Forum: Racing From The Past (go)
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Looks like a tag there, hard to say.

Brian , AJ actually ran some in 91 as well at Lawton , I have a Pic of him and my Car when Bryan Ford was driving for me in 91 coming off of turn 4 and he was in the red #6 then , It was a Barney frame , I believe then his son Mike Little tried it for a time and did not care for the Wing and gave up on the Open Wheel deal and went back to Late Models and then Modifieds and guess he is out of it now and helping his son run at Lawton.

AJ other son Gary is running a Modified at SFS and Lawton and other places for the past several years.

David, I am pretty sure that the 54 car was Davey Ross out of western KS. He retired in the early '70's.

Ray

Do you like the space or single rail frames? All 3 of Norman's cars were rail frames and they were fairly simple to set up compared to the space frame that he bought from Stanton in '78. The rail frames had a lot of flex in them and were a lot easier to repair. The space frames were a harder to get right and a whole lot harder to fix, but when they are set up right I think that they are faster. What are everybody's opinion about the two types of frames?

Ray

I think the technology was kinda related to Detroit's car business. Yes the Model T had a rail frame and it served it's purpose and was easy to fix or work on. Later came more and more diagonal bracing to stiffen things up then the manufacturers found unibody design was lighter and cheaper to build and still maintain a rigid vehicle. I doubt many race car builders had any idea that 25-50 years later a group of us die hards would still be trying to keep the old cars in shape to run. I really doubt the cars built today rarely see two seasons of competitive life.

Question? ........ Does anybody remember a Sprint Car mechanic (stooge) named "Tortoise". He used to help Jon Singer and a few others on the outlaw circuit and was quite a charactor. He was a big guy and I'm sure put on an act that he was slow and not very smart. (I saw him at a show right before a feature use his Zippo lighter to light up the dark fill hole of a 36 gallon tank of methanol to check the level of fuel) I've forgotten his real name and never did know where he came from. I wonder if he is still around.

Bkcr,

Davey Ross is correct he was a good racer, I don't know who built that beautiful Black #54 but it had one of those big cast CAE grills in the nose piece, it was 1 of my favorite late 60's cars.

Harkness reminded me a lot of Ross, Jimmy drove that Black Prather owned #97 and it looked a lot like Davey's #54. Later on Jimmy drove a Black #11 might have been the last car he drove before lossing his life, if I remember right it was a Howerton chassis space frame springer.

As far as chassis go single rail cars were light, easy to fix & flexie, space frame stiffer,harder to build & repair plus heavier. The Old Man's Jelly single rail was a tad under 1300# when ready to race, after he had cross torsion put on the back it gained about 125# It did have a 2" OT which wasn't heavy but it was all steel, just think how light it would be today with all the alumnium & titanium parts. My favorite chassis design at this time was Benny's space frame springer especially the version #2 that Larry Holman had, we kept it up over at DP's they were a nice car. I often wondered why Pat didn't have Benny build him a car,

 

 

Scotty1N,...If you are talking about Jon Singer, the mechanic that built engines for Jan Opperman, he was from Sedalia, MO. I don't know if he still lives there but I bought alcohol from him occasionally when I was racing in the area. He lived about 5 miles east of Sedalia on a side road off Hwy 50. I will try to find any info on Tortoise.....Luther

David, your are right about the rail frames being light. All 3 of Norman's weighted less than 1500 pounds ready to race. That was with all steel motors and wheels. Everybody thought that they were all a like but they were all different. 17 was the oldest and was built by David Moore and his friends was 2" narrower, had a longer cage, a 2" rear axle and was the oldest of the 3. 117 was built at Jelly's shop between the 74-75 seasons. 117 was Norman's favorite, it had a 3" rear axle and different cage than 17. 71 was built between the 74-75 seasons. It was similar to the 117 except it was offset 1' and had different bracing on the cage.

Luther what do you think of the different kind of frames?

Ray

I find that there were far more likeable frames across the board than not. The artform and function of the frame and cage itself is a study unto it's own.

Willingham's Parson, or Found's Nance are a great example of art 'body on,body off'.

Ray,...My 1 st car was a Model A frame, 2 nd car was a 3 in single tube frame with a small tube strut on the underside. The 3 rd was a car frame. The 4 th car was a CAE frame. The 5 th car & all after that were space frame. I liked the space frame as I thought it was a safer car for the driver. The T Coupe weighed 1350 ready for the track with cast block & heads & 1 1/2 inch rear open tube, Buick Aluminum brakes. Aluminum fuel tank & aluminum/fiberglass body. Wheels were all mag except the RR when I weighed it. It was full of water & oil but less than 5 gals of fuel. The complete frame with roll cage (welded on) & 3/8 in aluminum engine plate weighed 108 lbs on our bath room scales. The frame was 1 7/16 x .095 wall moly and the cage was 1 1/2 inch X .125 wall. ..

The 4 bar Watson I built in 1967 from AJ Watson prints was also tapered from back to front. I don't remember but think it tapered 1 1/2 in (3/4 " on each side. Carol Nance told me they built some tapered when Don Maxwell worked for them He had picked that up from the Watson prints. All of you with Nance space frames may have a tapered frame. I think that was in the early 70s.....Luther

Just to stir things up a little,

This is Don Hewitt, Jacks Dad. He won on this day. Got any stories like this? Missing lf on the way to a win?

Don't forget. This message brought to you by the National Procastinators Of America.

Scotty,...I talked to Ray Lee Goodwin last night. He lives in Sedalia, MO. Jon Singer lived a few miles east of Sedalia in the 60s but moved to Tipton, Mo before the 70s. Ray Lee said Jon Singer mechaniced the 4X car when he first drove it in 74. He said he knows who Tortoise is but does not know his name. He also said Tortoise traveled with Bill Utz during the 60s. I know who you mean because of him being with Utz, but do not know his name either (maybe someday). I may have a picture or 2 of him around Utz car. ...Luther

thanks for putting this up Brian...you can look at it for hours and still discover things you missed, David Grace and I looked at it a few days ago and he remembered so many more than I did.....I have been lucky enough to see racing all over the world but in those days there was none better than right here in OKC.

Thanks Luther, It's no big deal I just have always wondered who he was and what ever happened to him. Just one of those charactors that you always remember. The last time I visited with Wolfgang he told me his name but I should have wrote it down because I don't remember it now. While we're on the subject is Jon Singer still around. He was a wizard when it came to wrenching a Sprinter. He was so sharp when it came to making a car fast. I was standing next to him one night at Manzanita when a late arriving Eddie Leavit sauntered into the pits with a helmet in his hand. Jon grimmaced and told Fast Eddie as he strapped in to time trial. "You know what you have to do!" Within a couple minutes they set fast time for the night in a field of fifty cars. I don't think Jon said much to Eddie when he came back in, just started working on the car. Of course Eddie bragged it was all because of his driving skill.

I saw Johnny Parsons win the old indoor race for midgets at the RCA dome in Indianapolis in a similar fashion.. That flat arena floor and the Coke syrup groove weren't much help. JP knocked the LF out and broke the tie rod, leaving the tire to flop independently. It didn't matter as he carried that LF completely around the track for probably 25 of the 50 laps. Pretty impressive driving.

Don Hewitt, JP, that's some pretty impressive company.

HM

Shane/David:

I recognise several car numbers but can't place some names with the numbers. Several I do recognise are: Bobby Reynolds, Mike Allison, Ron Clark, Gerald Smith, Jimmy Whitson, Dutch, Melvin Rogers, Bill Lewis, Troy Matchen, Harold Leep, Earnest Jennings, Darrell Jennings, Walt McWhorter, Evard Humphrey, David Flatt, Jr., D.E. Suggs, Tom Chestnut, Ronnie Ake, Boots Holder, Leroy Gilmore, Gary Cole, Bob Hurley, Glen Hunter, Danny Daniels, Bill Parker, Tom Pickard.

GRC35

Jerry Rea did it at Tulsa in a six cyl car but i think he was DQ'ed.

"its useless to put on the brakes when you are upside 
down"   -Paul Newman

1975? OKC

Must have been the first half of the season, that's Benny with his new Parson