".

Tony

Tim,didn't Bill Sanders drive Chick's car in 1972 or 73, Chick had a new super and and Bill's car wasn't ready? When Bill finally got his car ready he had the loudest and meanest sounding engine there. It was a 302" Ford, the headers came back to two collecters on each side and the ground would shake when he went by. You could hear it above all the other cars, I heard it had a real narrow power band and he really had to keep it geared real low. Those were the days.

Ray

regards to paraell bar cars, in the early 1980's NANCE SPEED EQPT. built one for a guy from out around DODGE CITY. his name i think was larry torsion, don't remember seing the car in action!!!!!!

I dont know about if Bill ever drove Chicks car.I talk to Chick from time to time i will ask him. I didnt go to Tulsa but only one or 2 times in 72 . My Dad was killed in the Sprint Car crash in Topeka in July of 71.He was running Tulsa weekly that year. I was one month from 15 when he died. I didnt have a licence so i could not drive that far. I know that Bill Sanders switched to late models somewhere around that time.

I was racing Go Karts and had no way to the tracks right after my Dad died. We parked his car out behind the Garage. A few weeks after has death i wanted to race so i went out there and got that ol 61 ford wagon fired up ,,loaded my kart and off i went . I caught hell for that . My Mom frecked because i had already raced once and didnt tell her., They took the keys i figured i could not drive the Go Kart to the track no place to put tools , so i could not run unless i got somebody to take me.

Chick still lives down south of Joplin 50 miles. We had some good times with him at Joplin. Tim

Win as if you are use to it.And lose as if you enjoyed 
it for a change.Its hard to get to the top and alot 
harder to stay there.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Culbert-Automotive-Engineering-CAE-vintage-sprint-car_W0QQitemZ260389681216QQihZ016QQcategoryZ98061QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

Luther

Here's a project for you. Have to hurry to get it ready for '09. Looks like lots of good parts, but LOTS of work. Appears to have been quite a car in its day. So far, the price is right.

I got a CAE i/o box, if that would help you out.

I remember the driver you had that night, man was he good! The women were all over him and, talk about smart!

...................nokay, maybe not.

Yes i did make at least one lap around Lawton with the rear wheels locked up! The jeep was pushing and I'm pretty certain we only had to stop one time to correct ourselves. That was some of the best driving I've ever done, with a Jeep on my tail! Those cylinders filled up fast!

The infield thing, okay I admit I overreacted. But at the time I didn't know I was. I had a rule when it came to being behind a wreck of some kind. I knew there were cars behind me, so I would always look for a hole, which in this case I was seeing them close up a hole as opposed to opening up. So, I go to the inside, but Paul Ott kept coming down with Abernathy (I think) hung onto his right rear. So, I just gun it (a little at first was the intention), but just as soon as I do, I see a Pit Steward inline with my right rear tire. So, I gun it showering him with rocks, dirt etc. Get past him, I see an old street stock sitting there, I figure 'well, I'm into it this far, might as well go on through'. I clobbered him with rocks and dirt too! THEN, I see what looks like a high spot going onto the track, that would surely bang or scrape the floorboard. SOOOOOOOOOO, I gun it!

Of course when I get back on the track, I slow down to 5 mph, come around like nothing happened and got kicked out of the show for nearly running over a pit steward and everybody else for that matter. The applause was huge, I could hear them inside.

But you know what? I am awfully proud I got to make my debut in supermodified, driving for real good people. They knew I had never really raced before but I wanted a chance, and they gave me one. We worked on that car all summer, JD put in the most time and bought all the parts. A lot of people wanted that ride, but they never sold me out. I have that frame today, it now resembles an Edmunds super. Oddly, it is that very same car that introduced me to this thing of ours today as well. 20 years, and I still dig that car! There is a lot more to the story about that car, but I won't go into it here.

Today JD has got one hell of a driver! I watched him last fall for the first time and was impressed! He is not a "plug and play" type, that shoe is a driver of the old school mentality, "find a way that works!" Joe Wood Jr. would have made an excellant supermodified driver we would have been talking about today.

Man would I love to have a front axle setup like that! I got the pieces, but they need a lot of finessin'.

Adjusted for inflation, that's just over $11,000 today. Pretty good! I'm sure your labor alone was worth more than $1,700!

Brian,...I looked the Ebay site over & there are a lot of good parts for a restoration job. Wheels are Safety Racing (I used them on several cars). The radiator, hubs, knock offs, wheels, torison bars & arms, open tube & gears all would be good parts.

My choice would be to find one of the cars I built & restore it. I tried for several years to find one but quit looking when I moved to Florida. We have our house on the market & will move back to Jo Co, KS when we sell. I might do something then. A friend asked me last year if I would be interested in going together & replicate the T Coupe. I would do that when I move back to the area.

About that front axle you like. Two of the choice front axles that were popular in the 50s & early 60s was a tubular front axle from Chrysler, Dodge & Plymouth. The axle was dropped in the center and if it was a 4 cyl engine, the tube was straight & if it was a 6 cyl, the axle had a curve to clear the oil pan. I made all of my front axles from the 5th car on. If you have access to Bob May's "High Plains Thunder", page 28, lower left, you will see one of my axles & that it is a narrower tread than the other car. That is the reason I made my own. I also made a few axles for other owners.

Luther